After Ultrabalaton, I honestly thought that I would spend the following weeks doing only easy recovery runs and cautious rebuilding. Pretty much everywhere I read and was advised the same thing: after such a huge effort, the body needs a long time before it can handle serious training and performance again.
Instead, something completely different happened in the past three weeks.
Every single week brought a new personal best.
Over 10K, I improved from my previous times around 45 minutes to an average pace of around 4:30/km. Then came a new half marathon PB with a 4:37/km pace, followed by the marathon: 3:32:39 with an average pace of 5:00/km and an average heart rate of 142.
And perhaps the most interesting thing isn’t even the times themselves.
It’s that last year, and in the period before, during marathon-paced runs my heart rate was already over 140 at 6:20/km, and often shot above 160 near 6:00/km. Now I ran a full marathon at 5:00/km average pace while my average heart rate stayed at just 142.
This isn’t a minor improvement. This is a fundamental change in how the whole system works.
Especially because all of this still happened without any external carbohydrate intake. I didn’t use any classic carb strategy — neither in my everyday diet nor during the race.
On the marathon, my fueling consisted exclusively of water and salt tablets. No gels, no isotonic drinks, no sugar. Yet my heart rate remained under control the entire time, there was no significant cardiac drift, I didn’t hit the wall, and I even had energy left to push faster at the end.
This has been the most important lesson for me from the past few weeks.
Functional carnivore eating and fat oxidation adaptation are not just about being able to run long distances without carbs. The real difference shows up in the quality of recovery.
In a well-functioning fat-based system, the body doesn’t operate in constant firefighting mode. It doesn’t live in permanent survival mode trying to balance blood sugar, hormones, and nervous system stress. Instead, it becomes capable of real supercompensation.
I increasingly feel that Ultrabalaton didn’t set me back three weeks — it actually made me stronger.
Based on recent experiences, one of the biggest benefits of keto-adaptation is not just the energy supply itself. It’s the lower inflammation levels, the more stable nervous system, the more predictable energy system, and — above all — the much faster and higher-quality recovery that makes this state truly special.
This might be why I’m running my best performances now, after many months of full adaptation.
And perhaps the most interesting part is that these results weren’t desperate, red-zone efforts. The marathon was run with a calm 142 average heart rate. It wasn’t survival — it was controlled, efficient performance.
The project continues, of course.
The next stop is a 12-hour race, where the goal is to run 100 kilometers within 10 hours. What comes after that, we’ll see.
So far, the system is working.