Way back in November 2011 I wrote the blogpost below. As summer approaches and unhealthy food choices multiply with the mosquitoes (sorry, that's my dad peeping out there -- one of his favorite lines during, say, a century-intense whiteout blizzard: "I like it, son. No mosquitoes, no flies") I thought it was worth a replate, as they say in the newspaper business:
Most of my running life I’ve been bad. Or at least inattentive. If
nothing else over the past near two years since I’ve taken up the idea
that I’m a marathoner, I’ve come to see that what I’d long felt was a
reward for being a runner was that I didn’t have to watch what I ate.
You name it: hamburgers, pizza, second helpings of birthday cake, Girl
Guide (in Canada, Girl Scouts in America) cookies by the handful, trans
fat-loaded potato chips, Cokes, french fries. I’m one of those runners
who has trouble keeping pounds on, let alone gaining weight. So for
thirty-plus years that’s what I did.
Which
has certainly played a role in my bad cholesterol being borderline
high. So, yeah, I’ve made an adjustment in my diet to address those
readings, and they’ve gone down to more manageable levels. Now I watch
my DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis) blood composition levels, and that is all.
No,
I’ve learned that in concert with an increased level of intense
exercise that comes with marathon training that my body has needs that
I’m only now getting around to fulfilling. The outcome? Not just
improved performance on the road. But more energy. In the past few
months, I’ve been noticing that I’m making do with less sleep, my mind
is more active, more what I feel my body and mind were like twenty years
ago. This is not just something that is in my imagination either.
Doctors are only now beginning to talk about real versus calendar age.
Back in my parents’ day the expression was: You’re Only as Young as You
Feel. Now, it’s more like: You Can Be Younger Than You Are.
At
the risk of being seen as a food obsessive, consider this: With the
possible exception of water, the most researched drink in history is
Gatorade. And surprise, surprise the resulting studies extol the value
of Gatorade for its excellent necessity at replenishing bodily fluids
after strenuous exercise.
Dehydration, according to the
bulk of running literature, is seen as the stalking horse to collapse,
breakdown and serious injury. But “The Runner’s Body” http://bit.ly/rEwSRN,
the high readable, myth-blasting book by exercise scientists Ross
Tucker and Jonathan Dugas, with journalist Matt Fitzgerald, challenges
that tenet, saying hyponatremia, or overdrinking, especially during
marathons and ultramarathons, has proven to be a much more serious
threat to runners’ health.
Yet, despite that, a
majority of race material continues to drone away that to maximize
performance, maximize drink intake. Fuhgeddabout whether you are
thirsty. The authors make the reasonable point that we should follow a
corporatized slogan – Obey Your Thirst .¤.¤.
But
runners will tell you that they are not comfortable with that direction.
That on a run they drink, not driven by thirst, but by the
station-to-station availability during a race, or with carefully
calibrated water-delivery systems – bottles strapped to a runner’s belt,
say, or routes planned that include regular-interval drinking
fountains.
This is where Thurber comes in. My redbone
coonhound running partner. During our six-miler, Thurb will pad up to
the doggie drinking fountain and in his way, attuned to his needs, he
will drink from the fountain pretty much the same amount of water every
time. About thirty seconds of drinking if I were to time it. When he’s
finished he turns his head away, looks up to me as if to say, well,
drink up, fella, and let’s get back on the road. Time’s a-wasting.
Philosophically,
that’s what I’m talking about. Seeing and responding to the pure
present. In the way that dogs do. Embracing the simple.
As
I cut out unhealthy choices from my diet while keeping up my intense
training program, I find that I don’t crave junk food like I used to.
It’s not a schoolmarm message. Like favor whole grains over processed
because whole grains promote weight loss and reduce the risk of chronic
diseases like diabetes.
My guess is that
something happened to my body chemistry in these past two years of
training. It’s not that I’m depriving myself of a sugary or salty snack,
or a Diet Coke during those energy collapses I used to suffer from in
the midafternoon, or that extra glass of wine at night. Rather, as I
consume these treats, it’s as if my body is taking over
mid-conversation. Need and want are one; I don’t need it and thus I
decant the wine, return the ice cream to the freezer after only a single
scoop, fasten a clip to the bag of potato chips.
It
doesn’t mean that I won’t have an occasional hamburger and fries, but
when I do my body responds differently to them. Who knows, the way things are
going, perhaps by next year I’ll have zero interest in food that isn’t
efficiently transformed into fuel. (Note from 2013; that is pretty much the case -- I'm really not at all interested in red meat, for example.)
Remember, you’re
only as young as you are. I know I’m not reverse-aging. This
isn’t science fiction. But I am slowing aging down to a Senior Olympian
trot.
Next: Running for Your Life: Going Your Own Way
0 comments:
Post a Comment