Diablo kicked my butt!

I was thrilled and excited to try out my hill training on the Diablo 50 mile course, though in retrospect I probably should have just signed up for the marathon, since I told myself it was meant as a good hard training run for Miwok. Considering that the times for Diablo 50 are about the same as Miwok’s 100K, that pretty much says it all—Diablo is not a training run for anything- it’s a serious encounter in its own right.

Starting out on single track

A bad omen occurred on Saturday: I happened to be buying some supplies and saw alpha-lipoic acid supplements that I had just read about on Mark’s Daily Apple, and decided to try them. This material is supposed to be a potent antioxidant, restore glutathione levels and to protect mitochondria from oxidative damage. I read a few other studies about it, and it seemed worthwhile, so I popped a capsule, bent over to see something on the computer screen, and immediately realized I had swallowed it into my trachea! It wouldn’t come out, It was blocking airflow, and as the capsule started to swell from hydrating in my body, I panicked. After a few Heimlich maneuver’s from David and some other unpleasant aftereffects, the pill was out of my trachea, but I went into a nasty asthma attack from the junk that had leaked into my lungs! I am familiar with asthma, having had problems with it in the past. So I had a steroid/bronchodilator inhaler handy, used it and managed to be mostly clear by Sunday AM in time for the race (after wheezing and coughing up phlegm for most of Saturday and Saturday night). Pretty scary experience. Note to self: take pills with water and swallow carefully!

Marching up the hill

But the asthma seemed to abate by race time, and I toed the line with everyone (ok brought up the back of the pack). It was warm already (another bad omen), but was a gorgeous day, and I resolved to deal with the heat as best I could. The ascent up Diablo was as expected. We tried it out a few weeks ago, and it went faster and easier on race day than I expected—something about all the adrenaline. There was very little actual running at this stage, but it was a fun and beautiful and relentless climb. At the Juniper Aid Station I got to meet the very adorable Victoria. I think Miki may have been there too, but I missed her somehow. Meanwhile, we continued to the summit uneventfully, paid our respects to the view at the top, said hello to Don and Gillian running the marathon, and continued on. The downhill stretch was nice—pretty steep, not real fast, but we were cruising. Then suddenly, a hamstring muscle (sartorius?) seized up on me. I’ve had cramps in races before, but they are usually annoying little things, like in the foot or lower leg, something you can run through. But suddenly I found myself immobile, unable to even walk. David came to find out what was keeping me and massaged it a bit, and when it finally stopped seizing, I walked for a while taking copious amounts of water, Enduralytes and calcium carbonate, and gingerly started jogging again. (The cramps never did return, but that muscle hurt for days after.) We hit Juniper again, the day becoming quite warm, refilled on fluids and food and continued on the long rolling downhill stretch to North Gate aid station, admiring the views while trying not to go flying off the trail. Somewhere along this trail, there is a patch of sparkly minerals (mica maybe) that made it seem like we were entering Disneyland or some fairy tale. I longed to just sit and play with the stones, but it was baking hot in the sun, and didn’t seem like a really good idea at the time with cutoff times and all, so we continued on down and down to the aid station. They were running low on ice, but we took what ice and fluids we could and continued on as expeditiously as possible. We passed a few people during this five-mile loop, people injured or suffering from the heat. This section was quite nice, with some shade and creek crossings, a few encounters with sedate cows and polite horseback riders, and then a long climb back to North Gate, where I was desperate for more water. When we arrived the second time, there was ice and Coke but not much to eat—I grabbed a cookie, though this was not appealing, and tried to choke it down without success. Apparently, it was 93° F in the shade of the tent.

Can you say “steep”?

Then ensued what felt like a death march through shimmering waves of heat on exposed sections of fire roads, up and up toward the Rock City aid station. Though it wasn’t really very far, it seemed to take forever, as the heat was taking its toll on me. I kept my bandana and shirt soaked with squirts of water from one bottle, and this cooling was enough to keep me going, but not very fast. I passed one poor soul suffering from a stress fracture in his foot, keeping his pace to a hobbling walk. The fire road gave way to a shady trail and short precipitous decline, then another half mile or so of climbing on roads until we finally reached the next aid station, just in time for the cutoff. We grabbed some supplies stashed there: a spare bottle of David’s favorite liquid fuel—coconut milk and whey protein, and for me frozen V8 juice and a couple of beef tamales (don’t laugh, I got down one of the tamales eventually and immediately felt better!). In the rush to move on, I forgot the charger we bought to keep the Garmin 405 alive, so it eventually shut itself off, after about 26 miles. I saw Rick returning already just as I was leaving the Rock City aid station. (He looked amazingly fresh and strong for having run 37 miles in this heat already!)

Heading toward Eagle Peak

The trail to Finley Road aid station was quite nice at first, shady and following a stream, but it quickly morphed into more uphills or at least rolling hills on fire roads. This section should have been easy, but it was hot and I was bonking. Eating and running is hard. By this stage I had had three gels and a carb/protein supplement (Cliff Shot Recovery Drink), one square of PB&J sandwich, a small handful of chips and a few cups of coke. Apparently, not enough. My heart rate had averaged 155 bpm for the initial ascent, meaning that I was working at nearly 90% of my maximum heart rate, well into anaerobic threshold, and 140 bpm for most of the rest. Since I rarely train at that high an effort for long periods of time, I’m pretty sure I was glycogen depleted, despite trying to supplement. Of course, David was having an easier time of it, waiting patiently for me, and feeling good. Managing the best speed I could, we continued on our way, passing many others on the return, all saying “Good job.” I finally understand why ultrarunners say that—it’s because it’s short, sweet, and positive, and best of all, keeps you from looking like a moron when you can no longer put words together to make a sentence because your brain has ceased functioning.

Almost there

The day was waning by now, but not the heat. We started the last long steep hill leading down to the Finley aid station, and I was completely dreading having to trudge back up that hill. I was pretty sure we wouldn’t make the next cutoff at Rock City due to my utter slowness, and was ready to drop here. I saw my friend Chuck Wilson, a veteran of 200 ultras, sitting there with legs that refused to work anymore, and he was getting a ride back. This seemed like a great idea at the time, but the aid station volunteers explained that we’d have to get back on our own because they didn’t have room in their vehicle. Another guy came up hoping to drop as well as his knee was in bad shape, but we were all sent back up the hill. Then another guy came down the hill, suffering mightily from leg cramps, but we told him no one else was getting out at Finley—he would have to head back up the hill too. We left the two suffering men to keep each other company and struggled to get back to the Rock City aid station. I hope they got back OK! I talked to one man’s worried wife, but she couldn’t reach him on her cell phone at the aid station.

View from the top

I resolved to get up this hill and back to the aid station as best I could in a vain hope of making it by the cutoff time. I suggested to David that he go on ahead and try to make it, but he opted to stick with me. (Thanks!) I chomped down finally on my tamale and just kept going up the hill—and you know, once I had some fuel in my belly, it wasn’t so bad! We had also brought some applets and cotlets, which I had forgotten to eat earlier due to my brain fog. Once the tamale and sugar were in my stomach, and the shadows were getting longer and the breeze cooler, I felt like a new woman and was ready to continue. But alas for naught, they pulled us from the course, and I joined the other runners in the van for the long drive back to the finish, many of whom were in much worse shape than us—nauseous, crampy, and exhausted. Diablo certainly took its toll that day.

The way ahead

I’m pretty sure I could have finished the race in time, but wasn’t given the opportunity. There were supposed to be 150 starters for the 50 mile, but only 106 finished. On this particular day, that was doing pretty well I’d say. I don’t feel too bad having missed the opportunity to finish. It just means I’ll never rest until this particular devil is met and conquered—maybe next year. That said, it’s probably for the best. It turns out I was developing a blister on the ball of one foot unawares, and if we had continued, it could have become very painful and I might not have been able to recover very well. As it was, I had three blisters in spots I wasn’t expecting on my right foot, but the left foot was perfectly fine. Completing 37 miles at Diablo is certainly enough for a training run for Miwok, but I am humbled and lacking in confidence at this stage, and worrying about making cutoffs once again.

The aftermath and lessons learned:

The lung injury due to inhaling lipoic acid wasn’t a problem during the race, but the asthma and congestion plagued me all week afterwards.

Minor blisters, quads were sore on Monday- we went for a walk which was fine, but legs said resounding “No!” to running even a few steps. Tuesday, legs felt better, gave them a nice walk anyway. Wednesday was another rest day, mainly because of time constraints. Thursday, antsy to get back on the trail, we ran some short hilly trails with no soreness. Friday an easy recovery run, trying to keep heart rate down, and did a familiar loop in better time than expected. Saturday, we ran 13 hilly miles, but I got completely exhausted by the end—maybe I’m not so recovered after all! I conclude we did a fine job of acclimatizing the quads and gluts to the rigors of hills, but I still need to work on basic endurance and speed.

Keeping the bandana and T-shirt damp is very helpful—but carrying ice in your hands is even better (my hands are always hot when running). The frozen V8 juice was delightful—I used it to chill my hands and arms and neck, and wished I’d brought another bottle full. I wish I could have managed Rick’s suggestion to put ice in a bandana around my neck, or put it in my cap, but in the rush at aid stations I could never remember to. Even so, in real heat, ice doesn’t last long. Carrying enough water is essential. I was constantly and voraciously thirsty, and this is very unusual for me. Once I remembered to start taking salt and calcium, cramps were kept at bay.

V8 juice is delicious on the trail (so is chicken broth, turkey sandwiches, sushi, pretty much any “real” food IMO) . Aplets and Cotlets are nice—not so chewy and sticky as Cliff blocks- and go down well. But basically, I’m still looking for a fueling strategy that works for me. It could be that I need to hold back so as not to glycogen deplete quite so fast, but that’s not a great option, being slow and all. It could be that I need to supplement even more with gels etc., every half hour or something, or that this is not necessary at all and not a good idea when using Vespa (which I did). David is still sold on his fuel, easy to drink, no muss or fuss. Maybe I should try it!

Finally, one of the rules of training is specialization: in this case, it means if running Diablo, train at Diablo, because nowhere else are the conditions quite so tough!

Here are some more pictures. If you want to be identified in any of these photos, leave a comment!

Eagle Peak from beyond

Trudging up

Baldy Ridge

Deer Flat Road

On the way up to Juniper Campground

Getting close

Breaking into a shuffle

Across North Peak to Sacramento River

Back toward Eagle Peak

Of course you can just drive to the top, but where’s the fun in that?

All the way up the steps to the tower

Down, down, down toward North Gate

Getting hot on those exposed trails

Horses looked hot too

Trudging desperately toward Rock City and a reprieve from the heat

Getting closer to Rock City

Single track toward Finley Road

We’re Officially Insane!

OK, we’re officially insane now having signed up for the Diablo 50 miler only two weeks before Miwok 100K.

Don advised me not to, and I bet he’ll be saying “I told you so” in a few weeks when my dead legs refuse to move during Miwok. But what the heck, next year this time I’ll be even older. A lot can happen in a year. And I’m a sucker for punishment (poor David isn’t, but he kindly agreed to come to make sure I stay in one piece!)

That said, we’ve been hitting it fairly hard on the hills of late and I was very pleased to not be sore for more than a day after Pirate’s Cove 50K. We also did some long runs, for example, heading up the Bay to Ridge Trail (the part from Arastradero Preserve to Black Mountain and back through Rancho San Antonio) (see Jean Pommier’s write-up of a similar run), Windy Hill and along the ridge to Borel Hill (see Russian Ridge and Skyline Ridge web pages) and back down via Alpine Road, and the PGE trail in Rancho San Antonio up to Black Mountain and back another time, with only minimal quad soreness. All of these routes entail miles of downhill running. Practice in downhill running is crucial to developing quads that can resist the stress of eccentric contractions, and it has been reported that even a single session of downhill running can protect against quad damage. Here are a few papers discussing these effects:
Decreased blood oxidative stress after repeated muscle-damaging exercise
Characterization of inflammatory responses to eccentric exercise in humans
Recent advances in the understanding of the repeated bout effect: the protective effect against muscle damage from a single bout of eccentric exercise

Diablo is another matter though, as I discovered when we checked out the first and last legs of the course a week ago, up to the top of Mt. Diablo via a couple of far-from-insignificant side peaks (such as the aptly named Eagle Peak which actually had a bald eagle soaring overhead!) and back to the finish—just hellacious climbs and descents, but oh so beautiful. Two days later, my quads still hurt. Not a good sign. I’m wondering whether our relatively tame hill training is going to be enough. The relatively short sections on fire roads were the fastest parts, but the tiny twisted gravely rooty steep single track (is that enough adjectives?) is slow as molasses. I don’t know how the fast people can manage it—all the power in the world can’t make those treacherous trails fast! But somehow they do it. I just want to survive and not be out too many hours after dark! The goal race after all is Miwok, so I reassured David that I wasn’t afraid to drop if I thought I was getting too beat up to recover in time for Miwok (sure, sure I will…). Also, those trails were particularly hard on the balls of the feet, since so much of the time I balanced on larger rocks rather than scrambling on loose scree (is that a word?) for secure footing. Anyone have a suggestions for problems with too much friction on the balls of the feet? I’m wondering if blister prevention patches in that location would help or hurt?

The injuries I was complaining of back in January haven’t completely gone away though they no longer ache and keep me awake at night, most of the time at least. Some nights I’d sleep with a tennis ball pressing on the sore spots (it seemed to help!). My gluteus medius, IT band and rectus femoris still ache, but my “posterior chain” (gluteus maximus, hamstrings, and calves) have gotten their act together and are no longer a severe limiter (ok, they still ache, but work properly now). Many thanks to David for endless massages and cross-fiber rubbing! The exercises that seemed to help include lunges (adding in the hip flexor stretch), supine bridges, step ups (see Eric Crissey’s Butt and Hip Care articles, part 1, part 2, and part 3 ["Healing the Hips"]), myrtls (thanks Glorybelle!), piriformis stretches (thanks Lori!) and just lots of slower running (faster running risks flare-ups again). I like Cressey’s stuff even though he’s really oriented toward the weight lifting crowd. Here are a couple more interesting articles he wrote:
Five Resistance Training Myths in the Running World
Cardio Confusion

In fact, I think I was suffering from something called femoral anterior glide, where the hip flexors literally pull the head of the hip bone forward in the socket, causing pain and dysfunction. My gluts weren’t activating properly. Now they are better and that problem disappeared (knock on wood!). In fact, I could feel everything engage properly on the climb up the steps above Rodeo Beach back in March when we ran PCTR's Pirate's Cove 50K, and felt good for a change. It’s amazing just how screwed up things can get when one muscle doesn’t engage properly.

I feel like I have trained as well as I could given the injury from last January and limited ability to tolerate higher training volumes (a few 50+ mile weeks, but with lots of hills). Now we’re tapering (long run only 12 miles and 2000 feet climb!) and easing up for a bit on the everyday runs (can you say lazy?), and hopefully that will help get us through. So stay tuned to see if we survive Diablo! It’s going to be a long day!

Fremont Fat Ass 50K run report (or running while injured)

I have been suffering from an injury of late that is threatening to derail any short term race plans I have. The injury is hard to pinpoint but is loosely in the gluts/ piriformis/ ilio-psoas areas. See GetBodySmart for a great site the shows anatomy and physiology in a way that you can clearly see what each muscle does and where it attaches.

It’s not clear exactly what the problem is, or why it showed up suddenly. I can’t tell if the problem is from a change in training to more street/track/tempo running (less steep hills, more consistent running) or the difficult trails we did two weeks ago. It would be ridiculous to be out of shape for trail running because of doing predominantly street running for a few weeks, but that is the possible root of the problem. David of course is immune from injury—at least it seems so most of the time. I blame it on the testosterone (keeps his muscles strong even when he doesn’t exercise! Men have it sooo easy!)

After recurrences of pain in the last couple weeks, mostly on the downhills when I would attempt to stretch out my stride and enjoy the ride, I decided I needed to nip this in the bud and not wait another few weeks to see if it would get better on its own like I did last summer. I went to see a physical therapist last Thursday, who gave me a whole bunch of exercises to do (toe and heel walking and core strengthening exercises).

Of course I hadn’t had much time to do the exercises or change anything by the run on Saturday, so it was with some concern that we showed up for the run on Saturday AM. I wasn’t sure I’d get all that far before having to call it quits. I was well anesthetized with Aleve, but was forced to further supplement with ibuprofen eventually in order to finish. Not so good really.

As for the run, I took it very easy and ran much of the first half with Mountain Man Steve who is successfully recovering from a calf injury and preparing for Coyote Two Moons, and Jim Winne who was deliberately keeping his heart rate down to accommodate his heart problems. As expected, after about 5 miles, the pain began, despite keeping the pace down. The course was quite easy, with clear dirt or paved trails, 90% flat or very gradual hills, perfect weather. Every time I tried to get the pace up though, I had to back off or was forced to walk. Ten minute miles (preferably 10:30 to 11) were about as fast as I could go without more serious warnings, and pushing it into 9:30 pace did some damage. Average heart rate for the run was only 137! That’s pretty slow and easy.

The weather was cooperative (cool and overcast with only a little drizzle). There was even an aid station! I met more great runners: the famous ultrarunners Chihping Fu
(thanks for the aid station!), Barbara Elia and Linda McFadden. There were lots of other great folks out there but I couldn’t spend much time talking with everyone due to pace differences and didn’t get everyone’s names. (Apologies to those I am neglecting to mention!) It was also nice to talk with the faster folks at the finish (Mike Palmer and Catra , the co-RDs, thanks for the pizza and beer, Ron!). Catra was recovering nicely from her IT band problems from HURT and seemed ready for more! Everyone was having fun and taking it easy, just a fun run on a Saturday (see participants and finishing times)!

I stayed reasonably well fueled I think despite skimping on breakfast (coffee and a Trio bar), and ate half a turkey sandwich, a Mountain Dew, and a whey protein energy bar. That’s not a lot of food, but I ate every time I felt I needed to. David again did the distance on near-zero carbs: coconut milk and whey protein (and not that much of either) as his major calorie sources.

Since I was forced to keep to a very slow pace by the pain in my butt and thigh, it was an interesting test of purely aerobic exercise vs. my usual sort of 50K race performance (as much lactic acid as I can stand). The funny thing is that on the day after this easy run, I saw the usual 2 lb weight gain again. I thought that maybe the post-race weight gain was due to the stress of hard running and wouldn’t happen after an easy run. Now I’m wondering if it’s just due to overindulging afterwards in carbs (new glycogen stores add water weight) from the post-run and dinner refueling: pizza, beer, sushi, sweet potato, cherries and bread. That’s a lot more carbs than I usually eat in a day, so maybe I carb-loaded after the run (now that’s just silly).

The aftermath of the 50K wasn’t too bad in terms of muscle pain and stiffness on Sunday. I felt a lot worse after going to the track last night and trying to get the pace up again for a short tempo run. Something’s definitely not right, and I will probably have to back off from anything faster for a while (including races) and concentrate on core exercises and going slow, if at all. So frustrating!

We Were Selected in the Miwok Lottery! YIKES!

We found out on Saturday that we made it into Miwok 100K, and I am excited and a bit terrified. Our first 50 miler was Firetrails 50 last October, after a series of pitiful 50K trail run times (at least for me), and was a purely spontaneous desire for adventure and experience. We made it well enough within the cutoff times, though not at all speedily, and I ended up thinking that I could have gone further if necessary (though I was almost too tired to eat at the end! For me, that’s pretty tired!) So, in principle, this 100K shouldn’t be such a scary ordeal. I think part of the scariness is the fact that I’ve seen these hills up there in the Headlands, and they are not to be trifled with. The other aspect is that this isn’t just spontaneous, we’ve signed up 5 months in advance. That’s 5 months to plan, worry and fret! (oh yeah, and prepare!)

It also brings up the question of what other races to include in the 2009 schedule, and how to train for these events. I’d really like to do a regular street marathon (in a time that doesn’t embarrass me too much) and am considering Napa Valley Marathon on March 1st. But is training for a street marathon compatible with training for Miwok? Inquiring minds want to know (at least this inquiring mind does!) Training for a street marathon, as I understand it, involves training to increase running efficiency and maximize fat burning while flirting with your lactate threshold (a little too fast and you pay a painful price, a little too slow and you, well, take a little longer). Training for Miwok though—that’s trails and hills and trails and hills, ad finitum, well up to about 16 hours worth if you’re near the back of the pack as I suspect I will be, figuring out what gear to use and training your feet and everything else for the challenge. They seem like incompatible objectives. Please feel free to jump in here with advice, though probably at this point it’s too late to make much of a difference anyway…

Another race I’d like to include is the Diablo 50 miler, about two weeks before Miwok. Maybe that’s cutting it too close, I don’t know. I think it depends on how aggressive we are about that race—after Firetrails, I had swollen ankles and legs and was up 3 lbs of fluid for most of a week. But it’s possible we are adapting somewhat because the ankle swelling/weight gain seems to have diminished (no excessive weight gain or ankle swelling after last weekend’s 20 miles through El Corte de Madera and Purisima Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserves—and I wore myself out on those hills and have been sore all week).

In addition to training, running and more running, and oh yeah hills, we are motivated to get back onto a weight loss trend, instead of just holding steady like we have since August. I really don’t want to have to lug an extra ten or twenty pounds for the whole 100K distance. And who knows, we might even get faster too! So this is a good motivator to be more disciplined about our diet. The good news is that there was no appreciable weight gain over the holidays because we were able to mostly stick to low carb eating, even for desserts (yummy truffles and pecan pie heavy on the pecans and light on the sugary filling). I am not disciplined about food, and have enjoyed the low carb/paleo diet because I do not have to be disciplined (unless someone is waving carbs in front of my face). I cannot stand being hungry and feeling deprived. Still, something’s gotta give. David is really getting frustrated—he was down to 185 lbs briefly in the summer, but went back up over 190 after we started ultrarunning (now on a downtrend again). And running more only seemed to make the weight go up a little more. Since our last 50K on December 13th we’ve been taking it easier, taking more rest days and putting in easier distances mostly, shallower hills, moderate heart rate training. But that hasn’t done anything to help get the weight loss going again either. So now we’re going to try to be more cognizant at least of total calories and cheats and see if the weight won’t come off again. Wish us luck!

USDA Food Pyramid Update

The USDA will be updating its food pyramid again next year. At present there is little or no representation from the low-carb community on the panel charged with creating the update. Dr. Michael Eades is soliciting comments to be passed on to the panel on his Protein Power blog. If you are interested in contributing, go to his website and provide a comment. I have reproduced below a comment that I posted there.

Let’s see… populations that have found low-carb diets to have significant health and performance benefits: overweight and obese, diabetic, epileptic, persons at high risk for heart disease, models, actors, endurance athletes (have I missed any?); populations that have problems with low-carb diets: none (unless maybe you count those whose problems are in the form of poor acceptance by family, friends, and coworkers…) But it’s “unproven,” isn’t it? Well, we’d all like to see more extensive data on larger populations. But surely, the obvious failure of current dietary recommendations which HAVE been tested extensively and shown to be seriously flawed, suggests that we need a new approach. Low-carb diets which have shown such clear benefits for so many populations are so clearly superior to the current food pyramid, that we are due for some class-action lawsuits (against the USDA, individual panelists, other medical societies, food industry lobbyists, pharmaceutical companies?) for so blatantly putting self-interests above public health!

My personal story: mid-50s, low-carb for one year after a lifetime of high-carb diets. Used to tolerate high-carb diet well and be able to eat large meals without gaining weight. Weight crept up over time, then started rising faster. Gradual appearance of symptoms of metabolic syndrome (fasting glucose up, blood pressure up, weight up, etc.) Low-carb diet rapidly reversed problems: lost 30 pounds without calorie restriction, blood pressure and fasting glucose down, improved general health and athletic performance (I took up running ultramarathons and now do so on little or no carbohydrates and feel good during and after the events [and I now comfortably run hilly distances of up to about 20 miles/4 hours on no supplemental food at all]). And no, the high level of exercise did not result in my weight loss and health improvement; rather the health improvement and weight loss ENABLED me to increase my level of exercise. If anything, the weight loss has plateaued and reversed slightly with increasing exercise.

It is clear that there are populations that can tolerate and even thrive on high-carbohydrate diets for a lifetime. But my best estimates from data I’ve seen is that these are a minority—probably well under 20% of the general population, and they probably represent predominantly people with either limited access to food and/or people with a high level of daily physical activity.

My recommended changes to general dietary guidelines: start with a baseline of about 20% carbs, 65% fat, 15% protein. Increase carbs only if weight GAIN is needed. Decrease carbs further for weight loss or other specific health conditions such as diabetes. Increase protein if needed for muscle building/repair (athletes). For most people, this sort of diet is best achieved with a lot of meat, fish, nuts, and vegetables, though details can vary widely depending on availability and any religious, cultural, or specific health/allergy issues. Sugars and simple starches should be used sparingly if at all. These include nutritive sweeteners, most wheat, rice, corn, and other grain products. Fruits should also be limited: most are nutritionally predominantly sugar water. Dairy is more controversial. Personally, I do not limit dairy consumption, although some people find it desirable to limit or cut dairy entirely. Legumes and legume products (such as soy products) should probably be consumed in moderation, and may be left out by personal preference. Within these general guidelines, try to eat a wide variety of food.

I think it is most important to focus first and foremost on getting these macronutrient guidelines established and understood. Micronutrients are clearly also important, and since fat is to be recommended as the major source of calories, it is probably also important to recommend emphasizing or avoiding particular types of fat, but these kinds of recommendations should be given a secondary status to the macronutrient recommendations. The “wide variety of food” recommendation should take care of most micronutrient needs for most people.

Training do’s and don’ts

Just for fun, not that we are any kind of expert runners (ha!), we decided to put in our two cents in the TIaRT forum on training do’s and don’ts (I know it’s Friday already!). Some of these thoughts are pretty empirical and based on practical experience over the years, but similar advice is given on the endurancecorner.com training website.

DO:

• Do eat high quality nutrition—limit simple carbs, especially if you are trying to keep the weight off (in contrast to the previous conventional wisdom, you don’t need to replace all 400 to 500 g of glycogen stores everyday in an ordinary training day! We keep our intake to probably <100g, but the absolute amount is up to you and perhaps governed by the intensity of your training). Get plenty of vitamins and omega -3 fats and sufficient protein using fresh veggies and meats/fish/cheese/nuts, including vitamin supplements if necessary.
• Do get sufficient rest–get enough Z’s, take a day off once in a while or just take a walk instead of feeling like you have to run everyday
• Do alternate hard days with easier days and hard weeks with easier weeks
• Do experiment with hill work, tempo training, track intervals, etc. to see how you’re doing under different conditions, and race once in a while just for the feedback and fun
• Do try crosstraining and/or weight lifting to work on specific muscle and core muscle strengthening
• Do make sure you throw in plenty of Goldilocks days (not too hard, not too easy, just the right amount of effort)
• Do evaluate yourself critically and welcome feedback from others, then work on your deficiencies (don’t just gloat about your strengths)
• Do pay attention to what your muscles and joints are telling you. Sore or tired muscles may need to be warmed up more slowly or rested. Extensive stretching before exercise may be losing favor as a routine practice, but if you have a muscle that is tight or tending to cramp, or other problem areas, do stretch it carefully before and after your run.
• Do start slowly. We often find that we don’t “reach our stride” until about 45 minutes or more into a run. Even under race conditions, be careful not to push too hard too early. Do be patient and consistent
• Do use a plan if you’re into it, but I’ve had success (some years ago anyway) just winging it and doing what it seemed needed doing (long runs some days, easy on others, track work to speed up a bit, crosstraining on the bike)

DON’T:

• Don’t overtrain (back off to really easy once in a while–you’ll know when you need it when your legs are just beat or you start to resent your workouts)
• Don’t push through pain all the time—sometimes it goes away if you’re patient, but sometimes it means you need to lay off the hard/long stuff for a while, maybe do some cross training for a week or two or more
• Don’t get discouraged—as the Tao Te Ching says “sometimes things are easy and sometimes things are hard…”. You can be sure that what is hard today will someday be easier, and then again, what is easy today will be hard someday when you’re injured or sick.
• Don’t worry about what other people think— sure you may look like a dork sometimes, we all do, but you can’t try to look great all the time if it means you’re running a pace far too fast to sustain just to impress others. It can mean the difference between a merely respectable time (ok maybe even a poor time) and not even finishing a race.
• Don’t be afraid of a challenge. If you’re not really ready for the challenge, so what? You’ll know what your baseline novice level is and be able to do better next time. Every race, every challenge, will teach you something different about preparation, psychology and equipment that will come in handy later.

One final thought—from reading other contributions on this topic, it’s clear that there is a wide variety of approaches, from those wanting every training detail spelled out to those (like us) just feeling our way along. We haven’t even figured out what races we’re doing this year yet, so it’s hard to begin a training plan! Right now I’m toying with the idea of a road marathon (Napa Valley? Probably haven’t a prayer of a respectable time [i.e., close to finishing times from my distant past], but we may decide to run it anyway just for a baseline number), and we’re waiting to hear about the lottery for Miwok 100K (what the F--- was I thinking?), and of course there’s Diablo 50-miler and some other killer ultra trail events coming up… We’ll see what happens. In the meantime, we’re putting in some easier mileage and watching to see if the heart rate drops with mostly aerobic training as it supposed to do when you’re improving (it does seem to be happening, if slowly). We’re also putting in some tempo runs and track workouts to train for a faster pace that is sub lactate threshold (LT2, as best I can tell where that is—seems to be about 8:30 pace right now for me and maybe 7:30 pace for David) but this is a pace that neither of us can sustain indefinitely. Running on a track is very different from running on trails, especially hilly ones, so we will probably end up incorporating a lot more hills eventually (sure would have helped at Muir Beach!).

Consumer Reports “Secrets of Thin People”

The February 2009 issue of Consumer Reports features an article called “Dieting on a budget, plus the secrets of thin people, based on our survey of 21,000 readers.” The feature includes some equipment reviews, plus articles on “healthful eating on a budget” and their analysis of their reader survey results.

I often find that I disagree with articles and reviews in Consumer Reports, more so whenever I actually have strong personal knowledge of a product or subject area. Their articles are not, of course, peer-reviewed scientific reports. Nevertheless, and despite the fact that they carefully avoid accepting commercial advertising and sponsorship, they typically conform to current industry norms, assuming, I guess, that their readers are responding to the advertising and product offerings they are exposed to and are merely wanting to choose which of the available highly-promoted products to buy. The same can be said of their financial and medical advice in that their advisors (and authors??) seem to be drawn from the mainstream establishment.

There was a time, a few decades ago, when product reviews often used a home-made recipe or similar non-commercial product as a reference for comparison. Quite often, the commercial products did not compete favorably with the non-commercial version. Such comparisons are very rare nowadays. I suppose it, at least partly, reflects the fact that fewer and fewer people are inclined to make their own anything, even when the results are superior. (Though I will admit that there are at least some real examples where modern manufacturing methods make commercial products that are superior…)

Anyway, I digress. In typical fashion, the results of the survey are presented in a way that contains almost no real data and certainly no statistical analysis. Here's what I think are the real “data”:

Survey date: 2007; 21,632 respondents; 66% “overweight” including 22% “obese”

• 16% “never overweight”
• 15% “successful losers” (defined as weighing at least 10% less than at their heaviest and keeping the weight off for at least 3 years)
• 42% “failed dieters”
• 27% other

“more than half” of successful losers did so without the aid of a commercial diet program (defined as a particular medical treatment, book, or pills)

The data get pretty thin after that! The report claims that “through statistical analyses [not presented], we were able to identify six key behaviors that correlated most strongly with having a healthy body mass index.” The standard threshold of 25 is used for defining “overweight,” even though such arbitrary BMI thresholds are well-known to be misleading due to variability in skeletal frame size and muscle development.

The basic conclusion of the study was that successful losers generally embraced the allegedly good behaviors naturally practiced by the always-thin, typically slightly more so, and “significantly” more so than did the failed dieters. Therefore, the authors conclude, all you need to do to be a successful loser is to “quite literally, live like a thin person.”

The six behaviors (“secrets of the slim”) recommended turn out to be current mainstream party-line recommendations:

	Succ. losers	Always thin	failed dieters
watch portions	62%	57%	42%
limit fat	53	47	35
eat fruits and vegetables	49	49	38
eat whole grains	“consistently opted for”		?
eat at home	weight correlated with number of meals out
“exercise, exercise, exercise”*	32	31	23

*while the authors suggested that vigorous exercise that increased breathing and heart rate for 30 minutes or longer was strongly linked to lower BMI, the survey numbers are for strength training at least once per week

The authors note that going low carb is conspicuously absent from the list and that limiting carbohydrates correlated with higher BMI in the survey, though they did note that such a correlation could be an artifact of the fact that those with higher starting BMI are more likely to try a low carb diet. Despite this admission, they still claim that “the findings do suggest that cutting carbs alone, without other healthful behaviors such as exercise and portion control, might not lead to great results.”

They also reported that three other strategies did not show significant effects: eating small meals, never eating between meals. and including lean protein with most meals.

Surveys like this are notoriously unreliable for establishing any true cause-and-effect relationships. It is easy to bias the questions to support the conclusion you want to reach. The conclusion about the ineffectiveness of low carb diets is a good example. If only a small percentage of the survey population had even tried it, then, of course, such a diet would show low significance overall, and therefore no conclusion whatsoever can really be drawn as to the effectiveness of a low carb diet.

Another aspect of the report is the definition of “successful” dieters as those who’ve achieved a 10% weight loss (and kept it off for at least 3 years). For the 22% of respondents characterized as “obese,” 10% is barely a good starting point. At the end of the article, the authors, in a section labeled “Realistic goals are one key to weight loss,” state, “A 10 percent loss might not sound like much, but it can significantly improve overall health and reduce risk of disease.” True perhaps, but pretty discouraging from a public health point of view, if that’s the best we can hope for! And we clearly now know better. There are countless examples of people who have successfully lost much more weight and kept it off (for example, by carbohydrate restriction for those who have demonstrated sensitivity to carbohydrate consumption), and they’ve done it without resorting to extreme methods such as bariatric surgery or starvation diets.

At best, one can use survey data like this to construct hypotheses that might be worth testing. To base public health recommendations on the results is ridiculous!

I look at the data and draw a rather different set of conclusions:

1. We have a serious weight problem if 5 out of 6 people cannot be identified as always thin!
2. Current recommendations don’t work!
3. Even those mainstream recommendations that maybe seem to help don’t help very much.

And I would tend to characterize most of the six “secrets of the slim” as not secrets at all, but just things that are sometimes associated with the habits of people who successfully control weight, and not things that can fix it. Clearly, you can do all six “right” and not lose weight. Yes, overeating (oversized portions, eating out a lot) can make you fat, but it’s much more important what you eat and how you manage what you eat: control of portion size is realistically about controlling hunger and satiety and not about counting calories.

The reported survey benefits of lower fat, higher fruits, vegetables, and whole grains probably just correlate with respondents who are generally attempting to pursue healthful habits, a population who are more likely to exercise self control at earlier signs of a weight problem anyway. Also, the statistics presented do not make a very convincing case that these particular food choices are significantly beneficial; only about half of each survey group practiced any particular allegedly beneficial choice anyway. Hard evidence of benefits of such dietary recommendations are actually thin to non-existent. Exercise is good for overall health, but it's a poor strategy for weight control. Being completely sedentary is correlated with obesity, but it is not a cause. If anything, it’s the other way around: obesity causes people to lead a sedentary lifestyle.

And indeed, one could make a similar argument about causation with respect to the whole survey: always-thin people tend to eat less and exercise more because their body condition makes them so inclined. They are sated with less food and find exercise easier and more enjoyable. Trying to emulate the effect (eating less and exercising more) to achieve the cause (weighing less) doesn't work very well! The authors’ conclusion that all you need to do to be a successful loser is to “quite literally, live like a thin person” gets cause and effect backwards.