Higher Cardio During Diet?

Diet and Nutrition Velocity Diet Plan & Coaching
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I made a stupid decision at 45 years old, qualify for the Boston Marathon. I’ve been taking my time to get there, and I’m close at 47 years old. Obviously, this means I run a lot, 40 to 60 miles a week during my build.

I’m taking a break to lose about ten pounds and do some strength work to help keep my feet and legs in shape for a marathon build that begins mid-July.

This means I have an open window to lose weight, lift more for whole body health, do some rehab on my sore hamstring and tender Achilles tendon, and enjoy some trail runs that I won’t press for time, just enjoyment.

Getting to the question, I ramble… I’m starting the Velocity Diet tomorrow, but I need to keep my daily cardio load higher than walking. I’m doing the Leadville Trail Marathon in mid-June (not racing, just enjoying it).

I plan on doing full body workouts three times a week, the stair climber 30-60 minutes three days a week, elliptical or bike 30-60 minutes five days a week (healing my feet/legs), and then doing a longer (two hours) trail ruck/jog each Saturday. Sunday, totally off except for my walk. This is a lot of zone two HR activity, not much intensity. Additionally, this is substantially less work than a marathon build.

Again, this is my only open window for a focused weight drop, as I don’t want to be in deficit when doing a proper marathon build.

I know this training load is probably not ideal, but I wondered if the solution is replacing one protein pulse with two servings of Surge for my workouts during the week and bumping my Healthy Solid Meal higher after my trail ruck/jog on Saturdays.

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It’s hard to imagine you’d be carrying around 10 extra pounds with that type of workload. If my understanding is correct, you are going to be doing 8 30-60 minutes cardio workouts (3 stair climbers, 5 ellipticals) and another 2 hour ruck/jog each week. That’s up to 10 hours of cardio each week, plus your full body workouts. IMO, that combining that with the Velocity diet would be a tough ask. This seems to be a case of trying to keep too much in your program all at once, rather than doing focusing on a single goal and getting it done.

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A bit more specificity.

  • Full body workouts 3x per week have been 45 minutes. Those days I add 30 cardio.
  • Three days one hour cardio.
  • Saturday two hour ruck/jog.

Total:
2:15 weights
6:30 cardio

Man, I hear you though. I’ve really got to think this through.

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Do you really need to diet off a bunch of pounds to be successful for the marathon?

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Dropping weight for the marathon will make me faster, but I want to drop the weight because I have the fat to drop.

The timing is pretty good to do it, since I have the open calendar to focus up on dropping the weight.

My eating has been out of balance due to the miles I’ve run the last couple years. I want to break bad habits and reset my eating habits.

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Like @antiquity, I just think it’s going to be really difficult to do both in the short term. I just looked, though, and it looks like the next Boston is just about a year out? If that’s the case, you certainly have the time. I’m a big fan of the V-Diet, and your thought to have Surge around the weight workouts is right in line with @Chris_Shugart’s suggestions. In order for it to fit, I’d consider dropping your weight training to even twice a week just because you’re logging so many miles. You’re unlikely to build any real strength while trying this type of diet and logging all those miles, and it’s only 28 days, so I’d just go all-out on dieting hard and doing what appears to be maintenance distance for you. Then maybe you bring some strength in while adding calories back?

So:
June: V-Diet. 2x week weights, cross-training for maintenance distance
July - September: 3x week weights higher volume, start building your intensity (hills, tempo, speed)
October - December: 3x week weights lower volume, start building mileage
January - March: whatever marathon peaking looks like

That’s not meant to be a prescription, because I don’t know what I’m talking about with marathons, but just illustrating a concept.

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That’s very helpful and gives me some solid direction on how I can think about this. I really appreciate the time you took to outline your thoughts.

Lose the weight. Keep my base. Add strength after V-Diet. Start the marathon build. Good call.

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Looking forward to seeing how you go!

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