Is More Better

Back in the day when I used to work a regular job two workmates and I plotted a winter ascent of Mt. Rainier. A winter climb of Rainier is extremely arduous even under the best of circumstances, and when a third coworker approached me about coming along I was skeptical. The guy had the mountaineering skills and he was definitely fit, but his fitness was a product of the gym and not the trail. At the time I was a svelte endurance athlete and was naturally uncomfortable signing on with a guy who looked like a bodybuilder.

In the end we made it a group of four and set out from the Paradise Lodge early one Saturday morning. My two original teammates and I were snickering behind our hands as the newcomer strapped a pair of Sorel boots onto the outside of his already overloaded pack. We quit laughing right quick as the big guy set the pace, kicked the steps and drug us all the way up to Camp Muir. In the end the weather stopped us at Muir, but I learned that muscle and endurance are not mutually exclusive.
I’ve come to the reluctant conclusion that traditional Ironman training, for me, isn’t healthy. In the world of Ironman conventional wisdom states that more is better: training eighteen hours a week is good, but twenty is better. That’s one way to skin a cat, but I’m starting to think that there is another way.

My coworker on Mt. Rainier wasn’t putting in nearly the amount of endurance training that I was, but he kicked my butt. And this isn’t the only example. During Ironman training I’ve gone out backcountry skiing with buddies and they see me huffing and puffing and ask “hey man I thought you were training for an Ironman.” The reality is that I go skiing on my rest day and thus I show up destroyed from a hard week of training.

I’m starting to think that true fitness and health doesn’t come from continual tear down of one’s body, but instead comes from short bursts of high energy exercises punctuated with adequate rest. I don’t think that you have to do an Ironman every week in order to do an Ironman on race day. More to come on this issue.

Ah to be Fifteen

Yesterday Sam and I rolled out the mountain bikes and went in search of some secret spot here on the island known as Snake Hill. We found one hell of a lot of steps, it was like climbing to the Monkey Temple or something, but no riding. We'll have to make another attempt next week.

One cool thing we did find was a trio of nutty skateboarders going down this uber steep hill. They wore work gloves with a chunk of plastic taped to the palm in order to do this sideways slide move. I wish we'd have come up with that back when I was fifteen.

Cool Blog

Every morning I enjoy turning on my computer and spending five or ten mintues browsing the web, checking out what's new. This morning, via a series of links, I found the blog of author Tim Ferris (The Four Hour Work Week). It's worth checking out.

Human Power

Seems ironic that just three days after giving a dire address from the Oval Office regarding the pitfalls of an oil addicted economy President Obama was cutting the ribbon on the ten thousandth roads project funded under the Federal Stimulus Package. Here is a portion of what he had to say:

“I think that it’s fitting that we’ve reached this milestone here in this community, because what you’re doing here is a perfect example of the kind of innovation and coordination and renewal that the Recovery Act is driving all across this country.”

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m no Obama basher and frankly barring Al Gore he’s the best guy out there for the job, but for goodness sakes he’s got to pull his head out of the sand. First I have to ask myself what “innovation” is he talking about, I don’t know how you innovate a road. The automobile is the downfall of our nation and here our President is celebrating yet more pavement. I’ll bet there isn’t a bike lane on that “innovative” stretch of blacktop.

The only thing Republicans have right on the energy subject is that there is no substitute for oil. James Howard Kunstler put it succinctly when he wrote in the Washington Post:

"But the truth is that no combination of solar, wind and nuclear power, ethanol, biodiesel, tar sands and used French-fry oil will allow us to power Wal-Mart, Disney World and the interstate highway system -- or even a fraction of these things -- in the future. We have to make other arrangements."

Well said.

The magic bullet, the only alternate energy source that offers any hope is human energy. Every family is welcome to have a car, but they should also have raincoats, good shoes and bicycles. Automobiles should only be used occasionally and we should ride and walk either to our destinations or to mass transit centers. The major obstacle in implementing this new way of life is the American belief that one shouldn’t be uncomfortable.

Over the past forty years our lives have become so easy and so comfortable that we’ve lost sight of the fact that we don’t melt in the rain. We are not sugar, we are not the Wicked Witch of the West. We Americans are going to have to face the truth that just because something is easy that doesn’t make it right. Or conversely if something is hard that doesn’t make it wrong.

It is going to take some courage on behalf of our leaders to tell us straight – the party is over, now get your butt on a bike and pedal, and when you get off that bike have a cheese Danish, you’ve deserved it.

Cave Man Power

Monday night Sam and I went into Seattle to listen to a lecture by one of my favorite people, Dr. Spencer Wells. The author of The Journey of Man and now Pandora’s Seed and the driving force behind the Genographic Project, Dr. Wells possesses one of the most intelligent minds currently on the planet. Despite his Harvard, Stanford, Oxford pedigree the guy is incredibly down to earth and can explain complex theories in a way that even a dunce like me can understand.

In The Journey of Man Dr. Wells used mutations in the DNA chain to trace human migration patterns all the way back to an “Adam” and “Eve” couple living in central Africa. It’s even possible to send in a sample of your own DNA to the Genographic Project in order to obtain information about your own distant family tree. What I like about Dr. Wells is the fact that he doesn’t seem to forget that he’s not only dealing with bit of protein, but also that he’s dealing with individual human beings and human history.

Dr. Wells along with a few other researchers have begun to notice that even though we homo sapiens have been around for about two hundred thousand years, it has been only in the last ten thousand years that we’ve experienced massive amounts of evolutionary changes. What happened ten thousand years ago: the invention of agriculture.

Ironically the fossil record shows that the switch from a nomadic hunter gatherer lifestyle to a sedentary agricultural lifestyle was extremely detrimental to human health. In short our hunter gatherer ancestors were much healthier than their farmer descendants, a trend that continues even today. The human body has gone through great changes in the past ten thousand years, like developing the ability to digest milk after childhood, but still we are primarily suited to the active lifestyle and meat and plant based diet of our ancestors.

Check out his interview with John Stewart.

All Out

Though I’ve ridden my bicycle tens of thousands of miles and I’ve entered well over one hundred running and triathlon races I have very little experience with actual bicycle racing. Yesterday I got a chance to peek into that fascinating subculture by competing in the Mercer Island Time Trail. As part of The Senior Games the race was open only to those forty and over, and while you might think that would limit competition this really isn’t the case as some of the most competitive athletes out there are in the forty plus age categories. My theory on this is that you have to be over forty to have the time and money to seriously compete in these races as they take a lot of both.

I really enjoy being a fly on the wall: just sitting back observing the common traits and characteristics of different subcultures. I discovered that the dress code for showing up to a bike race is knee length, typically plaid, cotton shorts, some sort of slip on shoe (flip flops, Birkenstocks or Crocs) and either a tee shirt or polo – no serious contender showed up in their bike kit.

I thought triathlon was an expensive sport, but it’s nothing compared to bicycle racing. These guys were rolling ten and fifteen thousand dollar rides out of their VW turbo diesel Passat wagons. Funny thing was that these probably weren’t even their primary bikes as I’d assume most of the team riders were road racers first and time trialists second.

I learned that when you start a time trial you roll off the starting line clipped into both pedals. This requires the assistance of a couple of guys who hold your bike up. This is a strange sensation, and I was simultaneously nervous and jacked up. I was nervous about falling over the second the guys let go of my bike and I was jacked because the 5-4-3-2-1 countdown had my heart rate flying even before I took one pedal stroke.

I live on Mercer Island and have ridden the course dozens of times and that initial three mile climb never gets any easier. I hit the hill at full speed and by mile two I was seriously considering pulling over as I feared cardiac arrest. I couldn’t get air and was sucking and puffing hoping for some relief ASAP. Cresting the hill didn’t offer much relief as it rolls for another three miles before hitting the final insult: a ten percent grade with little to no downhill run-up. I reluctantly dropped my chain into the small ring and powered up the hill.

With the hills behind me I began to see light at the end of the tunnel as I entered the grand prix curves portion of the route. This is why bikers love Mercer Island: the road twists and turns like three miles of human intestine. An orange sign marked the final kilometer and dang that wasn’t the longest six tenths of a mile in my life.

I did fine considering this was my first experience with serious bike racing. Crazy how my brain works though; I wasn’t five minutes finished before I started plotting ways to do better next time. Are aero wheels in my future?

A Tasty Palindrome