Two weeks in

I won't lie... I've felt pretty crap for most of the week! I had such a bad session on Wednesdays' speed work I even emailed Shaun and asked if what I was feeling was normal for a change in diet. After a few questions about how the tiredness/weakness/lethargy/dizziness came on it was pretty evident it was the diet change and not a virus I was about to come down with. Shaun said he thought it may be the case that although being in ketosis my body hasn't yet adapted to using fat for fuel instead of glucose and this was possibly why I was feeling the way I was. That was enough info for me though and I was happy to continue on. I listened to an interview with a bloke who said the first 6 to 8 weeks were pretty awful for him until he became fat adapted. Unfortunately I'm not like William who sounded like he took to it like a duck to water!

So, my goal of going to The Wall next week and getting a lovely big PB has now been downgraded to "I hope I finish it while feeling like this". I'm determined not to give up on the diet changes however and am even prepared to lose out and feel like crap for the race. I hope I don't feel crap, but there's a distinct possibility!

My decline speed sessions are incidentally going quite well. Last week I had a touch of knee pain which came on a couple of days afterward doing the first session and lasted the day, but this week I haven't had anything at all. The session itself on Saturday went well actually (so it's not ALL bad!) and the second hill rep was only 6 seconds slower than the first (despite feeling like I had crawled the second time). Other good stuff that's happened is, I went to my district meeting at work on Thursday night and was accommodated well by the hotel staff for my weird eating habits. By the time I got home and ate on Friday night it had been 6 and a half hours since last eating. I simply couldn't have gone as long as that previously without feeling sick and dizzy, so that is a huge improvement. I just need that sort of level of improvement to happen while I'm out on a long run! Sunday I only did 7.75 miles on the treadmill and was shattered... although the gym temperature was 25 degrees, so I used the time as a sort of heat training exercise. I don't know what the weather will be like at The Wall but for the 100 miler the heat ruined a good few hours of the race for me.

And I'm continuing to take my ketone and glucose levels. Sometimes I'm shocked at how high the ketones go (4.2 has been the highest) and the machine regularly flashes a warning that my blood glucose is too low (3.4 has been the lowest). But there are times when I think the readings should be better than they actually are... you certainly couldn't make them up! On a morning I'm regularly quite low on ketones (about 1.5 has been my lowest) and glucose is around 4ish. As long as I'm above 0.5mmol/L though for ketones that's ok! I have also lost another 2lb and am now down to 8 stone 13lb. This is probably where the weight loss will slow down... I was 8.5 stone during Hadds training, so I reckon that is probably where I'll end up again (although I did no weight training at the time, so I may stay at a slightly higher weight than that). I bought all of my holiday clothes this weekend and had to take them all back and get a size 8 instead of a 10. I haven't been a size 8 for about 5 years. :-)