Does a High Fat Diet Help Reduce Lactic Acid Buildup?

When I started eating a low carbohydrate high fat (LCHF) diet, I noticed that my athletic performance started to improve once my body made the transition to burning fat over carbs as its fuel source. I had also started Zone 2 training about two or three weeks after I changed my diet. During the first 10 days or so of switching to LCHF, I was extremely sluggish. Not only was my body moving slowly, so was my brain. The sluggishness subsided and the performance improvement started becoming noticeable within a month. I also noticed that my legs did not get the same burning sensations it did when I ran at the faster paces and that my recovery time was cut down substantially! A few podcasts I heard during that time discussed how others eating LCHF had also seen athletic performance gains and had faster recovery times. This totally intrigued me!

It's All About Zone 2 Baby! (Part 2)

In my last post, I went over why I started training using heart rate zones based on maximum heart rate. I wanted to build a good solid “base” so I could continue to improve throughout the year and long term. I also wanted to be very efficient at burning fat. In 2013, for both the bike and run, I trained almost exclusively in Zone 2. I was in the process of becoming fat adapted so I did very little speed work. However, looking back, I should have done some interval or speed work.

So what the heck is training zones anyway?