A couple of years ago I began to fully embrace my mid-life crisis. I started running and cutting sugar out of my diet. Of course I allowed myself to relax this sugar rule when I was preparing to run, when I was actually running and after my runs. Well you have to don’t you? You have to keep that tank full of Glycogen. At least that’s what all the running magazines were telling me. Gels, sports drinks, energy bars and some sugar-laden recipes to welcome you home after a long run…

This year I decided that I wanted to set myself a new challenge and try and take on a 50 mile Ultra. However, after a couple of fairly miserable Marathons I knew that I needed to change a few things both in training and diet. I read a bit more about how endurance runners fuelled their runs and stumbled upon several regimes advocating the increase of fat in the diet at the expense of carbohydrates. The theory is that by doing this you train your body to become more efficient at burning fat and because your body can store about 20 times more energy as fat this would clearly be an advantage for an endurance athlete. No more carbing up or disgusting gels either. I could see that these methods had their critics but frankly what doesn’t? I liked the science behind this and the low carb diet suited my nutritional convictions away from running too.

Six months on and I am sticking to the regime despite a few lapses over the festive period when I took a wrong turn and started following the mince pie and Christmas pudding diet. My weight is lower and I definitely seem to recover from long runs faster. This bit is not very manly but as a bonus the effect on my skin has been incredible! My first race of the year is a 25km leg of the John Muir Ultra followed by a 50 mile jaunt in the Cotswolds as I Race to the Tower in June. The Tiree Ultra is my final run and I’m hoping that if I can stay injury free I may be able to put in a decent shift by then.