Zen and the Barefoot Joggler

run at 6:26

2011-07-02T05:55:00.004-05:00

I still want to run a sub 20 minute 5K. That equates to a 6:26 or better pace. In the past my best 5K times were more around the 25 minute mark. So why should I be able to run a 20 minute 5K? I don't know. I just don't think that a 20 minute 5K is unreasonable. I have the speed in my legs, but I just don't have the ability to hold that speed yet for more than a couple minutes. So I'm taking more of a GTG approach to this. Lots of short intervals, keep my legs fresh. Building in lots of muscle memory of what it's like to run at that pace.

I ran just after the crack of dawn this morning. Wow. Hot, humid, and all before 6 AM. Definitely the type of day when it's best to run early before the sun gets a hold of things. I think the temp was near 80 and the dewpoint was in the low 70's.

Nice to have a slightly long weekend. Trying to recover from some house projects. Seems like lots of things breaking down with the house all at the same time. At least the roof still works.

Successful paleo baking

2011-06-26T05:55:00.001-05:00

I finally baked something I really like that is Paleo. Banana bread. From the following recipe -- http://robbwolf.com/2011/04/21/recipe-paleo-banana-bread/

I guess it helps to have a recipe.

2 thumbs up!

Saturday DOMS

2011-06-25T05:55:00.002-05:00

I'm sore this morning, but not from last Sunday's 10K, but from Thursday's speed intervals. It's a good kind of sore, though. I set a new PR on my Garmin for fastest pace. My speed has gotten a lot faster this year. I'm not sure how that will eventually translate into race times, but I suspect that it will. I just haven't had a race yet, where I've tried to really put this to the test.

What are the stumbling blocks I've found to living Paleo?

living in a non-Paleo household
the deceptively seductive power of sugar
a workplace full of non-Paleo treats
living in a non-Paleo culture
bad habits
laziness

Yet, despite all those things, I'm still doing a fairly good job of this. I just need to be aware of those things that are trying to knock me off the track.

New PR for 2011, part 2

2011-06-12T05:55:00.000-05:00

Over 9 miles today. Another new 2011 PR for distance. I still don't feel quite ready for a 1/2 marathon, but I'm definitely good for a 10K.

My current coffee combo is coffee, coconut oil, and heavy cream. The cream seems to bind to the coconut oil, so that it mixes evenly with the coffee, instead of floating on the top. Good combo. Lots of good fat and tasty.

random sneeze

2011-05-29T08:11:00.003-05:00

I had flour products a couple times this past week. Also, a couple mornings, I had allergy-like symptoms for a short time after waking. Co-incidence? I'm still curious to see what happens during the heart of hay-fever season later this summer and fall. I'm still expecting not much to come of allergy season this year.

I'm going to try some paleo banana bread later today. Hopefully, better than the scone experiments I tried last year. At least I have a decent recipe to go with this time.

My feet aren't quite in 10K shape right now. I could run one in minshoes, but that would take half the fun out of running it. I think I'll know tomorrow how 10K ready I really am. If I can do a 75 minute run, I should be good to go. I hope I remember to bring my metronome on the run.

I think there are 2 main things to remember when running barefoot. If you get these right, you are about 90% of the way there. Take off your shoes. Run with a high cadence -- at least 180 steps per minute (90 rpm if you are counting that way).

time for a cadence tuneup

2011-05-28T05:55:00.002-05:00

I had a couple twinges in my right knee during this morning's run. No big deal. I shortened my stride, and nothing came of it. Yet I think it's a sign that my cadence isn't quick enough. That, and the fact that my feet have been a little more sensitive lately. So for my next run, I'll bring my metronome and set it for at least 180, maybe as high as 200. In the past, this has always been a good way to get my cadence back up to speed.

If you haven't checked out Chris Kressor's latest podcast, here it is. This is a lot to chew on. The topic is about the food reward system and how that regulates our weight. There are some amazing bloggers posting on the topics of health and nutrition. Chris Kressor ranks up there with Robb Wolf, Dr Kurt Harris, Mark Sisson and others.

Are eyeglasses orthotics for the eyes? I'm starting to believe they are.

What's up with my eyes?

2011-05-22T05:55:00.001-05:00

I'm not really sure what's going on with my eyes. I think my distance vision might be getting better, but my up close vision might be getting worse, unless I'm not wearing my glasses. Without my glasses, I can see really well up close, as long as it's really close.

Despite the fact that myopia is probably a Disease of Civilization, I doubt that it is easily healed as an adult, especially one in his 40's. Yet, if I would guess, I would say that my myopia is less severe than it was 6 months ago. I'm finding now that I see better with an older pair of prescription glasses than with my newer glasses.

The end feels a lot like the middle

2011-05-21T05:55:00.000-05:00

It doesn't feel like the end, but what do I know. I don't communicate directly with God, so I'm sure other people are more of experts on this topic.

My Garmin speed records keep falling. I got down to a 4:18 pace last Sunday, and got down to about 4:30 Thursday. I think Sunday I will try doing 10 1 minute intervals where I get slightly under a 7 minute per mile pace. I did 4 or 5 intervals like this Thursday. This is my attempt to try to build up to a decent 5K speed. I don't know if this will work or not, but I figure the more fast running I do, the faster I will get.

It surprises me that so many barefoot runners continue to stick to the standard american diet. You would think that seeing that shoes are BS, that it would be easy enough to see that the traditional dietary advice is also BS. Yet, that's not the case.

Perfect human diet?

2011-05-14T05:55:00.001-05:00

I keep wondering if there will be a point where a critical mass is reached here. Maybe I'm just cheap, but I like the idea of preventing disease in the first place instead of taking a regimin of drugs in any attempt to simulate health.

The little guy is totally into Snap Circuits today. We recently read him a book on electricity. He was really into it, so we thought something concrete would be helpful, so that he could get some more hands-on experience playing with flowing electrons.

The unexpected power of power naps

2011-05-07T05:55:00.005-05:00

I was really dragging early this week. I had gotten up really early Sunday morning for a race, which left me really sleep deprived to start the week. I think if I was more rational, I would have just tried to go to bed early and catch up a little on sleep. However, instead I tried some power naps. I had read about them before -- a 20 minute nap that helps you perk up become functional again, but short enough so that you don't end up in one of those post-nap dazes that leaves you feeling worse than you were before the nap.

The result -- pretty good. Weds and Thurs evenings, I tried power naps, and I ended up feeling much better, more alert, and able to read without falling asleep. I'm pretty sure that I was still a little sleep deprived, but I think for the most part, this worked out okay.

I The Four Hour Body, Tim Ferriss talks a little bit about polyphasic sleep -- sleep split up into segments, the most extreme version being Uberman, which consists of 6 20 minute naps spread evenly throughout the day. If you think this sounds insane, it probably is because it is. Yet, there are forms of polyphasic sleep that seem a little less insane. I think the version that seems somewhat sane to me and possibly doable is a version of Everyman sleep, which consists of a 4.5 hour core sleep, and then 2 20 minute naps during the day. A total of 5 hours and 10 minutes, which actually doesn't seem to bad, but is still less than the traditional 8 hours that the Mother Culture says we all need.

What I don't understand about polyphasic sleep is how people try to adapt to it. I've read a number of accounts now, and it seems that pattern is the same. Jump right in. Go from regular sleeping, to a very extreme pattern of sleep, that is a huge change. And predictably, the result is nearly universal. Failure.

I don't know about polyphasic sleep, but I do think I'll keep playing around with power naps. Those 20 minutes make a world of difference.

The end of my seasonal allergies?

2011-04-30T05:55:00.000-05:00

Back in October I made the switch to being nearly Paleo (still some dairy and an occasional legume). Since that time, I've had no sign of allergies.

I can't remember when my allergies began. I think it was as a teenager. So, roughly, I've had seasonal allergies for the last 30 years. Some years were worse than others.

So where are they now? I'm not sure, and I don't care. They can say the hell away. My suspicion is that this is an inflammation thing. Low inflammation, little chance of allergies. But I think it could be a gut issue, too. My understanding is that gut permeability can lead to things where the immune system gets out of whack.

We had some sun yesterday. I had forgotten what that was like. Pretty nice.

Minimalist Running, but....

2011-04-24T07:54:00.003-05:00

I consider myself a minimalist runner. I wear as little foot protection as possible. Other than Winter, this means barefoot. And I try to go with as little clothing as possible. I don't like to get hot and sweaty. (I don't understand people who over-dress for running.) I don't bring food with me on runs, no water, no goos, no gels, no iPod.

However, I do bring my Garmin. I know this is a complete contradiction, but I like it anyway. Also, I bring a cell phone. I guess it's just in case. But that case has never happened.

Looks like today will be long sleeved teeshirt day, with another teeshirt under that, shorts, Garmin.

The cool thing about the Garmin is looking at the map after the run. I can see just how fast my sprints were, can see how slow I was going when I was going slow, follow the exact random, zig-zag pattern of my run. If I lived in CO or some other non-flat place, I could check out the elevation gained and lost.

GTG and the art of certification

2011-04-23T05:55:00.001-05:00

For the first time in many years, I'm studying for a Microsoft certification exam. It's been over 5 years since I passed my last exam, and it's amazing how dated that exam feels now. Thankfully, I feel like I'm building on skills and knowledge that I already have, so this exam might not be as tough as the last one was.

I'm trying to use a GTG (grease the groove) approach to my study. Lots of short study intervals, trying to avoid mental fatigue and burnout. Right now, I think I'm looking about about 2 months of moderately hard study to knock off this latest exam. And if everything goes well, there are 3 more exams to come during the rest of the year.

I know that certification isn't necessarily all that valuable, but I have found it helps me on a couple of levels. It forces me to study a topic hard and learn some things I wouldn't necessarily learn during the course of doing my job. And it builds a certain kind of confidence that helps with my job. Whether or not other people care about my certification, I find it to have some value.

And personally, I like studying for and passing tough exams. The effort is it's own reward.

There are 2 things I have now that should help a lot in my study efforts. Time and energy. The little guy is much more into entertaining himself, so there's the time. And with my migration towards more paleo-ish eating, I have much more energy.

The Texas climate change solution: God

2011-04-22T05:55:00.000-05:00

This feels like something from The Onion

The Texas climate change solution: God

How healthy is too healthy?

2011-04-16T05:55:00.000-05:00

I've been having a tough time with food lately. There are a lot of things that I used to eat that I don't really miss not having. But there are still some things that come up from day to day that I end up eating or think about eating, but end up not eating. On some level I think that eating anything that I know is going to make me sick is a bad idea. For example, yesterday someone gave us a yummy looking chocolate cream pie. But I know it contains a lot of sugar and grains. I could probably eat a piece or two and be okay, but I know that it will make me sick. Maybe just a little sick. Is the few minutes of yummy tastes sensations worth poisoning my body?

I never realized how sick I was in the past, but now that I'm getting healthier, I'm not sure I want to go back to sickness. And in some ways I also feel like I'm making up for lost time.

A pie may taste yummy, but feeling energetic, strong, and healthy as is a huge plus. For the moment, at least, I think I side with health.

I'm also curious about how healthy I can get. I don't think I'm anywhere near optimum health. I'm curious what that will feel like.

Sunday sprints

2011-04-10T05:55:00.002-05:00

My running is evolving in a slightly unexpected direction. 2 weeks ago, I through in a few sprints during the 2nd half of my run, and found that they used different muscles than my usual runs. Last week, I was having a crappy run, so I thought trying a few sprints might liven it up. And this week, I was running short on time, so I decided that I would concentrate mostly on sprinting.

So what happened to those long, slow, Sunday runs? I'm not sure, but they haven't been around for a few weeks, and maybe that's not such a bad thing.

And here's the kicker -- sprinting is fun! I may stick with this and see how it goes. I suspect that this kind of running will help my 5K times a lot more than long, slow runs.

Cold hands

2011-04-03T05:55:00.000-05:00

In addition to my daily cold showers, I'm washing my hands in cold water. The exception to this is when my hands are greasy. Cold water doesn't work nearly as well as warm water when it comes to grease. Even though it's only been a couple weeks, I think my hands are adapting to this. The water doesn't feel nearly as cold.

I'm planning to do some more sprinting during today's run. Nothing structured like Tabatas, but just a few sprints here and there after I've warmed up for a couple miles.

Barefoot running is dead

2011-04-02T05:55:00.004-05:00

Not quite, but there is no trend in that direction. However, on the other hand, minimalist running is trending up. I'm not saying this is good or bad, but just unexpected for some people, who thought that barefoot running was going to become trendier.

Now why is this? I don't think there is some vast shoe company conspiracy going on, but in effect, I think the shoe companies have done what they needed to do, and they have effectively turned any potential barefoot running trend into a "barefoot shoe" trend and a "minimalist shoe" trend.

Running shoes are big business. In it's purest form, barefoot running is a threat to that business. I think the easy way to see what happened is to look at various "barefoot running" sites on the web. What do you see? Shoes. Yes, shoes. There are 2 or 3 exceptions to this rule, but in general "barefoot runners" have become shoe sales men and women.

What's minimalist on a cold day like today?

2011-03-27T05:55:00.001-05:00

I probably could go out on today's run without shoes, but my feet would start out pretty cold, which isn't the worst thing in the world, but in terms of ground feel, it's not great, either. I think there's something practical about having warm feet in terms of being able to feel the ground in an effective way.

So today calls for compromise. I think I'll try a couple miles or so with Zems, and then swing by the house, ditch them, and run the rest barefoot. That should be enough time for me body core to warm up enough, so that my feet are also warm enough for some decent ground feel. I'm still not a big fan of the Zems, but they are perfect for a day like today. It just turned out they weren't great for Winter running. (mainly because of the snow, ice, and salt)

This morning's coffee experiment involves putting cream cheese in my coffee. Not as good as heavy cream, but better than I expected.

I tried a grain experiment yesterday -- actually ate some. Bad idea. Maybe if I had gone lighter it would have been okay. Moral of the story. Stay away from grains. For some reason, I need to occasionally remind myself of this by actually eating them. Hopefully, whatever gut damage I did yesterday will heal slowly.

Take a cold shower, dude!

2011-03-26T05:55:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Todd Becker, I've been experimenting with cold showers. I know, isn't barefoot joggling crazy enough? But after a little Googling, I've found a lot of good reasons why cold showers are worth a little discomfort. And this fits in very well with my philosophy of doing things that cost nothing.

For the last week, I've been starting my shower at the usual warm temp, then gradually turning the temp down during the last half of my shower. I'm trying to get as low as I can. Today, I decided to do something really stupid, though. I filled a cup with the cold water at the end of the shower, so I could measure afterwards what temp I had actually reached. Did I get down to 50? 60? Not even close -- 75! I was shocked. I really thought that I was at least down to the low to mid 60's if not lower.

But taking my usual incrementalist approach, I'm going to keep plugging away at this. I expect that my ability to go colder will improve in the weeks to come.

Why do this?

Well here are some of the benefits of cold showers:

improved circulation
improved mood
strengthens immunity
relieve aches and pains
lowered inflammation

New PR for 2011

2011-03-20T05:55:00.003-05:00

I set a new PR this morning -- longest barefoot run on a Sunday morning, wearing a sweatshirt in a year ending in 1. 1 hour and 3 minutes. My feet are doing okay. A little tender, but that's to be expected, given the lack of barefoot time since last December, and the fact that the roads are sidewalks are littered with post-Winter gravel (sharp pieces of road that break off during the Winter months).

I made some coconut bread yesterday. Not great if you are thinking of it like regular bread, but not bad eaten warm with butter and honey. Kind of like corn bread in terms of taste and consistency.

Paleo cold virus

2011-03-19T05:55:00.002-05:00

I came down with my first cold since giving up grains several months ago. I blame it on a few factors -- social induced grain consumption, sleep deprivation, and a slightly tiring run last Sunday. But here's the cool thing. This cold is way low on the cold scale. From a scale of 1 to 10, it's mostly been hovering around a 0.5, with a couple points where it climbed to about a 1.5. I figure my overall inflammation level is still pretty low, so the cold virus is having a hard time doing much in the way of bothering me.

Last Sunday was my longest barefoot run of the year -- about 43 minutes or so. Despite the lingering paleo cold, I think I will try to stretch that out to at least an hour tomorrow. Somehow, an hour on Sunday seems like the minimal time I should be out for a run. It just feels better when I get to an hour or longer. Despite the post-winter gravel all over the place, my feet are doing pretty well.

Later.

For your enjoyment:

time suck

2011-03-13T05:55:00.002-05:00

eBay is definitely a time suck. I think I will mostly lay off it today. I have an idea now of how much I should pay for a laptop, but it may take a little patience to get the right deal. No rush.

I think I'll try for doing the 2nd half of my run today barefoot. It's going to be cold starting out, but I think once I'm warmed up, going barefoot for the 2nd half of the run will work out. Then later in the week looks to be much warmer. It's taken awhile, but I think Spring is getting here.

After looking at Google, I see that "barefoot running" not a growing trend in terms of internet searches. I think there are multiple reasons for this, but in most ways it's a relief. I don't really want to be part of something that is overly trendy.

FYI

2011-03-12T05:55:00.003-06:00

Don't ever give me access to you eBay account. I'm a little reckless when it comes to bidding on things. Thankfully, there is an excellent chance that none of my bids will win. In the future, I will watch before bidding.

It's been 2 weeks now that I started implementing the end of procrastination plan. So far, so good. It's a little scary how productive I've become. I think the key element is sorting the to-do list so that the difficult/hard things happen first. It's amazing what a difference that makes. It builds up an instant reward system and is very satisfying.

The Paleo Curse

2011-03-05T05:55:00.003-06:00

If you've ever read Thinner, you know the story. Guy accidentally kills gypsy, gets cursed by gypsy, starts losing weight, can't stop losing weight.

Well, I've been cursed by Paleo. I wasn't really looking to lose weight in the first place, but I wasn't sad about my shrinking gut initially. However, I'm at a point now, where I don't want to lose any more weight, but I'm not sure my body is done shedding pounds.

It's easy to list all the benefits I've experienced since going nearly Paleo -- happy stomach, shrinking gut, lower resting pulse rate, better energy, stronger, much better mood. But the one downside is the fear that I'm now doomed to excessive thinness. Despite my attempts, I don't think my body lends itself to building big muscles. I get stronger, but not really bigger.

Oh well, nothing's perfect.

By the way, barefoot running season began March 1st this year. So far, so good. Still a little on the cold side for joggling. I'm not much of a gloved joggler, but it should be warming up soon enough.

End procrastination two days ago

2011-02-27T05:55:00.000-06:00

A couple days ago I was checking something out and came across something that mentioned a guy named Todd Becker. I found an interview with him on one of Jimmy Moore's podcasts, and also checked out his web site. I'm not sure why it took me so long to find his site. Maybe I've come across it before, or maybe not, but in any case, I won't forget about it now.

His blog concentrates on the topic of hormesis, which in simple terms is about good stress, and more specifically about how certain things that can be toxic at higher doses have a beneficial effect at much lower does.

He has posts about barefoot running, intermittent fasting, low carb, and cold showers just to name a few things. But if there is only one thing you read on his blog, it is this -- Stop procrastinating! Use the Premack principle. Procrastination is one of my issues, at least with certain things. But after reading this post and trying it out, it may be a thing of the past for me.

Minimalist Computing

2011-02-26T05:55:00.004-06:00

How's the running going? Okay, not great, but I'm getting in a run here and there. Enough to keep from falling out of running shape. As Winter melts away, I'll gradually run more and more. However, for the time being, I don't want to run more than 3 days per week. I think I'll take a more FIRST-like approach to running this year and try to squeeze more quality out of my runs, but less quantity.

How's the minimalist computing going? Pretty well. I'm not running Linux at home. From both my laptop and desktop, and I'm really liking it. I see that there are some obvious parallels between barefoot running and Linux. The fact that it's a small niche. That it lets you get a lot closer to the hardware. It's as cheap as you can get. It's lighter and faster. For the things I like to do on computers, Linux is a much better fit for me than Windows. But I will still be quite Windows based at work. There's no getting away from that.

Pushups continue to go well. I'm not sure how much progress I'm making at the moment. I might be at one of those phases when I'm consolidating my gains.

Springing

2011-02-13T05:55:00.000-06:00

Still above freezing, and already in the upper 30's this morning.

My pushup plan didn't go according to plan yesterday. My back was being a little fussy, but I still got in a bunch of pushups. There are times when I have to listen to my body and know when to back off a little, so I'm not going so far that I'm limiting what I can do the next day. I've found that on days when part of my body starts speaking up, I can back off a little and still do something at a more moderate pace and keep moving forward.

I just downloaded GVim. I used vi a very long time ago, but I've forgotten all the commands and how it generally works. It just seems like a good thing to know at least a little bit in terms of learning the world of Linux a little better. I'm still amazed at how well Linux is running off my jump drive.

Later.

High volume, low intensity

2011-02-12T05:55:00.001-06:00

I'm experimenting with a slightly different approach to my pushups. High volume, low intensity. I've read about other people having some success with this, so I thought it couldn't hurt to try it. Thursday, I ended up doing over 1,000 pushups. Before you think this sounds like an impressive number, let me qualify that. They were wall pushups. Even though a handful of wall pushups is very, very easy. When I did 1,000, I found them to get pretty challenging, and I definitely felt it the next day. Of course I didn't do them all at once. I broke them up into sets of 25 and 35, which worked out pretty well.

So today, I'm going to try for 500 -4 pushups, spread throughout the day. Hopefully in a couple weeks, I'll be able to see how this translates to regular pushups.

I don't know if you can tell, but I'm running Ubuntu Linux this morning. So far, so good.

On the weather front, our massive snow pack is about to start melting. A heat wave is beginning today, and temps are supposed to get up above freezing quite a bit for the next several days. Maybe I'll even be able to go back to feet for running, instead of aquasocks and Zems.

the diet that isn't a diet

2011-02-05T05:55:00.000-06:00

I've never really been the dieting type. However, since I've switched over to a more Paleo style of eating, my weight has been dropping. My gut isn't completely gone, but it's close. And I have more energy than ever before, have a healthy stomach, and am in a good mood. And am not hungry.

Not bad for an un-diet.

Pushups good, squats not so good

2011-02-04T05:55:00.002-06:00

I'm continuing with my pushup and squat plans. 3 days a week of +2 pushups, and 3 days a week of air squats. The pushups are going well, but the squats aren't so much. Maybe there's just a much bigger room for improvement with squats. I suspect my form still isn't all that great, and a lot of that comes from lack of hip flexibility.

I'll just keep plugging away.

Thanks for listening.

Slowing information

2011-01-30T05:55:00.005-06:00

"What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it."
--Herbert Simon

In 4HB, Tim Ferriss describes the slow carb diet, which is a pretty easy to follow Paleo-ish diet, but with legumes. I think overall it's a pretty good thing.

But I found something more important in 4HWW, that I think is even more important to health. He calls it the low information diet, and I've tried this at various points, calling it a media fast. But I wonder if it has to be a complete fast. What about a slow information diet. I think that even just slowing the flow of information can be very healthy.

For example, instead of being plugged into the instantaneous stream of news, how about monthly, or bi-weekly news consumption. I've found from experience that when I go on a news or media fast, it takes very little time to actually catch up on what happened while I wasn't paying attention. Not only can I catch up, I can also separate the important from the not-so-important.

But the one aspect of the media I struggle a lot with is sports. I'm still fairly plugged into the sports world. I wonder if it would be possible to take a slow information diet approach to my sports consumption.

So how can I change my approach to sports consumption?

Start slow. Don't try to do it all at once. Kind of like weaning myself from coffee. It doesn't have to be all at once or cold turkey.
Schedule times during the day when I catch up on sports. This would be much better than my current approach which is to just look up sports stories whenever the whim strikes. Kind of like constantly snacking throughout the day, instead of eating 3 distinct meals.
See if I can gradually increase the length of time between sports feedings. Eventually get down to 2 sports meals per day, then 1 per day.
After that, get down to sports every other day.
Ultimately, just consume sports once per week. Maybe an hour a week Sunday morning.

Why is a high information diet bad?

A huge time and attention drain.
Stressful. Try to tell me it's not.
Believe it or not, stress can lead to cortisol, which can lead to weight gain. A high information diet can actually help make you fat.

post streak workouts

2011-01-29T05:55:00.008-06:00

So what now?

Even though the streak is over, I've still been doing pushups every day, just not keeping track of them. A few here and there.

I'm looking to build overall strength, especially core strength. Ultimately, I think this will make me a much better runner and joggler.

As of now, my main pushup days will be M, W, F, and my main squat days will be Tu, Th, and Sa. Somewhere I'll get pullups in there, too.

In case you missed it, around 37 minutes into his weekly podcast, Robb Wolf takes on the issue of Paleo and sustainability. Very interesting. I think Daniel Quinn would approve.

I've been experimenting with pushups during the day. I managed to do 4 +3 pushups, which are as tough as I've gone pushup-wise. I'm not even sure that +4 pushups are even feasible, but I will try that later.

Based on what I've seen, I'm going to try the 100 Pushup Challenge plan with +2 pushups starting Monday and see how that goes. The cool thing about tougher pushups is that they definitely make regular pushups seem a lot easier.

Update: I tried some +4 pushups and was able to do 5 of those, which surprised me. These are definitely getting much more vertical, which is good in terms of working towards handstand pushups.

Update2: I decided to do Week 2, Day 3 of the 200 Squat program, even though I missed days 1 and 2 of this week. It went pretty well, and my max set today was 29 squats, which for me was a ton. I think I'm ready to progress onto Week 3.

MED with pushups

2011-01-24T05:55:00.000-06:00

I think it's time to end the pushup streak. Like with my squats, I think another approach might be better right now.

In the 4HB, Tim Ferriss talks about MED -- minimally effective dose. Right now, I think I can progress better with pushups with 2 or 3 sessions per week, but with a more focused, higher intensity than what I've been doing. Kind of like with running. Sometimes quanity and volume are good. Sometimes, quality is good. And I think it's good to mix this up. I'm sure I will go back to a more GTG-like approach in a couple months or so.

200 squat challenge

2011-01-23T05:55:00.003-06:00

Given that my efforts with squats wasn't going very well, I decided to try a non-GTG approach with squats. I'm now following the 200 Squat Challenge. Yesterday was Week 1, Day 3. So far, so good. I think going with 3 days a week is working pretty well, and for my max set yesterday I did 20 squats, which for me was a ton.

Bears 24, Packer 3. I just have a feeling that everything is coming together for the Bears, and the fact that they've remained healthy this year is a huge advantage right now.

I did 22 +1 pushups yesterday, I'll aim for 23 today.

I ate a can of sardines last night. I had never eaten them before and didn't really know what to expect. They were actually really good, and given their omega-3 content, I want to make them a regular part of my diet.

Pushups++

2011-01-22T05:55:00.001-06:00

7 weeks into my streak, it's time to change things. I'm going to migrate to more and more difficult pushups. The first one I'm going to focus on are +1 pushups. These are pushups where my feet are on the first step of my stairway. Eventually, I want to move up to +4 pushups, which I think will be well on my way to handstand pushups. But for now, +1 is plenty challenging.

I had a bit of an inflammation scare the other morning. I woke up, and my toes were throbbing. I think this was a combination of some foods that triggered some inflammation, along with bad pushup form, where I'm using my toes more than the balls of my feet. In any case, I cleaned up my eating again, and the throbbing subsided really fast. I'll take this as a warning, and also confirmation that what I'm doing is working.

I know it's still cold, but the days are growing at an ever increasing pace, and I can see that Spring isn't too far off.

For now, if I run even just one day a week, that will be fine. I think it's good to have periods where running goes into a minimalist maintenance mode.

Later.

Is your low fat diet also a low carb diet?

2011-01-17T05:55:00.003-06:00

Gary Taubes wrote a great post about how comparison between low carb diets and low fat diets are in many case bogus.

Calories, fat or carbohydrates? Why diets work (when they do).

To sum it up, most low carb diets aren't restrictive diets, except for carbs. Otherwise, you can eat as much as you want. However, many, if not all low fat diets are also low calorie diets. Ironically, if the calorie amount is low enough, they end up being low carb diets as well. See the problem here?

I love the following from Gary Taubes' post:

So the value of controlling variables in a scientific experiment is something that a reasonably well-educated child supposedly understands. And what I want to know is why don’ t nutritionists understand it and those researchers out there doing diet trials and studying obesity and weight regulation. Because their failure to do so — and I would argue that it may be a willful failure — has led to what may be another of the great misconceptions in modern nutrition research....

We live in a time of scientific ignorance. People are too easily fooled by things that pose at science, but lack the rigor of true science.

Paleo and viruses

2011-01-16T05:55:00.006-06:00

For the first time in at least 4 or 5 years, I did not get sick this past Fall. Is this a coincidence? Or could it be this also coincides with giving up grains?

I've noticed a lot on various Paleo/Primal discussion boards that people report that they no longer get sick. Is this just selective reporting, or is there something to this?

Well, I found a couple things that make me believe there is a reason that people doing Paleo get sick much less than people on the SAD (standard American diet) diet do. To simplify the process, if you lower systemic inflammation, you lower the potential to get sick.

Now for a couple links that discuss this connection. From Primal Wisdom -- Paleodiet and Polio Virus. I'm a little surprised this wasn't in Good Calories/Bad Calories, but I guess Gary Taubes couldn't cover everything. This post discusses research that was done in the early 40's which shows a very clear relation between consumption of refined carbs and susceptibility to the Polio virus. Of course, once the vaccine was developed, the refined carb link was forgotten. I'm sure the refined grain industry was happy about that.

The second link is from the New York Times -- How Not to Fight Colds. It doesn't make the same leap that I will here, but the gist is that the Common Cold isn't about what the virus is doing to our bodies, but about an overactive inflammatory response of our bodies to a agent that really isn't inherently that bad. A fact from this article that I've seen numerous times is that about 1/4 of the people who get a cold virus develop anti-bodies to that virus, but never develop any actual symptoms of a cold. I suspect that without some level of systemic inflammation, cold viruses just don't do too much to us. A key excerpt from this article

There’s another intriguing paradox here. Studies suggest that about one in four people who get infected with a cold virus don’t get sick. The virus gets into their bodies, and eventually they produce antibodies to it, but they don’t experience symptoms. It may be that people like this are not making the normal amounts of inflammatory agents.

Now here's some of my own non-scientific experience on the subject. A few weeks ago, a couple times I woke up with a vague feeling in my throat that felt like the beginning of a cold. I had strayed a little bit from my Paleo eating. So I made sure that I ate clean that day. And coincidence or not, I didn't develop a cold. This happened a couple times in the span of a week or so.

So is the common cold another Disease of Civilization? Maybe so.

Progressive pushups

2011-01-15T05:55:00.000-06:00

Like taxes, pushups are (or can be) progressive.

So how did this apply to me? Simple. I was very weak when I started doing pushups again. I guess running doesn't do a lot for strength. Not even in the legs. (As a side note, I think anyone who thinks that running is going to make them healthy is very mistaken. Get your eating in order first. That's 80 to 90 percent of health. With good eating, you will have so much energy, that exercise will come on its own.)

So back to weakness and pushups. What do you do if you can barely do a pushup, or not even do a single pushup at all? You start with easier pushups. It comes down to gravity and weight. If you change the angle and elevation, you lesson the load on your arms, chest, and back. So, the place to start is with doing pushups against a wall. Keep doing them until they are easy. When is that? I'm not sure, but you will know. Then comes the stairs. The cool thing about the stairs is that you can play a lot with these. Try the 4th stair, or the 3rd, or the 5th. Depending on which stair you place your hands on, the angle changes, and the load your arms, chest, and back carry varies. Once again, keep at it until they become too easy.

Using this kind of approach, you can gradually keep increasing the difficulty level until you are doing regular, military pushups. Does it happen all at once? No. But it will happen in time. At least it has with me. I think my upper back was the slowest part to come around, but just taking my time with the progression, my back was able to catch up to the rest of me.

My pushup form and level of difficulty has progressed quite nicely over the past several weeks. Eventually the goal is to be able to do handstand pushups, but that's still a long ways off. But I'm confident that I can eventually get there.

I haven't done squats for a few days now. I've decided that with those I will take a non-GTG non-daily approach. At least for the moment.

I looked at my bottle of olive oil last night and noticed it was low carb. I wonder if many people drink olive oil as a supplement.

How much of a bad thing is a good thing?

2011-01-14T05:55:00.002-06:00

Grain elevator fire
Originally uploaded by jconybeer

So how much grain should you have in your diet? In short, none.

If you don't believe me, read Robb Wolf's latest -- Hey Robb, this person said gluten free diets are bogus!

However, I do think it depends on the person. Some people can do fine with a small amount of grain in their diet. But some people can’t handle any. I think it’s kind of like dairy that way. I’m pretty sure I have some grain tolerance, just not as much tolerance as I have with dairy and legumes.

But tolerating something still doesn’t make it healthy. To me, that’s a big fat lie. Get grains off your pyramid, if it's the last thing you do. I’m not saying that we shouldn't have bad things every once in awhile – cigars, wine, beer, donut’s, etc. But to say that grains are the basic fundamental building block of good eating seems a little off base.

The anthropological evidence reminds me of what Quinn wrote about the conversion to agrarian society. It seems amazing to me that humans voluntarily switched over to a way of life that lead to much poorer health, shorter lives, more famine, and much, much more work. It’s kind of like a mass hysteria.

But much of Mother Culture is mass hysteria. Enjoy the ride.

More recovery needed now?

2011-01-12T05:55:00.003-06:00

I think I might be slowing up on my pushups and squats. I'm not sure if GTG is not working as well right now, or if it's just the extent that TKD kicked my butt this past Saturday. In any case, my body is still a bit sore, and it's taking a little while to bounce back. I'm both looking forward to and dreading the coming Saturday's class.

In terms of Paleo eating, I would really like to figure out some better lunch possibilities. I used to bring my lunch to work quite a bit, but that was in the form of a sandwich and chips or crackers. Neither is all that Paleo. I've been finding a couple things that work well, but they are expensive (more than I would like to pay, at least). I wouldn't mind if I liked to spend money more than I do.

After all this time, I finally have Inception in my hands and am looking forward to watching it. There aren't that many movies about lucid dreaming.

Later.

Tabata burpees

2011-01-11T05:55:00.003-06:00

As part of my running plan for 2011, I hope to push my VO2 max into new territory. One of the things I'll be doing for that is Tabata intervals. With sprints, but also with other exercises. Cardio fitness doesn't have to be about just running. One of the things that I noticed in my races was that my legs were more than able to perform better, but it was my lung capacity that was holding me back. So, that's one of the areas that I'll need to work harder on.

I'm still sore from TKD. I hope to be fully recovered by the next class.

Here are some Tabata burpees:

Recovery reps

2011-01-09T05:55:00.000-06:00

I imagine I'll be going pretty easy on pushups, squats, and running today. I'm now feeling some moderate DOMS from TKD yesterday. Thankfully, it's not too bad, and actually a lot better than I would expect, given how the moves of TKD are totally new to my body.

Am I going to stick with TKD? I'm not sure. I think the key will be whether the little guy takes to it or not. I enjoyed the class a lot and am fine being a novice. However, the little guy didn't like the feeling of being in a room full of strange people where he knew very little. I think it might help to get him some books so he can start studying some of the forms before doing them in class.

I can tell that TKD depends a lot of hip mobility and strength. Those are areas where I have a lot of room for improvement.

I can't wait to get out and run later today. That's usually the best thing in terms of easing soreness.

Later.

Day 42

2011-01-08T05:55:00.007-06:00

Still streaking.

At the moment, I think I'm aiming towards higher quality, more difficult pushups, and not worry so much about the numbers. I realize that the numbers can be an aim in themselves, and they really shouldn't be. The aim should be towards better strength and fitness, not numbers. However, with my squats, I'm just aiming for the numbers at the moment. I would like to average over 100 squats a day, and right now I'm at half that. The progress with squats has been slow, so in a way, that makes them more interesting and motivating. A few years ago, I never would have imagined doing squats. Back then I thought I had bad knees.

I'm still really liking The Four Hour Body. However, I haven't started reading it yet. What I mean is that I haven't read the first page or even any of the first chapter. I've been skipping around in the book and reading sections that catch my eye, and it's been really good that way.

My running plan for 2011 is very simple. If I want to run fast races, I need to do more fast running.

Long, slow, leisurely Sunday runs.
Tuesday interval run -- probably 1/4 mile stretches at 5K pace. Space with walks long enough to recover well.
Thursday -- Tabata intervals -- the classic 20 second/10 second blend.
The rest of the week, walk, or leisurely runs as I see fit.
Lots of crosstraining. Core work, upper body, plyometrics, etc...
And of course, lots of juggling practice. Believe it or not, my juggling has been improving the last few months. I'm still not to the point where I can juggle blindfolded, but I'm getting much better at juggling with just my peripheral vision. And my juggling cadence is getting better.

I'm starting a TKD class with the little guy today. I'm not sure what I'm getting myself into, but I'm trying to keep an open mind.

Daily Pushups? Sure.

2011-01-06T05:55:00.004-06:00

Spreadsheet
Originally uploaded by Zataod

Daily pushups? I know, that’s totally against the rules.

However, I have a few things guiding me with this. I know that some people break the rules and run daily and do fine. Pushups are even less stressful than running. I’m trying to follow the principle of GTG (greasing the groove) which Pavel Tsatsouline describes in some of his writings. By the way, Ferriss mentions him in the 4HB (got it in the mail last night and am really digging it). Basically, the theory is as follows. Do lots of small sets, do a really high volume, and stay fresh. The key is to not do so many that your muscles become fatigued, but do enough so that your muscles, brains and nerves learn to do them well. It kind of runs along the lines of deliberate practice. And do sets spaced out through the day. This was easier when I had time off in December and around the holidays.

Seems like this worked for Herschel Walker and Dean Karnazes, among others. I figure these guys might be onto something.

It’s possible that I would actually progress faster if I followed a 2 or 3 day a week schedule, but I like doing them daily, and at least according to my spreadsheet, I’m progressing pretty well.

I’m also trying to follow the principle of GTG for squats and pull-ups. My squats are progressing, but my pull-ups are very much at the beginning stage right now.

New low for Winter barefoot running

2011-01-03T05:55:00.002-06:00

WindyRun
Originally uploaded by Zataod

I went out for yesterday's run without much in the way of expectations. I wanted to see if I could last an hour, but I would have been happy with 45 minutes. It was cold (24 degrees), but the wind was the thing that really made it cold. After about 10 minutes into the run, my fingers were painfully cold. This was even with 2 pairs of gloves. I pulled my fingers out of the finger pockets, and made my hands into fists, trying to thaw out the tips of my fingers. I also kind of zig-zagged into the wind. It was mostly out of the west, but a little from the southwest as well. So I kept changing my direction every so often so that I wasn't running directly into the wind for too long.

Finally, after 15 or 20 minutes, my hands were feeling okay. I think it takes my core body temp awhile to warm up in the cold, and this is eventually felt in my hands. Once I get warmed up, the hands are fine.

But here's where the crazy thing happened. After I was about 3 miles into my run, I started getting an idea. If my hands had warmed up, how about my feet? Maybe my core temp was now warm enough so that I could ditch my shoes. It was dry, so I thought if I was going to try going barefoot in this kind of cold, this would be the perfect time.

So I peeled off my aquasocks, socks, and ran barefoot the last part of the run, which was almost a mile and a half. And the cool thing is that my feet felt fine. They were a little cold at the end, but nothing bad at all. The real ironic thing was that this run was a lot more comfortable on my feet than my run Thursday evening, when it was more than 20 degrees warmer. There are two things to account for that. Thursday was wet, and I wasn't warmed up at all when I went out Thursday.

This kind of changes my mental expectation of what kind of temps I can run in. I had figured that anything much below freezing was definitely off limits. But now I'm thinking that I should just run for a couple miles, stop by the house, ditch the shoes, and continue barefoot. As long as we are talking about dry conditions. I think wet and cold is still a bad combination.

Can I build on 2 pullups?

2011-01-02T05:55:00.003-06:00

I did 2 pullups yesterday. It was better than what expected. I was suspecting I might not be able to do any pullups. I'll see if I can do 3 today -- spread out as 3 sets of 1 throughout the day. It's not much, but it is a place to start. I suspect that this would be the toughest of the Big 3. I think this is a perfect test of the principle of GTG.

I finished with 1,260 pushups for my 5th week. I had 314 squats for the week. Just given time considerations, I expect that my numbers will be lower this coming week, but I would still like to average 100 to 150 pushups a day, if possible.

I'm not sure about the size of my ass, but I have noticed that going up stairs is a lot easier now that I'm doing more squats. It feels like I fly up the stairs now.

Our little heat wave is over, so today's run will be another cold one, but not too cold. I figure about 20 degrees by the time I get outside. Definitely another aquasock run.

Inspiration to start the new year

2011-01-01T05:55:00.004-06:00

If you are looking for inspiration this year, check out the Success Stories on Mark's Daily Apple. I seriously think that exceptional health is possible for most people, if they eat and exercise right. And as I'm discovering, and many other people have noted, what you eat is about 80% of it. In the past, I thought that you could exercise your way to good health. I don't believe that for a second now.

It's 2011!!! I'm ready to rock!

I know that Mother Culture tries to tell us that hunter-gatherers lived a short, brutal life. But that's just plain wrong. Here's an interesting post on the topic -- The Reality of Primitive People's Lifespan.

Update# 1 (10:55 AM): I'm at 1120 pushups for the week so far. I guess it's time to revise my weekly goal upwards. New goal is now 1250 pushups for the week. I think a big part of getting a lot of pushups in this week has been having some days off during the week. More time for more sets. I think next week will be a better indication where I'm at in terms of weekly numbers.

I did some plank holds, and found I'm a lot stronger than I was a few weeks ago, but I'm still feeling it in my abs from holding a plank for about 30 seconds. I can see why this is such a good exercise for the core.

Update# 2: So why is this pushup streak working? I think the simple explanation is that I'm tracking the numbers in a spreadsheet. And secondly, I tried to ease into it slowly, not pushing too much where I burned myself out. I'm sure there will be a point where my progress starts to flatten out, but I'm not sure where that point is. I've seen with GTG (greasing the groove) that adding volume is pretty easy, without overly fatiguing myself.

Barefoot Runner's Secret doesn't work

2010-12-31T05:55:00.002-06:00

First of all, I cranked out 102 squats yesterday, which beat my previous best of 66. I still feel pretty weak with my squats, but they are coming along somewhat, and the improvement is coming. The next major thing on my list is pullups, which sound pretty intimidating right now. I suspect that I might not be able to do more than 1 or 2, but I haven't tried yet. I don't have a pullup bar, but there is a beam down in the basement that might work well enough. This is another exercise where GTG will come into play.

So what about that Barefoot Runner's Secret? Well, actually it's called Musher's Secret. It's a waxy substance you put on your feet(paws) for protection against the Winter elements. If you look at the rave reviews on Amazon, you will see that this is a miracle product, which is very helpful for dogs during the Winter. So if it's so great for dog's paws, why not human's feet? I've been waiting a couple weeks for a good time to try it out.

In short, Musher's Secret is for the dogs!

Pros -- It smells great and might be a really good foot balm.

Cons -- It did nothing for the quality of my run. I ran in 47 degree weather, but the roads were very wet from melting snow and ice, along with a little fog and drizzle. I had forgotten how painfully cold that combination can be. I noticed absolutely no difference using Musher's Secret.

I will try it in dry conditions one of these days, but I'm not holding my breath. I think if dogs could talk, they would tell us that Musher's Secret doesn't really do that much for them, either.

FYI -- I'm not being paid by Musher's Secret to endorse their product. (It really does smell good, though.)

My pushup total has now topped 3,200. My squat total is approaching 400. There does seem to be some momentum building up with these. I think this is one of the advantages of doing them every day, and doing them in small sets, trying to follow the principle of greasing the groove.

70 or more squats today?

2010-12-30T05:55:00.001-06:00

I think today is going to be a new personal best for squats. I'm going to shoot for at least 70, and if all is going well, maybe get to 100, but I'll see how it's going.

I'm also hoping to try out my new barefoot running formula this evening. I'm a little dubious, but I think it's worth trying this thing that could help with my Winter running. I'll try to spell out more details about this later. But I wanted to do some tests first before giving out the details.

I managed 150 pushups yesterday, which was pretty good for a Wednesday and puts me well on pace for a huge weekly total. Right now, it's looking like about 1,100 for the week at my current pace.

45 degrees and the snow's melting really fast. Very nice!

200 is the new 100

2010-12-29T05:55:00.000-06:00

200
Originally uploaded by .Guru.

When I started my current pushup project I was hoping that I could eventually do 100 in a day. That eventually became the goal of averaging 100 a day. Now, I'm not all that far from 200 a day. I still don't know what this means in terms of overall strength improvements, but after a month, it feels like I'm making fast progress.

I'm going to try something with my running in the next couple days. It's not shoes, but something that is still not barefoot running and probably is a form of cheating. I'll see what the weather looks like tomorrow evening, but I think the conditions might be just about right to try this new form of cheating.

I only did 20 squats yesterday, and now I'm wondering if I may fall short of my goal of 100 in a day by the end of the year. In any case, I'm making decent improvement in my squats. It doesn't have to happen all at once.

I finally ordered The Four Hour Body for myself. I'm not sure why it took me so long to order a copy. There is a lot in the book I'm curious about.

Later.

Day 31 of Project Big A$$

2010-12-28T05:55:00.003-06:00

Today is now Day 31 of the streak. Still no signs of ending soon. I'm still nowhere near my goal of being able to do 100 consecutive vertical pushups. In fact, I doubt I can even stand on my hands right now, even with the assistance of a wall. There is a huge upside here in terms of potential improvement.

My eating has degraded a bit this holiday season. Still not a lot in terms of grains, but I've been eating more sugar, mostly in the form of chocolate. Still, no stomach pains. I'm sure once the holidays are over, I can get back to better eating habits again.

For those of you keeping track at home, tomorrow will have 31 more seconds of daylight. I'm convinced now that this period of cold and darkness won't last forever.

So what about the Big A$$ Project, or Project Big A$$? I think within the last year or two I read about how humans had big glutes, which was one of their advantages for running long distances, and something about how it's one of, or maybe the biggest, muscle in the body. But in my case, I've got really wimpy glutes. That's one of the things about squats is that they are supposed to really engage the glutes. So, maybe I have some potential to take my little a$$, and transform it into a big, powerful a$$. I'm working on it.

Nasal breathing in the cold

2010-12-27T05:55:00.001-06:00

On my run yesterday, I tried some more nasal breathing, inspired by the Buteyko Method. I'm not sure this works well in cold weather. Or at least not for me in cold weather. The more I breathe through my nose in the cold, the more my nose runs. It's hard to run when my nose is running, if that makes sense. I still think that nasal breathing is worth trying more of, but I don't anticipate much progress until it warms up some.

66 squats yesterday, but I'm feeling it in my lower back this morning. I might ease up on the squats today and keep the number a little more modest. I think the back stuff is temporary until I learn better form and stretch and strengthen the right muscles that are used in squatting.

Matt Metzgar has an interesting article on nasal breathing while running, which includes some good links to other interesting articles.

Still streaking, pushing into Day 29

2010-12-26T05:55:00.000-06:00

I streaked through the Xmas holiday. Not a huge total, but 99 pushups and 46 squats is still a lot better than nothing. I still think that doing 100 squats in a day by the end of the year is well within my sights.

Using an eyeball guess, I think we got another 3 or 4 inches of snow overnight. It definitely is a snowy world out there this morning. But knowing that today there will be 18 seconds more daylight than yesterday, and tomorrow will have 23 seconds more daylight really warms my heart. And by New Year's Even, the temp is supposed to get back up into the 40's. Not good news for the snow.

Santa, or some other powerful person, brought the little guy a cubigami 7 this year. Not his best present by any means, but my personal favorite this year. Especially, given that the other contender for favorite present has bitten my 3 times in the last week (wild, grizzly bear hamster).

Listen to the back

2010-12-24T05:55:00.003-06:00

I think I've crossed the line where my GTG pushups and squats have gone too far into the fatigue zone. Why do I say that? Soreness. And a slightly cranky lower back.

So today, I'm going to try to space things out a lot more and see if I can get back into a zone where I'm still cranking out reps, but staying away from that fatigue zone. So kind of like running, today is a recovery day, but an active recovery day.

By the way, today is Day 27 of my streak. It doesn't even feel like a streak anymore. It just feels like I do pushups a lot. I guess the habit part of this has set in. After 26 days, I had done 2,111 pushups and 63 squats.

Last night, I experimented a lot with nasal breathing during my run. There was a guy named Buteyko from the Ukraine that did some really cool stuff with breathing and asthma. I think his method has also been used by some runners, and I think there might be something to this. For one thing, I think it forces me to slow down quite a bit. I'm going to keep trying this out. There might be something there.

A hundred squats by the end of the year

2010-12-23T05:55:00.001-06:00

cat squat
Originally uploaded by madeBYwake

I hope to do 100 squats in a day by the end of the year. From what I've seen with pushups and GTG, I think that's pretty realistic. I'll shoot for 30 this evening, then see if I can bump up the total by 10 per day until the end of the year.

The little guy got a hamster for Solstice this year. I think it might have rabies. So far it's bitten me three times. Last night I decided to not tempt fate and kept my hands and fingers safely away from the biting beast. I had a hamster in college, and it didn't bite me once. I guess they don't make hamsters like that anymore.

The thing about the squat that is appealing is that it's a basic human movement that most Westerners have forgotten. But if you look at young kids, they can squat without thinking about proper form. They haven't forgotten yet, and their bodies haven't learned by the bad habits formed by years of chair sitting.

Better squatting form

2010-12-22T05:55:00.000-06:00

I ended up doing 182 pushups last night and 12 squats. I was surprised by the 182 total, but it's like the pushups were doing themselves.

I would like to increase the numbers of squats I'm doing. The big thing with this is improving my form. I think there is a very cool technique that will help with this. It is doing squats facing a wall.

The two videos below explain this technique pretty well. Starting tonight, this is how I will work on my squatting form.

The 10% rule doesn't apply

2010-12-21T05:55:00.002-06:00

The general rule of thumb is to not increase weekly running mileage by more than 10% in any given week. I've always thought this is a bit simplistic and doesn't really make sense, especially went just starting out. For example, your first week of running, you will go from something like 0 miles to 5 miles. Or if I was going to take off a couple months from running, I imagine my first week back would be something like 7 miles. This is a lot more than 10%.

In terms of pushups, my weeks have been going up much faster than 10%. It's more like a 40% increase per week. That might not be sustainable, but something like 20% might be. I'm not really sure. Yesterday, I did a really easy 84 pushups, which was more than double the 39 pushups I did the previous Monday. This was broken down into 12 sets of 7.

So how am I deciding where to draw the line? Fatigue. I'm trying to limit the amount of time I'm spending in fatigue. I keep the sets small, but do lots of them. There are a couple times during the week where I push into fatigue, but for a lot of the time, I try to keep out of the fatigue zone. This seems to be working.

I saw this video on Fitness Black Book this morning. Rusty has an interesting article on one of the tweaks in The Four Hour Body. Definitely worth checking out. The video below demonstrates great squatting technique, which is something I can definitely learn from.

Bodyweight circuit

2010-12-20T05:55:00.003-06:00

I'm gradually trying to add to my collection of body weight exercises. I want to do more than pushups. I want to eventually do at least pushups, squats, and pullups. But in addition, I might want to add some more. Maybe not everyday, but at least some of the time.

Here is a bodyweight circuit that looks pretty good. The name is good, too -- The Crazy Eight. As usual, it's pretty darn cheap, too.

Day 22, and carb unloaded

2010-12-19T05:55:00.001-06:00

After a personal record 315 pushups yesterday, I'm going to shoot for something more modest today. So far, everything feels pretty good, and I think 100 would be good.

The weather is about as good as it can be for this time of year (upper teens and no snow), and I think a decent Sunday run is in store. I'm most carb depleted, so that's good, too.

I think today is the day that I will start including squats. It's the 2nd of the big 3 that I want to be doing regularly -- pushups, squats, and pullups. I think those are the 3 bodyweight exercises that are a must. Just like with pushups, I'll start slow, do lots of sets and gradually build up.

Later.

Day 21, is it a habit yet?

2010-12-18T05:55:00.005-06:00

Is it 21 days to make something a habit? I can't remember. It does seem that doing pushups has become somewhat of a habit now.

Who is Herschel Walker? I know, an SEC player, not Big Ten, but there are some really interesting things about his training that I've learned going through some of what's been written about him. First of all, the conventional wisdom is that he's a freak of nature and just basically was born with the right genes and would have been great despite anything else.

I don't buy that. I think he became a freak of nature because of his training habits. He used a number of principles that I find very valuable and interesting -- deliberate practice, minimalism, experimentations, Greasing the Groove, daily practice, short sleep, and persistence.

The legend is that Herschel Walker got to college, and the players were in the weight room, seeing what they could do. Walker, who had never lifted weights in his life proceeded to bench press a record amount, and the coach told him right there that he didn't have to lift weights. Is that possible?

Walker claims that he was a pudgy kid, but eventually developed a habit where he would get up early every day, do pushups, situps, and pullups in massive amounts. And he experimented with hand positions to increase the effect of the pushups.

So can a person really build a strong, athletic body without weights? I believe so. But then again, I believe people can run without shoes, so don't trust me on this.

Another thing about Walker is that he claims to only sleep 4 hours a night. Once again, another person who throws conventional wisdom on its head.

Contrary to what I had thought before, it does look like my embedded spreadsheet does update on the blog. But in terms of scrolling, that's a little weird. For some reason, I thought there would be scroll bars on one of the embedded samples. Oh well.

Maybe more later....

Update# 1 (10:25 AM) I'm at 100 pushups for the day. This brings my week up to 490 so far, and my total for the entire streak at 1299. At the rate I seem to be going, I think the second thousand will take less than 10 days. On a Saturday, it seems like the first 100 takes the longest. After that, I seem to get into a decent groove for the rest of the day.

Update#2 (9:21 PM): I actually thought I was done for the day, but I started again, and have now topped 300 pushups for the day. I'm pretty sure this is a personal record. I did a little more practice with the frog stand this afternoon, and that went pretty well. My wife mentioned at dinner today that the Winter solstice will coincide with a lunar eclipse. I hope it's a clear night.

I am a barefoot runner!

2010-12-17T17:55:00.000-06:00

The best video on barefoot running.

Enjoy.

Where is your center of mass

2010-12-17T05:55:00.000-06:00

Still streaking. I'll see how Saturday goes, but I'm definitely increasing by more than 10% per week. I did 96 last night, which is probably a few more than I should have. But I see no ill effects today.

Also, last night I played around with the frog stand some. My balance seems to be a lot better, and it feels like I can hold the position a lot longer now. I think the frog stand is called the Crow Pose in yoga. The video below shows 3 variations of this and discusses the center of mass, which makes a lot of sense in terms of the difficulty of maintaining a position.

Enjoy:

Nearing 1,000

2010-12-15T05:55:00.001-06:00

Still going on the streak. I expect by sometime this evening, I will have topped 1,000 pushups. 18 days for the first 1,000. I expect the second 1,000 will go much quicker. Maybe somewhere between 10 and 14 days.

I think the Rites are doing their magic again. My lower back isn't yet 100%, but it's feeling much better today. I'll stick with the Rites for awhile and let them continue to do their thing. I don't buy all the mumbo jumbo about the anti-aging properties of the Rites, but I do think they are decent for my back and overall health. Just the comparison of when I do them vs when I don't do them is enough for me. I think the whole anti-aging thing is kind of strange. I believe in aging, but I also believe in aging well.

Here's the latest spreadsheet:

Later.

Day 17, the 4 Hour Body is now available

2010-12-14T05:55:00.001-06:00

My streaking continues, even with my stiff lower back, which continues to bug me a little bit.

I've been looking forward to Tim Ferriss's The Four Hour Body for months now. I'm always enjoying and finding lots of value from his blog posts and expect there is going to be a lot of good stuff in The Four Hour Body. Even though he's not a barefoot runner, he's shares a lot with the barefoot running community in terms of seeing a lot of conventional thinking about health and fitness as being wrong. I already bought a copy of his book for a friend of mine, but I still haven't ordered my own copy. I might just wait to see if Santa brings me a copy in a couple weeks.

My lower back is reminding me of how much the 5 Tibetan Rites used to help my back and body stay healthy. I've kind of abandoned them the last couple years. I'm trying to get back to them now. I still think they are kind of hokey, but I always found them to be very effective and powerful, despite their simplicity.

Day 16, another article about pushups

2010-12-13T05:55:00.000-06:00

So why pushups? Here's a good article from the Times, which talks about this classic exercise. It's by the same author who wrote a few good articles on barefoot running, by the way.

An Enduring Measure of Fitness: The Simple Push-Up

Day 15

2010-12-12T05:55:00.006-06:00

Here's what my pushup spreadsheet looks like after 14 days. I think I might just keep the totals in Google docs, which seems to be safer than keeping the numbers on a hard drive. I trust Google more than my hard drive. I'm curious if I update a number on the Google Doc if that will automatically update it in the blog post.

On a different topic I found a way to soften up some store brand natural peanut butter. I added a little olive oil and mixed it in, which worked really well.

Update: My lower back is not happy. I'm sure it will be fine in a few days, but I'm not realizing that I shouldn't have pushed into fatigue yesterday with pushups. I knew that my lower back was complaining, but I didn't listen to it very well, so now I'm paying the price. I don't think it will keep me from continuing the streak. It just means the next few days will probably be on the light side.

Update 2 (9:59 AM): I found something really helpful for my back. Better than any pill, cream, ointment, balm, chemical path, etc.... A heating pad. Amazing how about 10 minutes with that can make a huge difference. So far, the pushups today are going will. I'm keeping the reps very micro and trying to space them out really well. Looks like an embedded Google doc in a blog post doesn't update automatically.

Day 14

2010-12-11T05:55:00.005-06:00

The streak is still going strong.

So far, from what I can tell, doing pushups daily is working out just fine. I think in an ideal world, I would only do pushups 3 days per week and put more effort into increasing reps on those 3 days. But I'm liking the daily aspect of what I'm doing, and I still think that I'm gaining with this approach. I think what's working for me is that I'm keeping the sets small enough to avoid fatigue, but still getting in enough overall reps to make gains.

We might get enough rain today to clear off most of our snow, before we go back into the deep freeze.

I don't quite understand what people root for when they root for a sports team. Is it the players? The owners? The city? The uniforms? The name of the team? Because in all these cases, nothing stays the same. The players change, the owners change, the uniforms change, even the name changes. If you were a Houston Oilers fan, are you now a Tennessee Titans fan? I find that the teams I root for change over time, usually because of individual players I root for. The teams I rooted for 20 years ago no longer exist in any real sense. The players are gone, the owners changed, the uniforms changed. Only the names are the same.

So if you are a lifelong cubs fan, does that mean you root for Wrigley?

I think rooting for sports teams is as logical as religion, but it's still a pleasant diversion.

Updates later....

Update 1 (10:43 AM): I'm at 75 pushups so far this morning. Later, I'm going to try an experiment to see how many I can do in an hour. No rain yet.

Update 2 (1:13 PM): I'm at 215 pushups so far. I did 105 in about 41 minutes, but didn't do the full hour I had planned. My lower back is stiff right now, and I'm trying to loosen it back up some. The rain has started. Kind of a grain, warm, rainy day. I think the pace I did for the 41 minutes wasn't very sustainable. I could feel the fatigue beginning to build.

Update 3 (3:00 PM): I'm at 245 for the day, but I think I will call it quits here. My lower back is still bugging me, and it's not getting better. Maybe some 5 Tibetans later, which usually help with my back.

Day 11, many micro sets

2010-12-08T05:55:00.001-06:00

After 10 days, my pushup total was 459. It's amazing how a bunch of small sets can add up. But is it good to break up reps into small sets? I feel like I'm getting stronger every day, but is that really true? I don't know at this point, but from some of the stuff I'm reading, I do think this is an approach that can work really well over time.

I'm not sure it's all that different that doing intervals in running. Those intervals can be a way to gain running speed or running endurance. The key is to break up effort with rest periods. It seems like a very simple concept, but it's also a very powerful one. With both running and pushups, you don't want to necessarily get to the point of fatigue. Once you've hit that state of fatigue, the amount of extra effort you can put in goes way down. By keeping fatigue at bay, I'm able to do much more.

Rusty at Fitness Black Book wrote an interesting post about effort and how it relates to strength gains. It's well worth reading, along with many other posts he's written. Does Rep Count Even Matter? Controversial Findings of a Recent Study! But if you read just one of his posts, this might be the one to read.

Day 10

2010-12-07T05:55:00.001-06:00

I got a decent run in this morning. Very cold once again, but the aquasocks didn't feel so heavy this time. I'm not sure if I'm aiming towards any kind of goal with my running right now. I'm just trying to enjoy a run here and there and maintain some kind of base level of running shape. It seems like 2011 is a good year to aim for a half marathon, but I'm not thinking too much about that right now.

Last night I played with different angles and positions with pushups. I can see that small changes can really affect the difficulty level a great deal. I'm a little sore this morning from some of the tougher experiments I tried, but I'll be okay. I also found out that I can't hold the frog stand for much longer than 5 seconds right now. I'll have to work up to this one slowly.

I'm noticing something in terms of carbs and running. I seem to feel and do better when I run when I'm carb depleted and in ketosis. My guess is that this helps me burn fat better during the run. I know this is contrary to how some approach distance running. Instead of carb loading, I think it's better for me to do carb unloading before a long run. It just makes for a more pleasant run. Here's a good article in Running Times that talks about running in a low-carb state.

Green Frog does Day 9

2010-12-06T05:55:00.002-06:00

Green Frog
Originally uploaded by t!ge

I ended up doing 75 pushups yesterday. I'm noticing that I get stronger as the day goes on. I will get back to up and down ladders this evening. I'm thinking that the 5 Tibetans would be good to get back to. They aren't as intense as pushups in general, but they do seem to be a good addition. I used to do them daily without fail. But lately, I haven't been doing them much at all.

Yesterday's run was about what I would expect. Cold, slow, and tough. It's always tough to run in aquasocks after not doing so for several months. I think it only takes me a couple runs to get back into shod running shape. The way the weather forecast is looking now, I might be running in shoes a lot in the near future.

I've gone many months without doing the frog stand. I wonder if I should take up the planche progression exercises again. It does seem to fit in with what I'm trying to do in terms of strength and balance.

What's a minimalist runner? A minimalist runner uses the least amount of equipment necessary for a run. Other than my Garmin, I think I'm doing a pretty good job of keeping my runs as simple and minimalist as possible.

Day 8, pushupathon part 2?

2010-12-05T05:55:00.005-06:00

I ended up doing 200 pushups yesterday. I wasn't aiming for such an even number, but that's where I ended up when I stopped. Near the end, I did a couple bigger sets. 20, then 15 after a very short break. Today, I want to start out with some micro sets again, and see what's in the tank. I have a hunch (but I won't know until I start) that I might be able to pile up a good number of pushups today as well.

Do I have a long term goal for these pushups? Actually, I do have something in mind. I like doing the pushups for what they are, but there is more than that. By their nature, pushups have a lot of variability. There's a lot you can do with hand placement to make the pushups easier or harder and to work different muscles. Eventually, I would like to progress to vertical pushups again. But that's a long ways off. I don't want to get too far ahead of myself here. Right now, I'm just working on good form and increasing reps.

The other thing is that I want to establish this as a daily practice. I think there is something to be said for exercises that are done 2 or 3 times a week, and also for ones that are done daily.

It looks like a pretty cold morning for a run. Maybe mid 20's by the time I get out the door. Given the snow and ice on the streets, I'm thinking that aquasocks will work better than Zems. I'm not thrilled about running in shoes, but I'm not wanting to do without my Sunday run, either.

FYI -- My pushup total for the first 7 days was 293.

Update 1 (10:33 AM): So far after 30 pushups, my body feels up to a lot of pushups today. I'll have to see after I feel after a long run. That might change the picture.

Day 7, with pushupathon

2010-12-04T05:55:00.004-06:00

I'm on Day 7 now, and the pushupathon has begun. The goal right now is to do microsets every 15 minutes and see how it goes as the day progresses. I might do little updates throughout the day.

By the way, we had our first snow this morning, and it's still coming down just a bit. I can't remember a year when the first snow came this late. I hope this is a good sign of the rest of the Winter to come. The little guy reminded me about how exciting snow is, especially early in the Winter.

I'm more than 1/2 way through Outliers now, and still finding it really good. It seems to cover different ground that Talent is Overrated, so the two books work well together that way. I thought before that it might just be the same stuff. Gladwell does talk about the 10,000 hour rule, but it's a small part of what he discusses.

I suspect the combination of coffee, no carbs, and pushups might make me a little manic today. I can live with that.

Update 1 (10:55 AM): I'm up to 55 pushups now. So far, so good. The snow is still falling. Hopefully, it stops at some point, and we can do some more shoveling later.

Like barefoot running, I think the bodyweight exercises fall into the category of cheap.

Day 6

2010-12-03T05:55:00.001-06:00

Sunbeam Cat Nap
Originally uploaded by bratjerm

I'm now up to 25 pushups a day. This seems like a good amount. I still planning on testing this a little Saturday and seeing if a pushupathon is in the works. I'll do micro sets again, spaced out by 15 minute intervals. That always seemed to work really well in the past.

I've been mentally keeping track of the pushups I'm doing, but I wonder if I should put the numbers in a spreadsheet. At some point, I might want to see what the trends are. But then again, I don't like logging too much stuff. Lately, I've been pretty negligent about recording my runs. I guess it helps that my Garmin has them in its memory.

I think the biggest obstacle I have in terms of running is sleep. I don't sleep while I'm running. I seem to be pretty good about staying awake during a run. However, I do seem to like to sleep, and that limits the amount of time I have available to run. I've experimented in the past with reducing my need for sleep, with some mixed results.

Robb Wolf seems to say that sleep is pretty important. Without enough sleep, cortisol levels go up. I'm not sure I totally buy this. I do think that we can adapt to various amounts of sleep, if it is done right. The best example I know of this is Dean Karnazes, who claims to sleep just 4 hours per night. (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.01/ultraman.html) I can totally understand his rationale for this. With work and family, he was looking for a way to get in a lot of running. The early morning hours seem well suited for that, but not if he was sleeping 8 hours a night.

The one thing I found in the past about sleep is that it works best when it is consistent. Same time to bed, same time up, 7 days a week. I think that's where researchers miss the boat on sleep. They study people who average 8 hours a night, then cut them back to much less than that, then study what happens. Of course, these people are stressed out, and their bodies will show it. But like with anything, you don't make dramatic changes like that so suddenly.

Day 5

2010-12-02T05:55:00.001-06:00

trying out for the cat olympics
Originally uploaded by Swanky Feline

The pushup streak is coming along quite nicely. I'm easing into it, figuring that if this is going to be a long streak that it's better to start out slow and build up reps over time. I'm at 16 now, which seems good enough for the moment.

However, I still think that it's a good idea to have a day a week where I push the envelope and go for lots of pushups. I'm thinking Saturday would be a good day for another pushupathon.

I'm not super motivated to run these days. I think this happens a lot after a race, and especially this time of year when it's cold and dark outside.

Who needs poison apples for Halloween, when you can just do sugar instead? Isn't that poison enough? The little guy's bag-o-sugar is still going strong.

Overall, I did pretty well with the T-Giving holiday. Not 100% Paleo, but close enough. I think a lot of times close enough works out pretty darn well.

After all this time, I finally started reading Outliers. It covers a lot of the same territory as Talent is Overrated, but in a different sort of way. I think the writing is a little better. It makes for a good read.

Day 3

2010-11-30T05:55:00.002-06:00

I've been doing squats mixed in with my pushups. I can really feel those in my legs, and right now, I might do these less frequently, maybe 3 or 4 times per week, instead of daily. I would like to work up to daily, but I'll listen to what my body is telling me.

I'm generally not a big fan of stretching, but there is one exception to this. I do find that stretching my hamstrings a little (not a lot) helps a lot with my lower back. I've noticed that the few times my lower back does start to feel a little off are those times that I've neglected my hamstring stretches. Could just be a placebo, though.

Day 2

2010-11-29T05:55:00.000-06:00

My back is feeling good today. I think it's the wonders of my own bed and no longer having the stress of travel.

Still, I think I need to do more in terms of getting my core and back into better shape. I know that pushups help a little bit with those, but there are other excercises as well.

I'll try to slowly build in more. My goal is consistency and slow, steady progress.

It's hard to believe that in a little over 3 weeks, the days will start getting longer again. Time is flying.

Day 1 again

2010-11-28T05:55:00.000-06:00

My pushup streak ended. However, I'm beginning a new one today. My official excuse is that I went on a trip with my family, and the strange bed wasn't great on my back, and pushups are already challenging for my back, without the addition of a strange bed. So, now with my regular bed back, the streak will start again.

For now, I will focus on up and down ladders, and gradually just try to work my way up as the days and weeks go on. Hopefully, this streak has better legs.

Day 3

2010-11-22T05:55:00.002-06:00

I haven't done any pushups yet, but the plan right now is for 16 again. My back feels a little better, but that might be because my legs are feeling sore from yesterday's race. I didn't really push the race pace much, but even a casual race pace is a lot faster than I run in a regular run. Also, when I'm racing, I don't take walk breaks. When it's a non-racing run, walk breaks are common for me.

I've done 2 races now since going more Paleo with my eating. I find this takes away some from the post-race eating. Usually, I'll enjoy the bagels and banannas, and other asorted post-race fare. But I'm finding that I'm not big into those anymore. I did enjoy water and coffee yesterday.

The funny (or odd) thing about my hard runs now is that I'm not hungry afterwards. I used to get ravenous after a long or hard run. Now, I feel fine. I think it's a sign that my blood sugar is a lot more stable than it was before.

I don't know if this means a whole lot, but my resting pulse rate now seems to be around 50 beats per minute. After cutting out grains, I saw a further drop in my resting pulse. It was in the low 60's a month and a half ago. And I'm actually running a little less than before. Just another sign to me that my health is about 80% dependent on what I eat, and about 20% dependent on exercise.

Day 2

2010-11-21T05:55:00.000-06:00

16 pushups this time. You may notice that it's another square. That's no coincidence right now.

I did something yesterday to my lower back. I'm not exactly sure what, but I do know that my back is stiff, and it feels like maybe a day or two to feel normal again.

Thankfully, the stiff lower back didn't keep me from running a 10K. It was a pretty relaxed pace, though. Even without a iffy back, I wasn't really planning on pushing really hard on this race. I was really mainly just looking to enjoy the run and the event, which I did.

Day 1 of something, I think

2010-11-20T05:55:00.002-06:00

Okay, I did 25 pushups today. I'm not sure if this is the beginning of a streak or not, but I will see what I can do. I actually did an up and down ladder with pushups, squats, and short juggling sessions. Seems like a good 3 things to mix with each other.

So why pushups? My upper body needs work, along with my core, and I just like pushups. I think my trying to make this a daily thing, maybe I can build up some momentum with this.

We'll see.

The joggling boom in Florida

2010-11-19T05:55:00.002-06:00

It turns out that Joe isn't the only joggler in Florida. (Thanks Perry for finding this one.)

Ow, that sugar hurts

2010-11-18T05:55:00.002-06:00

I forgot to mention this, but I found another reason to stay clear of sugar. After Halloween, I went on a sugar binge. Two times that week, I had some pretty serious migraine headaches, including wicked visual distortions.

My pain avoidance will help me to remember to stay clear of sugar.

Live and learn.

streaking of a sort

2010-11-17T05:55:00.002-06:00

I've done a few running streaks, but nothing that comes anywhere close to a serious running or joggling streak.

I've been wondering about a pushup streak. Generally, running streaks mean running at least a mile per day. What would a pushup streak look like? 25 pushups a day? Is that enough?

Why do a streak? I think it just adds to the motivation factor.

How to eat wild on the cheap

2010-11-12T05:55:00.000-06:00

John Durant has a lot of great ideas about how to eat wild without breaking the bank. Just like running, eating doesn't have to be overly expensive.

How to eat wild on the cheap

The modern Jack Lalanne

2010-11-11T05:55:00.001-06:00

Arthur De Vany is one of the pioneers in the Primal/Paleo world. His particular approach is called Evolutionary Fitness.

The guy is in his 70's and is a total dude.

They are evening doing it way up there!

2010-11-10T05:55:00.000-06:00

If people can run barefoot way up in the Canadian Province of Minnesota, they can run barefoot anywhere.

Enjoy.

How the Democrats shellacked themselves (and thoughts about running a 10K)

2010-11-08T05:55:00.002-06:00

How the Democrats shellacked themselves

I wonder if Americans will ever wake up. Before too long, there will be no middle class left.

Some key points from the article:

The richest 1 percent of Americans now take in almost a quarter of national income, up from about 8 percent during the Carter administration.
Their after-tax income rose 256 percent in that same time, while the middle fifth of the country saw its after-tax income grow by about 20 percent.
In roughly the same period, the percent by which taxes and government benefits reduced inequality dropped by a quarter.
Had national income grown the way it did in the generation after World War II, that middle fifth would have earned $12,300 more income; the top 1 percent would have earned almost $700,000 less.

On a completely separate topic, I've been wondering whether I want to go slow or fast in my next race. I can either try for a fast 5K and hopefully set a new PR, which I think I'm very close to doing. Or I can take a more relaxed approach and run a more leisurely 10K. Right now I'm leaning towards running the 10K. For one thing, I'm not all that sure I have a PR in me right now for the 5K, and another is that not sure it would be as enjoyable of a run.

I've been putting off running longer races for a long time now. I used to tell myself that I wouldn't run a faster race until I had run a sub 20 minute 5K. I now realize that won't happen anytime soon. Maybe I'm not meant to be a fast runner. And there is nothing wrong with that. I figure if I run a 10K, I'll be looking at a 55 minute time, which is pretty average, or slightly below average. But right now, that kind of race is appealing to me more. The distance itself shouldn't be a problem. I've run much farther, but I do need to keep in mind that I can't start out nearly as fast as I would in a 5K. I think a 10 minute per mile pace would be a good starting pace, then slowly ease into more of a 9 minute pace before speeding up for the last couple miles. That sounds like a good time.

And I have more ideas brewing about the idea of running slow. I just haven't put it all together yet. The elements consist of some McDougall quotes from Caballo Blanco, the Maffetone method, criticisms from Primal/Paleo people, and how cortisol and fat play into this. I think in the end, this will make sense.

Why does a "running" shoe have to cost more?

2010-11-07T05:55:00.004-06:00

There is a rumor that Zems are going to come out with a running shoe at some point. This seems logical. People find a shoe that works well for running, then the maker of that shoe decides that if their non-running shoe is good for running, that they can make an even better "running" shoe that is specifically intended for running.

Do I think it will work? No. For two reasons. It will end up being too much shoe, and it will end up costing too much money.

The best running shoes I have are my Speedo aquasocks that have gotten me through 2 out of the past 3 winters, and they show virtually no sign of wear. I would be shocked if they don't last a very long time. They aren't perfect winter running shoes, but they are pretty good. They keep my feet warm, without being too much shoe, and they don't interfere a lot with my running form. And they only cost $20.

The current Zems are $30. These might be the closest thing I've seen to an ideal running shoe. With a little tweaking, I could see this being the best running shoe out there. So suddenly the price is going to be $100? Maybe not $100, but I bet they will be a lot more than $30.

My impression about VFF's has been that the more they tried to create a "running" shoe, the more they've gotten away from what made VFF's good in the first place.

I think if all else fails, the best route might be to take a good pair of socks and dip them in some plasti dip or some similar substance and create my own minimalist running shoes. I duct taped a pair of socks once, and those actually did pretty well. Really good ground feel on those. And well under $100.

The road from bad joggler to good joggler

2010-11-06T05:55:00.004-05:00

Right now, I'm a pretty bad joggler. There's no denying this fact. But what's keeping me from being a better joggler? I need to become a better juggler. My experience has shown me that the most important quality to becoming a decent joggler is to become a very good juggler. In an okay juggler, but a very good juggler.

To put it simply, I need to learn to juggle with my hands, rather than juggling with my eyes. I think it's okay to use a little peripheral vision, but mostly it's the hands that need to be able to see, and not the eyes. There's plenty for the eyes to do when joggling. Like paying attention to the environment and what's going on on the road (especially with barefoot joggling).

I'm much better at juggling with just my peripheral vision, but if I close my eyes, my ability to juggle is almost nonexistent.

So, can I be a good enough juggler? Can I improve enough to be a decent joggler? I'm still not sure. My progress is very, very slow. I still think there is a possibility that I will never be a good enough juggler to be a decent joggler.

I have many different ways to improve as a juggler. I think the key is to practice in ways that challenge myself, but no so difficult that make practice that is impossible.

My new winter running shoes?

2010-11-05T05:55:00.005-05:00

First let me qualify this. Any shoes I wear are shoes that I've bought. So, no one is bribing me to say anything about shoes. I don't advocate running in shoes, but I also don't advocate running in temps that are far below freezing, without some kind of protection for warmth.

So in a couple places, I saw some stuff about shoes called Zems. They are designed to be worn on the beach, which probably makes them an ideal minimalist running shoe. Ironically, the best minimalist running shoes are the ones that aren't intended for running. I took these Zems out for a spin earlier in the week, and this is what I found.

On the negative side:

They are extremely loud. Generally, I am ninja-like quiet when I'm running. (I'm not saying I've got great form, but I am quiet.) The Zems were much louder than aquasocks or racing flats. I tried playing with my cadence and form, but I couldn't find a way to run in them quietly.
The heel area fits strangely. This was mainly something I noticed when I first put them on. But once I was running in them, it wasn't really an issue.

On the positive side:

They are extremely light. Unlike racing flats or aquasocks, these are virtually weightless. I didn't notice any extra weight on my feet running.
I had pretty good road feel. I could really feel the variations in the road, including cracks. It wasn't the same as barefoot, but it was the closest I've ever gotten in shoes.
Rocks. Yup, they hurt almost as much as if I was barefoot. I had a similar reaction, where my foot automatically adjusted. I'm not sure if this instinctual reaction would hold if I wore the Zems chronically.

Overall, I imagine that if I wore Zems for a race I could run nearly as fast as I can barefoot. It really feels like there isn't a lot there to alter my ability to run the way I'm used to running.

As you can see below, sometimes politicians get what they ask for:

How do you become a better barefoot joggler?

2010-11-04T05:55:00.001-05:00

I'm fortunate that Joe keeps documenting his knowledge of barefoot joggling and putting it out there on Youtube. (Applies to shoe wearing and minimalist jogglers as well)

Thanks Joe.

For others wanting to improve their barefoot joggling skills, I highly recommend Joe's videos.

Politics is funny

2010-11-03T10:18:00.003-05:00

Bush
Originally uploaded by Zataod

At least the crazies didn't take over the Senate, too. I think in the long run, this will help Obama.

I just can't believe how short people's memories are.

Hey Phil, no meat? That hurts. Cut the grains, sugar, nightshades, legumes, and eat some good grass fed meat. Check out Robb Wolf for details. I hate to see you giving up on meat.

Halloween smokes

2010-11-02T05:55:00.005-05:00

Smoking Baby #1
Originally uploaded by scumdogsteev

I couldn't decide whether filtered or unfiltered cigarettes were better for handing out to the kids this year. I finally thought that you can't go wrong with Camels. The kids dig the cute camel.

I think with my recent discoveries about my own reactions to both sugar and grains, I've grown a new appreciation for Halloween.

I guess most people haven't read Pure, White and Deadly, by John Yudkin, or watched Sugar: the Bitter Truth.

Yet, not everyone was happy about me passing out cigarettes to their kids. I wonder why the double standard. So one kind of poison is okay, but another kind isn't. What about little bottles of scotch? Would that be okay for Halloween?

For your Saturday morning viewing pleasure

2010-10-30T05:55:00.003-05:00

I haven't had a chance to watch this yet, but I suspect it will be good as usual.

If you ever get a chance to hang out with Chris McDougall at a book signing or during a barefoot run, do it.

I've been thinking lately about the connection between the Tarahumara and Carlos Castaneda. Can running help in the perfection of the art of dreaming? Hmmm....

P.S. Okay, I watched it, and give it a big thumbs up. Chris focuses a lot on the theme of joy in running, a theme that Barefoot Ted emphasizes quite a bit. However, I think it's impossible to attain good health with running alone. I think without changes in what we eat, we can't get there. But when we cut out refined carbs, along with joyful running, we are well on the way to excellent health.

And when Paleo people criticize long distance running, I think with the right kind of long distances, cortisol levels aren't really a factor.

Lastly, I don't think a fast 5K and fun, joyful running are mutually exclusive. My experience is that a fast, hard 5K is a blast. It's a different kind of fun than a 2 hour slow Sunday run, but fun, nonetheless.

Shoes for your calves

2010-10-29T05:55:00.002-05:00

365/237 * 9/3/10 * Zensah Shin' Splintin'
Originally uploaded by TimBorb

I understand the appeal of shoes. I like them, wear them a lot. I just don't wear them when I'm running in temperatures above freezing.

Lately, I've been seeing people rave about Zensahs, which are these compression sleeps that fit over your calves and are supposed to do all sorts of wonderful things to you calves -- warm them, keep the blood flowing, enhance elastic recoil. If only they had a compression sleeve for feet. Wait, those are called shoes.

The ironic thing is that I have learned about Zensah compression sleeves from barefoot runners.

If I'm not wearing shoes on my feet, why would I be wearing shoes on my calves?

I wonder 30 years from now, everyone will be wearing compression sleeves, and barelegged runners will be the oddity.

Speaking of things to keep the blood flowing. Does Vibram make any kind of hand gloves? Like a VFT (Vibram Five Toes)? My hands were really cold last night when I ran. I guess 44 degrees and windy will do that. Maybe I need some minimalist handwear.

Listen to the foot

2010-10-27T05:55:00.000-05:00

Cat Paw
Originally uploaded by alibascat

Thanks again, foot. I know I complained and whined when you were hurting earlier in the year. I thought I might even be done running completely. However, you helped in a couple big ways.

I started looking at how food was contributing to my inflammation. This has been a gradual process, but I'm eating much better now than I was at the beginning of the year. I'm seeing now that I can run my way to good health, but I might be able to eat my way to good health. It's probably more about what I'm NOT eating, rather than what I AM eating.

Secondly, you forced me to slow down and start taking a lot more days off from running. In fact, I'm pretty much running 3 days or less per week. And I'm finding that works out pretty well. I think as long as I get a long run in on Sundays, I'm fine. I'm usually able to get in a couple easy runs during the week, but if I miss a run, it's no big deal. Theoretically, I still think that it's possible to run every day, but I'm not in a hurry to do that right now. By running less often, I'm running better.

Foot, did you have all this in mind when you started hurting?

Where are the peasants with pitchforks?

2010-10-26T17:55:00.000-05:00

This is one of those things I still don't understand. Why are people so passive?

Where are the peasants with pitchforks?

Run like the wind

2010-10-26T05:55:00.001-05:00

(Explore) Runs like the wind
Originally uploaded by Rex M Photography

I'm looking forward to my upcoming 5K. I really think I'm ready to run a really fast race, for the first time in a long time now. If not fast, at least a really good effort.

Here are the times I'm looking for in the 3 miles, plus the 1/10 mile.
8:15
7:45
7:00
0:44
For a total time of 23:44, which would be a new PR.

I'm kind of looking forward to the challenge of this evening's run. Why is that. Wind, lots of wind. The gusts are expected to be 40 and 50 miles per hour this afternoon and evening. It should be an interesting time. Given how tough my Sunday run was in terms of effort, my body is feeling great today. I'm going to try to keep my effort today and Thursday very moderate.

Accidental speed

2010-10-25T05:55:00.005-05:00

Stealth Buck
Originally uploaded by aquilasteve

In the last few weeks, I've been running faster. I'm not totally sure why, but it does seem to be a trend.

How much faster? Yesterday, when I paid attention, my base speed seemed to be about 1 minute per mile faster than it was the previous Sunday. I can still run slow at times, but it feels like a faster pace is sneaking up on me more and more. A fast, relaxed pace, that I seem to be able to sustain.

It must by the lack of grains, right? I don't know. I think it's a number of factors. My foot is the best it's been in a long time. In fact, it's so close to 100% now, that I rarely even think of it as an issue anymore. This happened so gradually, I barely noticed it. I think there are few factors that helped my foot. Running no more than 3 days a week is one thing. But I think cutting out sugar and grains helps a ton. My body is no longer in a state of constant inflammation. I'm still not completely adapted to running on fat as a fuel, as opposed to sugar. But I'm getting there.

If you go back a year ago, I was very much of a sugar runner. After a long run, I would feel weak and very famished. Sometimes, I would get back from a run and gobble up a handful of chocolate chips. Now, when I get back from a long run, I feel fine. No insane hunger.