In Nov 2008 in honor of my birthday, my wife and I bought a Garmin 305 during the infamous $180 Costco on-line sale. My first run with it was 11/29/08, 6.02 miles at 7:10 am. 39:37/6:35 pace. So today marks the end of my 3rd year running with this thing, and I absolutely love it. I've rarely missed using it during the 3 years. It has helped me go appropriate paces for races, track workouts, long runs, recovery runs, lactate threshold workouts, marathon pace runs, and all those runs that you don't really put a label on - just runs. I wore it today for an easy 6.03 miles at 7:25 am. 41:02/6:49 pace.
A week after purchase, I wore it at CIM, where I was pacing two buddies. We all learned a lesson from looking at "average pace" on a race course, instead of looking at elapsed time and dividing by the "real" distance we'd covered on the road according to the mile markers. Our Garmins all showed a faster pace than the course was telling us with just a handful of miles to go. Luckily we all ran strong to the finish and my pacees both achieved their sub-3 time goal, a first for both of them.
If I click on the root level in the Garmin Training Center on my PC, it shows the following "since inception" totals:
6958.16 miles
781:24:38
6:44 per mile
Awhile back I went thorugh and cleaned out all my wife's runs & walks, as well as hikes & walks we did together, since they had hurt the average pace a bit. So 6:44s seems about right, looking through my week-by-week average paces. 7:15 is a super slow pace that I rarely do, and most of my easy runs during those years have been in the 6:55-7:00 range. 6:30-6:40 tends to be an honest but gentle tempo, while 6:25 and better requires more effort.
My fastest week was 6:19/mi in Aug 2009, a 26 mile week that included 17+ miles of Hood To Coast legs.
My slowest week was 7:55/mi in June 2009, 30.5 mile week that included an 8 mile trail run from Seaside toward Cannon Beach & back (at 11:28 pace). It was a hilly & technical trail, but I still believe the 305 undermeasured the distance that day.
My longest hours in a week was 10:07:14, a 90-mile week in Oct. 2011 at 6:45/mi. That was also my biggest mileage week. My lowest mileage week was, well, 0.0, and there are several weeks that tie for that honor.
There were a number of weeks where I averaged about 6:30, often when they included a race like a half marathon to bring the pace down. But my longest/fastest non-race week combo was in late-July 2011, covering 67.0 in 7:14 for a 6:29 pace. The week included a 10-mile tempo at 5:58s and a 21-mile long run at 6:30s, and several 5-8 milers around 6:30. I remember thinking after that week, "That was a bit quick; I need to do my recovery runs slower if I'm going to survive this training cycle." I'm amazed what a difference slowing from 6:30 to 6:45 means for my recovery.
Because of a big mileage increase in 2011, the 2319.39 per year average is not spread at all equally over the 3. Calendar 2009 was 2098, and Calendar 2010 was just 1632. Last week, I passed 3000 for Calendar 2011, and may be heading to 3300 or so, which will be my biggest calendar year ever by over 600 miles (previous best 2646 back in 1990).
It's hard to believe I've run for over 781 hours wearing this thing. Amazingly, the battery seems to be lasting just as long as the day I got it. Truly an amazing device.
Bill at Boston 1997 - mile 24
Mike & Bill Aronson, CIM 2007
Monday, November 28, 2011
Friday, November 25, 2011
If the furnace is hot enough, will it burn anything?
I once heard this great quote attributed to a great marathoner, Bill Rodgers. When asked about diet and nutrition, he said something like: No, he and his training partners didn't pay much attention to what they ate, they just ate about everything in sight. Because "if the furnace is hot enough, it will burn anything." Be that as it may, I've come to think the past couple years that diet does matter. If you're like Bill Rodgers (or me), yes your body's high-metabolic furnace may burn everything you ingest, resulting in zero weight gain and presumably fuel for your activities. But how does the quality of those foods affect your performance? How does it affect your energy? How does it affect your digestion? Well, here's my story:
Growing up, it’s fair to say I knew very little about nutrition. Our family shopped at the typical grocery stores, think Safeway or Albertson’s. White bread, wheat bread, margarine, canned goods, soups, meats, boxes of cereal, gallons of milk, sugar, vegetables (fresh and frozen), soda, juice boxes, crackers, peanut butter, jam/jelly, etc, etc. Just normal foods, the same things everyone else I knew ate. I was completely unaware of terms like “health food”, “co-op”, “organically grown”, “GMO”, “Omega-6”, “Omega 3”, etc. Price was a concern. We shopped for value. Back then, 25-35 years ago, I remember maybe $100 or less feeding a family of 6 for a couple weeks. I just thought cheaper meant better value. I felt fine, and there was no indication that these mass-produced, highly-processed, non-locally sourced and generally low-quality foods were adversely affecting my health.
I ate the same way through high school, college, and for most of the years leading up to present day. I was greatly influenced by a book called “Diet for a New America” toward the end of college and decided to become a vegan. Looking back, I was probably a fairly unhealthy vegan, however, just continuing my cheap food eating habits for many years, despite occasionally shopping at a co-op or other health food stores. Most of that food was simply out of my price range, I didn’t understand the difference, and it wasn’t a priority. I was thin, had a high activity level, and a pretty high energy level. I cycled, backpacked, camped, and mostly, ran. And ran. I loved training and competition. Track, roads, cross-country. Long distance, short distance, it all appealed to me at some point. And I was pretty fast. Not national-class, not world-class, but still fast. It was fun and fulfilling to do well in XC & track, local road races, competing in my age group, etc, which I did throughout middle school, high school, college, and beyond. So why change anything with my diet?
Fast forward many, many years. Time does go by. In my late 20s, after 15+ years of mostly pain free running, the injuries began, so age may have finally started catching up. I figured it’s all normal, par for the course. There were various problems are various times, ranging in intensity from “That was a weird pain, glad it went away halfway through the run” to “This hurts so much I’m going to cut this run short. And not run tomorrow. Or maybe not even for the next few months.” Achilles, IT band, fronts of knees, backs of knees, plantar, shins, hamstrings, shoulder/neck, calves, soleus, groin, psoas, and others. A lot of the usual suspects runners are unfortunately all too familiar with. Learn to live with it, right? My best years are behind me, make the most of what I have, I told myself. Can’t handle high-mileage like I ran in college, so I’ll keep it lower and run quality. Food is just fuel. What I fuel myself with might affect my energy and endurance, but it couldn’t possibly affect these structural issues. That was how I thought. Until the last couple years.
The most chronic and non-healing problem hampering my running was an inflamed and increasingly sore left achilles. I had a large bump on the back of my left heel, which got progressively worse from ’96-’98 as I trained and raced a lot, including 10 marathons during an 18 month stretch from April ’97 until Oct ’98 as I continually chased 2:3x and came close but never achieved it (it turned out I wouldn’t run another marathon until Jan ’06). I saw a physiatrist and several podiatrists for it, receiving diagnoses ranging from bursitis to tendonitis to Haglund’s bump (this is the one that stuck). We tried cortisone injections, time off, heel lifts, alternate activities, acupuncture, magnets, physical therapy, at-home strengthening routines, all the stuff you’d expect from sports injury pros. But none of these folks asked about my diet. Clearly, we all thought, this was just an overuse injury, a structural problem caused by too high volume, poor biomechanics, bad genetics, or all of the above. But is that the whole story?
I finally opted for surgery on it in Dec ’04, a relatively easy procedure (but I’m still glad I opted for the general, not local, anesthetic!) where the podiatrist made an incision, moved the achilles tendon out of the way, and shaved down the large bump underneath, removing the extra bone which was causing friction against the tendon. Say what you want about Kaiser (and believe me, I often do!), but they get a big thumbs up from me for how smoothly, and ultimately effectively, this surgery went. During ~6 weeks, I went from being horizontal, to crutches, to the walking boot, then an aircast, then finally back to putting weight on it. Cycled a bit, then started jogging again in April ’05. Very slowly. And then spent a lot more time on the bike in ’05 than on putting one foot in front of the other.
So what does all this talk of injuries have to do with diet? I’m getting to that, but want to first review what all’s happened since the surgery.
I cycled most of 2005 while recovering, not knowing if running would ever be my thing again. It was great to complete some centuries with friends, even did the Seattle to Portland 1-day ride fairly strong (ate lots of brownies, sandwiches, GU, and thanks to my friend Joe, electrolyte tablets. Ummm, electrolyte tablets). But the itch to run again was there. After all, why had I had that surgery if it didn’t mean a re-attempt at running? How could I resist the possibility of “living the cliché” and defying the odds, After-School-Special style, since my podiatrist had said, “Sure, you’ll probably be able to run again. But you have to be realistic. Marathons will probably be out of the question.” So I did a few races, some base training, worked up to “marathon training” and ran Carlsbad in Jan ’06, finishing in 2:54 after a first half of 84:something, washing down a couple vicodin at 2nd half aid stations to keep the achilles pain at bay (they don’t recommend that, by the way, but it worked. I also took them during HTC. No, I did not have a problem =) ). Clearly I blew up but, as usual, it could have been worse. Having qualified, I signed up for Boston ’06 (yes, this was before every damn anal runner in the country wanted to sign up for Boston in the Fall instead of waiting a few more months).
Then I ran a 5k a couple weeks later, in February. Way too hard, cold weather, something didn’t feel right a couple miles in. Finished and hobbled through a cool down. This wasn’t normal post-race sore. This was “Crap, I must have just pulled or broken something. Really bad.” Was painful moving my foot from the gas to the brake on the drive home. As far as anyone could tell, it was my ischial tuberosity insertion. Not a fracture, but a hot spot avulsion where the tendon meets the bone (I drank that radioactive stuff for them to see that on a bone scan). I used a crutch to get around, as putting weight on that side was excruciating. I concluded I just shouldn’t run for speed anymore. And no more racing flats. I was too fragile for that, I thought. I told myself that too many years of cycling and commuting had taken the spring out of my step, that I should only attempt longer/slower races. Looking back, I wish I’d known what I do now about core strengthening and diet. I did jog Boston that year in a PW (1:41+1:52=3:33), after barely any training and just as the injury was beginning to allow normal running (8 weeks after onset). That was the right side.
I then proceeded to do the exact same thing to the left side in Jan ’07 while racing a half marathon in trainers (note: not a speed race and not wearing flats, so there goes that theory). Very cold temps in the 20s, ran extra hard, major overstride, tight hamstrings, and “snap” with a few miles left (although I can’t pinpoint the exact point it happened, something didn’t feel right somewhere after mile 9). Finished with my best time in many years (76:32), but was unable to train for many weeks after. More crutch time, more time off, more cycling, bailed on Boston ’07 (which I’d entered prior to this occurrence), changed our plane tickets and went to the Yucatan peninsula (at least seeing the ruins was certainly more interesting for my wife than watching all those folks struggling down Boylston St.).
Recovery was about the same from that, and I was able to run a lot of the ’07 ‘season’. But in winter ’08 I laid my bike down cornering on an icy morning and tweaked my right knee. Good job, I was 3 for 3 now on acute winter injuries keeping me from training. Recovery was slow, but therapy on it helped (thanks Dr. Foland!). By Sept that year I was pretty well injury-free. I ran CIM ’07 and ‘08, then Boston ’09, then Newport ’09 because I had a bad day at Boston (2:56). I was thrilled to run < 2:50 at Newport (2:49:30), the first time I’d broken 2:50 since Oct ’98 and only 5 minutes behind my time from Oct ’98. Not bad for 11 years later, I thought. I’d been telling myself that was probably about my limit at my age, injury history, and # of years training/competing (27 at that point). But later that year and even moreso in Spring 2010, that thinking started to change.
At my wife’s insistence, we began eating “cleaner”. At first, I only bothered when it was meals together, and tried to support her on her own health improvement quest, figuring I could still eat whatever cheap food I wanted at other times (and did). The main change in our diets was adding some organic foods – produce, dairy, pasta, oats, and others. I also learned a bit about Omega 3’s (we need more) vs. Omega 6’s (we need less). Interesting, I thought, as I continued buying huge bottles of GMO canola oil (I now assume something’s GMO unless it explicitly says it’s not), thinking ‘I can afford this, it tastes fine, and after all, it’s never adversely affected my health’. We also slightly reduced our sugar intake, but not too drastically. I always told people, “I do fine with sugar; it really doesn’t affect me like it does some other people”. I still wasn’t sold that there could be any link between my nutrition, my training/racing abilities, and structural injuries.
I can credit guys like Tim Knox, Scott Schmittel, Dan Sheil, and others who touted the benefits of running long and doing it consistently toward successful distance racing, especially marathons. While training with them most Saturdays in early 2010, I was inspired to sign up for Eugene, and aimed to go for sub-2:50 (6:30s) again. More training… well, maybe even 2:46 (6:20s). More training… more strategizing… by race day, I was confident to start in the 6:10-6:15 range, and finished in 2:44:16 (6:16s) after having been on 2:42 pace through 21. They said hey, that’s great on 50-60 mpw, but think what you could do with higher mileage. I said my body can’t handle higher mileage.
Throughout 2010, our shopping shifted toward even cleaner eating, more organics, better fats, quality dairy, even some raw dairy and cheeses. I didn’t really feel any different, just poorer. But then at some point I thought ‘Why not go ALL IN with this and see what happens?’ After all, I was starting my 40th year on this earth (turned 39 in Nov. 2010). At some point, I can’t remember exactly when, I cut sugar. Anything with added sugar of any kind on the label was out (and if you read the labels, believe me, it's EVERYWHERE). One of the few things most diets agree on is limiting sugar. No one touts its health benefits (I don’t believe there are any). Although never a particular sugar addict, in my lifetime I’d certainly eaten my share of donuts, pie, bear claws, ice cream, cake, candy bars, brownies, milkshakes, skittles, hot chocolate with whipped cream, soda pop, and of course all the foods with added sugar (the list is endless) that you wouldn't consider sweets. This never concerned me because, remember, I’d rationalized that sugar doesn’t really affect me like it does others. But how would I really know unless I had a sugar-free period of life to use as comparison? Exactly.
Then I cut back on low-quality starches, wheat, flour, and gluten. I was extremely skeptical about this, but began eating rice pasta and some gluten-free breads. I ate less pizza (and I love pizza!). I ate nuts & seeds, including nuts soaked and dehydrated (reduces enzyme inhibitors) rather than roasted or just raw. I ate more salads & spinach (those Spring-Mix-in-the-large-plastic-container folks must be gazillionaires), avocados, and sprouted corn tortillas. Long-grain brown rice, cooked for 2+ hours in water & coconut milk. Lots of bananas. Whole milk plan yogurt. Kefir. Fermented salad dressings. Cultured butter. No more margarines. Lots of items with short ingredient lists. Hemp seed butter. Pumpkin seeds. Half & half. Rice milk. I even bought fresh veggies, cut them up and consumed lightly steamed (overcoming my inertia to prep veggies may well have been the biggest barrier to healthy eating I had to tackle).
At some point I added meats. For years I loved to quote Robbins: “I believe the healthiest diet is a plant-based diet.” I ate fish & dairy & eggs, but told people I probably shouldn’t and that veganism was likely ‘where it’s at’. It’s funny how things that unduly influence you in your youth can carry forward much further than warranted. More recent info I’d gathered from reading or talking with folks, be it Paleo, Atkins, the Weston A. Price folks, local nutritionists, running books or blogs, or my running cronies, suggested otherwise. My naturopath, who herself had once been on the quest for a sub-3:oo, told me that when the most active athletes amongst her clientele insist on no meats, she has to reluctantly delve into the conversation: “Well, how do you feel about protein powders?” I told her I’d started eating turkey & chicken (of course well-raised, naturally, no hormones/antibiotics, from good sources) and she said, “Good. Because you know what? If you want to build muscle, you’ve got to eat muscle.” And so it went. Turkey sausage patties with my eggs for breakfast post run (I believe it’s very important to refuel soon after workouts), chicken in my salads, ground buffalo on occasion. Some others.
A couple months went by, and I started feeling stronger. Was it in my head? I really don’t think so. My weight hadn’t changed, and I was (am) still rail-thin, but I had a sense of my lean muscle becoming tougher, more resilient, less marsh-mallowy. Looking back, I think for all those years on cheap foods and inadequate proteins (many say it’s not gram-per-gram that matters, but the types of proteins you ingest as an athlete), I had evolved into a skinny marshmallow. Thin and fast, but also weak & fragile, injury-prone, not strong like I deserved to be given my activity level. Too much soy had possibly affected my thyroid; I was always cold. I still get cold, but not in the same way. I believe that excessive sugar, processed foods, white flour, soy, and all the rest of it had really poisoned me, piling on an unnecessary disadvantage every time I stepped out the door or onto a starting line. And I didn’t even know it, because I’d always felt “pretty good”.
I added supplements, various at different times. Fish oil. Cod liver oil. Vitamin D3. Creatine (frowned on by my ND, so I stopped, which looking back I think is a good thing). L-Glutamine (I highly recommend this for muscle recovery). B-Complex vitamins. Protein powder made from whey or brown rice. Cacao nibs. Maca powder. Other superfoods. A chinese granules ‘energy mixture’ hot tea from my ND. Green tea. No coffee. I reduced NSAIDS (aka Vitamin I), which, at times, I’d taken 400-800 mg of 2-3x per day just to deal with the pain & inflammation of training. And then eventually I stopped NSAIDS altogether, taking zero for many months even during the highest mileage marathon training weeks. I just wasn’t as inflamed and sore as I’d been during hard training in the past. Not having to take ibuprofen at all was truly unexpected, but happily accepted. I’ll bet my liver thanks me.
During calendar 2011, I gradually increased from 40 mpw, then to 50, then 60, then 70. Sure, my groin hurt here and there. My hips got tight, probably in turn stretching the IT band and causing occasional knee pain. I had hamstring tightness, calf issues, soleus cramps, of course my achilles heel (literally, mind you), and various other aches and pains. But they were just that – aches and pains – not some of my “holy-crap-it’s-getting-worse-the-further-I-go” full-blown-injuries like in the past. Distance running can be a very rewarding – yet equally painful – sport. But it felt different this time (not that there wasn’t pain). I could feel my body getting stronger, and thought of the trite old saying ‘pain is weakness leaving the body’ envisioning these issues were on my way to becoming stronger, not on the way to ceasing to function and involuntary layoffs. And so it went, at 65-70 for a long while, then into the 80s, and finally topping at 90 during my CIM training cycle (including 97.5) in a Sun thru Sat ‘week’ (which, by the way, is NOT a running week; my only acceptable running week is Mon thru Sun, as it has been for some 30 years). Workouts went well, long runs went well, even recovery runs went well. Even on those especially difficult recovery days when I wondered ‘If I can run 6:30s for 24 why on earth is it so hard to trudge 7:15s now for 8?’ Well, that’s why it’s called recovery, so I didn’t worry.
I got fewer blisters & painful calluses. The on-again, off-again zits on the inside of my nose cleared up completely, no topical meds required this time. My muscles recovered quickly from hard runs, and I could go faster day-in-and-day-out until what used to be nearly a tempo was just a no-big-whoop-aerobic pace. My overstride, while still there, wasn’t as bad. Core work I’d added helped me run using my body, not just my legs. Some Mondays on 5-6 mile recovery runs, I wore Vibram 5 Fingers, forcing better & more upright form. I overdressed less often in cold weather. The stomach discomfort, gas, and bathroom stops I’d taken for granted became less common as I ate less bread & pasta & wheat & gluten. I think my tendons, ligaments, even bones became stronger, more resilient. My body felt more balanced.
I started racing in flats again, after swearing them off years ago because my body was too fragile and injury prone. I felt like I was really racing the entire distances, not the old red-line-after-2-miles-then-hang-on-the-rest-of-the-way-for-a-10k approach I’d taken in recent years. I even toed the line at 5k’s, a distance I had sworn off a number of years ago because I simply was no longer ‘fast enough.’ I still can’t believe I’ve actually enjoyed racing 5k’s considering the acute injury I experienced in Feb ’06 during one.
So what does all this amount to? I’ll still never be a super-star. For folks like me, running is by-and-large a personal challenge. So far, I’ve seen recent improvements of only about 82 secs for a 10k (35:45/34:23) and 85 secs for a half (76:32/75:07). But I hope those translate to improving on my 2:40:45 marathon PR (Boston ’97 when I was 25) in one or both of the upcoming marathons I’ve entered, now at age 40 (CIM ‘11 & Houston ‘12). But aside from being able to train and race better, I’ve been more alert, more focused and productive at work (well, maybe not on those days when I’d run for 2 hrs in the AM =) ). I have more energy overall, and feel more balanced. I want to live a long, healthy, active, and productive life. I’d much rather die of old age than some avoidable lifestyle disease.
Everyone has an opinion on diet. They want to sell their books and programs – on weight loss, performance gain, building muscle, optimal energy, blah, blah, blah. Different things work for different people. Studies ‘prove’ all types of theories, but also don’t really. I don’t know if where I’m at right now is optimal, and will continue to try different things. I’m not perfect, and still eat things I love (pizza, hole-in-the-wall burritos, beans in general) and deal with the consequences, if any (they vary). I drink too much beer sometimes. Sugar really doesn’t appeal to me, thankfully, at all anymore (although I did like donuts). I consider it a poison to my body. But I can say with certainty that where I’m at is an improvement over 2 years ago. I’m not anti-grain ala Paleo, anti-carb ala Atkins, anti-meat ala that vegan triathlete guy, or anti-animal products ala Robbins. Certainly not anti-fat. It’s not so much the fat, but rather high sugar and high starch diets that have made our country obese and unhealthy; most folks would actually be much healthier on no sugar, healthy fats, vegetables, and whole grains. But I am anti-processed, anti-GMO, anti-pesticides, anti-hormone, anti-antibiotics, and generally anti-dirty-food. Clean & simple foods are best for us. When I walk into Safeway now, it feels very toxic. When I walk into New Seasons, it doesn’t. I believe the most of the readily-available and lowest cost food choices in this country are unhealthy, that our government has failed us to protect the food supply, and that the poisonous & toxic foods readily available only contribute to the rising health care costs and rampant avoidable diseases afflicting millions of Americans. For God’s sake, if you’re in the hospital with cancer, they serve you meals straight off the Sysco truck, the very foods which may have contributed fully or partially to your condition in the first place. Most MDs consider diet very little in treating their patients. It’s funny that common sense medicine & treatments are labeled “alternative”. Yeah, unfortunately they’re an alternative to head-in-the-sand in many cases.
So, sorry Bill Rodgers. I’m sold. Diet does matter. No question. I just took me nearly 40 years to realize it.
Thanks for reading. Comments welcome.
Growing up, it’s fair to say I knew very little about nutrition. Our family shopped at the typical grocery stores, think Safeway or Albertson’s. White bread, wheat bread, margarine, canned goods, soups, meats, boxes of cereal, gallons of milk, sugar, vegetables (fresh and frozen), soda, juice boxes, crackers, peanut butter, jam/jelly, etc, etc. Just normal foods, the same things everyone else I knew ate. I was completely unaware of terms like “health food”, “co-op”, “organically grown”, “GMO”, “Omega-6”, “Omega 3”, etc. Price was a concern. We shopped for value. Back then, 25-35 years ago, I remember maybe $100 or less feeding a family of 6 for a couple weeks. I just thought cheaper meant better value. I felt fine, and there was no indication that these mass-produced, highly-processed, non-locally sourced and generally low-quality foods were adversely affecting my health.
I ate the same way through high school, college, and for most of the years leading up to present day. I was greatly influenced by a book called “Diet for a New America” toward the end of college and decided to become a vegan. Looking back, I was probably a fairly unhealthy vegan, however, just continuing my cheap food eating habits for many years, despite occasionally shopping at a co-op or other health food stores. Most of that food was simply out of my price range, I didn’t understand the difference, and it wasn’t a priority. I was thin, had a high activity level, and a pretty high energy level. I cycled, backpacked, camped, and mostly, ran. And ran. I loved training and competition. Track, roads, cross-country. Long distance, short distance, it all appealed to me at some point. And I was pretty fast. Not national-class, not world-class, but still fast. It was fun and fulfilling to do well in XC & track, local road races, competing in my age group, etc, which I did throughout middle school, high school, college, and beyond. So why change anything with my diet?
Fast forward many, many years. Time does go by. In my late 20s, after 15+ years of mostly pain free running, the injuries began, so age may have finally started catching up. I figured it’s all normal, par for the course. There were various problems are various times, ranging in intensity from “That was a weird pain, glad it went away halfway through the run” to “This hurts so much I’m going to cut this run short. And not run tomorrow. Or maybe not even for the next few months.” Achilles, IT band, fronts of knees, backs of knees, plantar, shins, hamstrings, shoulder/neck, calves, soleus, groin, psoas, and others. A lot of the usual suspects runners are unfortunately all too familiar with. Learn to live with it, right? My best years are behind me, make the most of what I have, I told myself. Can’t handle high-mileage like I ran in college, so I’ll keep it lower and run quality. Food is just fuel. What I fuel myself with might affect my energy and endurance, but it couldn’t possibly affect these structural issues. That was how I thought. Until the last couple years.
The most chronic and non-healing problem hampering my running was an inflamed and increasingly sore left achilles. I had a large bump on the back of my left heel, which got progressively worse from ’96-’98 as I trained and raced a lot, including 10 marathons during an 18 month stretch from April ’97 until Oct ’98 as I continually chased 2:3x and came close but never achieved it (it turned out I wouldn’t run another marathon until Jan ’06). I saw a physiatrist and several podiatrists for it, receiving diagnoses ranging from bursitis to tendonitis to Haglund’s bump (this is the one that stuck). We tried cortisone injections, time off, heel lifts, alternate activities, acupuncture, magnets, physical therapy, at-home strengthening routines, all the stuff you’d expect from sports injury pros. But none of these folks asked about my diet. Clearly, we all thought, this was just an overuse injury, a structural problem caused by too high volume, poor biomechanics, bad genetics, or all of the above. But is that the whole story?
I finally opted for surgery on it in Dec ’04, a relatively easy procedure (but I’m still glad I opted for the general, not local, anesthetic!) where the podiatrist made an incision, moved the achilles tendon out of the way, and shaved down the large bump underneath, removing the extra bone which was causing friction against the tendon. Say what you want about Kaiser (and believe me, I often do!), but they get a big thumbs up from me for how smoothly, and ultimately effectively, this surgery went. During ~6 weeks, I went from being horizontal, to crutches, to the walking boot, then an aircast, then finally back to putting weight on it. Cycled a bit, then started jogging again in April ’05. Very slowly. And then spent a lot more time on the bike in ’05 than on putting one foot in front of the other.
So what does all this talk of injuries have to do with diet? I’m getting to that, but want to first review what all’s happened since the surgery.
I cycled most of 2005 while recovering, not knowing if running would ever be my thing again. It was great to complete some centuries with friends, even did the Seattle to Portland 1-day ride fairly strong (ate lots of brownies, sandwiches, GU, and thanks to my friend Joe, electrolyte tablets. Ummm, electrolyte tablets). But the itch to run again was there. After all, why had I had that surgery if it didn’t mean a re-attempt at running? How could I resist the possibility of “living the cliché” and defying the odds, After-School-Special style, since my podiatrist had said, “Sure, you’ll probably be able to run again. But you have to be realistic. Marathons will probably be out of the question.” So I did a few races, some base training, worked up to “marathon training” and ran Carlsbad in Jan ’06, finishing in 2:54 after a first half of 84:something, washing down a couple vicodin at 2nd half aid stations to keep the achilles pain at bay (they don’t recommend that, by the way, but it worked. I also took them during HTC. No, I did not have a problem =) ). Clearly I blew up but, as usual, it could have been worse. Having qualified, I signed up for Boston ’06 (yes, this was before every damn anal runner in the country wanted to sign up for Boston in the Fall instead of waiting a few more months).
Then I ran a 5k a couple weeks later, in February. Way too hard, cold weather, something didn’t feel right a couple miles in. Finished and hobbled through a cool down. This wasn’t normal post-race sore. This was “Crap, I must have just pulled or broken something. Really bad.” Was painful moving my foot from the gas to the brake on the drive home. As far as anyone could tell, it was my ischial tuberosity insertion. Not a fracture, but a hot spot avulsion where the tendon meets the bone (I drank that radioactive stuff for them to see that on a bone scan). I used a crutch to get around, as putting weight on that side was excruciating. I concluded I just shouldn’t run for speed anymore. And no more racing flats. I was too fragile for that, I thought. I told myself that too many years of cycling and commuting had taken the spring out of my step, that I should only attempt longer/slower races. Looking back, I wish I’d known what I do now about core strengthening and diet. I did jog Boston that year in a PW (1:41+1:52=3:33), after barely any training and just as the injury was beginning to allow normal running (8 weeks after onset). That was the right side.
I then proceeded to do the exact same thing to the left side in Jan ’07 while racing a half marathon in trainers (note: not a speed race and not wearing flats, so there goes that theory). Very cold temps in the 20s, ran extra hard, major overstride, tight hamstrings, and “snap” with a few miles left (although I can’t pinpoint the exact point it happened, something didn’t feel right somewhere after mile 9). Finished with my best time in many years (76:32), but was unable to train for many weeks after. More crutch time, more time off, more cycling, bailed on Boston ’07 (which I’d entered prior to this occurrence), changed our plane tickets and went to the Yucatan peninsula (at least seeing the ruins was certainly more interesting for my wife than watching all those folks struggling down Boylston St.).
Recovery was about the same from that, and I was able to run a lot of the ’07 ‘season’. But in winter ’08 I laid my bike down cornering on an icy morning and tweaked my right knee. Good job, I was 3 for 3 now on acute winter injuries keeping me from training. Recovery was slow, but therapy on it helped (thanks Dr. Foland!). By Sept that year I was pretty well injury-free. I ran CIM ’07 and ‘08, then Boston ’09, then Newport ’09 because I had a bad day at Boston (2:56). I was thrilled to run < 2:50 at Newport (2:49:30), the first time I’d broken 2:50 since Oct ’98 and only 5 minutes behind my time from Oct ’98. Not bad for 11 years later, I thought. I’d been telling myself that was probably about my limit at my age, injury history, and # of years training/competing (27 at that point). But later that year and even moreso in Spring 2010, that thinking started to change.
At my wife’s insistence, we began eating “cleaner”. At first, I only bothered when it was meals together, and tried to support her on her own health improvement quest, figuring I could still eat whatever cheap food I wanted at other times (and did). The main change in our diets was adding some organic foods – produce, dairy, pasta, oats, and others. I also learned a bit about Omega 3’s (we need more) vs. Omega 6’s (we need less). Interesting, I thought, as I continued buying huge bottles of GMO canola oil (I now assume something’s GMO unless it explicitly says it’s not), thinking ‘I can afford this, it tastes fine, and after all, it’s never adversely affected my health’. We also slightly reduced our sugar intake, but not too drastically. I always told people, “I do fine with sugar; it really doesn’t affect me like it does some other people”. I still wasn’t sold that there could be any link between my nutrition, my training/racing abilities, and structural injuries.
I can credit guys like Tim Knox, Scott Schmittel, Dan Sheil, and others who touted the benefits of running long and doing it consistently toward successful distance racing, especially marathons. While training with them most Saturdays in early 2010, I was inspired to sign up for Eugene, and aimed to go for sub-2:50 (6:30s) again. More training… well, maybe even 2:46 (6:20s). More training… more strategizing… by race day, I was confident to start in the 6:10-6:15 range, and finished in 2:44:16 (6:16s) after having been on 2:42 pace through 21. They said hey, that’s great on 50-60 mpw, but think what you could do with higher mileage. I said my body can’t handle higher mileage.
Throughout 2010, our shopping shifted toward even cleaner eating, more organics, better fats, quality dairy, even some raw dairy and cheeses. I didn’t really feel any different, just poorer. But then at some point I thought ‘Why not go ALL IN with this and see what happens?’ After all, I was starting my 40th year on this earth (turned 39 in Nov. 2010). At some point, I can’t remember exactly when, I cut sugar. Anything with added sugar of any kind on the label was out (and if you read the labels, believe me, it's EVERYWHERE). One of the few things most diets agree on is limiting sugar. No one touts its health benefits (I don’t believe there are any). Although never a particular sugar addict, in my lifetime I’d certainly eaten my share of donuts, pie, bear claws, ice cream, cake, candy bars, brownies, milkshakes, skittles, hot chocolate with whipped cream, soda pop, and of course all the foods with added sugar (the list is endless) that you wouldn't consider sweets. This never concerned me because, remember, I’d rationalized that sugar doesn’t really affect me like it does others. But how would I really know unless I had a sugar-free period of life to use as comparison? Exactly.
Then I cut back on low-quality starches, wheat, flour, and gluten. I was extremely skeptical about this, but began eating rice pasta and some gluten-free breads. I ate less pizza (and I love pizza!). I ate nuts & seeds, including nuts soaked and dehydrated (reduces enzyme inhibitors) rather than roasted or just raw. I ate more salads & spinach (those Spring-Mix-in-the-large-plastic-container folks must be gazillionaires), avocados, and sprouted corn tortillas. Long-grain brown rice, cooked for 2+ hours in water & coconut milk. Lots of bananas. Whole milk plan yogurt. Kefir. Fermented salad dressings. Cultured butter. No more margarines. Lots of items with short ingredient lists. Hemp seed butter. Pumpkin seeds. Half & half. Rice milk. I even bought fresh veggies, cut them up and consumed lightly steamed (overcoming my inertia to prep veggies may well have been the biggest barrier to healthy eating I had to tackle).
At some point I added meats. For years I loved to quote Robbins: “I believe the healthiest diet is a plant-based diet.” I ate fish & dairy & eggs, but told people I probably shouldn’t and that veganism was likely ‘where it’s at’. It’s funny how things that unduly influence you in your youth can carry forward much further than warranted. More recent info I’d gathered from reading or talking with folks, be it Paleo, Atkins, the Weston A. Price folks, local nutritionists, running books or blogs, or my running cronies, suggested otherwise. My naturopath, who herself had once been on the quest for a sub-3:oo, told me that when the most active athletes amongst her clientele insist on no meats, she has to reluctantly delve into the conversation: “Well, how do you feel about protein powders?” I told her I’d started eating turkey & chicken (of course well-raised, naturally, no hormones/antibiotics, from good sources) and she said, “Good. Because you know what? If you want to build muscle, you’ve got to eat muscle.” And so it went. Turkey sausage patties with my eggs for breakfast post run (I believe it’s very important to refuel soon after workouts), chicken in my salads, ground buffalo on occasion. Some others.
A couple months went by, and I started feeling stronger. Was it in my head? I really don’t think so. My weight hadn’t changed, and I was (am) still rail-thin, but I had a sense of my lean muscle becoming tougher, more resilient, less marsh-mallowy. Looking back, I think for all those years on cheap foods and inadequate proteins (many say it’s not gram-per-gram that matters, but the types of proteins you ingest as an athlete), I had evolved into a skinny marshmallow. Thin and fast, but also weak & fragile, injury-prone, not strong like I deserved to be given my activity level. Too much soy had possibly affected my thyroid; I was always cold. I still get cold, but not in the same way. I believe that excessive sugar, processed foods, white flour, soy, and all the rest of it had really poisoned me, piling on an unnecessary disadvantage every time I stepped out the door or onto a starting line. And I didn’t even know it, because I’d always felt “pretty good”.
I added supplements, various at different times. Fish oil. Cod liver oil. Vitamin D3. Creatine (frowned on by my ND, so I stopped, which looking back I think is a good thing). L-Glutamine (I highly recommend this for muscle recovery). B-Complex vitamins. Protein powder made from whey or brown rice. Cacao nibs. Maca powder. Other superfoods. A chinese granules ‘energy mixture’ hot tea from my ND. Green tea. No coffee. I reduced NSAIDS (aka Vitamin I), which, at times, I’d taken 400-800 mg of 2-3x per day just to deal with the pain & inflammation of training. And then eventually I stopped NSAIDS altogether, taking zero for many months even during the highest mileage marathon training weeks. I just wasn’t as inflamed and sore as I’d been during hard training in the past. Not having to take ibuprofen at all was truly unexpected, but happily accepted. I’ll bet my liver thanks me.
During calendar 2011, I gradually increased from 40 mpw, then to 50, then 60, then 70. Sure, my groin hurt here and there. My hips got tight, probably in turn stretching the IT band and causing occasional knee pain. I had hamstring tightness, calf issues, soleus cramps, of course my achilles heel (literally, mind you), and various other aches and pains. But they were just that – aches and pains – not some of my “holy-crap-it’s-getting-worse-the-further-I-go” full-blown-injuries like in the past. Distance running can be a very rewarding – yet equally painful – sport. But it felt different this time (not that there wasn’t pain). I could feel my body getting stronger, and thought of the trite old saying ‘pain is weakness leaving the body’ envisioning these issues were on my way to becoming stronger, not on the way to ceasing to function and involuntary layoffs. And so it went, at 65-70 for a long while, then into the 80s, and finally topping at 90 during my CIM training cycle (including 97.5) in a Sun thru Sat ‘week’ (which, by the way, is NOT a running week; my only acceptable running week is Mon thru Sun, as it has been for some 30 years). Workouts went well, long runs went well, even recovery runs went well. Even on those especially difficult recovery days when I wondered ‘If I can run 6:30s for 24 why on earth is it so hard to trudge 7:15s now for 8?’ Well, that’s why it’s called recovery, so I didn’t worry.
I got fewer blisters & painful calluses. The on-again, off-again zits on the inside of my nose cleared up completely, no topical meds required this time. My muscles recovered quickly from hard runs, and I could go faster day-in-and-day-out until what used to be nearly a tempo was just a no-big-whoop-aerobic pace. My overstride, while still there, wasn’t as bad. Core work I’d added helped me run using my body, not just my legs. Some Mondays on 5-6 mile recovery runs, I wore Vibram 5 Fingers, forcing better & more upright form. I overdressed less often in cold weather. The stomach discomfort, gas, and bathroom stops I’d taken for granted became less common as I ate less bread & pasta & wheat & gluten. I think my tendons, ligaments, even bones became stronger, more resilient. My body felt more balanced.
I started racing in flats again, after swearing them off years ago because my body was too fragile and injury prone. I felt like I was really racing the entire distances, not the old red-line-after-2-miles-then-hang-on-the-rest-of-the-way-for-a-10k approach I’d taken in recent years. I even toed the line at 5k’s, a distance I had sworn off a number of years ago because I simply was no longer ‘fast enough.’ I still can’t believe I’ve actually enjoyed racing 5k’s considering the acute injury I experienced in Feb ’06 during one.
So what does all this amount to? I’ll still never be a super-star. For folks like me, running is by-and-large a personal challenge. So far, I’ve seen recent improvements of only about 82 secs for a 10k (35:45/34:23) and 85 secs for a half (76:32/75:07). But I hope those translate to improving on my 2:40:45 marathon PR (Boston ’97 when I was 25) in one or both of the upcoming marathons I’ve entered, now at age 40 (CIM ‘11 & Houston ‘12). But aside from being able to train and race better, I’ve been more alert, more focused and productive at work (well, maybe not on those days when I’d run for 2 hrs in the AM =) ). I have more energy overall, and feel more balanced. I want to live a long, healthy, active, and productive life. I’d much rather die of old age than some avoidable lifestyle disease.
Everyone has an opinion on diet. They want to sell their books and programs – on weight loss, performance gain, building muscle, optimal energy, blah, blah, blah. Different things work for different people. Studies ‘prove’ all types of theories, but also don’t really. I don’t know if where I’m at right now is optimal, and will continue to try different things. I’m not perfect, and still eat things I love (pizza, hole-in-the-wall burritos, beans in general) and deal with the consequences, if any (they vary). I drink too much beer sometimes. Sugar really doesn’t appeal to me, thankfully, at all anymore (although I did like donuts). I consider it a poison to my body. But I can say with certainty that where I’m at is an improvement over 2 years ago. I’m not anti-grain ala Paleo, anti-carb ala Atkins, anti-meat ala that vegan triathlete guy, or anti-animal products ala Robbins. Certainly not anti-fat. It’s not so much the fat, but rather high sugar and high starch diets that have made our country obese and unhealthy; most folks would actually be much healthier on no sugar, healthy fats, vegetables, and whole grains. But I am anti-processed, anti-GMO, anti-pesticides, anti-hormone, anti-antibiotics, and generally anti-dirty-food. Clean & simple foods are best for us. When I walk into Safeway now, it feels very toxic. When I walk into New Seasons, it doesn’t. I believe the most of the readily-available and lowest cost food choices in this country are unhealthy, that our government has failed us to protect the food supply, and that the poisonous & toxic foods readily available only contribute to the rising health care costs and rampant avoidable diseases afflicting millions of Americans. For God’s sake, if you’re in the hospital with cancer, they serve you meals straight off the Sysco truck, the very foods which may have contributed fully or partially to your condition in the first place. Most MDs consider diet very little in treating their patients. It’s funny that common sense medicine & treatments are labeled “alternative”. Yeah, unfortunately they’re an alternative to head-in-the-sand in many cases.
So, sorry Bill Rodgers. I’m sold. Diet does matter. No question. I just took me nearly 40 years to realize it.
Thanks for reading. Comments welcome.
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