I forgot to tell everyone about the insane (in retrospect, as I will explain) thing that I did in the middle of January. Merely as a method of motivation, I decided that I would forgo beer until I reached my racing weight goal of 155 lbs. I didn’t have any illusions that the calories saved through beer’s avoidance would be enough to take off the pounds. It was a rule implemented solely to provide some focus and discipline. Now, I’m not one of those runners whose main reason for running is so that they can drink large quantities of beer. There are, of course, running clubs that appear to have done exactly that through the successful merging of running and beer and there is, in fact, a documentary film on the horizon that examines one of the most famous of these clubs, The Fishtown Beer Runners from Philadelphia (http://www.runnersworld.com/general-interest/upcoming-documentary-about-running-and-beer). I’m a firm believer that Guinness is one of the best recovery beverages and that there is nothing better than sitting out on the back porch with a Newcastle Brown after a hard summer run. I thought that the threat of losing my recovery beverage would help to keep me on track for cutting those last few pounds before the spring racing season. I also have to admit that I had just upped my mileage, had immediately and easily lost two pounds, and assumed that the rest would quickly follow. That’s just not the way that diet works, is it? I should have known better. I lost a bit of weight and then I stabilized. I can only assume that the mileage increase also had the effect of improving my running efficiency. So, for the last several months I haven’t had a beer (I know, this is pretty much the definition of a first world problem…) and my weight has stabilized despite the increased distance. All, however, is not lost. I did manage to take slightly more than a minute off of my 4 mile personal best, so something seems to have worked. I really hope, however, that there’s not a true correlation between abstention and running performance.
If you race long enough, you’ll pick up a lot of these. What to fill them with?
While I’m on the topic of diet and exercise, it looks like our friend Kevin Helliker from The Wall Street Journal has come out with another one of his fitness anxiety pieces, “Why Runners Can’t Eat Whatever They Want: Studies Show There Are Heart Risks to Devil-May-Care Diets – No Matter How Much You Run” (http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303949704579461381883678174?mod=e2fb). Although Helliker once again cites his favorite cardiologist, James O’Keefe (who you may remember insists that a moderate twenty miles a week is all the running you should be doing) and strings together a slew of half-related studies and anecdotal evidence to almost construct a valid argument, I have to admit that the main point of Helliker’s article does bear (I almost wrote “beer” there) some thinking about, particularly for the masters runner. I first became cognizant of the fact that I couldn’t eat anything I wanted to, even if I was running a lot, when, more than a decade ago, I had upped my mileage and was still gaining weight. How was this possible, I asked myself? Well, I soon realized (OK, maybe not soon enough) that there was a straightforward calculus of calories consumed and calories expended of which one needed to be aware. There really is no way around this simple fact. It is also becoming increasingly apparent that what you eat – how is this surprising – also contributes to your overall health. This might be the crux of the problem for the long-distance runner. When you are doing high mileage, moderate eating can be difficult – a scoop of ice cream turns into a really big bowl, a slice of bread becomes a loaf – you get the idea. You’re hungry – you need to fuel. Well, now it looks like we need to be careful about what we’re fueling with – less ice cream, diary, cheese, and cake (and…uh…cupcakes). Eat more fruit, beans, and vegetables and keep serving sizes modest. I think that most masters runners are probably already aware of the moderation mantra – we just need to be mindful of it.
Mid-Life, Mid-Level, Masters Running 