Food

Have you pledged yet?

During that first run I wanted to vomit, but I knew evacuating the bean burrito I had just eaten would not bring the satisfaction that I desired. I simply had to exercise gastroenterological restraint. When I was in high school, it was not uncommon during rowing practices to dig so deep that I would step off the erg and stuff my head in a trash can. Vomiting from pure effort was something with which I was familiar if not entirely comfortable. However this was something entirely different. I was trying to teach my body to digest a meal while on a long run, and the outcome looked unfavorable. The human body is astonishing. Somehow it is capable of assessing priority in ways that our cognitive self cannot. The digestion of food requires increased blood flow to the stomach. However when muscles and lungs are stressed through intense aerobic exercise, blood also needs to be pushed to these areas as well. Decreased blood flow leads to a buildup of lactic acid, which is the result of the body burning fuel anaerobically. The body needs to prioritize: digest food or oxygenate muscles. The desire to vomit comes from the body’s realization that oxygen is a more immediate need than food.

This brings us to a fundamental problem with running long distances. On a short afternoon run, the body is able to access available stores of energy to supply the fuel needed to go for about an hour. As you push beyond an hour and a half of intense exercise, the body becomes less and less capable of fueling the muscle’s needs, and the athlete starts to lose their strength and stamina. When running a half marathon, one might be able to get by with the carbohydrates provided by a sports drink. As one pushes into the three hour mark, it becomes necessary to supplement the liquid fuel with something solid. The various energy gels on the market are quite popular for this. For myself, I find that there is a discernable pickup within ten minutes of taking down a gel. However, they don’t have the lasting power one needs. Forty minutes to an hour is about all you will get from one. When running my marathons, I found that I would take four to five gels in the course of the three hour and fifteen minute race. As you push out beyond marathon distances and times though, gels and sports drinks are no longer enough.

One needs to eat food to replenish the energy being burned during these very long and intense bouts of exercise. One of the first times that I experienced this first hand was climbing Denali in Alaska. If you visualize the human body as a steam engine, then I would have been dumping wheelbarrows full of coal on the fire. I consumed on average of five or six thousand calories a day. This included mugs of hot chocolate with tablespoons of butter after huge dinners to fuel the fire for the night. As we moved higher and higher, though, it became harder and harder to eat. The nausea resulted from the lack of oxygen. Our bodies were deciding that blood to the brain was more important that blood for digestion.

During the course of a marathon I would burn about 3,800 calories. Over the course of the 50 mile ultra-marathon I expect to burn about 7,500 calories. This is on top of the 2,500 calories men of my age normally expend during the course of a day. This raises some major issues. For example if I would to try use energy gels to provide the necessary calories, I would need to eat 83 of them: nine an hour or about one every six minutes. This all brings us back to the initial idea, which was figure out a way to literally stomach eating while exercising at a strenuous rate. During the ultra I was going to have to be able to stomach PB&J sandwiches, pretzels, M&Ms, and baked potato chunks dunked in salt. This was going to be the only way to ingest the necessary amount of calories.

Perhaps it was stupid to try and start with a black bean burrito, but why not go big? If I could handle that, then anything else would be easier. Besides, with blood being diverted from my brain to my stomach, I was relieved of having to think about the stupidity of it all anyways.

Theory of Relativity

I mentioned in the previous post Dean Karnazes who, along with Scott Jurek, is one of the preeminent ultra-runners in the Unites States. In fact both men have completed races in excess of 160 miles. The former has completed The Relay—a 199 mile relay in California akin to the Hood to Coast race—by himself. The latter holds the record for the Western States 100 Mile Endurance Run, completing the rough mountainous course in an astonishing fifteen and a half hours. For these men the fifty miles that I hope to complete is just the warm up, which makes the point that the challenges that we all face individually are all relative to our own experiences, goals, and strengths. I distinctly remember having to run the mile in middle school gym class and thinking that I would die before I ever finished it—all nine or so minutes it took to do the two half mile laps.

So I was interested in considering just how far the fifty miles of the ultra-marathon is. I needed a yardstick to measure it against. For those on the East Coast, consider the following fact. The length of the race is equivalent to jogging out of the Boston Common and continuing on until you reach Manchester, New Hampshire. For my students, consider this. If you were to lace up your shoes at the district office and run to the steps of the state capital building in Salem, Oregon, you would only be halfway through the fifty miles of the race, which brings us to the initial point; time and space are relative. Get on a jetliner from Portland and you would cover fifty miles in five minutes. On the freeway you might cover the same distance in about 48 minutes.

Instead of thinking about the absolute distance of the race, though, it is probably better to use another yardstick to measure the length of the race, the clock. My goal is to try and finish the fifty miles in nine hours. Consider this. If you work a nine-to-five job, as most do, and have the average commute time of 23 minutes, then you could leave for work, do your job, and return home again all before I plan to finish the race. It would take you less time to brush your teeth, sleep the average night’s sleep of seven hours, get up, take a shower, brush your teeth, eat breakfast, and drive to work than it will for me to finish the race.

Yesterday, I did a long run which lasted nearly three hours. The first hour sailed along smoothly. The second began to drag. As I entered the third hour, the specter of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity began to take over. Time became elastic. I would look down at my watch and note that only seconds had passed when it felt like minutes. For a while I think my watch actually stopped.

People often ask the question, “How do you train for something like this?” All the resources that I could find seemed to indicate that time on your feet is more important than total weekly mileage. When I trained for my marathons, the length of daily runs and weekend long runs was strictly prescribed. There was a definite weekly mileage I hoped to attain. For ultra-marathons, though, nearly everyone seems to agree that you don’t count the miles; you count the hours. Absolute mileage is less relevant. And maybe Einstein was an ultra-runner himself. After all how else would he know that time and distance were both related and relative? Perhaps like countless other ultra-runners, he witnessed time collapsing as he entered the fourth or fifth hour of his long runs and observed the numbers on the mile markers blur into meaningless smudges.

Who carries who?

Yesterday the rain was coming down in buckets. I was scheduled for a forty-five minute run but questioned the rationality of stepping into the storm. Never-the-less I laced my shoes and dressed myself lightly, knowing that I was going to get soaked. Then I prepared my coach. I changed his diaper and zipped him into his one piece winter suit before buckling him into his seat in the jogging stroller. I pulled the rain cover over the top and peeked through the crack to make sure that he was comfortable. He peered back at me knowing what was to come. Many times over the past few months we have gone through this routine. Together we stepped into the rain.

Between the drumming of the drops on the cover and the vibration of the wheels, Liam was soon asleep. Within ten minutes my shirt was plastered to my chest, and I began to feel my socks squishing in my shoes. We turned onto Lancaster and began the three quarter of a mile climb. On flat ground I can usually control the stroller with one hand as it is not hard to push once it has gained momentum. However on the hills I need to use two arms and to bear down on each stride forward. That was the way the next half an hour went: up and down, up and down the hills of our neighborhood with quads burning. I pushed him, but he pushed me.

He pushed me to drive each leg harder and raise the tempo. As we neared home, my legs were beginning to flag. We approached a cross street where a driver waited to turn on to the main avenue. The mini-van let us pass and then pulled out next to us. The mustached man, a paragon of fatherhood himself in his Honda Odyssey, had rolled down the window. He called out to me supportively, “Way to go, Dad!” before speeding away. I must have looked like I was suffering a bit, pushing the stroller in the rain. Little did he realize that at that point my son was carrying me.

Accomplished ultra-marathoner Dean Karnazes has noted the following thing about feats of extreme endurance: you run the first half with your legs and the last half with your heart. At that point in time my muscles were spent. The hills had cooked whatever spark they had when I started. I was running with my heart. As simple and cliché as it sounds, if someone were to ask me why I was running, my answer would have been, “For my son.” But that answer would be as devoid of pop as my legs in that moment. As for the question of who carried who at that point in time, I would have to say that Liam was carrying me more than I was carrying him.

Resolution

The meandering path which the Wildwood Trail cuts through Forest Park was a ribbon of mud and slop this last Sunday. A light dusting of snow had blanketed most of the forest floor except where the tree cover was most dense. Andrew and I had met at 8:30AM to crank out a two hour training run. In fact he had called forty-five minutes before we had planned to meet to ask if it was even worth it. The temperature hovered around thirty-three degrees, and snow was mixing with rain. The sum of these elements added up to potential hypothermia or at least severe misery. I was optimistic though and suggested that we go ahead with the plan.

So there we were, somewhere on the eight mile stretch between Wild Cherry and Saltzman following an already well tracked path. Clearly dozens of people had already passed this way. It is not unusual on a warm May weekend morning to have to slalom around runners, hikers, and dog walkers all enjoying the sunshine. Yet we found ourselves dodging many people traveling both directions. Some were young and lithe; many were slow and plodding. For such a foul January morning, it seemed bizarre to have such a crowd on the trail.

Andrew postulated that these were all the New Year’s Resolution People: the ones who vowed to run more, lose a little weight in 2011, and get fit. This was the first weekend of the new year, and he was probably right. Motivated by their fresh aspirations, they were out early mucking along the sodden trail. Most seemed bright and cheerful. I would be the first to admit that I felt like garbage and wished only to be back in bed.

How many of these hardy souls would still be rising early in February to trace their routes between the towering fir trees with soaked socks and mud choked shoes?

I know that if I am going to be successful in April, I must be one of those people who stays dedicated day in and day out, each month. There are a litany of excuses one could use, and many sound quite reasonable from the confines of a warm bed: maybe the rain will let up in the afternoon; if I get a cold, then my training will really be hampered; if I soak my shoes, I won’t be able to run tomorrow; I didn’t get enough sleep last night; I woke feeling dehydrated.

The root of the word resolution comes from resolute which means, among other things, firm in one’s belief. How many New Year’s resolutions fall by the wayside because the person does not genuinely believe that the resolution is worthwhile or that they can achieve it, that they lack belief in themselves or their goals? Don’t get me wrong; at times I have doubts about whether I can be successful in my goal to run 50 miles and raise the kind of money I hope to for the scholarship. However, I firmly believe that doubt keeps you honest. It requires you to assess your beliefs as well as what you are doing. I can assure you that the only thing that I do not doubt is the importance of the goal: helping to further some student’s education.

Will I be there in February when the muck on the trails becomes so deep it can suck your shoe right off your foot? My fellow runners will be fewer. The excuses will be numerous. Yes. I will be resolute because the answer to the question, “Is it worthwhile?” is always, “Without a doubt”.

As for our two hour run, it dragged on longer than we thought. At two hours and twelve minutes we jogged into the parking lot, resolved to run every last step.