While heroes and role models can help us make small steps forward in the never-ending journey of becoming our true selves, they can only take us so far. Once you pass a certain point in the journey, you have to stop becoming more like the people you admire and start becoming your own unique self.
I reached this crossroads after a few years of “traditional” ultrarunning. As much as I enjoyed taking part in structured events like the Western States 100, they were no longer enough for me. I felt a deep yearning to go even farther, to break free from the wildly loose confines of periodic course markers, sporadic aid stations, and occasional support found in most ultramarathons, and to try something really over-the-top. So I started doing my own thing. I ran a 199-mile, twelve-person relay race alone as a team of one. I’d sometimes run unsupported through the mountains for days. Sure, it was extreme, and it was unusual, but it was me, and it made me happy. It was what I loved to do, my way of following my heart. That’s probably why I’m still at it.
Although the Endurance 50 blossomed out of my love of running and my deep internal yearning for ongoing exploration, the seed had been planted many years ago. For that, I must thank Mr. Bowerman, and Pre. Ann and Tim. And, of course, Benner and dear ol’ Dad. Without them, I wouldn’t be me.
If It Stinks, Eat It
Day 16
October 2, 2006
Mayor’s Midnight Sun Marathon
Anchorage, Alaska
Elevation: 135'
Weather: 41 degrees; cold and overcast
Time: 4:27:18
Net calories burned: 50,992
Number of runners: 18
S
eventeen miles
into the Mayor’s Midnight Sun Marathon (so called because it’s normally run at the height of summer, when it’s still light at midnight) in Anchorage, Alaska, our group of nineteen runners (eighteen plus me) emerged from a dirt trail onto a paved road. Standing there on the roadside waiting for us was a pizza delivery dude. I blinked my eyes a few times to make sure he was real. Sure enough, someone had phoned ahead and ordered pizza.
My personal policy is not to eat pizza on runs of fewer than fifty miles, but rules are meant to be broken, are they not? The group tore into the pizza like vultures competing for roadkill. Within seconds the delivery guy was left holding a warm, empty box. The pizza was Hawaiian-style—my favorite—with big chunks of pineapple half immersed in the gooey cheese surface. It was as hot as if it had just left the oven. We voraciously filled our stomachs with every last crumb, eating as we ran.
I was a little surprised to find that I had any appetite, given what I had just seen. A few miles back on the trail, just beyond the halfway point, our group had come upon the severed leg of a moose. Just the leg. Nothing else.
“Oh man,” I said to the local runner next to me. “What did that?”
He gave me one of those looks, like:
Do I really need to tell you?
One of the runners, a swarthy Alaskan, stopped and picked up the leg. I turned back to see him brandishing the bloody appendage like a cutlass as he ran along. Shuddering, I picked up my pace to stay ahead of him. Misinterpreting my actions as an invitation to play some bizarre grown-up version of tag, the man started chasing me. I accelerated to a full sprint. So did he. I kept running full-tilt until my pursuer got the message that I wasn’t frolicking, I was terrified, and he hurled the leg into the brush.
To improve your running times, speed work is a necessary evil, though not something I’m particularly motivated to do. Needless to say, I got in some pretty good speed work at that point.
Half an hour later, when the pizza came, my biological needs trumped my lingering horror, fortunately, and I was able to wolf down two slices with gusto.
Thanks to a couple of passages in my first book, I have become known to some people as “that pizza-eating runner.” Whoever called ahead for the roadside pizza in Anchorage probably intended it, in part, as a nod to this notoriety. But in truth, I eat lots of things besides pizza when I run. Just recently I tried kung pao shrimp, having discovered a Chinese restaurant willing to deliver to a street corner instead of a street address. I slurped it down right out of the box as I ran. (The trick to eating pizza on the run is to order thin-crust, request that it not be sliced, roll the whole thing up, and chow it like a giant burrito.) The kung pao shrimp experiment was a success. It stayed down and provided the energy surge I needed. The only downside, typical of Chinese food, was that I was hungry an hour later.
QUICK TAKE:
As a substitute for pasta, try kombu noodles. They are made from a sea vegetable and contain no flour. They have a much lower glycemic index than regular pasta, so they provide more lasting energy.
My eating habits on the run and my everyday diet are very different. When wearing street clothes, I rarely eat pizza or anything else containing white flour or gobs of cheese. Given the extreme energy demands of ultra-endurance running, however, all my strict everyday nutrition rules are largely tossed out the window when I’m on my feet for more than sixty or seventy miles. When you’re burning six to seven hundred calories an hour, and you’re moving forward for thirty, sometimes forty or fifty hours straight, you need a fast and convenient energy supply. That occasionally means junk food. Fruits and vegetables take up way too much valuable space in your stomach for the number of calories they provide. A slice of pizza contains seventy-three calories per ounce, an apple just fourteen. Two slices of pizza can fuel an hour of exercise. It would take twelve apples to do the same.
There is nothing magical about my everyday rules for healthy eating. I do the same things many other careful eaters do. The foods that I try to eat in the greatest abundance are fresh fruits and vegetables and lean meats and seafood. I moderate my consumption of starchy grains and do my best to ensure that those I do consume are whole grains such as oats, whole wheat, and brown rice. The foods and drinks I work hardest to avoid are those containing high-fructose corn syrup and other refined sugars (such as soft drinks), trans fats (such as french fries), and hydrogenated oils (such as most processed, packaged baked goods). In short, I try to eat only foods that existed in caveman times, and to steer clear of those that did not.
Perhaps the most unusual feature of my diet is not
what
I eat but
when
I eat. Instead of three big meals a day, I eat six or seven small ones containing only four or five hundred calories each. I find that taking in frequent, small doses of energy gives my body and mind a steady flow of energy throughout the day, whereas the three-big-meals approach results in excessive energy spikes followed by annoying energy crashes.
First Things First
If I could recommend only one dietary change to improve your health, it would be to reduce your consumption of refined sugars. Although fat—and especially saturated fat—has typically received the most blame for causing America’s weight problem, increasing evidence suggests that sugar might be the true culprit. For example, the rate of obesity is more than three times greater in our country than in France. Yet the French actually eat more fat than we do (42 percent of calories versus 37 percent)—and more saturated fat as well.
The one glaring difference between the American and French diets is the amount of sugar in each. We get more than 17 percent of our daily calories from sugars added to foods, whereas the French get only 10 percent. So if you want to improve your diet and overall energy level, the very first thing you should do is cut out sugar. Learn to scrutinize the labels of the packaged foods you eat. If it contains more than ten grams of “sugars” per serving, don’t eat it.
In addition to limiting the size of my meals, I try to include a good balance of carbohydrates, fats, and protein in each meal. Many endurance athletes gorge on carbohydrates, which are the primary energy source for vigorous exercise, but I believe that healthy fats and lean proteins are no less important. Fats are also a great energy source—especially for moderate-intensity, prolonged exercise—and strengthen the immune system, support brain health, and help the body recover from exercise. Meanwhile, protein is critical for muscle tissue repair and rebuilding between workouts. Whereas some runners get as much as 70 percent of their daily calories from carbohydrates, I get only 40 percent, plus 30 percent each from fat and protein.
The Dean’s List
Along with the artificial sweeteners Splenda (sucralose), Nutra-sweet (aspartame), and Sweet’N Low (saccharin), there are many all-natural sugar substitute alternatives to choose from, including:
• SlimSweet (lo han)
• Xylosweet (xylitol)
• SweetLeaf (stevia)
• Sun Crystals (erythritol)
A few years ago, I plugged my typical day’s meals into a software program that nutritionists use to analyze their clients’ diets, which confirmed that I was eating the proportions of macronutrients I thought I was eating. Since then, I’ve been able to guide my eating choices by feel. I don’t count calories, keep food journals, or even weigh myself. And when I feel like indulging in a treat (I have a weakness for chocolate-covered espresso beans—okay, it’s more of a vice than a weakness), I partake with limited discretion. In other words, I’m not fanatical; I’m human.
The Dean’s List
If it stinks, eat it. Cruciferous vegetables have a number of health benefits, including reducing the risk of some forms of cancer, and are packed with nutrients. Don’t fret about the odor; it is the valuable sulfur-containing compounds in cruciferous vegetables that give them their pungent aroma. Here are some excellent sources:
• Broccoli
• Cabbage
• Brussels sprouts
• Cauliflower
• Watercress
The “Neanderthal” Diet
Diets come and go. This one’s been around for thousands of years.
The premise is straightforward. When trying to decide what to eat and what not to eat, use this simple filter: Would a Neanderthal man have had access to this food? The rationale for asking this question is simple: The foods that early humans ate are those that our bodies were designed to eat. Could Neanderthal man have eaten pasta? Nope. Ice cream? Unh-unh. White bread? No way. Fruit? Sure, find a tree. Vegetables? You bet; he’d pull ’em right from the ground. Fish and lean meat? Definitely. If Neanderthal man could catch it, he could eat it. And back in the Neanderthal days, it was all organic, so try to go organic whenever possible as well.
It takes some discipline to eat in this primitive way, but you’ll be amazed by how much better you feel when you do. Long live Neanderthal man!
There are those whose ultrastrict dietary regimens make my careful habits look like “anything goes” by comparison. The legendary triathlete Dave Scott is one such person. For many years, Dave followed a vegetarian diet. He later decided to reintroduce meat to his diet, but he skipped over hamburgers and bacon in favor of fish, chicken, and turkey, and his diet remains primarily plant-based. There’s no denying the fact that this strict diet works for him—his results, which include six Hawaii Ironman victories, speak for themselves. I’m not sure I could get by on a largely plant-based diet, however, or would have the willpower to stick to it. What works best for one person doesn’t always work best for another. Dave customized his diet over the years. When I went through a similar process of refining my diet based on what seemed to make me feel and perform better, I arrived at a different destination. I use my upper body a lot for sports other than running, and have found that I crave animal proteins—principally fish—to keep my shoulders, chest, and arms strong.
I grew up eating a mixture of traditional American fare and traditional Greek cuisine, because that’s what my mother cooked. Today Greek food is considered a “Mediterranean diet,” and Mediterranean diets are hip because medical research has found they are associated with reduced risk of metabolic diseases compared with other Western diets. But as a Greek American boy growing up in the 1960s and ’70s, I did not think of stuffed grape leaves, grilled octopus, and tomato and cucumber salads as health food; they were just food.
The first time I became responsible for managing my own nutrition was when I went on a surfing safari to Baja, Mexico, with some friends as a teenager. Our budget was tight, and one of us came up with the bright idea of tossing a case of Pop-Tarts into the car so we wouldn’t have to pay for any food during our time south of the border. My buddies and I ate nothing but Pop-Tarts for two weeks. On the first day, we thought we had died and gone to heaven—no mothers around to prevent us from devouring sugar-filled treats four or five times a day! By the final day our trip had become a living hell. I would have gladly traded our last remaining Pop-Tarts for anything else: brussels sprouts, beets, you name it. I have not eaten another Pop-Tart since.
Toward the end of high school, I started to become more interested in nutrition, both as a general field of knowledge and as a lifestyle factor that I could manipulate to improve the way my body felt and performed. Traditionally, young men and women gleefully allow their diets to degenerate when they leave home for college, trading Mom’s cooking for pizza, beer, and fatty cafeteria food. My mom’s cooking was as wholesome as anyone’s, but the quality of my diet actually might have improved in my college years, because I wanted to get the most out of my body and I clearly got more out of it when I loaded up on vegetables and lean protein and kept the pizza and beer consumption within limits—by college standards, anyway.
Marathon Fuel
You don’t need solid food to fuel your way through a standard marathon. Sports drinks such as Accelerade, energy gels, and other ergogenic aids including Clif Shot Bloks can provide all the energy you need in the most convenient and fast-acting form available.