Detox for runners?

In one of the FFA newsletters earlier this year, a phrase was included that went along the lines of “don’t expect different results by doing the same things”.  I was training for my 7th Two Oceans with FFA coming into 2010, and decided that perhaps it was time to shake things up a bit. I had been battling with lots of allergies and colds and Marcel recommended the detox diet.  I gave it a go in January this year and strictly followed the rules for a full week.  I found it hard to train at the same intensity as the week progressed, but the following week I found a new energy that I had not experienced before and ran what was meant to be a training run marathon the following week in the second fastest time I have ever done, without racing!  Given that my training has been more or less the same for many years now, with the same Johnson Crane marathon at the end of every January, I can only put it down to the detox diet as to why I felt so good at the 35km mark when normally I would be hitting the proverbial wall.  It was the only different thing I had added to my training, and I even managed to surge up the 4km of hill at the end of the marathon, which has never happened at that race for me before!  I attribute the fact that I had more energy and suffered less allergies and colds in the months leading up to Two Oceans to the detox and to a general change in diet as suggested by FFA.

Philip Lidgey