Editor’s Note: Currently, Ben is trying to share his experiences with all the veterans out there to show that the Keto Diet can be used to aid recovery from PTSD as well as managing the chronic pain from injuries sustained during their service. In an effort to shine a light on his efforts and share his journey, he is planning to run one ultra-marathon a month in 2018. And all this using only Fat For Fuel (low carb/no carb). This is an edited version of his experience in his second Ultra race. You can read his back story here. You can also read about his epic first run here.
Ultra Race #2 is in the bag now and I’m happy to say that I finished! When I was running the last leg I was doing the last big climb of the race and it dawned on me that it was almost 10 years to the day of my hip surgery. That was a pretty humbling moment for me. I don’t want to over state what I did, because I did finish last, but my goal was just to finish the race.
I learned some valuable lessons from this race. The first thing is that I need to learn how to run down hills. The downhills for me were actually harder than the uphills. My goal on this has been to utilize fat for fuel, so I had plenty of F-Bomb packets and walnuts to provide energy. Pickles and pickle juice were packed to help with electrolytes. I also had two 500 ml water bottles that I wore in my race vest. I did find that the amount of water was appropriate for the needs of the race. However, I did find that the pockets of my race vest were not easy to access while I was running, so I am currently investigating other vests. For those who are curious, I am using the Ultimate Direction Hard Rocker vest.
Another important component to my race was making sure that my joints where supported and maintained alignment. I also was worried about my feet and make sure that they were going to hold up. I am concerned about plantar fasciitis, as well, so I was pretty well taped up with RockTape under my running tights. If you’re familiar with RockTape taping methods, I had my left IT Band and knee taped, both feet taped for plantar fasciitis, and a spiral chain taped on my right left. I was concerned with the external rotation of my right leg which was effecting my gate and causing some the swelling on my right foot. So needless to say, I was held together with Rock Tape, but it definitely helped.
[Ben Davis: Army Vet – Blog Contributor]
