A.M. Ran with Jeff and Benjamin at Grandview. Benjamin went 2 miles with us in 17:33 (I think). Jeff was a little late and joined us after a couple of laps. At first I was feeling sore and thought I would run 2-4 miles. But then the form was becoming smoother and I felt better and better. So I upgraded my plan to 6, and then said - I am feeling good, why waste a training run, go full 10. So I ran 26 laps (10.04) in 1:16:48. Jeff's back was hurting during the run and he had a concern it might be heart-related. I did not think it was since it did not hurt any more when he was running than when he was sitting. But just in case I suggested we pick up the pace to get HR up and see if he passes out. He did not, but we ended up running about 0.8 quick with two laps in 2:26 (6:18 pace) and 2:19 (6:00 pace). After talking to Paul on Saturday I decided to try going gluten-free for three months as an experiment. In 2003 as part of my diet experimentation I did not eat any bread or pasta (even whole wheat) between June and late September. In that time I ran TOU in 2:27:46 and St. George two weeks later in 2:24:47. In TOU in spite of opening in a suicidal (for me) 1:10:31, and taking in nothing the entire race except some soy milk mixed with bananas in a blender and a cup of water at 23 I closed in 1:17:15, which is the fastest closing second half I've ever run in the 11 years. I believe that was my true PR race. St. George in 2:23:57 in 2007 was not as good. So after contemplating Paul's experience with eating no gluten and not having fuel issues and my own experience in 2003, I began to wonder. Maybe I do have an adverse reaction to gluten after all. I did some research. Turns out that while only 1% of the population have a clinical celiac disease, a lot more experience minor symptoms. Gluten can cause an auto-immune response in the intestine which interferes with the absorption of nutrients, and thus you will have fatigue, irritable bowel syndrome, and other problems. So I figured I'd give it a shot and see what happens. This is going to require some creativity and getting out of the comfort zone. Because I love whole wheat bread and depend on it to fill me up. But I do want to know if I have the problem. And I do have an easy way to test if it's been fixed - run 20 miles hard and see if I can go under 5:30 in the last two. P.M. Benjamin ran 0.5 with Joseph in 6:16. I rode 2 on a bike with Jenny in 17:38. Julia ran 1.5 with us in 13:42.
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