My UltraLife

I had the great fortune to take a couple weeks off and tour through Italy with some friends and family.

So if you’re the UltraLife guy and you’re in Italy…what should you do?  Well, Run Through Italy, of course!

We had 17 days to explore many cities and towns in Italy.  I didn’t have a chance to run every day so I picked 4 key locations to run and make a short video of the experience; the sights and sounds of each location.

As you can see from the video’s we began our journey in Venice.  Even with all the canals I was able to find enough solid ground to get in a nice run.

I used my new iPhone 4 to shoot the video, then used the iPhone iMovie application to edit the video and uploaded to YouTube directly from the phone.  This is really phenomenal and I think you will agree the video quality isn’t bad either.

After a few days I left my bulky Canon HD camcorder in the suitcase and used the iPhone for video and photos exclusively.

Our tour continued to Milan, Lake Como, then Forence where I did my run through Florence…..

I didn’t run in Lake Como, but it is so beautiful it was one of the highlights of the trip so I wanted to include the video I shot during our day trip to the lake.  I really wish we would have known how great it is…I would have stayed for a few days.

Florence is the gateway to Tuscany and a big city with lots to see.

Everyday it was 90 degrees or hotter and we walked and walked all over the city.  The days I didn’t run I’m sure I still burned plenty of calories.  Those calories were certainly off set by all the pasta, pizza and wine however!

We walked so much that when I ran I felt like I had walker’s legs.  You know that burning in your lower legs.  When you walk a lot for several days then run, you find you are using different muscles…and it burns for the first few miles!

Tuscany is known for its rich landscapes and small hilltop villages.  Siena is one of the larger towns.  The old town is on the hill top and the newer town has spread through the valley below.  We stayed in a wonderful old farm house just down the hill from the old town.

Siena was not as touristy as other towns.  They have vegetable stands, a laundry mat and other things that told you people still actually live in this old town, which gives it more character.

As I kept shooting and editing video I learned more about the iPhone’s cameras.  It has both front and back cameras.  The front camera is great when I am shooting headshots of myself and the rear camera for scenery. 

Unfortunately iMovie displays the front camera shots upside down.  I guess Apple isn’t perfect after all.  So beginning with the Florence video I started editing on my small notebook using Microsoft’s Movie Maker application.  This is also a pretty basic editor and unfortunately my notebook (although it has a Celeron processor) choked on the HD video, so making fine tuned cuts was difficult.  Thankfully I wasn’t using a net book with an Atom processor…it would have been impossible.

It has been almost exactly a year since I posted a video so it was fun to get back to making movies.  It’s a fun hobby and hopefully….not too boring for the viewer.

The runs through Italy were a great experience. When you run through a new place you see and experience more than you would if you are just visiting the location for business or as a tourist.  You go places you would not go otherwise and you see everything from a unique perspective.

I enjoyed my Run Through Italy……I hope you enjoy what I have tried to share.

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Does Endurance training help mental endurance as well as physical endurance?

If you have ever trained for a Marathon or a Triathlon you know your body builds physical endurance as you gain strength.

The more you train the farther you can go and over time your body builds up the endurance so you don’t feel as much muscle pain.

I loved it when training for my double marathon that my body got to the point of being able to run 25 miles on Saturday and I could go right back out and run another 25 miles on Sunday with no problems and minimal pain.   I wish I could do that right now, but that is for another posting.

But does this endurance training also help you build mental endurance?  Does it build up a shield for stress?

I am writing this post from Shenzhen, China.  I have been here almost a month working on the biggest project of my life.

The factory I worked with for 5 months proceeding the order refused to take the deal and left me with the task of starting over with a new product design, finding a factory and still shipping a quarter million units in less than 60 days.   Want to talk about stress!

Several times I felt like just packing my bag and heading home, but instead of getting upset or mad, I just persevered and plowed through working to solve the problem.

And….it got solved.  I found an even better factory and the order is proceeding with a better delivery schedule than promised by the old factory.

I must say it took some mental toughness and endurance to work through the issues calmly step by step.  

Just the way you run a marathon, step by step.

So does physical training help with mental toughness.  I’m not sure, but I know it helps reduce stress and the disciple you develop training for an Ultra Event I believe helps you in your everyday business and personal life.

Build up your shields….get out and run, bike and swim….gain endurance for LIFE!

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Can you finish the sentence?

I asked my 9 yr. old niece Hannah if she could finish the sentence. She looked at me strangely.  I told her it was a famous saying. 

I asked again; Can you finish the sentence “An Apple a Day…., she said ”help a heart”?

Not bad I guess, but the strange thing to me is that she had never heard the saying; “An Apple a day keeps the Doctor away”.

It appears we have a fruit and vegetable crisis in America.  See the clip from Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution.

Hannah might not know an old saying, but at least in our home we have lots of fruits and veggies so she was as shocked as you were when these kids didn’t know the difference between a Potato and Tomato.

We recently discovered a great snack food trick.  We keep a bowl of cherry tomatoes on the kitchen counter.  Anytime you walk buy you can pop a few tomatoes into your mouth.  Hannah loves it.   The 14 yr. old boy in the house is not yet a convert!   He says he’s a meat-a-tarian!  But the tomatoes are good for you and keep you from snacking on something less healthy.

Lately my appetite seems to have waned a bit.  Maybe it’s because my arm is still in a sling so my activity level is much lower.  I can’t run or swim…only sit around or walk a bit.  

So, I have actually been eating an Apple a Day for my lunch.  I took this idea from an old friend named Morty.  For years he eaten only an apple for lunch.  He’s 80 years + and still going strong, so he’s a great example.

It’s really criminal that kids don’t know fruits and vegetables.  If they don’t know what fruits and veggies are they certainly aren’t part of the kids diets.   You can’t blame it on the schools either.  The fault lies at home with lazy parents who don’t take the time and effort to create healthy diets for their kids.

I hate to imagine what health issues the children of today will have 40 – 50 years from now…..only time will tell.

My solution….Eat Apples!

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It’s Saturday morning.  I’ve been stuffing myself since Thanksgiving morning.  Don’t we all tend to nibble while we cook?  How else will you know it’s good?

For some reason on Thanksgiving we just tend to each too much.

There are more dishes than usual and the portions just seem to be larger than normal.

Then there are the leftovers. 

This year I had tons of turkey and 2 casserole dishes of stuffing left uneaten.   So what was I to do but load up for Friday lunch with a super size serving of turkey and stuffing.  Yum, I love my stuffing.  Then I went to the movies all afternoon with a friend.  The turkey and stuffing just sat in my belly.

That night I had a late dinner of, you guessed it, turkey and stuffing along with some wine and a few tortilla chips and then, yikes, some chocolate cake! (I never eat cake…what’s happening to me!)

I woke up in the morning, still feeling full.  It was about time to get out and go for a run. 

I hadn’t run all week.  I swam about a mile both Monday and Tuesday and played water polo Wednesday so it’s not that I’ve been inactive, but I haven’t run for a week, so I had to get out and run.

As I started out I could feel the extra bowling ball in my stomach.  As I ran I remembered a Discovery Health show about obese people.  They showed a sonogram of an obese persons intestines.   You could actually see the undigested food clogging up the intestines.

I’m sure we all know the sure fire method to gain weight is to constantly pack in large amounts of food and just sit around between meals.   That undigested food  sits in your intestines getting compacted with the next meal being forced in on top of the last meal before the first one and in between snack can be processed.

This procedure seems to be a very easy one for people to follow, just look at the obesity rate in America today.

I’ve found that one of the best ways to get your body moving, so to speak, is to “get moving”!   The movement of the body while running or riding a bike moves the intestines around and helps in the digestive process.

Then all you need to do is skip the next meal and the in between snack and you’ll be on your way to Thanksgiving recovery!

My six mile run was a slow one this morning.  I had all the extra weight to carry around, but I know I’ll be feeling better soon.   I think I’ll invite friends over to help finish off the rest of the leftovers! 

Turkey sandwich anyone?

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Now that the Long Beach Marathon is behind me, I’m finally getting back on my bike again.  It’s about time!  I’ve got to get ready for Ironman California 70.3.  March 27 will be here sooner than you think!

Last Sunday I rode 35 miles in just 2 hrs. 12 minutes…not bad for me especially since I hadn’t been on the bike for months and I didn’t really push myself.

This afternoon I did a 20 mile ride to Seal Beach pier and back.

Luckily my current schedule is allowing me to run 3-4 days per week averaging 4.5 miles per run and since I am at the pool for the swim club every afternoon, I’m swimming 4-5 days per week. 

I just need to be a bit more disciplined and ramp up the running miles and swim intensity then find time to get on the bike 3-4 days per week (100 miles per week) and I’ll be ready for the 1/2 Ironman event.

I’m also scheduled to run in the Twin Peaks 50/50 Ultra on February 13th.  This is a trail run over rugged hills for a distance of 31 miles.   It was cancelled last year because the trail got washed out in bad weather. 

If I’m going to prepare for this run, I really need to increase my weekly running mileage and find some hills to train on….otherwise it will be a 31 mile hike instead of a run!

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This week we’ve had the largest wild fire in Los Angeles County in the past 100 years with over 150,000 acres burnt.  The fire caused the entire L.A. basin to be smoky. 

The unhealthful air mixed with high humidity and 100 degree weather convinced me to skip my Tuesday run.

On Wednesday I checked the AQMD (Air Quality Management District) website, yes, we have that in L.A.!

Below is the map from Sunday Sept. 6th.  The Green area is good air quality, yellow is moderate and orange is BAD! That’s where the fire is still roaring.

The interesting thing is that on Wednesday the only Green area was a swathe of area from Seal Beach up to Cerritos.  We do get a nice ocean breeze here and I guess it really pays off for air quality. 

With knowledge that I wouldn’t die from smoke inhalation, I was willing to brave the heat and get running.

I still kept the Wednesday run short but went a bit further Thursday logging 10 miles for my mid-week runs.

Saturday morning I upped my long run mileage and headed for Huntington Beach Pier.  I knew that the Pier was 18 miles + so to end up with 20 miles I added a lap around Regional Park.  I hit 20.50 miles when I finished at the pier.  Perfect!

But this run was much tougher than the 15 mile run to Bolsa Chica last week.  I simply felt tired and that resulted in many more short walks.  If I stop running I don’t come to a full stop but walk for 30-45 seconds and then start up again.

Last week at 15 miles I felt I could have kept going.  This week I had to keep pushing myself or I would have walked the last 5 miles!

Even with the extra walking periods I made it to the pier in exactly 4 hours.  Not bad I suppose but I should be able to cut 15-20 minutes off that time once I’m back to running non-stop.

I know it’s all about conditioning and building up my endurance levels.  I just need to keep logging the miles.  I got in 30 miles this week so I’m staying pretty consistent.

This coming week I travel to Oregon for my nieces wedding.  Hopefully I’ll have a chance to get in some runs while in the great Northwest.

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I’ve been Vindicated!  Now there’s proof!

A new Government study shows that people who drink regularly seem to exercise more often than teetotalers. 

What a great use of Obama stimulus money.  See….all those billions weren’t wasted on useless studies.

Government data found the amount of time people devoted to exercise increased with the number of alcoholic drinks they enjoyed each month.

Both moderate and heavy drinkers were also more likely to report vigorous exercise, like jogging, than either light drinkers or abstainers, the researchers report in the American Journal of Health Promotion.

The study does not advocate that non-drinkers start getting all boozed up as a method to get motivated for exercise.  

The study doesn’t explain why drinkers exercise more, but it’s worth more study say’s the lead researcher Dr. Michael T. French (in need of additional grant funding I’m guessing).

Relatively heavy drinking might be part of a "sensation-seeking" lifestyle for some people, French and his colleagues speculate.

They also figure us active people are more adventure seeking.  Booze it up and then go in search of that Runners High.

They point out that too much might not be a good thing, but I guess we heavy drinkers already know the ill effects of a bit too much!

Here’s a link to the full story on MSNBC

Study: Regular Drinkers get more exercise

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Saturday morning I ran from Cerritos to Bolsa Chica State Beach; a 15 mile run.

It felt great.  This is my longest distance in over  6 months and I felt I could have gone further but I’d already made plans for a friend to pick me up at this location.

This long run gave me a total of 30 miles for the week. Not bad for a week that has averaged over 100 degrees each day with morning temps in the mid 80’s.

Also it’s not bad since I took most of the previous week off.   After my 6 mile run Tuesday Aug. 18, I swam and played water polo.  That night I had severe hip pain and was limping.

I’d had this nagging pain a few times before but now it was really bad so I decided to take several days of rest.  

I tried to figure out what this pain was.  It was in my hip, but not in the muscle and not in the joint.  It was higher.   My Hypochondriac self started thinking kidney.  Could I have a kidney stone?  I read up on the symptoms.  Probably not a kidney stone.  Probably just poor core conditioning.

I’ve acquired a rather round mid-section over the past several months.  I decided to use the week off to work on core muscles with lots of sit ups and leg lifts.

When I started running again on the 25th, the pain was there, but very slight and didn’t get worse.  I think I’ll live.

It’s strange though…every time I have an injury or strange soreness it’s something new and different.  I’m hoping to continue core strengthening hopefully I can enjoy some pain free running.

The 15 miler to Bolsa Chica was very nice….next Saturday maybe I’ll run all the way to Huntington(18 miles) or Newport Pier (23miles).

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This week I got with the program and upped my mileage again!

Monday was a rest day so my work week runs were Tues-Thursday.

Friday I swam quite a few laps (approx. 1/2 mile) as a warm up and then had a fun time playing water polo with the kids.  Always an exhausting workout.

Saturday morning was the Chubasco Body Surfing Tournament at Huntington Beach so we got down there early.  Josh entered the competition while I went for a 12 mile run.  It was a cool, beautiful morning and I felt strong during the run.  After the run I jumped in the water and had a great time body surfing.

Sunday morning I joined up with Thep, Poon, Kevin and Kurt at Regional park.  They were running 1.4 mile laps around the park.  Their plan was to run 12 laps with the goal of running 17 miles.  My plan was to run 10 miles but my legs felt tight after the 12 miler the day before.  After a few laps I felt I’d had enough.  I finished a bit under 7 miles.

Here’s my mileage summary for the week:

Tuesday = 6.35 miles

Wednesday = 3.86 miles

Thursday = 6.36 miles

Saturday = 11.88 miles

Sunday = 6.7 miles

I’ll take a break from running Monday, but I’ll try to get in the pool and swim a few laps to keep the blood flowing and then get back on the road on Tuesday. 

I need to do my sit ups and push up and do some stretching as well to help avoid pain and injuries.

I hope to keep at the 35-40 mile per week pace for the upcoming week….let’s see if I can stay disciplined through the week.

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O.K. not a big leap.  I went from 18 miles last week to 22 miles this week…but hey…it’s an increase.

I was stuck at a swim meet all weekend, but I was able to sneak away for a couple of hours Sunday afternoon and got in a 12 mile run on the river bed.

I checked my Garmin Training Center software.  The last time I ran 12 miles was February 1 when I ran the Surf City Half Marathon!

This was a slow 12 miler with several short walk breaks throughout the run.  I pushed my self to keep running and not to break into a walk.

The longest continuous run period was 1.6 miles.

My time was 2 hours 19 minutes.  This is worse than my “Slowest 12 mile run in 3 years” post from June 21, 2008 by a minute!  http://myultralife.com/?p=246.  The only difference is that last year I had run 34 miles on Fathers day the weekend before!

With just 61 days to prepare for the Long Beach Marathon I know I need to keep increasing my mileage, so I’ll end this now and slip on the running shoes and see if I can get in a 6 miler before dinner.

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I ran 18 miles this week.  Easy you’d think for a guy who last year this time was running more than 50 miles per week.  In fact,  I checked last year’s workout summary and the week of July 28, 2008  I ran 57 miles!   The week after that I logged 74 miles!

Today I ran 6.35 miles.  That was the longest run I’ve had in months, and it was more like a Walk/Run than a constant jog.

Something happened to me in June.  I think I had an episode of rapid aging or sudden deterioration.

During May I’d been running a couple times a week, swimming or playing Water Polo a couple times a week as usual.  I did a few Run Swim Runs with Jimmy Tsai (run 5 miles, swim 1 hour, run 4 miles) but then I slowed down and got real lazy for a couple of weeks.  When I started to run again I just felt weak.

I could only run a couple hundred yards and would have to walk, run a few hundred yards and walk again.  This has gone on through this week…this run/walk. 

Saturday morning I slept instead of swam.  The last 2 weekends I had the opportunity to run with the gang on 10-14 mile runs, I had other obligations, but even if I could have made the runs in the back of my mind I wondered if I could run 10 miles.

My Friday and Sunday runs were better and I am feeling stronger, but I can tell  I am breathing harder and my heart is working harder than in the past.  I’m just plain out of shape.

What startles me is the feeling that there really was some rapid deterioration.  It’s harder to snap back than it has been before.  Like I’m starting over again instead of starting from a base of physical fitness.

70 days till the Long Beach Marathon.  I’ve got 70 days and I am at the Run/Walk stage! 

Hopefully the risk of embarrassment and humiliation at either not attending the Marathon or doing very poorly will motivate me to wake up early and log the miles.  I hope the gang hasn’t given up on me and will keep inviting me to join in on the long runs. I’ll need them.

I know that if I want to fight off future episodes of aging, I MUST stay active and maintain a certain level of fitness.  I don’t need to kill myself with 50 and 70 mile weeks, but I do need to keep at an attainable activity level that will allow me to maintain fitness.

Running away from Age……….

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We spent the week of July 13, 2009 in Beijing. We caught all the sites but the funniest place was the plaza at Qianhai lake, better known as the Bar Street area. Every night there was an impromptu party. People showed up and started dancing, playing Chinese hacky sack and a group of kids were jumping rope. I can’t dance, so I headed for the jump rope. The kids were very welcoming and allowed anyone daring enough to join in…so join in I did and had a great time. We spent 2 evenings at Bar Street.

This may not be your typical Ultra Athletic event, but it was great fun and hey…you try jumping rope…it will wear you out!

Beijing was a Blast!

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June of 2008 I was pretty focused on this blog and my goal of running a Double Marathon.  A couple of weeks before the June 2008 picture at the Huntington Beach Pier swim I had run the San Diego Rock-n-Roll Marathon.  That had been my 4th Marathon in 2008.  

The San Diego Marathon was a tough one for me.  I remember thinking, if I can barely run 26 miles, how will I be able to run twice that far with just 3 months left to train.

Honestly I was pretty disgusted with that HB Pier Swim photo.  Look at that Beer Gut!  I could run 20 miles non-stop, but I couldn’t loose the gut.   I realized that just running wasn’t enough.  O.K., yea stop eating might be a good idea too.

I had begun to add swimming to my workout and after that photo I added more swimming, and more sit ups, pull ups, push ups to my workout.  Also as the big day approached I kept adding mileage to the point that I was running 40, 50 even 70 miles per week.

Look what happened by August.  I lost 15 more pounds and gained body strength and overall muscle tone.  I like the August picture.  This was taken just a couple weeks before the big race.  All the work was paying off.

Fast Forward to June 2009, 8 months after the big race and you will find me once again at the Huntington Beach Pier swim.  Back to where I started….actually worse!

This year I haven’t run any Marathons.  I can barely do 10 push ups and I don’t quite remember what a sit up is.

While I have been active.  I do run an average of 15 miles or so per week and I get in the pool 2-3 times a week and even play a bit of water polo, it’s just not the same intensity or mileage logged each week.

I think the lesson learned is that to attain a weight or physical fitness level goal, you have to remain consistent.  

Motivation plays a big part of it.  I didn’t run any Marathons, because I didn’t sign up for any.  And, you can’t expect that just because you ran a Marathon once that you can simply go out and do it any time.  It all takes training.  It takes a level of activity equal to the goal you have set for yourself.

So now I’m disgusted with myself again.  Maybe that will be the motivation to get out of bed early in the morning and slip into those running shoes.

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Eat Fish or DIE an early and painful death.

It seems that Omega-3 Fatty Acid has made the news again and it’s here I tell ya, here to save us all from the ills created by a hustle bustle instant dinner, fast food, no carb lifestyle.  Omega-3 will cure all your ills and help keep your body well oiled for a long and healthy life. 

This simple oily elixir will  prevent Dementia, Allergies, Stroke, Dyslexia, Dropsy, Depression, Senility,  Heart Disease, Obesity, Alzheimer’s, Asthma, Arthritis, High Blood Pressure and Ingrown Toe Nails!  Alright, I added in Dropsy and the Ingrown Toe Nail bit, but if it was the 1890’s I’d feel like I was a Snake Oil sales man. 

A news story in BestLife by Taras Grescoe republished on MSNBC.com demonstrates how our reliance on processed foods has reduced the amount of natural Omega-3’s that once was a big part of our diets.  It is thought that it’s this reduction in natural Omega-3 fatty acid from our diet and the replacement of Omega-6 (it’s nemesis) which is wreaking havoc on our minds and bodies.

Diets took a wrong turn

Western diets have focused on cutting fat and emphasized increasing the amount of protein and cutting carbohydrates.  Everything is FAT FREE, but the problem is fats are essential for life you Fat Head!  Did you know that 60% of your brain is FAT!  The key to good nutrition and health is not cutting out all fats, but supplying your body and brain with the best possible fats.  The right kind of fats.  There is a growing consensus that  Omega-3’s are those good fats.

It reminds me of the movie, Lorenzo’s Oil in which a young boy’s rare brain disease was put in check by treating the boy with a specifically altered olive oil.  Not sure how he ended up.  Very sad movie, but the oil helped.  There you go.

It’s Not your Granddad’s Beef

Your not eating the same beef and chicken your grand daddy ate.  That’s part of the problem.  You see Omega-3’s aren’t just in fish, they are also plentiful in grasses, clover, millet and sweet grass, you know, the type of plants cows used to lazily graze out in the back 40 for four of five years before they became Hamburger Helper.  

Chickens used to run around the farm pecking away on grasses, grubs, purslane (a leafy grass) and loaded up on Omega-3’s.  

Our beef and chicken and their by products such as eggs, milk, cheese used to be rich in  Omega-3 fatty acids.  The American diet naturally contained lots of Omega-3’s without having to load up on Salmon.

Today Cows and chickens are raised on grains and corn.  Cows are ready for slaughter in less than a year and chickens become chicken wings heading for Hooters 6 weeks out of the egg.

So what’s the problem?

Our meat went from growing up eating grassy leafy stuff to being raised on corn, soybeans and other seed oils….and we did too.   The fats contained in these cheaper grains and seed oils are Omega-6’s instead of Omega-3’s.

Omega-6 oils are more rigid fatty acids that give our cell membranes structure while omega-3’s are more fluid, kinda squishy and help our bodies fight inflammation.  

Grandma and Grand dad had an Omega-3 to Omega-6 ration of 1:1.  Today’s Western diet has a ratio of 20:1 with the Omega-6’s winning by a long shot…and that’s the bad news.

Blame it on the Go Go ‘60’s

Research in the 1960’s linked saturated fats and trans fats to fat guys dying of heart attacks and the anti-fat craze started.  Food processors jumped on the band wagon and began using soybean oil which is rich in omega-6 as an alternative to animal fats.   Soybeans once only used in Asia for tofu and soy sauce have now become the second biggest cash crop in the U.S.

Check around your kitchen or read the labels at your grocery store and you’ll notice soybeans and soybean oil in nearly all processed foods from salad dressings to processed cheese to granola bars.   Twenty percent of of American’s calories now come from soybeans.

Eat like an Eskimo

Changing diets have been studied all over the world and when ever a culture changed their diet that was naturally high in omega-3’s to a more westernized diet rich in omega-6’s the result in 20-30 years was always the same; heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and rates of cancer all increased.  It didn’t matter if you lived in Okinawa the home of the longest living humans or an American Indian or an Eskimo, or an Israeli once the diet changed so did the incidence of western maladies.

dem Soybeans, dey  makin us Crazy

"There has been a thousandfold increase in the consumption of soybean oil over the past hundred years," says Joseph Hibbeln, MD, acting chief of the section on nutritional neurosciences at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. The levels of omega-3’s in American’s bloodstreams is very low.  

"We have changed the composition of people’s bodies and brains," says Dr. Hibbeln. "A very interesting question, to which we don’t yet know the answer, is to what degree has the dietary change altered overall behavior in our society?"

Plenty of studies from all around the world are demonstrating the physical and mental benefits of increased omega-3’s in our diet.  One study on 231 inmates medicated with fish oil resulted in assaults decreasing by 30%.  When homicide rates are compared across countries higher rates of omega-6 correlated with a hundredfold higher murder rate except for in the United States where we seem to kill each other more than any other place on earth no matter what we eat. 

A 2007 study by the National Institutes of Health found a positive correlation between mothers’ consumption of omega-3s during pregnancy and the fine motor skills and verbal IQs of their children.  A higher intake of omega-3 has been shown to positively affect ailments as diverse as stroke, allergies, dementia, and dyslexia.

"Men in their forties and fifties can nearly reverse their risk of dying from sudden cardiac death by eating fish at least three times a week," says Dr. Hibbeln. "And if they want to live longer and happier lives, there’s substantial data that they should increase their body composition of omega-3s."

In other words, our cod-liver-oil-loving grandmothers had it right: Fish really is brain food. And our disastrous decision to replace the omega-3s in our diet with omega-6s might be all the proof anybody needs that, as a species, Homo sapiens are getting demonstrably dumber.

Thank God….there is Hope!

Those fish oil capsules have been available in the vitamin section of the grocery store for years.  Apparently you aren’t buying enough of those because we are all still fat,dumb  and dying.  Now technology is to the rescue.

There is a company called Ocean Nutrition in Nova Scotia that has produced a new microencapsulated fish oil.  This stuff looks like powder and it’s starting to show up in foods like Wonder Bread and Danone liquid yogurt.  Just what we need…another powder to mix into our food.  But wait, this is good fishy powder. They make the micro fish oil powder from real fish they catch and squish into oil then use a special process turning the oil into a powder so it can be used as a food additive that doesn’t taste or smell fishy.  You can bet that you’ll soon see more products professing the added value of being omega-3 enriched.

Best Best - Eat the old fashion way

While omega-3 enriched foods may help a somewhat, your best bet is to make an effort to eat a good old fashioned diet of vegetables, fruits and of course fish.   You can take fish oil tablets, but actually eating fish provides additional nutrients and minerals.

So after all that I guess we are back to the basics we’ve heard over and over again.  Eat a diet with lots of fruits and vegetables which are full of nutrients and anti-oxidants and eat fatty fish like salmon and nuts like walnuts and almonds to build up the levels of omega-3’s in your bloodstream.  That way you will live a long and  healthy life free of Alzheimer’s and dementia so when you’re 102 you’ll know the diet worked!

Get Fishy!

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Yesterday I participated in the Big Baz Winter Trail Series.  It was the last of 4 races in the Winter Series. 

I think it would have been a good idea to have run the other 3 races because they get progressively more difficult.  I just happened to join in on the most challenging and longest run of the series.

For me, this run is to be a warm up to the San Juan Trail race on March 14.

I now know that if I plan to survive the San Juan Trail run (50k or 36 miles), which covers some of the same territory, I need to use the next 3 weeks to train hard.  Twenty minutes on the Stair Master at the gym just won’t cut it.

The runs take place in the Cleveland National Forest (about 25 miles inland from San Juan Capistrano) in very steep terrain.

Yesterdays 21K took us out of a campground and on to a fire road that quickly becomes very steep.  Only the strongest runners could actually run up this road, so you can imagine that I along with plenty of others walked up.

Once we finally reached the top, the route veered off road and we headed straight down a narrow trail.  Yes, that’s snow behind me in the picture above.   This trail dove down a severe ravine strewn with gravel and rocks.  The trail seemed like it would never stop going down.  At one point my ears popped because of the elevation drop. You had to navigate the narrow path  while needing to keep an eye on the ground.  With so many loose rocks all you needed was to take one wrong step and you’d go down.   After what seemed like 20 minutes of straight downhill dodging rocks my legs were feeling wobbly and sure enough, whoops! I was down on my hands and knees.

The scrap on my knee looks wasn’t too bad so I brushed myself off and got moving.   Once I got to the bottom of the trail and forged a small river the trail took a sharp turn; to where you might ask?  Why straight up the next mountain of course!

This portion is called the Horsetheif trail.  It’s nearly 2 miles almost straight up in a series of switchbacks.  I was warned about this portion of the run so I knew it would be tough.  At the point where I was saying to myself “OH, MY GOD” I’m only half way through this run what’s next… I finally reached the summit. 

Luckily from the top of the Horsetheif trail you once again follow a fire road all the way  to the Finish line.

I must admit, I not an experienced trail runner.  Out of 127 runners I came in 111th.  I finished with a time of 2:58:51.  Compare that to my 2:00:40 from the Surf City Marathon 3 weeks ago and you can see that throwing a few mountains in the way can really slow things down!

There were some really amazing runners out there.  The Winner was Kevin Gillotto with a time of 1 hour 38 minutes 27 seconds.  WOW!   He must have really run up those inclines.  I can’t imagine it. 

It will take quite a bit more conditioning to be able to do more than simply hike up the steep parts of the trail so I’ll need to put in some more mileage on the trails before the next race.

No matter what I do to prepare for the next race; I know that I’m No Mountain Goat!

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