Cindy Knull

Scioto Miles Training Series 10K: Fast course down by the river, with rolling hills and trail path. I wore my Brooks Green Silence.

Yesterday marked the end of a 30 Day Transformation challenge to adopt the Paleo lifestyle. It was also the day I completed a 10k race with a PR (personal record). I thought of writing about these two topics in separate posts, but I think I will combine them here because one functions well with the other. Yesterday was the perfect storm.

Five weeks ago a friend of mine posted on Facebook that she was going to ban sugar and dairy from her diet for 30 days. She asked if anyone would be interested in joining her. She had in recent months had surgery on her back and was still suffering from inflammation and pain. Some of you may or may not know that what we eat can trigger or make this issue worse. Sugar, dairy, and wheat (grains) can be a culprit. They also trigger allergies. I’m a pretty health minded person so I know that white processed sugar is bad bad bad. But who can resist? We are ALL ADDICTED to sugar. It’s in everything from ketchup to cereal to anything that comes in a box on the grocery isle. It’s even used in processed meats! I thought about her offer for a split second and decided it would be a good idea to get away from sugar for a month. So I told her that I would join her. As we shared a little about the strategy, she sent me a link to a website, RobbWolf.com and as I looked it over I thought why not take it to another level and completely wipe out sugar, dairy, grains and ALL processed foods. I had heard a lot about the Paleo diet because it’s pretty big among crossfitters. And well, have you seen their abilities? Not to mention their bodies? Now, although I mention bodies, changing my body wasn’t my ultimate goal here. My ultimate goal was to detox from all the junk I had been eating and see if my performance increased. I suffer from frequent headaches and chronic pain from stress in my upper back, neck, and shoulders. I thought if she’s doing this to decrease inflammation..then maybe this could work for me too. And work it did.

I just want to say that this is MY experience. I do not know what your specific issues are or if you have any. This is what it did for me:

I have not had a headache since the first week in. Although with the sudden change in season, I did have one allergy headache this past week, that was quickly corrected by my chiropractor. For someone who has a headache on a daily basis..this is HUGE. One headache in 30 days? Thank you.

My energy level has increased by leaps and bounds. I’m not even being dramatic when I say this. It’s like before I lived with a cloud of fatigue hanging over me and was tired when I woke up. Fought through the day, fought through workouts, fought with tired of being tired and nothing I did fixed this. Once I eliminated the processed carbs and sugar from my diet and got past the sugar cravings that hit in day 6..I was like another woman. And I’m still going strong. Bright eyed. Awake. And motivated! This is the BIGGEST change I’ve seen in my physical health.

Although, my weight was not an issue before (since I run and eat somewhat good) my body has changed. An acquaintance mentioned that I must’ve lost 20lbs having stayed on this for 30 days, but the truth of the matter is, I didn’t have 20 pounds to lose. I didn’t even have 10 to lose. In fact, my weight has stayed the same give or take 2 or 3 lbs. BUT what has changed is my size. And I’m only going to mention my size here to show what the diet has done for me, I was an average size 6 before. I am now a comfortable size 2. But how can my weight not change and my size go down? Because I’ve lost body fat and maintained muscle, if not even added a bit of muscle growth. This is awesome. However, had I had the extra 20 or 10 to lose, I would have lost a good portion of it in this 30 day challenge.

So here is the deal:
Expensive? Only you can say. I do not know what your shopping habits are or the foods that go to waste because they were not eaten as a result of eating out too many times. For us, cutting out eating out and sticking to the 4 week menu plan offered by Robb Wolf helped tremendously. So it balanced out as far as expense for us. Also, I bought grass fed beef, free range chicken and eggs, and organic vegetables and fruits. Coconut oil and coconut flour and almond meal are all expensive if bought at Whole Foods, this can be remedied by buying online or at your local ethnic grocer. Also to help save, I bought farm fresh hormone, antibiotic free eggs from a friend who sells them for $2 a dozen. Sure beats that $3.79 a dozen at Trader Joe’s. Now that spring and summer are here/coming buy your organic veggies at your local farmer’s market. Cheap.

Time consuming? A bit. I was in my kitchen cooking breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack/dessert. But I was prepared with all that I needed for the day so that cut my time. The meals were not time consuming to make, they were very simple, but to some the idea of making every meal for 30 days can feel time consuming. And if you work, you will have to get creative about your lunches. Make them ahead of time and take them with you. Not hard, just strategy and desire to do it.

Studies show that fat is not what makes us fat. Sugar is what makes us fat by jacking up our blood sugar and insulin levels. And NON-FAT foods are full of sugar to help cover the taste of being fat free. This diet is full of good fat! Butter, I buy grass fed butter or pasture butter, coconut oil for frying/sauteeing, and Olive oil. Nut oils are good too..walnut, sesame, etc..Olive oil for light sauteeing and salad dressings. This diet gives lots of opportunity to consume nuts (NOT peanuts as that is a legume). I have eaten a lot of walnuts, pecans, and almonds in the last 30 days. All raw..not roasted. Except for when the recipe called for roasted like in a baked apple crumble.

So here is what Paleo is: Meats including dark meat, wild game, pork, free range poultry, grass fed beef (cow or bison), eggs. Nuts and seeds. Organic vegetables and fruits (berries most important to be organic. Fruits that have a peeling or rind are okay as conventional, such as: oranges, limes, lemons, canteloupe, pineapple, watermelon.
Here is what it is not: Dairy (other than butter for fat), legumes, grains, sugar.

I am certainly not an expert on Paleo. But I am learning. I know what it has done for me in these 30 days and now that I’ve completed it, I have decided that a 90/10 eating style will work best for me. 90% Paleo and 10% conventional. This will allow me to have birthday cake, popcorn at the movies, an occasional pepsi, a girlscout cookie, dinners at friends houses, a a cocktail/beer..etc…because this is doable for me and it makes sense to me. I feel better than I have in a long long time and nothing can compete with that.

As far as my athletic performance in running. At first, I felt great as my body was still burning off the stored carbs, but as that became depleted and my body switched to burning fat for fuel (which was created by stored carbs), my training suffered a bit. It was a transition to allow my body to do that. The third week was the hardest for me. My training runs seemed very difficult and I was hitting a wall early in the lower mileage. This caused me a bit of concern because I didn’t want to fill my body with junky carbs in order to perform. So I ordered the book The Paleo Diet for Athletes and this helped me understand how to fuel up for training runs and races. For most people this may not be much of an issue.

I’m a runner who sets goals. I do not run just for exercise alone. I run for the accomplishment of seeing my potential. I run so that I can race. And I want to keep pushing myself to see what I’m made of. So, from the time I could walk (at 10 months) I have been a competitor. I ran track all through elementary school and only lost one race. Ever. I was a short distance sprinter. So I’m genetically “gifted” to haul ass for a short period of time. Endurance has always been my biggest achilles heel. It is unfortunate that I did not have parents who pushed me to become more than I was. I have remembered this with my own children. So, once I started training for longer distances my inner sprinter/competitor has come into play. I just started so late in the game that I will never fully be what I could have been, but I am going to do my best right where I’m at. I give every training run its proper respect and I don’t waste time. I pretty much stay in training mode except for January and part of February. Those are the months where I fun run/jog or just chill while I plan out my racing year.

I had a great 10k race yesterday and I tapped into potential that I didn’t know I could achieve. I did not know I could hold the stamina of an 8:30 pace for more than a 5k race. I had not been able to do it efficiently in any of my training runs this year. This has been my dream pace since I started endurance running a year and a half ago. Everything I’ve done has been with this pace in mind. To me, it means I’m a contender.

Yesterday.

I had not slept all night long. I went to bed at 10pm and woke up at 1am. And then stayed awake with fitful dozing the rest of the night. Finally, at 6am I got up to start my day. My stomach had been bothering me all night long and was still in a jumble. I kept trying to breathe it off and relax as I prepared to drive the 40 minutes to downtown Columbus for the race. I was feeling terrible. I was also by myself as my husband is in Florida working and I never ask my friends, most who don’t run, to come stand in the cold and wait for me. I was stressed out about parking and where to put my car keys and blah blah blah..I couldn’t find my waist pouch. I also gone down prior in the week to pick up my race packet to find they weren’t ready when they said they would be and that I would have to come back. I didn’t want to waste gas going all the way back into Columbus, so I decided to pick it up on race day. This added to my stress. Just extra work is all. On the way down, I was mentally struggling to make myself feel better physically, but then a song came on the radio. I don’t know why, but suddenly it was as if a lightening bolt jolted through me and I became God conscious. I reminding Him that I had been faithful to my training and that although I knew it was all on me, I asked Him to run with me. I became emotional and happy all at the same time. The song was by Havana Brown ft Pit Bull, We Run The Night.
When I arrived I was amazed at how many people were there to run. There were two races in one, a 5k and a 10k. We would all run together, while the 10k runners would run the loop twice.
I think there was a total of 1500 people. I grabbed my race packet, ran back to my car, pinned my number on, stashed my free t-shirt in the car and headed back into the building to stay warm. It was cold and misty. At 10 minutes till 9 (race time) I went out and joined the start line crowd. I chose to step into the middle somewhere as I didn’t want to be in the front and in anybody’s way because there were some serious bad ass looking runners up there. Once the gun started we began to move forward past the start line. Immediately, I was passing people. I felt strong and focused. In less than half a mile we had a nice hill to push up..I was passing people on the hill. I kept telling myself to conserve that this was six miles not three. But I felt so good..I went with it. I continued passing people, while running the rolling hills of the course, at a pretty good clip until about mile 3 when the 5k racers diverted off the path, leaving the rest of us 10k runners to continue on. This is when I leveled out.

On occasion I would pass an individual here and there, mostly on the hills, but for the most part we were all in a steady pace. I looked at my Garmin and it showed I was running an 8:31-8:40 pace. My first thought coming into the fourth mile was, “There is no way I can maintain this pace, I’m gonna burn out soon.” But I never did. And as I hit mile 5, strong, I realized that I was running with people who ran 8:30 paces, and was holding my own. Psychologically this was the most spectacular feeling and revelation. I literally said to myself, “I’m one of them.” I kept pushing. Rolling hills and I’m still on target. As we came into the finish with .20 miles to go, a girl on my left shoulder asked me what my split time was, I looked at my watch and it said, 7:43. I was running a 7:43 mile. I almost started crying right there. But I wanted to finish strong so I held my emotions in tact. I crossed the finish line with a 52:45 time and felt high as a kite. The hardest part about this run was that I ended up alone at the end, I didn’t have any support people there. No one was there to high five or hug. That was very difficult emotionally and mentally. I sat in my car and cried to release some of that energy. And because I had accomplished a great race and realized that I had more in me to give. I’m thankful to all my online friends who encourage me and support me. I carry you guys with me on every race because I set goals, you see these goals, and I don’t want to disappoint you. This puts me on target for my sub two hour half marathon in Cincinnati at the Flying Pig on May 6th. The question is..can I double the distance at this pace? We’ll see.