The first performance

 That is very important. It gives perspective of possibilities. It gives motivation, ideas, experience. However, we should not be over confident. The human body is a machine, but needs care and oiling. Needs to be expanded, stretched, but relaxed and reposed too. 

I pushed all winter long, I was looking for motivation. The weight was creeping up on me slowly and surely. Okay, I am not going to say, that I am fat. I was overdoing protein and muscular training, in order to gain power and endurance for my house reparation. I gained nearly 10kg of muscle. I mean of course, that is not pure muscle weight, but blood, water, nutriments and maybe one or two percent of fat. 
Finally this last weekend the first sign of the winter struggle came. I take it ! With a big spoon.

So around 5 weeks ago no, I started this special diet, that I described in a previous blog. It is simple, natural and very efficacious. I write it out for you here, just to make you understand. In nature, there is no limit. Only nothing or abundance. When there is food, there is food, where there is non, there is non. Lions or even snakes are completely useless after big meals, they ate so much, they can't even move. Elephants get drunk on rotten fruit, cause they cannot stop eating, till they are full. Humans are the same. The food is front of you, you eat ! Till satisfied. If you pushed your plate away, refused to eat, when you need calories, you create eating disorders and mental problems. However, in nature, there is also famine. When there is nothing to eat. In humans it is existant too. So, you fast. You don't eat at all. Your caloric deficit is not coming from 3 to 5 meals and low caloric snacks, but actually from skipping one single full meal. This way, you not only loose weight, but clean up your digestive tract. You give a pause to the system. You detoxify the body. You let it breathe ! 
So my method is simple. I don't describe the food part as I eat well. Fruits, vegetables, meat, fish and eggs. Easy non ? Rice and steamed veggs with a can of sardine, is my go to meal. I eat little chicken and pork, but when have hands on beef, I go at it. I have 20kg of wild boar chopped up in freezer, so I hit it also at least twice a week. 
I drink 1L of water every morning with salt and ac-vinegar. 2L of additional water during the day. Coffe, tea, infusions, soups, broths too.
I do one 24h fast Sunday night to Monday night, than intermittent fasting Tuesday to Friday. Saturday - Sunday, I don't skip breakfast. I make sure on the other hand, that my runs are well fuelled, including preworkout snacks of meals, but also make sure that I have the necessary quantities of gels for performance runs. 

This weekend I ran the local Trail de Citadelles. There are in some occassions 3000+ runners. There were nearly 600 in my 26km race. I came 13th and first in my age group. That is nothing special, I understand. But I take it. I also came 31minutes behind the first guy and there was a girl 6minutes ahead. 
This simply means that the depth was really subpar. You know, sometimes in a 5minutes, there can be 20 participants. Now in 31min there were only 11 between the first and me. Of course, there is also the very particular conditions of, heat, loads of mud, technical descents and the weird distribution of important efforts on the course.

At this moment being nearly 90kg, I could have done maybe 4 to 6 places better, if I had 2 more gels and instead of a 300 a 500mil flask. If I could have had, 2 more gels, The last 2 climbs I would have been able to run it. I was not out of gas totally, but I really have had to keep the brakes on, in order to not to cramp and finish well. If I have had maybe one caffeinated low caloric gel at the 1h30 mark and 2 more 45g gel at 2h and 2h15, it would have had make a huge difference. 

So as my weight loss journey is continuing, I believe, that next year, I will be in the first 10 and maybe in the first five. I think that if the terrain is 100% dry, a sub two hour performance can be possible for me. That means gaining 50minutes on a 25km run. If the terrain is muddy like it was and the heat is high like it was, I still think that I can go and get under 2h30. I have to be around 80kgs and trained a little bit better.

Right now it is still a struggle to keep 80km a week or more. I actually ran only 2 weeks over 80km and all the other weeks at around 70km and also dropped two weeks of 65km.
With the family hikes and strength training included I am at 30 hours for January and February and 60hours of total training for Mars. That is actually not so bad. 60*12, would be 720hours of training for the year, what is approaching high performance. To be elite, to put it in perspective, you would need around 1000 hours of training to be pro and elite, for a couple of years. We talk about structured intentional training and not including family hikes ! And of course, you would need good genetics. If you wanted to overwrite your genetics, most probably you must add in cycling and go well over 1000 hours. We also must state, that we talk about 1000 hours of yearly training, in some cases for 5 but other cases for 10 years  chained together. That is 1/8th of a lifetime, this is why, unless you have tons of time and money on hand, it is sort of reserved for young ones. If you could well guidedly train when you are 14 years old 1000 hours  a year till 24, that is something that your body will never forget. 

1000 hours is not that hard as most people imagine. It is 20hours a week. To put it into perspective, 20hours in some cases is done in 2 days for cyclists. Especially summer time. I used to out and meet my clients 7am, and would be back home at like 6pm. Riding all day long. For them that was a one off challenge, for me a means to living. That two years I was over 1500hours of training, mostly cycling and of course, the year after I won a lot of races. 

Anyways, this is just to say, that this first mini podium of the year is very important for me mentally. I will do a little long run in case of a race in 3 weeks time. 44km with 3000m of elevation gain. I will manage and do an easy jog home during this event. Eat a lot and use it as a long run. I have only fast races coming up then. So it is important to not to kill the season ! I must keep on doing speed, speed, speed and strength, strength, strength.