The header pic is of my son Ben. I took this on our visit to Seattle this year and it is still maybe my favorite picture I've ever taken. Seeing my son looking out at the ocean stirs up huge emotions in me. I dropped out of college (the University of Arkansas where I had a track scholarship) and explored the world with a backpack for a decade. This picture brings back those emotions and many more.
GZ honored me with his company today and drove up to my hood for a workout. We warmed up to a 2.5 mile long climb up to 9200ft altitude. Then ran 3:00 up hard on 2:00 down very easy recovery... repeat to the top. I biked somewhat hard/ long this morning and my legs felt pretty heavy, I think if G hadn't shown up I would have bagged the workout. He got a look at the Powerline Climb and one of my jeep roads behind my house. It was nice to have his company, he's one of the good ones.
I weigh 139 pounds now (I'm 5'10"). Not sure if I have been at 139 since the 10th grade, seriously. I weighed 155 when I raced my best at Ironman and 175 when I graduated from High School. A few months ago I was down right at 140 and changed my diet to hold on to some weight, it was too far out from Evans to be that low. As of late I've been pretty much strict Paleo with almost zero processed carbohydrate. Lots of meat, vegetables and fruit. Pretty awesome to see how the body responds to such a diet. My energy levels are through the roof, my recovery is better and I need less sleep. My wife has followed suit and lost 7 pounds in 10 days and has stopped having blood sugar lows. Nothing new here, just good to be reminded how a machine performs when you give it proper fuel. I think most Americans are putting dirty diesel in their gas engines.
5 comments:
Cave-master: Wish I could find the e-mail response you sent me way back when I told you I was having success going caveman. It was along the lines of "...can't imagine it working, you'd need to eat like 100 apples a day in order to fuel your system if you cut out the more traditional, albeit wholesome, carbs..." Glad you experimented with it and are finding success, it is great validation. Would be interested in hearing about how you are addressing pre/during/post workout feuling needs....assume you are not eating beef jerky on the 5 hour rides.
Great stuff on the paleo (although I am struggling as to where IPA fits in there).
Tim - the honor today was mine. But your ass looked fat in those short shorts.
Olive oil smooth for you on the climbs today ... Let's do that Powerline soon.
Carter- When I first tried the Paleo diet I was training up to 40 hours a week (averaging ~30 hours) and I believed that as much raw CHO (pasta, grains) as possible was the only way I could fuel myself for that volume. I never really committed. Now I look at food not so much as raw calories but as nutrients and just enough fuel. Food has a purpose and once you dial in your diet to serve a specific purpose then it works very well, whether that be to comfort you (and gain 50 pounds) or to simply fuel training. Not all calories are created equal. 100 calories of broccoli is worth 10 times as much as a fuel as 100 calories of white bread.
Pre-workout- Nothing. Coffee to wake up and then green tea.
During- On my bike today I drank 100g of CHO in Carbo Pro, pure maltodextrin.
Post workout- Whey protein and an apple. This was before my run because I wanted to keep an empty stomach. Anaerobic effort at 9000ft on a full stomach doesn't work.
Post run though was vegetable juice and dinner was grilled pork chop and mixed frozen vegetables.
Not a lot of calories for sure, but where I am now with my diet and the way my body is working... it's enough for me to come back tomorrow and exercise.
On the 5 hour rides I am definitely much more free on CHO. My favorite is vanilla Powerbars (I think I had my first one back in 1989) and they still work for me. I ate 4 of them in the first 2:00 at the Leadville 100 run. During training all bets are off, you eat as much as your stomach can handle. The Carbo pro mixed with powdered Gatorade though is still the #1. A 150# athlete should be able to drink up to ~75g of CHO per hour with that mix.
Timing is important too. A huge piece of chocolate cake immediately after a 3:00 run is probably not going to hurt you. Or a can of Coke as I have said to you before. Think simple sugars for liver glycogen replacement first, then shift to complex CHO and protein.
GZ- The IPA is EPO for the soul.
I've lost 15-20 pounds in the last 3-4 months on a very different diet. I think it had more to do with a metabolism change from just running everyday. My body also responds better to speedwork than long runs. I'm sure I would drop some good pounds on a strict MAF diet, but it's hard intervals/reps that get me lean.
Being back at an ideal weight I can train well w/o any pre-run fuel as well. As long as I fuel during the run I'm fine. Even during the quality runs I seem to need little fuel at all to get through. But, the long run is a different story. If I don't eat/drink right the day before I'm toast.
"The IPA is EPO for the soul" i may have to a tatoo of that....
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