After my guest post on Carrots N Cake: Why I Chose Paleo I got a few questions on how to blend Paleo + Endurance training and how Crossfit can fit into this equation. This isn’t the first time I’ve gotten questions like this, so I decided to devote some blog space to it! Anyone that’s Paleo and an endurance athlete should absolutely be following Nell Stephenson, a self proclaimed Paleoista! she is a very successfuly Ironman triathlete (qualifies for Kona!) who is 100% strict Paleo all the time and is one of my inspirations.
So how do you do Paleo and Endurace training when everything you read about endurance training is centered around carbing up? Where are the carbs in Paleo? Many people think that Paleo = No Carbs, which is not true. Paleo carbs are just from a different source than what most people think – bread, rice, bagels, pasta, Paleo carbs come in the form of vegetables and fruits – sweet potatoes, squash, brussels sprouts, apples, bananas, berries. Paleo “carbs” tend to be less dense in actual carbodrates than traditional carbs but they are also higher in nutrient value, take a look at the comparison between 100g of a plain, cooked sweet potato to 100g of cooked, fresh pasta.
Sweet Potato vs Pasta Facts
Now that the carb question is out of the way, how much sweet potato am I really supposed to eat if I’m an endurance athlete??! Naturally that is the next place you go, thinking from a traditional running and endurance sport background. When you eat a Paleo diet you teach your body to actually use your own body fat for fuel, kind of what its actually there for right. Fat is stored energy, when you are constantly bombarding your body with carbs that is easier for your body to use, so it uses that as your energy. When you run out, you’re tired, hungry, out of energy. Moving to a whole foods focused Paleo diet allows you to use your body’s fat stores for almost infiniate energy and as an added bonus actually burn some of that body fat that you’ve been unable to get rid of in the process. I have found that I can do Paleo and follow an endurance training protocol; however, I don’t do the “normal” training plan when it comes to training for my run, bike, swim. This is where Crossfit or High Intensity training comes into the mix – doing a variety of olypmic lifts, plyometrics, running, rowing, weightlifting, and body weight exercises.
For my 70.3 training I would do one long run and one long bike per week, and make one of the long runs/bikes a brick workout (where you do a bike and then a run or run and then jump on the bike). They didn’t have to be long bricks – like I rode 50 miles and then ran 2 miles, but it was enough to get my body into this is what it feels like to run after riding for that long mode! In addition to my long run and ride I did one speed workout a week, which was either a tempo run of some sort or sometimes a Crossfit Workout (WOD). I did Crossfit 2 times per week, sometimes 3 and had a full rest day in the mix as well. I did have days where I did doubles, especially when it came to swimming, I didn’t have access to a pool at home so I did a lot of my swim training in open water, at the beach in the ocean or in the bay, so I would often only get 1-2 swims in a weekend and if I didn’t have access to the pool maybe skipped the swim alltogether. I did find that on my long training and in my races I needed to break out of the strict Paleo way of eating and supplement my training with some carbobydrate gels, I started with having only honey stinger gels which felt more natural to me, but learned that they don’t have the ideal carb ratio for fueling so I switched to the Powerbar Gel brand and they work for me. I do try to have some “real” food while I’m training too, like dried fruit, larabars, and the baby food pouches I covered exactly what I ate in my 70.3 race recaps: Poconos and Miami.
So now a little more on how Crossfit and Crossfit Endurance fit into the mix – a Crossfit approach entails that you don’t have to do as much volume as many standard tri training plans (or even long running plans) will tell you to. I cut out most of the “junk” miles out of my running and biking, I didn’t ride just to ride or run just to run. Each workout had a purpose, it was a speed/interval workout to push my body and make it stronger in that capacity or a workout that got me comfortable with being on a bike for 3 hours or running for more than 60 minutes. That is how I did my workouts, long stuff usually happened on the weekend when I had more time, there were a few 10 or 11 mile runs mid-week before it got too dark out but during the week I did 2 Crossfit workouts and some interval/tempo runs and took a rest day. I personally haven’t followed a Crossfit Endurance training plan but you can see what they have programmed for free via their site and it includes a strength & conditioning WOD componenet and then an endurance workout component that you can choose based on your single sport: swim, bike, run, row or multi sport. They follow a similar principal that I applied to my training, which gets rid of the “junk” miles, when youre doing soemthing just to do it. I don’t know about you, but my time is valuable and I want to know that I’m getting the most out of the time I’m spending working out.
Anyone else a Crossfitter and an endurance athlete? What is your expereince with adding Crossfit into your traditional endurance plan? How did you avoid burn out and overtraining? Has Crossfit helped, hindered, or had no change on your performance?