----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Geller"
> I guess runners or other endurance exercisers could function quite well on
> very low carb in that those muscles are slow twitch and can be happy
eating
> fat and ketones rather than glycogen?

Not sure about runners, but last summer I was low-carbing and training to
*walk* a marathon (at a pace that would allow me to complete in 6-8 hrs.)
and really didn't have any trouble with endurance or recovery time.  A few
times I felt kind of washed out for a day or two after the weekly long--and
getting longer each week--walks, but from what I know, that's pretty common.

A woman I know who coaches for the Arthritis Foundation, unknowing that I
was low-carbing,  confided to me that one of her walkers was low-carbing (as
a patient of a well-known low-carb clinic) and hitting the wall with every
week's LSD (long slow distance).  I don't know how things turned out for
said woman, but the coach kept telling her she'd never be able to complete
the marathon unless she carbed-up before, during, and after each training
walk.  Dang!--she sounded so convincing, I wound up experimenting on myself
a few times to see how much my performance would improve.  All carbing-up
did for me was cause edema, slow me down, and make me feel sick.

BTW, marathon training has three different kinds of training walks, not
unlike some of the things runners do.  Can you say fartlek?  Fast-twitch
muscle fibers get very much stressed a couple of times a week.

Theola