TWW Feed for Friday, May 10, 2013: the hardest race in America, performance enhancement through electricity, and Mt. Hood by bike.

May 10th, 2013 | by jm0 Comments

 

boulder-ridge-lines

The Feed

The hardest race in America: Outside has a great story and interview up with the founders of the Barkley Marathons, a 100 mile race in the mountains of Tennessee that requires racers to be completely self supported, traverse over 60,000 vertical feet and finish in under 60 hours. The race started in 1986. To date, only 14 people have finished. By comparison, 12 people have walked on the moon. Which makes the Barkley Marathons a slightly easier endeavor than traveling through space to the Earth’s nearest celestial body, taking a small landing module down to the surface, walking around some, and then returning to Earth via a slingshot effect utilizing the moon’s gravitational pull. The interview with the founders of the race is both entertaining and a nice little look into the sadism that is required to create something like Barkley. My favorite quote from the piece, from Gary “Laz” Cantrell, one of the founders: “We play “Taps” on the bugle for each loser as they come in. It’s the final indignity: In the middle of the night people can come up to see who’s bit the dirt. People really hate to have taps played for them, but they all seem to want you to enthusiastically play it for the others.” Sounds like a bucket list race right? Right.

Performance enhancement through evolutionary override: The Sweat Science author, Alex Hutchinson, has a great piece up in The Globe and Mail looking at some new studies that used electricity to essentially trick athlete’s brains into overriding fatigue. Essentially, physical fatigue results from both physiological and psychological causes. Studies have show that immediately before an athlete reaches their perceived exhaustion threshold, signals in the brain increase, specifically in the regions that control movement and receive signals from the body. Which indicates that exhaustion, and the desire to stop doing something strenuous seems to be an evolutionary adaptation; we don’t want our bodies to keep going to the point of a complete shutdown. So, naturally, scientists are looking at ways to override this handy little mechanism, by essentially using electrical impulses to stop the signals in the brain that occur when the body is near exhaustion. Hutchinson points out that these electrical overrides have the same effect on the athlete’s performance as doping. The sport of cycling: eliminating evolutionary limits for the pursuit of athletic glory.

Mt. Hood, by bike: Men’s Journal has a cool trip idea for the Mt. Hood wilderness outside of Portland, OR which involves a mountain bike, some hut visits, and lots of great singletrack and wilderness exploring. When you are done make sure to explore Hood River a bit, maybe check out some kite surfing, and definitely eat at Double Mountain.

The USA Pro Cycling Challenge Route: We are pretty late  on this, but the USA Pro Cycling Challenge route has been released and features a couple of new stages including a 21.6 mile per lap circuit in the Aspen/Snowmass area and the combination of Independence Pass and Hoosier Pass in a single stage. The event is sadly skipping Colorado Springs and Boulder, but as usual with finish in downtown Denver. Perhaps this year’s race will see the advent of electrical stimulation helmets.

Riding your bike on the road should terrify you: The Adventure Journal has a post up (with a handy graph) talking about the results from a recent British study that seems to demonstrate that more than 20 percent of cyclists are not seen by drivers. Which is relatively terrifying. The results may have a large margin of error (only 100 drivers were studied), but if true presents a much scarier proposition when deciding to take your bike out for a spin. I recommend more bright colored lycra.

 

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TWW Feed for Friday, April 19 2013: running the dark is not making you faster, a dumb beer study, and ski patrol liability

April 19th, 2013 | by jm0 Comments

cheyenne-canyon-april-2013

The Feed

Altitude, in any form, is going to hurt: Come summer, when the hoardes of tourists descend on Colorado and our trails fill with visitors out enjoying the mountains, we often hear of people complaining about how the altitude is “making them slower.” An honest assessment. Our city sits at about 6,000 feet above sea level, making it an ideal site for the gains that high altitude training can provide. But the complaints of visitors begs the question: how much altitude is required to really have an effect on performance? It turns out, not much. Sweat Science has a nice piece up looking at how just a little bit of altitude can reduce performance. Good news for you couch potatoes though; it seems that the effects are most acutely felt in trained athletes.

You aren’t really running faster in the dark: Our eyes are amazing things, but they have some real limitations when it comes to seeing in the dark. Especially when running. It turns out that running in the dark makes it hard for our eyes to properly process the objects around us, which makes us feel like we are running faster, and working harder.

Your backcountry rescue is causing a legal mess: The rise of the popularity of backcountry accessible terrain is causing a corresponding rise in backcountry rescues, putting ski patrol members at risk of injury. The Denver Post has a nice piece up looking at the liability issues that arise when ski patrollers, who are paid by the resorts, leave resort boundaries to rescue skiers and snowboarders who are accessing backcountry terrain through resort access gates. The problem arises if a patroller injuries himself or herself while attempting the rescue: who pays? Some resorts consider off-resort rescues to be outside the patroller’s scope of employment, meaning that the patroller would not be covered by the resort’s workers compensation insurance. Other resorts are using a hybrid model; with off-resort patrollers being covered by the town or county’s search and rescue insurance. The issue is a pressing one, as resorts are not required to patrol backcountry terrain but are loathe to let people remain injured and stranded in order to avoid liability issues. So remember, help protect your ski patrollers and don’t be an idiot in the backcountry.

The taste of beer portends bad things: Both Outside Online and CBS News are touting a study out of the Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology that indicates that just simply tasting beer, even non-alcoholic beer, might lead to making you want more beer:

…the taste of beer leads the brain to release a hormone called dopamine, which controls the reward and pleasure centers of the brain. Dopamine has been linked to drinking and other drug abuse.

 The results of the study would be shocking if the study subjects had never tasted beer before and upon trying their first ship experienced a corresponding increase in dopamine levels. But check out who the study used to test their theory:

Forty-nine men who were about 25-years-old were scanned with positive electron tomography (PET) when they tasted beer and when they tasted Gatorade. None of the men had significant drug or

tobacco use history, and they all said they liked beer over other alcoholic drinks.

So the researchers took a group of 25 year old men, who indicated they liked beer, and found that when the men tasted beer their dopamine levels increased. And the researchers’ immediate conclusion from this study?: We believe this is the first experiment in humans to show that the taste of an alcoholic drink alone, without any intoxicating effect from the alcohol, can elicit this dopamine activity in the brain’s reward centers. Of course this is the result! What you discovered was that 25 year old men who like beer tend to want to drink more beer. Which is surprising to exactly no one that has ever been to college, or high school. This is like saying that a study that exposed 25 year old men, who like women, to pictures of women created a hormonal response. Thanks for letting the world know that beer drinking may lead to…more beer drinking.

 

 

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TWW Nutrition Feed for April 15th, 2013: recipe of the week, your fat is trying to kill you and why energy bars are bad.

April 15th, 2013 | by jm0 Comments

This weekend I hiked/ran Pikes Peak. A twenty mile effort that can take anywhere from five to seven hours. In the past my Peak assaults usually involved a lot of water and a lot of energy bars/energy shots (the gel-like supplements such as Clif Shots or Hammer Gel). By then end of the run my legs would be tired, my stomach would be a mess and my teeth would actually hurt. I usually spent the rest of the day starving and obliterating the caloric benefit of the run by consuming as much food as possible. The nagging voice in the far back corner of my brain was telling me something was wrong. Lent was the answer. In years past I’ve used Lent as a catalyst for giving up something that I felt was a bad habit: candy, soda, cell phones (Lenten fail), random hooking up (Lenten fail) and this year: processed sugar. Which meant dumping the energy bars and gels and adding in fruit, nuts and various other options that involved less sugar and more “real” food. Which brings me back to Saturday. My food options for the run consisted of Bobo Bars, craisins, and a new energy product from a company called EnduroBites. I felt great all day, my stomach held together and I didn’t spend the rest of the night slamming down any calorie I could get a hold of. I would like to think that my experience Saturday was better because I’m in better shape. But I’m betting it was because my diet no longer consisted of 2000 grams of sugar.

Incline above the clouds.

The Feed 

Your fat has a brain, and it wants more food: Outside Online has a great article up looking at how obesity throws your body completely off its normal rhythms, and results in a cycle that encourages further weight gain the heavier you get. But that is not why you should read the piece. You should read the piece because it looks at how combating weight gain by the standard diet/exercise approach can be dangerous, and even cause further health problems. Bottom line: as you age, try not to gain weight. But if you do, talk to a nutrition or health expert before trying to slim down.

Workout supplement or substitute meth: The F.D.A. has issued a warning regarding a stimulant found in popular workout products. Which will shock you if you think that 1) workout products are always nutritionally sound and 2) the guy next to you at the gym who looks like a well defined meth head is just really, really, into his workout. The F.D.A. warns that the stimulant, dimethylamylamine (or DMAA) can raise blood pressure which may lead to heart attacks. The stimulant is found in products such as Jack3d and OxyElite Pro. And if you are reading this and are actually concerned about your Jack3d nutritional product, I think you are on the wrong website.

Think carefully about that energy bar: When I was in grad school I was a huge fan of energy bars. Clif Bars and Balance Bars were a staple of my diet. Looking back, it made sense. The bars were convenient, relatively cheap calories, and I was cycling almost twenty miles every day commuting to school and back. I didn’t bother to look at the labels much. After all, the packaging screams “organic” and “low-fat”. And I was in my twenties. Why worry? It turns out that when you stop cycling everyday, and you cross the year thirty threshold, strange things happen to your body. Such as an increasing inability to consume whatever food you want. And an increased desire not to feel like crap all day. So I started looking at the labels on my favorite energy bars. And then I stopped purchasing my favorite energy bars. I might as well have been cramming Snickers and Kit-Kats into my body. Who wants to chew fiber and protein bars when you can have Snickers? As of February I’ve been off the bars, but bars are still convenient, so whats the answer? Do your research, try new things and pay attention to the sugar content.

Recipe of the week: My go to meal during the week when we are running around like crazy and want something fast, and healthy, is Heidi Swanson’s take on a veggie burger. Imagine patties made out of grilled garbanzo beans, cut open and stuffed with fresh avocado slices, sprouts and cheese.  My suggestion is to double the recipe and make a lot of the patties. They are great as leftovers during the week. I’m also starting to use them on longer runs/hikes.

Something new: We are trying something new at TWW. We are going to try and “theme” the TWW Feeds going forward. Less of a hodgepodge of stuff and more focused posts. Mondays focus on nutrition/food, Wednesday on fitness/exercise and Fridays will be the mixed bag of tricks.

Posted in Daily Feed

TWW Feed for Friday, April 4th, 2013: Laird’s Laws, McDonald’s is bad for you (so is Paleo) and shaming restaurant no-shows.

April 5th, 2013 | by jm0 Comments

Jonathan Davis is a pro mountain biker based in a small mountain town west of Denver, Colorado. His most recent victory, at the 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo in Arizona, gave Outside Magazine an excuse to take a look at the state of 24-Hour mountain bike races and whether such events are on the decline. That is not why you should read the article. Read the article because of Jonathan Davis, a man who was so unhealthy that he was diagnosed as pre-diabetic in his mid-thirties. He used mountain biking to regain his health (and became an elite level racer in the process). But the most interesting part of Davis’s story is not the mountain biking, or his renewed health, it is his focus on a philosophy that we tend to lose focus on during the day to day grind of kids, spouses, work and life:

“I fear quitting. I’m afraid that if I quit at something like a bike race that I chose to do, then I will teach myself that quitting is okay and that will bleed over into my marriage, my health, and the things that are really important.”

We should all fear quitting.

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The Feed

No-show Shaming: Portland Food and Drink has a great post up talking about a restaurant in L.A. that has begun publicly shaming people that make reservations and then don’t show up or cancel. It looks like the restaurant is using the power of Twitter to thank folks like Colin Rolfs for “no-showing btwn 730p-930p”.

McDonald’s Makes Your Kids Fat: In case you were not aware, most fast food restaurants, and a lot of regular speed food restaurants, don’t meet certain health criteria for children. Which is shocking if 1) you think that Applebee’s is a viable option for healthy eating and 2) the children’s grilled cheese and fries meal or the kids happy meal is a better substitute than, I don’t know, anything else that doesn’t involve fries. According to the findings published by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, 91 percent of restaurants fail to meet the National Restaurant Association’s Kids LiveWell program. Which, I’m assuming, was a program instituted to provide positive PR for McDonald’s and Burger King. My favorite finding from the study: the Applebee’s grilled cheese for kids meal – 1,210 calories, almost half from fat. All of this begs the question; is it really the fault of the restaurants, or the parents who think that a 1,200 calorie gut bomb is part of a healthy diet.

The Paleo Diet is Not Good for Athletes: The premise of the Paleo Diet is simple: our ancestors did not have processed grains, bleached flour, Applebees or bottled protein shakes, and they were healthier for it. We, as modern (mostly obese) people, should mimic their diet in order to regain our health. Which sounds great until you realize that their diet consisted of fruits, vegetables, nuts and the random sabertooth tiger kill they managed to take down. For most people a diet consisting of almost nothing but fruit and assorted nuts would probably result in abject boredom along with weight loss. For people that like to run, bike or pursue any activity that doesn’t involve chasing down wild animals with spears, the Paleo Diet is a horrible idea. The lack of carbohydrates results in underfueling and lack of recovery, which can lead to fatigue and injury. So if Paleo is your method of losing weight, but you like to workout, to be afraid to modify it a bit. There is nothing wrong with a bagel alongside the sabertooth tiger steak.

You Should Listen to Laird Hamilton: Because he is older, incredibly fit and married to a volleyball player/super model. If your paradigm for life involves maintaining fitness and a hot wife, you can’t do better than following Laird’s path. Which makes his random “life advice” columns in Men’s Journal good reads. His latest, about why you should always get up before the sun, is both an affirmation of getting the most out of the day and a little science lesson on the physical benefits of getting up early (for instance, testosterone levels are higher in the morning, which means that morning sex is always a good idea). Get up before the sun, obtain a hot wife. Science.

Run Porn: Kilian Jornet has been in the news a lot recently. Which is great because he is one of those athletes that always seems to be having a great time. Check out the video for what I suppose is one of Kilian’s regular training runs. Which involves jumping over glacial waterfalls, running alongside a train and generally doing things much more fun than sitting in an office all day. (Video via GearJunkie).

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TWW Feed for Monday, March 25th 2013: Bike thieves like Strava, fast for fitness and how to become the greatest endurance athlete of our time

March 25th, 2013 | by jm0 Comments

In the last few days Lance Armstrong has risen from a self-imposed Twitter silence. The social media site was one of his biggest platforms, with Armstrong using it to blast messages out to people stricken with cancer, his fans, other athletes and, of course, his critics. Lance’s feed was usually a mix of workout reports, shout outs, pictures and links to articles and music that reflected someone hyper competitive/culturally aware/friendly/angry/defiant. It reflected Lance Armstrong at the peak of his fame and power. Now, the messages seem to be more subdued, more reflective of the position Armstrong finds himself. His messages lately are more centered on shout outs to fundraising events and to fellow cancer survivors and victims. Great, positive things that, for whatever you think about Lance, reflect a person who is deeply committed to doing good in this world. Which makes reading the replies to those messages a horrible, dis-spiriting look at humanity. For instance, Lance’s tweet to a radio host wishing her mother well was met with a barrage of “cheater” replies. His message regarding a Navy SEALS led fundraiser was replied to with: “isn’t it nice when people respect their craft.” Enough. This is an athlete, however flawed, that used his fortune and fame to establish a charity that does great things for people that need it most. Armstrong is far from perfect, but his platform still exists and he has used it for nothing but positive things. Twitter has a 140 character limit for each message. Try using those characters for something positive.

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The Feed

Strava: Good For Your Ego, Bad For Bike Retention: There is some evidence that the popular social media app/training calendar Strava is leading to increases in bike thefts. The Adventure Journal has a little piece up with details of the thefts and how you can prevent Strava from becoming a big glowing arrow over your high end piece of cycling machinery. Like any other piece of social media, the best policy is to limit what you share with the public. And remember, no one really likes looking at pictures of your kids.

Start Fasting, Get Ripped: Outside Online has a longish piece up featuring the eating and exercise theories of Martin Berkhan, a Swedish personal trainer that advocates fasting as a way to increase muscle building. Admittedly, “fast to build muscle” sounds pretty counter-intuitive, but the piece does a nice job of laying out some of the theories and supporting science behind the practice. Beware though, Berkhan essentially advocates reaching a point between hungry and starving on a daily basis. Hopefully the “fast to build” fad doesn’t go too far. A fitness craze that results in a bunch of ripped, bitchy hungry people stomping around the gym sounds terrible.

Kilian Stands Alone: The New York Times Magazine has a great piece up about the ultra-runner/ski mountaineer/alpine superstar Kilian Jornet. Profile pieces like this can be boring, but this particular piece is a great look at not only the athlete, but some of the exercise science behind what makes Kilian such an amazing athlete. As an extra bonus for the ladies the banner picture for the piece involves some extreme male nudity (NY Times style).

15 Ways to Get Fast: As athletes I think we tend to settle into routines and regimes, and ignore the benefits of mixing it up a bit. Bicycling.com has a nice slideshow up of fifteen different exercises/approaches that can shift up your training and make you faster. While geared towards cyclists, the ideas in the slideshow would also be beneficial to runners and other endurance types.

The Gym is Not Your Friend: At least, not if you want to get more out of your workouts and want to be happier. The NY Times Well blog has a post up reviewing a few studies looking at how exercising outside increases caloric burn (think air resistance, variable terrain) and increases hormone responses that lead to better moods. A good read if you are stuck in the gym rut during the longer winter.

 

 

 

Posted in Daily Feed

TWW Feed for Monday, March 18th 2013: Training tips from fast people, shoe rotating methodology, best bike commuting cities, and doping on Pikes Peak (now illegal)

March 18th, 2013 | by jm0 Comments

About six months ago I started to break down my year into quarters. It made sense for a number of reasons. At work, the quarter system is handy for tracking income and expenses on a more manageable time unit. Training wise, it has helped me block out the year more strategically. Quarters make much more sense when I’m setting goals up for myself, both professionally and athletically. Which brings us to Q1 of 2013: the Quarter of suck. The TWW Feed slumber has been a good indication. The last post was a solid two months ago (oops). Due to injury I haven’t run more than three miles in about two months (a direct correlation to the website activity) and the day job that pays the bills has decided to ramp up to constant stress level. Which, all in all, has made Q1 of 2013 a bit of a downer. I’m hoping that with warmer weather and longer days I start to bounce back a bit. Starting with the first TWW Feed of the Spring. Hope you enjoy.

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The Feed

Free Advice From Fast People: I generally enjoy reading about training ideas or methods that other people utilize in training. It is generally refreshing to hear that the horrible protein shake you start the day with is something the pros use too, or that hill repeats are a good idea, even when you aren’t a runner. So I was pretty excited when the NY Times Well blog put up its post on titled Training Insights from Star Athletes. Until I read it, and realized that the best advice for progressing in your sport is quitting your job, ending your educational pursuits, or, more generally, your life, and dedicating yourself fully to running, swimming or riding. Winning the lottery would help.

(Don’t) Get Your Dope On For the Peak This Year: Drug testing is coming to the Pikes Peak Ascent and Marathon this year in an effort to battle the rampant drug use that taints the race every yea….never mind, that’s the Tour de France. Organizers are citing increased participation by elite runners, higher prize amounts and the need to keep the country’s oldest marathon and hardest half marathon clean as the basis behind the new drug testing policy. The testing will adhere to the same format that USADA uses now, which means that it will essentially be worthless for detecting drugs in athletes who really know what they are doing when they dope, but invaluable for the “cracking down” PR that the USADA is sure to trumpet.

When to Replace Your Running Shoes: The NY Times has an interesting piece up looking at the different methods, and various studies, that have arisen around the timeless and pressing societal question: when should running shoes be replaced? I think the smell test is my favorite.

The Top Ten Bike Commuting Cities (a graph): I can’t find the methodology that the map maker used to come up with this thing, but the it seems the higher the density of the color green the more bike commuting occurs within that region of the city. My favorite part about the graph is how the density of commuters fills in around the contours of the city (check out New York City to see what I’m talking about).

Stair Racing Masters: A few weeks ago the NY Times had a great article on the stair racing scene: events based around climbing up a skyscraper as fast as possible. It is a cool look at one of the weirder endurance sport niches out there (there is even a series: The Vertical World Circuit). The article’s description of the Empire State Building Run Up was possibly the highlight. The race has a mass start, meaning all of the competitors start at the same time, which makes the first part of the race a desperate scramble to enter the stairwell first: “His shins are canting into a run, and with his left arm he’s pushing at the chest of a runner to that side of him. A split second later, his right arm juts up to block more runners.” It is a great read, especially if you are considering launching yourself up a contained space full of other runners going full bore with little in the way of ventilation or fresh air.

Best Urban Parks in the USA: A good, simple list that, like most lists, doesn’t use any sort of methodology or measurable data but just lists a bunch of parks and why they are awesome. I particularly like Adventure Journal’s list of 9 of America’s Best Urban Parks because it features lots of Colorado parks. A little add on: Garden of the Gods is great for climbing. It is phenomenal for road and trail running.

Posted in Daily Feed