Less is More

Feeling like a fine-tuned firetruck on my runs these days thanks to the Engine 2 Diet.

I am shedding unneeded weight, but more importantly can tell my system is just more efficient. If I never have a piece of meat again, I wouldn't care. Although I will probably eat fish and perhaps a very lean bird again, I don't miss meat at all. And that's just me speaking from the surface. I can't wait to have a physical in the next month or two to see how my blood work plays out. Cholesterol (family history), thyroid (borderline hypo), blood pressure (hasn't been a problem), etc., will almost certainly look great.

I guess a lot of this discourse is reflection of what I am reading and focusing on. To others, granted, that might just be evidence of my own little world getting projectiled into the twitterverse/blogosphere. But objectively speaking (and pay attention to the people trumpeting low fat, non-animal diet) eating a certain way will pay huge dividends for one's well-being. HUGE. Your diet can REVERSE a deadly set of circumstances. Just don't eat so much FAT! I will just continue to read and eat this way and get stronger and stronger mentally, emotionally and physically. At some point, the talking has to give way to the living. Give it a shot. That's what I would say. You have NOTHING TO LOSE.

Here's my sense about running right now. I want to get faster. I want to be able to run on flats fast, up hills fast, and even over mountains fast. I know from experience that just running up hills is not very efficient toward becoming a faster runner. You may gain strength and be able to "weather" hills fairly well, but I don't buy it. There was a great "round table" on Rick's blog about this very subject in which some very strong mountain runners shared some thoughts. I guess if you are training for mountain ultras, then yes you need to run a lot of mountains, up and down. A lot. Especially if these are 100s. But that's not me.

I have been running a lot lately, all kinds of terrain, distances, etc. Some flat, some elevation, road, trail, beach, etc. For me, best bang for your buck? 1 hour and a half with about 800 - 1000 ft. of vertical. This kind of run is in the wheel house of a trail half marathon perhaps reaching eventually for a 50k. 800 - 1000ft. means plenty of speed can be had. It also means a little vertical to keep you honest. This works form ME right now. Not for a long run, but for a good quality run that gives me a chance to run up and down pretty hard.

I have been running pretty hard. The last couple of days I checked HR and my avg. HR for AeT (~150 bpm) was around 7:45 a mile so I'm coming along; the harder efforts seem to be doing me just fine. But of course I have been running a lot and this includes months of aerobic stuff.

I don't know what I have in store other than there is some great racing and weather at the first of the year in SoCal. I want to be HEALTHY finally for that. Do I do some road racing to kick my ass? Do I get my bike in gear? I'm not sure what I'm training for, but I am loving the food and running diets as of late.