Running to Think

Tuesday, 18 March 2014

Why do I run?

Whenever I am waiting at the airport I feel quite inspired to write something about me or whatever is currently around me. Or I just have nothing better to do to kill some time. The period I was travelling consistently, I was used to write a piece each time, in each different airport. I wrote about everything, my feelings, the person in front of me or the the new pair of sunglasses I got. I still have those pieces and if I ever organise them well, I could probably write a book out of them.

What comes to my mind today regards running. Hence this post. A question I have been asking to myself for a long time now is “why do I run?”. Every time I posed such a question I found something better to do, postponing it to a better time. Maybe there is no better time than this, now that my flight has been delayed - and hopefully will not be cancelled because than I should be thinking of something more than just that question.

I am a runner since I was a child. When my friends played football, I ran. When we went out with the family on a sunday evening, I ran. When my mum asked me to buy the ham she forgot, I ran to the shop. I was just a factory of salty sweat that could burn shoes in weeks and t-shirts in days.

I have never been attracted by football despite the numerous attempts of my father who brought me every sunday to watch the football match of some team I forgot the name of or, to be more specific, I never fixed in my mind. I remember my friends collecting their heroes aggregated in groups they called teams.

For some reason that didn’t seduce me, at all.

In contrast I was attracted by the “red carpet” as I was used to refer to the track&field in my hometown. One day I entered the stadium just to run in the first lane, with the shoes that my mum bought for special occasions like dinners with the family or going to church.

As a child I couldn’t experience the philosophical beauty of running.

I just ran. And I am sure it was not for fun. It was to compete. The idea was - and I must admit sometimes still is - to defeat a competitor I didn’t know of and I would have never met again. No purpose at all, one should say. But for me it was very simple: they asked me to run as fast as I could on a distance they specified the day of the race. And I did, with no discussion. Defeating opponents was the main purpose. Running faster and winning was more a a statement of possession, a way of confirming the physical strength and endurance.

As I was becoming more mature, I could understand what I was doing. I even started giving my personal interpretation to running and the feelings that running transmitted to me started to change too.

I saw it was different from the other games and sports that my friends were used to practice. I’ve never been attracted by football for the simple reason that it’s a team game. Scoring or loosing is a product of a number of people who, somehow, contribute to their achievement. Tennis and other sports with a direct opponent have always been out of my league, due to the desire of doing sport regardless the presence of other people.

My mother usually reminds me of how much I liked to spend time on my own. I not only remember that period, but I am not surprised of the fact that today I can spend hours running in a forest, with trees and wind and rain and nothing else.

The feeling of competition slightly disappeared as I grew up.

I could grasp the joy of running alone relatively recently.

Running makes me think. It switches off some parts of the brain that otherwise would stay on and heat too much. I don’t know if that’s a matter of neurotransmitters or hormones or what. I am not even searching for an explanation.

Or maybe there is one. Running, as I see it, is the lack of dependence, the emblem of individuality and the proof that a man needs no hero.

When I go out for a run, there are no complications.

When I run, it’s simple.

Monday, 17 March 2014

Summary of week 10

Unknown 15:46:00 running , schedule 0 Comments

Another week of trail running around Madrid; another week of 120 km and 9400 kcal burned to convince myself that I am ready for the 80k of Paris. I started this week doing something I would have liked to do a while ago: resting.

03/03/2014

04/03/2014 intervals on a longer distance of 3km for a total run of 23 km. Really cool interval session. Tough but lovely. If you know what I mean.

05/03/2014 23 km from Cantoblanco to Alcobendas at a quite fast pace that I was keeping since the very beginning. Today I tried the new outfit I will wear during the 80km in Paris. New stuff needs to be tested first because I'm really not in the mood of having getting surprises the Day. Caroline following me by bike did the rest.

06/03/2014 10 km easy run with some drills on the trail towards El Pardo, once residence of Franco. Kind of mine, today.

07/03/2014 17 km a long and tedious interval training on 400 mt on the road, to be added to the usual mileage to go back home.

08/03/2014 quite dumb legs, as expected. I decided to stay at home and save some energy for the ultra distance of tomorrow.

09/03/2014 easy run to El Pardo and back to Cantoblanco. Caroline joined me by bike in the second part to cover the distance of 44 km. I remember this run to be a bit boring. At some point I really felt the need to talk to someone. Luckily I met another runner who decided to overtake me at a slightly higher pace. Of course I didn't let him go. Not to challenge him. I just needed some company. We started running at a faster pace of 4:20" per km. I didn't tell him that I had been running for 30 km already, not to get his mercy :)

Thursday, 13 March 2014

Dieting is not a piece of cake

Unknown 13:16:00 diet , fat 0 Comments

Hello girls and boys!

I am sure that what I am writing here has happened to you at least once in your life. I mean, have you ever had the feeling of being fat and just not comfortable with yourself?

Exactly! Awkward silence is what I was expecting. So, keep reading.

Let me go even more in depth. Imagine this scenario: your main ambition of the day is staying at home, maybe sipping a cup of tea right before eating. And that's not even dinner time. Then eating again. You feel like being doomed to eat and prisoner of your blanket, in a virtuous circle that keeps you stuck there until, my friend, it's too late for you to react.
Alright, I might sound quite fatalistic here, but you know what I mean. Moreover, winter is almost gone and there might be the need for your body to realise that.

We all know that staying at home will not solve the problem. Diets always look like mountains that are impossible to climb. But keep in mind that your body is usually not capable of doing anything. It’s the brain that can do things, and if that box is working well enough it can do great things. If not, alas, your brain will be the worst enemy you could get. And we don't want enemies. Do we?
So, keep yourself mentally sharp and follow these not-so-easy (I know) pieces of advice to put yourself one step forward.

The question that I have been asked a number of times goes a bit like this: "what should I do to lose weight?"

My answer, can be as articulated as an exam of nutrition at university or like the guidelines below, depending of who I am answering.

First of all, you have to set some realistic goals. Don’t try to lose 10 kg per week, nor believe those charlatans who claim that is possible. Losing a lot of weight in a short amount of time will have a side effect that we usually call the jo jo effect. What's that? The perfect machine of our body will react to the new condition and will go into a conservation state. Sooner or later, when you or your brain will relax on this drastic diet, it'll gain weight again. Therefore, take it easy and, more importantly, slow. A range from 2 to 4 kg per month is already a good achievement. Diet is like a ultra marathon with an elevation gain that you only experienced on Google maps. Slow and steady wins the race.

Start counting the calories you eat. Losing weight means eating less calories than you really burn and create that awesome deficit that will also burn your fat. Write down whatever you eat and always look at it during your day. Your brain can fool you by forgetting or underestimating the amount of calories that you are taking.
Split the day in 4 periods: breakfast, lunch, dinner and eventually time for snacks. Because you need it.
I personally use this website to get nutritional facts of whatever I eat.

How much should you eat?
Well, math is nice because it's clear. The amount of calories you consume in a day depends on factors like age, physical activity intensity and height, just to name a few.
This website can help you to have an idea about your daily intake.

Another secret you should share with everyone is about what to eat. Eat a variety of foods! It is important to have balanced diet with foods that belong to the five major groups in the picture. Choosing a variety of foods within and across food groups improves dietary patterns because foods within the same group have different combinations of nutrients and other beneficial substances.
Distrust the lemon diet, the potato diet or the rice diet. Distrust all mono food diets and, again, the charlatans that sponsor their effectiveness.

Drink plenty of water, and avoid all the chemical fuzzy drinks. Water will help you to increase energy and relieve fatigue. Water flushes out toxins, improves skin complexion, boosts your immune system and it does all of this for free. Even if you buy water, that will still be cheaper than those sweetened beverages that will just make you fat. A total of 1,5-2 litres per day should do the trick.

My last recommendation: don’t be passive and move! Try to move as much as you can. Cycling, swimming, running, fitness, dancing are all good for your body. Physical activity, as the word says, will activate your metabolism, forcing your body to burn more calories that, in turn, will make you smaller (providing you are not eating more too).

If one day you end up at the gym and you realise that your weight is higher than the time you were flaked out on the sofa, don't panic. Muscle is heavier than fat. But more muscles usually mean more calories to burn.

What now? Get started and sweat all the fat out of that body!

Diet is the only game where you win when you lose.

Love,

Caroline

Wednesday, 12 March 2014

Isotonic drinks. The do-it-yourself solution

Unknown 14:14:00 beverage , diy 0 Comments

Preparing the hydration pack with an awful isotonic drink.
That smile will disappear soon

Whenever I prepare the hydration pack for a long run I realise that I would never use all the stuff I put in the bag. Even though I am aware of this terrible mistake and regardless the fact that I really force myself to drinking and eating during workout, I still end up out of fuel in the middle of the race.

My body really can't take more after the 45th km. I think that very few people could take more after 45 km of running without really replenishing carbs or sugar.

I remember when I criticised those watches with a reminder functionality some years ago. Those devices had a function that alerted the runner and reminded him to eat or drink. My conclusion about that feature was "how can he forget to eat and drink? These watches are total bulls***!".
I should reconsider my idea on it.

In one of the most recent long trail runs around Madrid, I decided to put on a test a new isotonic drink (which I will not advertise here). Turns out that the drink was effective even though the taste was so horrible I was about to throw up at every sip.

Whenever I read words preceded by iso or ipo, I have the tendency to investigate more and put some science into the dibate.

Isotonic drinks have a peculiar characteristic summarised in their osmotic pressure that is similar to the one of plasma in our blood. Fact.

The components of an isotonic drink would therefore be rapidly absorbed by osmosis. Fact.

This detail is quite irrelevant for those cases in which the time window between two training sessions is quite large. The runner would have a consistent amount of time to reintegrate the salts and minerals lost during the first workout. This is not the case for an ultra runner.

There is no time there since two or more workouts are very well packed into a very long one. The only available option for a ultra runner is to keep running to the finish line, which, for the sake of clarity, could be as far as 40 km or more. What then?

Isotonic drinks might make a difference here, being the osmotic pressure of the solution very similar to the one in the blood. In such a scenario the cells of the lucky runner (I wish I was that one) will not shrink nor shred and the absorption would be just smooth, with all pleasure to muscles, tissues and blood.

Despite the amount of blabbing about isotonic drinks, the benefits introduced by such beverages are real. I have always been quite skeptic about it. The main reason of my distrust is due to the fact that most of the times commercial isotonic drinks are enhanced with other elements like sirups, sugars, carbs etc. that usually give a party into my stomach, with the side effects that everybody might think of.

Indeed, something that I am going to try soon is a do-it-yourself isotonic drink.

Here are the ingredients

1 lt. water

1 tea spoon of baking soda (powder)

2 tea spoons of sugar

1 tea spoon of marine salt

1 lemon or orange or juicy fruit you like

and preparation

the base is water, of course. For 1 lt of plain water add baking soda, sugar, salt and lemon and shake it a bit or just start. Running wearing the hydration pack will do the rest.

One thing to bear in mind is that the drink I just described will be subjected to deterioration, due to the lack of the awful set of chemicals that is usually added to commercial drinks. Thus, it should be consumed in about 3 or 4 hours, which is not really a problem for any ultra runner.