Four Races Over Four Weekends - Cinderella Trail 50k

I intended to race the past three weekends (Diablo Challenge 50k, Big Sur Marathon and Miwok 100k) since I find that really helps to boost endurance for the summer. However, the reduced distance at Miwok of 60k due to fire danger, plus the off piste section that took me out of fully competing for the win meant I was looking for an extra long run to fit in this weekend. Step up the Cinderella Trail 50k by Coastal Trail Runs, conveniently close to home in the East Bay.

Usually I'd consider four consecutive weekends to be too much but this was planned as a long training run and I knew it included the French Trail which is one of my favorite trails in the Bay Area. It rolls through the forest on single track with the downhills providing momentum for the short, sharp climbs. Many mornings it's shrouded in mist to add to the mystical feeling and when you're on your own it's one of the calmest and most relaxing places I can think of.

Although I didn't bring my camera this time and it was a hot day with no mist, I did take photos last time I raced in Joaquin Miller Park so here are a few shots:

It was also great to unexpectedly see many friends I had no idea would be there, including Arizonans Jamil Coury (last saw him at Fuego y Agua) and Brett Sarnquist (last seen at Across The Years 24hr) who won the half marathon and marathon, respectively. Full results are here and I was very happy to get the win in a very small field as well as the bonus of the course record.

Below is one extra photo show for some trails I was very happy to discover just a couple of miles from home around Pleasant Hill. The Bay Area switches between city and trailrunner's paradise in such short distances with only the low hum of traffic to remind you of the mass of humans nearby.

Downhill Technique

Downhill trail running at Crater Lake

I love my downhills. Unlike many runners at mountain or trail races, this is the bit that makes it really fun for me and some of the most enjoyable solo moments in running are technical downhills where there's the chance to bounce around on rocks. If you see me at a race on a downhill you may see a lunatic grin on my face which I just can't help when it gets really fun. Uphills just aren't fun in the same way for me personally and are just a suffer-fest.

As a coach one of the most frequent questions I get is tips for running downhill better - more efficiently and in a way that causes less damage to the leg muscles. So this video from Portland-based Dana Katz includes helpful commentary and explanation of things to look for and aim for when downhilling. It was taken at the 2013 Miwok race last weekend and is of me running around 11 miles into the race.



Also, here's her full article showing both good and bad technique.

Mini Miwok 100k

This year's Miwok 100k in Marin County, north of San Francisco, was full of surprises. Although it's no longer a Montrail Ultracup race with entry spots for Western States 100, it still had a few fast men and women to make the leading times very competitive.

Temperatures have been high in California for a few weeks and there are forest fires near LA currently. Unfortunately, late in the evening on the night before Miwok the authorities in charge of the permit for a section of the race revoked permission to use their trails due to there being a danger of fires starting in the heat. So race director, Tia Boddington, had to make last minute changes to the course that adjusted the start time from 5am to 8am and the distance from 100k to about 60k.

Just before the post-dawn, adjusted start

Although a lot of people were disappointed with the reduced distance, we were pretty much all glad to be able to race at all. At first I didn't think it'd affect the pace a whole lot since 60k in the heat isn't much easier than what the 100k that was expected. That wasn't the case since it started off more like a 10k trail race up the Dipsea Trail from Stinson Beach.

Early miles. Photo by San Francisco Running Company.

Dylan Bowman and Gary Gellin shot up the climb and were out of sight by the first aid station at 3 miles. Over the 7,700ft of ascent and 37.2 miles of the course they held on to a hard pace and battled it out. Around half way I was 4-5 mins back from Dylan who'd managed to gap Gary slightly, plus I felt like I'd paced things about right to that point and was starting to catch them marginally on the downhill and flat few miles near to Rodeo Beach.

At that point I was directed past a turning and kept running along the road to Rodeo Beach despite a lack of course markings. I'd have questioned it sooner if I'd not just been shown the way but did eventually turn around after asking multiple tourists if they'd seen any runners come through, which added to the time a little as I tried to find markings anywhere that might show I was going the right way.

Once I followed my tracks back I saw the turning and saw other runners going the right way, but I was now several places further back and lost around 11 minutes according to my Garmin. With somewhere around 17-18 miles to go I knew there was no way to catch the leaders unless they dropped or got lost so it became a training run from that point.

Looking back along the trail at Pirates Cove

The benefit of that was the prettiest sections (in my opinion) of the course were coming up ahead at Pirates Cove so I was able to take in the views a little more rather than busting a gut through that section. It wasn't easy by any means in the heat but it was more enjoyable to take it a little easier. Since the heat and miles were starting to get to the runners I gained a few spots to finish in 4th in 5:15 with Dylan taking the win in 4:49 and Gary not far behind, then my coaching client, Chris Wehan in 3rd in 5:04. Full results on Ultrasignup. Darcy Africa took the women's race in 6:05.

It was a fun day as always for races in Marin and Tia did a great job of making the race happen despite the last minute difficulties. Runs like this make me very glad to be back in the Bay Area, although Dylan and I were both a little concerned that the early season high temperatures and low snow levels in the High Sierra might lead to a big fire season out there. From a selfish viewpoint, one of the affects of that might be fires canceling Western States.

Social Media—Bane or Boon to Trail Running? Trail Runner Magazine's Symposium Topic

Do we need people to post pointless motivational photo quotes?

We all use social media too much. We know it, but we're addicted. We need to know what loose acquaintances and strangers are up to and talking to people in person is for old people. So Trail Runner Magazine decided to add to this with monthly topics for bloggers to discuss. Ironically this month's topic is whether social media is good or bad for trail running, so here are my additions to the debate.

To a lesser extent than road runners, trail runners still post frequently on Twitter, Facebook, blogs and other social media platforms I don't really know about. Similarly, many now share the details of every run on sites like Strava, GarminConnect etc. So is that a harmless outlet for vanity, a mutually motivating revolution or something else? I'll split it into the sites dedicated to exercise and those that are use for more conventional sharing for runners and non-runners alike.

Non-running focused sites

Some of us over-share and tell the world about every minute detail of our lives. Luckily for the rest of us, if we're not interested we don't have to read about it or follow those people. Or if we want to we can, hence I can't see a whole lot of harm in it from the perspective of the sport...unless we spend so much time on our laptops, tablets and phones that there's no time for actual running. It's as simple as that from my perspective.

It can even have some positive effects when people declare their intentions to the world, such as aiming to do their first [insert race distance here] race.It's more likely that these people will keep on track and achieve their goals due to not wanting to look like a quitter in front of running and non-running friends.

Running sites

I always found it odd when other runners would post exact details of their training and runs either on blogs or via sites that post this data to other sites like Facebook. Why should I care what training someone else does?In many ways this can be like a big swinging dick contest with runners trying to out-do each other with more miles, harder work-outs or other factors to show off their general amazingness. It can drive new runners to trails to assume that mega mileage is required to even finish long trail races, which just isn't the case and I strongly focus on quality, not quantity of miles for my online coaching clients.

Yet it's up to us whether or not to read or follow that information and it can give an insight into how to train for a particular race. Race reports can do exactly the same by imparting really helpful information to others if well-written and not too focused on the individual's experience instead of what the course and event is like.

The internet is full of useless or inaccurate information, but it also includes stuff  about virtually anything you want to research. It's up to us to selectively filter out the bits we don't want or need. For trail running there's now a host of everything we could want to know about races, routes and individual runners. Communication can be faster and more detailed than ever before, like when a race announces last minute course changes on its Facebook page.

I love reading up about races I'm planning on running, whether that's up-to-date info via Tweets or Facebook postings or even blog posts from past competitors. Need to know what the course profile is really like? Just look up any number of blogs to find out graphs, descriptions and often more than the actual event website can tell you.

This is the sort of thing a blog can help convey to others

Then there's the race day coverage that was never possible before. irunfar has been the pioneer in this field by using simple Tweets to let us feel like we're at the race itself. In fact, we find out more from those Tweets than if we were at the event in person (trust me, I've found that out when at an aid station and constantly checking my phone to see who's likely to come through next). This has been a significant improvement on race results that can take days or weeks to be posted, albeit it mainly covers the sharp end of the field.

Sites like Strava that let runners share every run they do have the effect of creating more data but there are gems sparkling in the seas of numbers. If you want to see how a top runner, someone at your level or anyone at all does their training, you now can. It allows us to find new routes either close to home or when traveling and we can even get the competitive juices flowing by doing mini races on particular sections of routes since Strava is designed to set up these rivalries. I like it and it can turn a monotonous route into a whole new challenge.

Conclusion

I like social media and the numbers, photos and everything else it allows us to share. Cutting out the noise and finding the useful parts is generally easy, plus it helps to foster competition and drive us all to improve, in whatever way we choose to measure our goals, whether that's speed or something else.

The main area that I think can be negative is when the blogs or forums focus on name calling, insulting or general trolling. But as with everything else on the internet we can choose to ignore it and just benefit from the best information - we should all be internet-savvy enough by now to know the difference.

Big Sur International Marathon

This weekend I was down at the spectacular Big Sur International Marathon south of the Bay Area in California. What an amazing course! Two years ago there was a land slide that meant the course was an out-and-back and missed the first half of the normal course, so it was great to go back again this year to do the whole thing.

It's one of the most beautiful road marathon courses in the world, as the photos below show, plus it attracted a fair few ultrarunners this year - Mike Wardian getting back to form after injury, Badwater winner Oswaldo Lopez, Sean Meissner, Scott Dunlap and more. Always great to catch up with friends at races, but it doesn't happen as much at the road stuff as on trails.

Due to the 50k last weekend and Miwok 100k next weekend, my main aim was for a hard tempo run and to enjoy the views. However, it's traditionally a ridiculously windy course with around 2,000ft of climbing so it's not the fastest marathon out there. The first 6-7 miles were easy and fast but then we suddenly hit a wall of wind which increased the effort level exponentially. The strength of the wind ebbed and flowed but it was always a head-wind to the finish. In addition there are several other shorter races using the same course and all have significant number of walkers so the day is spent weaving around people but not in a way that slows the runners down.

Put this on your to-do list if you like road races...or even if you don't. Full results are here.

Give Away - Win Two Nights At Sunriver Resort, OR

Finally, moving back to the Bay Area gives me the opportunity to focus more on coaching locals in this ultra-running hub and already a good proportion of my clients live here. For anyone in the Bay Area who signs up for coaching before May 15th you'll get put into a draw to win two nights at Sunriver Resort near Bend, OR. Given this isn't a high volume business, that means anyone signing up has a very high chance of winning this prize so contact me via my coaching website if you're interested.

From Winter To Summer In One Day...Plus Diablo Trails Challenge 50k

I've been in California almost a week so far after living here back in 2010/11 too and much as I really love Oregon, it'd been so good to get some hot weather. As if to reinforce this point, we loaded up the moving truck in a snow-storm, drove it in a very dangerous blizzard then woke up in a motel in Weed (they have a lot of obvious tourist T-shirts) in northern Cali to drive through the sun to Walnut Creek in the Easy Bay of the San Francisco area. Unlike the micro-climate of San Francisco with its fog and generally poor weather, Walnut Creek has some foothills as a barrier to the Bay and therefore has more typically California weather. In fact the temperatures have been freakishly hot and even hit 90F (32C) today.

One of the things I most love about the Bay Area is the variety of trails and number of races. It's easy to run a trail race of any distance from about 5k to 50 miles virtually every weekend, if you so choose. And I often so choose...

Even more conveniently there was a race at Mt Diablo State Park on the first weekend of living down here with multiple distances, but I needed a long training run so did the 50k with a solid 7,000ft of ascent. Since I last lived here several new trail racing companies have popped up or grown much larger and this is organized by Brazen Racing who did an immaculate job with a perfectly marked course and nothing to fault at all. They also have the largest medal I've ever earned! In addition it's all for a good cause, the Save Mt Diablo project which aims to buy up the large patches of the mountain that are privately held to make them usable for all instead of developing it.

I saw the course record was 4:51 and that it usually doesn't have a deep field so I thought it'd be a perfect, no stress race which I could just relax in. However, the owner of the new San Francisco Running Company store, Brett Rivers, decided to turn up in great shape and proceeded to head out at a fast pace in the early miles. My legs were still sore from moving into my third floor apartment without a lift/elevator so I really didn't want to chase him, but I also kind of wanted the win. It didn't help that I was interviewed at the start and cited as the favorite to win and break the record...no pressure, then!

Brett dragged me along and I just aimed to keep him in sight on the climbs but with the last few miles being mainly downhill I managed to take the lead at 26 miles then hang on for dear life til the end. Brett finished within a minute of me and I just wish I'd been able to run side by side the whole way instead of with a small gap almost all the time as it was good to catch up with him. At least we both ran good times and lowered the course record to 4:15 with Brett coming in at 4:16. The women's course record also fell to Katie Murphy in 5:22 - full results here.

Start line in the morning warmth (that's a change from recently)

Mt Diablo from the south before we got very close

Brett about a minute ahead of me maybe 10 miles into the race

Diablo in the background and Lon Freeman just behind me. Copyright: Scott J Hein

At the finish line. Copyright: Katherine Ingram

Two very tired runners - nice work Brett in pushing me as had as I could go

Good food at the finish

On a separate note, I've recently started using Strava to upload my GPS runs to. I never really got the point until I saw the geeky fun of formalizing fastest known times (FKTs) for pretty much any run or segment of a run. It certainly adds to the challenge on the standard routes I do regularly to have mini sections to use a time trials and aim for the times other locals ran those sections at. It's certainly strangely addictive and turns tempo runs into races.

The next few weeks should be fun too with more Bay Area races lined up. The beautiful Big Sur Marathon next weekend (along with friends from all over like Mike Wardian, Mario Mendoza and Sean Meissner) then the Miwok 100k the week after that, one of my favorite trail races. For once I won't be either jogging it or wearing an Elvis costume so it should be a great test for the Grand Slam.

Last Days in Oregon (For Now)

With only one week left for me before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area I've been trying to fit in the best of what I can on the trails at this time of year. Sadly the mountains are still in ski mode so Smith Rock's the best bet, plus the trail running season just kicked off in Bend with the Horse Butte 10-miler.

After getting destroyed on the climbs on recent training runs and at Gorge Waterfalls 50k last weekend I've been including more uphill speed sessions which left me exhausted on the minor climbs at Horse Butte. It's worthwhile and I'm very glad I could fit this race in, especially since I was able to go a few seconds quicker than last year despite really windy conditions. Hopefully faster times at both this and Gorge Waterfalls are a reflection of better fitness than the same time last year.

Anyway, more photos of Smith Rock are below. I've been making sure I have plenty of these in case I don't come back for a while. And full results from the 10-miler are here.

Gray Butte

My father-in-law, Clint Andring, with Monkey Face in the background

Monkey Face from afar

Monkey Face from the angle that shows why it has that name

Clint on top of Smith Rock

Cheesy grinning on top of the Rock

Gorge Waterfalls 50k

Multnomah Falls

After taking February off running to let my remnants of a sore knee heal, plus to have an off season for once, the perfect first race back is the stunningly beautiful Gorge Waterfalls 50k along the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon. With waterfalls in virtually every mile it's just about the prettiest 50k course I'm aware of anywhere. The most spectacular waterfall (and most popular with the tourists) is Multnomah Falls but there are so many  along the out-and-back route that it's almost a shame we race past them and can't stop to appreciate them all. Given I'm moving back to the San Francisco Bay Area next month this is the ideal send off and reminder of everything I love about Oregon.

There was even a pre-race Trail Film Fest at McMenamins Edgefield the night before with inspiring movies like the 'Dipsea Movie' and Kilian's 'A Fine Line.' Great idea and it looks like it be back again for next year.

Film Fest with Simon Mtuy's film about running around Kilimanjaro

The course is certainly short (probably somewhere around 28 miles allowing for the cliffs and trees interfering with the GPS) but has plenty of climbing (at least 4,500ft by general consensus and my barometric GPS showed 5,600ft). Also, the trails are rockier, twistier and more technical than most of what we see in Oregon, but that's what the Rainshadow Running races are known for.

As with last year, this was one of the most competitive ultras in Oregon which says a lot when you consider how many sponsored ultrarunners there are in the state, especially in Bend, Portland and Ashland. The race was close at the turn-around Chris Kollar from Missoula (MT) with Bend's 1:06 half marathoner, Mario Mendoza then ex-pro skier, Zach Violett (also Bend). Not far behind were James Bonnett from Scottsdale (AZ), Yassine Diboun (Portland), me, Hal Koerner (Ashland) and a string of other fast runners. Steph Howe (Bend) had a solid lead in the women's race too, as expected.

There were certainly some early season cobwebs amongst the runners but it was fun to leapfrog Hal throughout the first half (he had to be careful on the rocky sections due to a foot injury) then spending the entire second half doing the same with Yassine.

My legs felt dead throughout after a tough training week so I was really happy to keep gaining positions and be able to keep up a decent pace, not realizing I was only a little behind 2nd and 3rd, eventually finishing 4th.   As a bonus we had freaky weather for March (70 degrees F) and Hood River is just down the road, full of wineries like Mt Hood Winery - see the views of Hood below!

Results are already on Ultrasignup but Mario unfortunately bruised his foot and was limping so decided it wasn't worth pushing since he only recently came back from foot surgery which left Chris Kollar to win comfortably. He's clearly got a lot of speed and can run technical trails since he smashed Mike Foote's The Bear 100 course record last year by 44 mins, which beat Geoff Roes' record, which beat Karl Meltzer's record, which beat Hal Koerner's record.

Men:

1. Chris Kollar 3:22
2. James Bonnett 3:35
3. Zach Violett 3:37
4. Ian Sharman 3:38
5. Yassine Diboun 3:40
6. Jeff Browning 3:42
7. Jonathan Heinz 3:44
8. Jason Leman 3:46
9. Hal Koerner 3:47
10. Aaron Ray 3:47

Women:

1. Steph Howe 3:49 (NEW CR)
2. Catrin Jones 4:05
3. Darla Askew 4:24
4. Susan Barrows 4:24
5. Jenny Capel 4:27
6. Alicia Woodside 4:37
7. Lynde Fitzpatrick 4:51
8. Jessica Lamanna 4:57
9. Shamai Larsen 4:59
10. Debbie Gibson 5:00

Steph and myself at the finish

More photos (of all the runners as well as couple of waterfalls) by Glenn Tachiyama here.

Hydration - Tim Noakes' Waterlogged And Personal Experience

Having a drink on Mt Diablo, CA

Having read plenty on the subject of hydration relating to exercise, I thought I'd write a high level discussion about it, based on the controversial conclusions from Professor Tim Noakes' book, 'Waterlogged: The Serious Problem of Overhydration in Endurance Sports' as well as my own personal experience and that of friends and coaching clients. His previous book, 'The Lore of Running' is like a bible in the exercise science world and has been very helpful to me in everything I do within the running world. With temperatures starting to warm up and races like the Marathon des Sables (article about how to train for the MdS) in the Sahara Desert around the corner I thought it's a topic that could hopefully help some runners to avoid bad races, based on advice from the book and my own experiences from 170+ ultras and marathons across the world.

One thing I've noticed a lot since I started coaching a couple of years ago is that almost everyone in the world of sport clings to the idea that athletes must remain 100% hydrated to not suffer from a drop in performance. The sports' drink industry has put countless millions into marketing this idea and telling people that 2% dehydration (presumably 2% loss of body weight due to sweating) can seriously affect performance and should be avoided. They backed studies to show that losses in excess of 5% of body weight can decrease the capacity for work by about 30% (Armstrong et al. 1985; Craig and Cummings 1966; Maughan 1991; Sawka and Pandolf 1990).

This is advice I assumed to be unbiased and effective so I followed this advice in one of the first ultras I ever ran, the Marathon des Sables in 2006. Unfortunately, I'd never heard of hyponatremia, an electrolyte disturbance in which the sodium concentration in the blood serum is lower than normal from drinking too much. So I drank virtually every drop of the 9Ls (304 ounces) of water provided per day by the organizers and found myself fainting twice on day two as the symptoms started to affect me.

The author hydrating in the Sahara in 2006

So after that experience I certainly questioned the general advice at the time to drink as much as you can to stay hydrated. I've never heard anyone mention the dangers of drinking too much, yet when you hear about a death at a marathon or half marathon, more often than not over-drinking. Considering how dangerous it is to drink too much during a race, surely the dangers of drinking to little must be equally as severe?

When Professor Tim Noakes published his book on this subject last year, 'Waterlogged: The Serious Problem of Overhydration in Endurance Sports,' I knew he'd have a thorough review of all the evidence without any pre-existing prejudices or corporate sponsors wanting a bias to the conclusions. Bear in mind that Gatorade and the Gatorade Sports Science Institute (GSSI) funded much of the research on this subject with a clear interest in telling people to drink lots.

His book is more than thorough, looking at every single published study on this subject that he could find in all scientific journals, including all those written by the GSSI. There was a striking common theme amongst these studies that either examined the effects of dehydration on performance or the effects of exercise-associated hyponatremic encephalopathy (EAHE). It was that dehydration levels seen in an ultra or Ironman race (never mind a marathon or less) don't reduce performance and many of the studies had conclusions that were the opposite of what the evidence they presented showed. This is particularly worrying because the guidelines produced by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) still provides guidelines that suggest dehydration is the main worry for athletes, not the effects of hyponatremia. US races therefore still urge runners to drink too much, although I'm noticing more of them start to tell people that drinking too much can be dangerous too, but that's not the focus of the advice.

EAHE is a much more serious danger than dehydration in races and the percentage of people having medical issues in races has increased as more people follow the advice of drinking to maintain body weight during exercise, with the major cause (based on the clearly defined and explained symptoms in Professor Noakes' table below, backed up with extensive evidence from his book). The striking point is that the main symptom of dehydration is thirst and it's only when an athlete feels very thirsty that performance can be reduced. The old advice of ignoring the body's thirst mechanism and trying to stay ahead of thirst by drinking to maintain body weight is a load of rubbish.

Table taken from 'Waterlogged' by Professor Tim Noakes, 2012. Note that EAPH refers to Exercise-Related Postural Hypotension

The clearest evidence of this is that in the many high-level races where body weights were taken before and after for lead runners and people running more slowly, the highest levels of dehydration (biggest percentage of body weight lost) were found in the leaders with the winner almost always being the one who lost the most body weight percentage. So if losing any water through exercise reduces performance, how come the best performers are the ones who lose the most (as a percentage)? The evidence suggests the ability to run while 'dehydrated' is an attribute of a top athlete, not a reason they fail.

From my own experiences in marathons and ultras, as well as those of people I know and coach, I'm not aware of anyone having their performance reduced from dehydration except Kilian Journet in the 2010 Western States 100 where he ran without water bottles in extreme heat and lost the lead to finish third. Even in that instance, heat-stroke probably played a large part, not just dehydration (see next section for more details). In every other instance I can think of, dehydration has not been a problem as long as drinking to thirst was adhered to. I've run some of my fastest marathons on barely more than a couple of sips of water (in cold conditions) but I wasn't particularly thirsty on those days in those temperatures. On the other hand, I've suffered from drinking too much at both the Marathon des Sables (desert) and Western States 100 (extreme heat).

Heat-stroke versus dehydration

The general fallacy that has been popularly disseminated is that drinking too little raises the body temperature to dangerous levels when exercising which affect performance so endurance athletes are particularly prone to this. However, to summarize Prof. Noakes' evidence and conclusions, there are two key problems with this:

1. Body temperatures rise more in higher intensity, shorter forms of endurance running such as 10ks or below - the chance of heatstroke is much higher in these than in a marathon but a very hot day can cause this too (think Western States, not a 70F road marathon).

2. Importantly, drinking has a very minor effect on cooling the body although iced water would have marginally more effect. Getting into the shade or an ice bath is the only effective way to reduce body temperatures fast in a race and have an effect on heat-stroke.

Again, personal experience suggests this is true. I've crewed for people at Badwater 135 through Death Valley where temperatures can hit 130F and external cooling like ice baths helped my runner while constant drinking only served to quench thirst. It certainly seems that heat-stroke is more likely to happen to ultrarunners than dehydration, particularly in the exposed sections of extremely hot courses. However, drinking alone won't help much here and use of ice and water externally will make much more difference, as well as adjusting effort levels to reduce heat produced in the muscles.

Mike Wardian in an ice bath at the 2011 Badwater 135 

What about electrolytes?

Another commonly-assumed piece of running lore is that as a body exercises, electrolytes are lost and must be replaced. This is a reason to drink Gatorade instead of water and therefore pay Pepsico (owners of Gatorade) for their product. Yet Prof. Noakes also examined this area using all the evidence available as well as his own research. In summary, he found that the body is very good at regulating electrolytes and that the levels lost in sweat and urine are adjusted by the body based on exertion and liquid intake. He basically says we don't need to try to replace these with drinks or salt tablets.

That sounds counter-intuitive as most runners will have experienced cramps or bonks that were seemingly fixed once they took on electrolytes. However, he goes on to show that cramps and bonking are unrelated to salt/electrolyte intake and are really affected by exertion levels above what the body is trained for (something that will typically happen in an ultra given its extreme nature) or a lack of fuel in terms of glycogen. That means that getting energy (not salts/electrolytes) into the body combined with lower effort levels such as walking for a while are what fixes these problems. Given that most runners have to slow down and will eat as well as take salt tablets, the effects can get muddled and improvements attributed to the wrong factors.

Sports drinks do have glucose and there's no doubt that taking this on board in endurance activities is beneficial. At least Prof. Noakes didn't burst that bubble!

Conclusion

I found the book to be very illuminating but it won't alter my own tactics in races much, mainly because I don't tend to over drink since that means carrying too much liquid between aid stations in an ultra which therefore weighs more. I will be more careful in trying to identify and stop the causes of things going wrong in a race such as Western States. In fact, I'll use the mantra of drinking to thirst rather than aiming for a certain volume of liquid per hour.

Sports drinks are still good for athletes, we just don't need to drink as much since hyponatremia is a bigger worry than dehydration. Also, I'll still take on electrolytes within drinks because they haven't been shown to cause any harm, so even a placebo effect is useful. Besides that, electrolytes are usually bundled with calories in the form of glycogen in drinks, but any low calorie drinks will be off my list during races and I'll stick to my Clif Shot Electrolyte drink because it has calories and sugars (basically, glycogen). If the electrolytes help then that's a bonus, but it seems the calories will do the job anyway and I won't aim to take on extra electrolytes in tablets etc unless things go really wrong - it's worth trying anything at that point.

For food during races, gels and similar products will still be the basis of my own nutrition (Clif Shots) to provide the energy required to sustain a long endurance effort. However, the place for salty foods isn't so much to replace lost salts as to provide a change in taste after hours of sugary foods during an ultra.

It helps to learn more about the way the body works during exercise so that errors can be avoided or minimized as well as successes being better understood.