Going vegan or going hungry?

An apple a day keeps the doctor away...

Last blog post received so many interesting comments that I wanted to continue a little bit more on the nutrition thread. During the Christmas break, I stumbled upon a few programs on BBC tv. The one program was about the benefits of vegan lifestyle, and the other was about how fasting for 24-72 hours every now and then can be beneficial for your health. The indications were so strong that I got really curious about both. But I also have some questions that I haven't found the answers to.

Fasting
Now let's start with this one, since I do in fact have some experience with this. Three times, during 2014 and 2015, I completed a three-day juice program. At that time, I did it mainly for weight management, but now I have learned that the benefits are so much more. In fact, the 2016 Nobel Prize winner in medicine and physiology, Yoshinori Ohsumi, got the prize exactly because of his research showing the benefits of hunger on the renewal of human cells.  The bottom line of the story is that when we go hungry (less than 500 kcal a day) for 1-3 days, the growth of new cells in our body slows down, and instead the body starts repairing existing cells. For a person with high cholesterol and blood pressure, such a diet can reduce the values to normal, even just after fasting once (then you have to do it every now and then to keep the good effect). Even for healthy people, this process is documented to slow down aging, and it might cancel or postpone the risk of serious diseases.
  
Vegan diet
The benefits of vegan diet seem to be very comparable to the benefits of fasting. Animal protein is one of the foremost promoter of the growth of new cells in our bodies. The production of new cells is good when we are young, but as we get older it also means quicker aging. Vegans, in average, not only live longer, but they also age better. Meaning that they stay healthy and young looking until very old age. Vegans are also in average slimmer, they almost never suffer from heart strokes, and there is a lower occurrence of cancer among them.

The benefits of going hungry or going vegan seem to be endless. And since benefits of both methods seem pretty similar, we can probably choose which one we would like to apply, if any. If the idea of going hungry a day or three every now and then (it is really not that difficult) seems doable, perhaps that is easier for you than to change your whole diet. Or perhaps anyways you have reduced animal products quite a lot, and the way to a vegan lifestyle is not so long. I must admit that I got inspired to try another juice program; I'm starting already on Monday!

Now, let us be more critical. Of course if you compare vegan lifestyle or periodic fasting to "normal" unhealthy eating habits (yes, unfortunately normal - meaning average - eating habits are unhealthy), the benefits are huge. But what if you are, like me, a person who is quite careful about what you eat, and avoid unhealthy fats, sugar, white flour, starch, prefabricated foods, and fried foods? What if your diet already contains a lot of vegetables and otherwise consists of fruit, lean meats, whole grains and nuts? Unfortunately I could not find any studies that compare such a life style with that of a vegan. One of the arguments used by vegan sites is that our ancestors did not eat meat or animal products. But we live longer today than our ancestors, and our brains have evolved a lot since their times. Could this be due to animal products? And how about athletes who want to improve running form or body strength? Are we not dependent on muscle growth?

I am sure both "sides" of the debate can give convincing answers to my questions one way or the other. While I was thinking about these things, I ended up watching another program on Norwegian NRK tv, this time, about areas in Europe where people live longer and stay healthier than the average European. Now, these places had very little in common in their diets. Toulouse in France (lots of duck, blue cheese and red wine), Iceland (almost no vegetables, lots of dried meat, fresh fish), and a small place in Italy (lots of olive oil, vegetables and fresh made pasta). The conclusion of the researchers was that there might be some components in these diets that are balancing out each other. However, they had one thing in common: almost no industrially processed foods.

What seems to be sure is that average European diet nowadays contains too much meat and animal products, and too much processed or prefabricated food. So, even if you don't want to go vegetarian or vegan, cutting down on meats and animal products is definitely a good idea. Avoiding processed and prefabricated foods (instant soups, sauces, cereal, packed snacks, etc) is probably even more important. Fasting a day or three, a few times a year, especially on resting days when you are not planning heavy exercise, can also be a good component to add to your routine.

For myself, I am inclined to continue with my dairy-free diet. I am enjoying it more and more, and it is surprisingly easy. I feel light and energized, and my form is actually improving. I have also discovered how much calcium there is in green vegetables, especially kale! I have calculated that I get more than enough of calcium without any dairy. So I was probably getting too much calcium earlier. That might also be a slow down of form, I have read. On top of my dairy-free diet, I am eating more fish and less meat, and I have almost stopped eating chicken. A couple of times a year, like after Christmas and after summer holidays, I might do a three-day juice program, to balance the effects of junk food and too much wine ;-)

Say yes to new adventures! (Better an "oops" than a "what if"...)

New year, new nutrition experiments

No milk today, it wasn't always so... (Herman's Hermits)

I am probably more than average curious about nutrition and willing to experiment with new things. And I am perhaps quite easy to convince to try out various theories if they sound reasonable and not so difficult to follow. So, for the last couple of weeks, I have introduced two changes in my eating habits:

1. I have cut out all dietary supplement pills containing vitamins, minerals, anti oxidants, etc.
2. I have cut out milk, cheese, butter, and all other dairy products (things made of milk).

Why?

During my training towards Amsterdam marathon, I had added quite a bit of dietary supplements to my daily diet, to stay out of injuries and to keep healthy. I continued with these supplements also after Amsterdam, and I even increased them as I kept feeling exhausted a long while after the race. However, my form improvement still did not come as expected, and by chance I stumbled upon some articles recommending to avoid vitamins, anti oxidants, in form of supplementary pills. The point seems to be the following: all of these supplements that are good for you in general, might be stopping your form from improving, because they are simply helping your body too much. During hard exercise nasty substances accumulate in the muscles, and our body gets in better shape by working to get rid of these substances. If a lot of dietary supplements help the body in this work, then the form improvement might not be as much as it could be.

I don't know if it's true. As with most of dietary advice, this might be debated. Also, research about nutrition is very difficult to compare to your habits, since there are so many components of a diet that play a role. What I know is that I do eat pretty varied and healthy, with lots of vegetables of all sorts,  so anyway I should be getting enough of all these vitamins and minerals in my food. That's why I decided to give it a try for a couple of months to see if I see any change. I am still taking a spoon of fish oil every morning, though. And red beet powder before competitions...

And what's the deal with milk and dairy? This is something that came up quite unexpectedly. During a run, I was complaining to my friend Mats (the first guy from Bergen to climb Mount Everest, so his advice definitely counts!) that I was experiencing lack of form improvement although my energy was back and I was training properly. He explained to me that he and a few others had gotten huge benefits from cutting out all dairy products. He was so sweet to run at my speed almost throughout the whole run, and explained to me in detail a lot of things he had read, presentations he had watched and lectures he had listened to. At first the idea seemed very scary. I don't normally drink milk really, but I do eat a lot of yogurt and cheese. How to continue my normal diet without these things?

Fortunately there are a lot of substitutes available in normal supermarkets.  And they all taste just like the real thing, sometimes even better. As a nice side effect, they are really low on calories! I have tried out a few different brands and tastes, and in the pictures you see the products that I like the most. For me it works fine to continue to eat and drink as before, by simply replacing, milk, yogurt, cheese, and sour cream with these products. For those who live in Norway, you can find them at Rema1000 and Meny stores.

The story about milk and dairy seems to be that they have an inflammatory effect on the body. As runners, we get already quite a bit of inflammation in our joints and tendons from running, and dairy products make it harder for our body to repair this. This is why dairy is pointed to by many doctors as something that causes or worsens diseases like arthritis. It also promotes cell growth, which is good when you are young, but speeds up aging as you get older. And of course cell growth also applies to bad cells, like tumors. Again, these findings are very difficult to compare to your own diet, because medical tests objects are usually people who did not have a healthy diet to begin with. But I found the indications strong enough to give it a try.

Have I noticed any changes? I fact I have! But I cannot be sure that these are entirely due to the diet. I have been feeling less tired and much more energetic, and I can take more training than before without getting exhausted. But this can also be because we had a Christmas break and I had a lot of opportunity to rest and sleep between the sessions. But I have also noticed that my stomach feels more comfortable compared to before. Not that I ever noticed problems with dairy products before. But now that they are gone, I keep finding myself thinking how pleasant and relaxed my "insides" feel.  Since the change is anyway so easy to follow, I will give this a couple of months' try and see if this is something I want to make into a permanent change. After all:

How will you know if it's the right decision, if you never make it?

Happy new year!

Hopes don't work if you don't.

It is strange what kind of a psychological effect the new year's has on us. We feel it's time to assess the year that has gone and to make wishes for the year to come. For myself, I already performed this act about a month ago. The end of the down period after Amsterdam marathon was the turning point of the training year for me. I reviewed the goals and hopes of 2016, I set new goals and hopes for 2017, and I already started working on those at the end of November.

One thing that characterized 2016 for me, in terms of training, is street running. Most of my running was done on flatter asphalt or gravel surfaces. I have also accumulated the most running kilometers during a year: 2150 km this year, compared to 1400 km last year, and 1200 km in 2014. Now, this is pretty interesting. Everywhere we read that your basic running form is directly correlated to the number of kilometers run. It is also logical to think that the danger of injury is also related to the mileage. However,  I think neither is entirely true. At the end of 2014, I think I was in better shape in the sense that I could run a 5k faster than I think I can now. I was also clearly better at uphills. And I got seriously injured at the beginning of  2015, due to the training done in 2014. The mistake I was making then, I think, is that I was running too fast at every training. I was also doing quite a bit of fast intervals on the track field, and sprinting (20 km/h) on the treadmill. With the result that my form improved quickly, but I also got injured quickly.

I am honestly not sad for my injury. It taught me to be patient and to work more systematic towards my goals. I have a lot more endurance now for longer races. So my goal for 2017 is to combine all of the above, and train more varied. Less street running kilometers, more biking, swimming and climbing kilometers, and more hours of training in total. Take into account heart rate zones, have more zone 1 sessions, and more threshold / sweet spot sessions. And this is in fact the only goal I want to set. Because in 2016, what I mentioned as hopes came true, but what I mentioned as goals became unimportant and forgotten.

The three hopes for 2016 were Bergen City haft marathon, Bergen Fjellmaraton, and Amsterdam marathon. All of them finished, which is really more than I dared to expect. The three goals were a new record for Stoltzekleiven, 5 kg weight reduction, and being able to perform chin-ups. None of them happened. I didn't even participate at Stoltzeklevien, which was just a couple of weeks before Amsterdam, I didn't dare to diet during the heavy running period around Amsterdam, and I wasn't motivated for the chins without the weight reduction. What seemed so important, and indeed doable, at the beginning of 2016, became less and less important and interesting as the things that seemed less possible became more and more realistic to achieve. So I simply move these not achieved goals to the list of hopes for this year :-)

For 2017, again, I have also some scary hopes. But I am still not sure whether or not I want to go for all of them. The intensive training period before and the fatigue and form loss after Amsterdam still makes me hesitant to go for another long endurance race. I keep changing my mind every second day. I think I will have to wait until I can start serious bike training and see how good (or even more importantly: safe!) I feel on a bike before I can make up my mind for sure. But some steps on the road are already taken. Frank and I bought new bikes in November. So we're in it together. If we are. I'll let you know.

Happy new year!

Last race of the year, a little whisky, and some reflections

Join a running group!

I've said that before, I'll say it again. If you have an interest in running, there is nothing like being a part of a running group.

You have of course your family, friends, and colleagues, but nobody can understand you like your running buddies when it comes to training and competition goals, injuries, frustrations, joys, victories, and failures. With who else can you talk for hours on a single injury history, or on a training period towards a competition, or on heart rate zones? Who else will always cheer you, encourage you and motivate you whatever your goals are, and comfort you and give you pep talk during your down periods? And every now and then you can be even lucky to make a new friend for life, getting into deeper topics and opening your hearts to each other.

Friday evening was the annual Little Christmas Whisky Race with a party afterwards. I must admit that I am still struggling to get back my form. I was 4 seconds faster this year than last, but the ground and air conditions were perfect, so I should have done better. OK, so a marathon breaks you down, but think of all that training I invested in before Amsterdam. Should that not pay off now when the fatigue is gone and my energy is back? I could easily get buried in this kind of negative thoughts were it not for the frame around the race. With the whisky bar at the finish at the top and the party down at the club house afterwards, there is no way one can feel down after such an event. So yesterday, instead I found myself thinking about how fun it is to get older.

Yes you read right. When I say this to my younger friends and colleagues, they are always surprised. Perhaps I would also have been if I heard it in my twenties from people in their forties. My goodness, I remember how sorry I felt for them then. When my older colleagues at that time spoke about reading glasses and graying hair, I pitied them. Still they were the ones to have the most fun at parties, and I was always astonished by that. (I mean, like, isn't life almost over?) Now I know why. As we get older, as long as we are lucky to keep our health, life gets easier on many plans. Kids are growing and can take more and more care of themselves, you have reached a level in you career,  for most the economic situation improves, and you get more time for yourself. If you, at this point in life, start investing some time in a rewarding activity, like sports, and on top of that find a group of people to do it with, then life becomes a play ground and you are back to the joys of childhood all over again.

Just think about the race and the party afterwards, and all the people involved in organizing such an event. Carrying food, drinks, and fire wood up to the finish area, registering people and timing the racers, preparing the party, baking cakes, doing kitchen duty, cleaning afterwards, .... And how effortless and easy it all goes when there are so many people who are willing to contribute. It is always like this. There is always somebody who takes initiative to organize a party, a dinner, a weekend trip, a training session, a mountain hike, you name it. With all the extremely sad things going on around the world, I feel so blessed to be surrounded with all this kindness and positive energy.

My experiences from my local club Varegg, with my Bergen running group Melkesyre and Fjellgeitene, and my Istanbul running group Istrunbul, who embraced me so warmly for the brief time I spent there, make me think that running groups all around the world work in this positive way. If you're rather interested in biking or swimming, or other sports, there are groups for those as well.  I follow online quite a few such groups both in Bergen and Istanbul, and they all seem to burst with positive energy. There is no reason to hesitate. Don't do it alone.

Join a group!

Ingrid's recipe

No, not for Christmas cookies :-)

Although my main focus for the time being is uphill running and leg strength training, I haven't forgotten all about flat running. Every now and then I like to do a long run, but there haven't been any short or fast runs recently.

Still I want to build a basis for the street races of next season, and I have stumbled upon some interesting advice from the Norwegian multi-distance world champion Ingrid Kristiansen. In her blog, she gives a winter treadmill schedule for setting a 10k PB in the spring. She indicates the speed of a progressive 50 min run, which should feel very easy at this point. But she will increase the speed as the winter proceeds. Her initial advice is for advanced runners who want to do 10 k below 40 minutes, and this is how it looks: start with pace 5:55. Every 5 minutes, decrease the pace 10 seconds. The last 5 minutes are at pace 4:25.

Now, my goal would rather be to manage 10k at 50 minutes or below, which means exactly 1 minute slower per kilometer. So, it is very easy to change the suggested paces to what I think fits for me: start at 6:55, and decrease 10 seconds every 5 minutes, ending at 5:25 for the last five minutes. Ingrid also gives a heart rate indication of how the pace should feel. Her heart rate at start is around 140 and at the end 160, well below her threshold.

To test this on the treadmill, I translated the pace (min/km) to speed (km/h) since this is how a treadmill works. I ended up with the following schedule, changing every five minutes: 8.7 - 8.9 - 9.2 - 9.5 - 9.8 - 10.1 - 10.3 - 10.6 - 10.9 - 11.1. It looked really easy compared to what I manage normally. So far so good. But I had forgotten how boring I find treadmill running, and how hot I get when I run indoors.... The heart rate started out even lower than what Ingrid suggested, but it ended up higher at the end.

In general, I do get a higher heart rate when I run indoors, which I think is due to the temperature. No matter where, I always find the indoor conditions too hot to run on the treadmill. I suppose a training studio holds at least 20 degrees C and of course there is no wind.... If I were to design a studio, I would keep a separate room for the treadmills, set the temperature at 14 degrees, and install some fans to simulate pleasant wind. In fact, perhaps every treadmill could be covered, like a glass bubble, and one could set the temperature as low as one wanted inside there, and the sound as high as one wanted and played one's own music without using ear plugs. I wonder if such mills exist. If not, perhaps I should apply for a patent... :-)

Anyway, so treadmill running is no fun, and I must admit that I am not sure I will be able to follow Ingrid's recipe after all. Perhaps I can rather do it outside, on a flat stretch. I found it very pleasing and motivating that it is such an easy workout, so I do want to follow it up in one way or the other.

What I do enjoy much more, are treadmill intervals at Barry's Bootcamp. I owe a lot to this kind of training, which brought me up to shape to run my first half marathons. But I haven't done it much after I got the taste of outdoors training. I do regularly go to Barry's Bootcamp still, but normally I have either personal training session with Ketil, or I do a pure strength training session, called double floor, which means that one skips the treadmill part of the class and stays on the floor throughout the entire session. This week, though, I joined two sessions with treadmill running. I had forgotten how fun it was! And I realized that I'd lost a lot of sprint speed compared to before. So I'll definitely do more of this through the winter.

The rope jump competition is also very useful for running form it turns out. I have read that many top athletes rope jump several times a week to keep their ankles strong, their tendons soft, and to increase their calf strength. I can now do 2:15 at a time. And I really feel the increased strength. It is so great to have friends who initiate such games to combine fun (there is a lot of incredibly funny discussion every single day), competition, and increased strength and form.

Play hard, win easy! .... or the opposite... whichever inspires and motivates you :-)

Working on the uphill form

The Blåman races showed that my uphill form had declined a lot since last year. OK, so I was still in post marathon recovery period, but come on: for the last 11 months I had mainly been street running, most of it flat. When I resumed strength training after a break of about 6 weeks, it became also evident that I had lost quite a bit of strength in my legs.

But all that is going to be fixed now! First of all, fortunately the post marathon fatigue is finally gone and my energy is back! The Blåmann races inspired me to move most of my training to uphill running and walking. During the long training period towards Amsterdam, there were several spectacular mountain hikes during beautiful weekends that I could not join due to the 30+ km runs in our training schedule. I now realize how badly I had really missed the mountains. It feels wonderful to be in the low season and not to have to train towards a particular goal (yet!), so I simply pick the training sessions that I feel like participating, and these days the offered menu contains mainly uphills. 

One of the things I've been wanting to try all the way since last year is the long uphill intervals of Fjellgeitene on Thursdays. They are as long as 8 minutes! And there are six of them! Scary enough just the thought of it. It took me more than a year, and many conversations with and encouragement from Lars the chief goat,  to mentally get ready for these. Finally I tried them this week! Yey! And it was not even that scary! Between the 8 minute intervals are 2 minute breaks. In the breaks, the group jogs downwards. To compensate my slowness compared to the rest, I rather walked uphill during the breaks. In the end this worked out a bit too well; I got further than everybody, and followed Jonathan Albon (!!!) all the way to the top of Rundemanen. Next time, I think I can allow myself to either stop during the breaks or perhaps even slowly walk down.

Fjellgeitene also inspires in a very fun way when it comes to leg strength and plyometric training. I think we can call it the annual winter challenge. Last year, there was the daily toe raises challenge. How many toe raises can you do without a break? You stand on a step with your heels hanging on the outside. You lower yourself slowly, then raise yourself on your toes slowly, and repeat. This year's challenge is rope jumping. How many seconds can you rope jump without a break? It has to be done in a speed of about 100-120 jumps a minute, and the rope has to pass under your feet between every single jump (no double jumping). It is surprisingly tiring! So far my record is 60 seconds, but fortunately the challenge continues until February, so there is still time to improve.

All this is of course not enough to get my leg strength back. As promised, I have returned to my weekly personal training sessions with Ketil, and my goodness it was about time! After the first session I could neither sit down nor get up for several days; my legs were incredibly sore. The good news is that strength comes back pretty quickly. Also the running form is coming back. The best indicator for this is the Hordnes forest runs of Melkesyre every Monday. This course is pretty hilly, with a lot of ups and downs, so even the prescribed easy pace of 6:30 can feel challenging. At least it did two weeks after Amsterdam. It felt like a race. Since then it got better and better, and last Monday it was finally as easy as it should be.

But don't think that I have forgotten all about flat running. I have something new to test out. I will tell you next week :-)

Wuthering heights

Or "gone with the wind"?

Both titles are fitting. Winter came early to Bergen this year, and most of my running has been at wuthering heights during the past couple of weeks. When it comes to my form and my willpower to push myself hard, both seem to have gone with the wind.

It is now four weeks since Amsterdam marathon, and things are slowly getting better, but really really slowly. At least the joy of running, the eagerness to train, and the pleasure of racing and practicing with friends are all back, and I am inexpressibly grateful for it. But I have still not got back the form I had just before Amsterdam. My training volume is much lower, too, both weekly mileage and how often I run. The day after a training session, I don't feel recovered enough, so every second day is a resting day.

The good news is: all this seems to be very normal. I have been a bit disappointed in myself because all my marathon friends seem to be doing much better than me. So I started to search and read about the subject. It turns out that getting back the form one had at the time of the marathon takes around 6 weeks. And that is if one is cautious and builds up the training volume and intensity very slowly, like the reverse of a taper. Because the risk of injury is higher all the way up to 8 weeks after a marathon. So, without knowing it, I have actually been following the recipe to the letter! Things are going forward, and I do have a plan.

As promised, I'm participating in the Blåmanen races, and the practices towards them. The weather has not really been on our side, but I find it easy to motivate myself to participate, because I allow myself to not push myself to the maximum. This is exactly my plan for the winter. Consider it low season. Do not try to impress anybody; just build form. Skip training when things don't feel right. Stay out of injury.  Participate in the coming uphill races, Blåmanen, Whisky run, and Fløyen. They provide the best possible training and wonderful social boost before and after the race.

For the first Blåmanen race last weekend, we woke up to the first snow of the season. "Oh, already on with the spike shoes... " Still I found the race on the snowy ground with a little sun shining between the clouds really pleasurable. Probably a bit too pleasurable, as my time was 2 minutes worse than last year. Of course there was snow and ice this year, which perhaps compensates for some of the lost time. On the other hand my running form was not at its top last year, so I should still have been able to do at least the same time. But hey! Now I have the wonderful excuse that it was still marathon recovery period :-)

The second Blåmanen race yesterday was a little bit worse. The conditions were a lot tougher. Windy, icy, rainy, ... Every step seemed to drag the energy of a kilometer out of me. At a few points I was so angry at the ground conditions and the wind that I shouted a few swear words. I think I managed to push a bit harder this time, but still I ended up walking more than I was planning to. On the other hand, on these steep hills, I am not sure that running is always faster than walking. I was happy at the end to see that I had exactly the same time as last year. Although the course is a bit flatter this year, the ground conditions weigh perhaps 3-4 minutes.

The final part of my plan for the winter is to go back to proper strength training. I really like weights, but for some reason I haven't found it easy to make time for this kind of training recently. So I have now signed up for weekly PT sessions with Ketil again, starting this coming week! I am really looking forward to them, and I know that he will very quickly bring back my motivation to become strong again.

Only two more weeks to tiptop shape! :-)