TN50#96, Halloween Candy Pt. 2, 07 November 2022

Hi Team,

Happy Monday and welcome to The Next 50 #96.  Last week I mentioned that for the last few Halloweens, I have not had anything much to do with the candy we hand out or the candy the kids bring home.  I also mentioned that this year was a little different and this Halloween candy was on the menu.  To clarify, all carbs that quickly turn into energy when consumed are on the menu, not just candy.

Before I get into the why I want to point out that I am still staying within the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020-2025, for carbohydrate intake for a 2,000 calorie diet.  Which is 225 to 325g’s of carbs a day, or 900 to 1300 calories from carbs a day.

Here’s the WHY on all these carbs.  Our HPP-7X Running Coach, Chris Hauth, scheduled what I call a modeling week for the week of 30 Oct to 5 Nov 2022, the plan was to run 5 x 16-mile efforts over the week.  To say that I never had a training week like this specific to running would be an understatement!  Our modeling weeks are preparing the team for 7 marathons in 7 days, which is 183.4 miles total, we still have a way to go!

Here are the objective stats from the 5 efforts:

  1. Miles Ran: 5 X 16 = 80 miles.
  2. Time Running: 14 hours, 9 minutes, right around 2 hrs. 50 mins a run, on average.
  3. Calories Burned Running: 9,508, according to my Garmin 745, just over 1900 calories per run, on average.
  4. Temp Range while running: 28 to 63 degrees F.

Here are some subjective observations from the week:

  1. There were moments when running felt like my full-time job this past week, but (based on our Coach’s training plan) I was able to transition into my normal life of “Coach, Dad, Husband” fairly well when I wasn’t pounding the pavement every day.
  2. I felt a lot of resistance before starting the 4th 16-miler, on Wednesday morning and it was 100% mental. Once I got the shoes on and started my Garmin in the driveway, the resistance went away.  This 4th run was also definitely the run I felt the most fatigued during and I felt like I ran the slowest even though it wasn’t slower than the 3rd
  3. My body literally craved carbs when I was putting in mileage like this past week. I ate anywhere from 150 – 190g’s of carbs on the runs, or 600 – 760 calories of carbs in the form of Honey Stinger Waffles.  This was just the carbs I consumed on the training runs.

I am learning a lot from all this training volume and I am much smarter about the increased carbohydrates required for this type of training.  That being said, I want to make sure you caught this, so if you are multi-tasking, please pay attentions to this next sentence!

Last week I was eating the recommended carbs for Americans eating a 2,000-calorie diet, which is 225 – 325g’s of carbs a day.  I also ran 80 miles that week and burned over 9,000 calories, just during those training runs.

So here’s the question: Could the recommended daily intake on carbs be too high for most Americans?  Let me know what you think!

As always share the post with your team or anyone who might find it useful.

Have a good one, Alex