Ryan Hall’s story is an interesting illustration of the argument about too much cardio interfering with strength and muscle gains. He is the Boston Marathon American record holder, where he ran the fastest marathon time ever by an American. It is not the American record for the marathon because Boston is not a ratified course for records because it is point-to-point with a net downhill. The official American record belongs to Khalid … [Read more...]

A nice rural ride of about an hour one way takes me to Chitactac-Adams Heritage County Park. This was historically the village of Chitactac, the dwelling site of members of the Ohlone tribe of Native Americans for more than a thousand years. It was later the site of the one room Adams schoolhouse, which was used from the 1850s to 1956. Beautiful Oak-shaded interpretive path. There are many interpretive signs on the self-guided walk. … [Read more...]

Day to day challenges like fighting off indulgence in junk food and having the discipline to exercise regularly provide plenty of opportunities for working on our willpower, the importance of which I reviewed here. This is a key aspect of training our brains so we can live free from compulsions. For this reason, Eknath Easwaran emphasized “training the senses” as one of the key disciplines for self-transformation [1]. This is … [Read more...]

About a month ago, I described a visit Mt Madonna park to which I vowed to return. But the fires and bad air intervened, so I did not get a chance until yesterday. Again I rode out the beautiful Redwood retreat road. This time I left enough time to get some hiking in, an out and back jaunt on the Meadow trail. It was a beautiful clear and not too hot day. The sun shining through the trees Near the start of the meadow trail, a nice picnic … [Read more...]

I recently read Mimi Anderson’s fascinating and inspiring account of her ultramarathon achievements. The story is told in an interesting flashback fashion: The main narrative is recounting the 12 plus days of her attempt to set the Women’s world record for running the length of Great Britain from north to south, from John O’Groats in Scotland to Land’s end in England, which goes by the acronym JOGLE. If you go south to … [Read more...]

Most of my local meetup groups are still avoiding group hikes, but one here in Morgan Hill usually has small groups like 5 or less, so we decided we could go again and do social distancing. So yesterday was my first group hike in months. It was very enjoyable, with delightful weather and clean air (the wind is still from the West, keeping us smoke free). Four of us went to our local Harvey Bear County park. I rode there on my e-assist bike and … [Read more...]

Lots of Cardio Makes Your Muscles Waste Away and Makes You Get Fat? Hmmm… what about “Ultramarathon Man” Dean Karnazes? The “Too Much Cardio is Harmful” Controversy I promised, in my recent post about shorter more intense training, to talk more about controversies over excess cardio. Much of the discussion is about too much volume of intensity, which can be harmful to the cardiovascular system, leading to … [Read more...]

I recently discovered a book I highly recommend: Strength Endurance: Reflections on the Legacy of Dr. Leonard Schwartz by Chuck Huckaby, on Amazon. Like me, Chuck is a long time fan of the late Dr. Schwartz’s work and the “heavyhands” approach of simultaneously exercising the upper and lower body with hand weights (which I described here). We both agree that it is a shame his body of work on exercise is not more well … [Read more...]

Wind is coming from the West today, bringing in nice clean air from the giant Pacific ocean only a dozen miles away. The air quality, at least for now, is good! As soon as I checked the air quality I couldn’t grab my bike fast enough. Today’s workout was about an hour outside, with lots of intervals thrown in for spice. What a mood elevator! I’m still set up so I can get by indoors, but outdoors is a lot more fun! I hope … [Read more...]

As I mentioned in my previous post, the bad air in large parts of California is persisting because of all the wildfires, and we are advised not to exercise strenuously outdoors. The August Complex Fire In the Mendocino area is now close to 900,000 acres (360,000 hectares) and 28% contained. This is the largest fire in California history. Over two million acres (800,000+ hectares) are burning in various fires around the state, and there … [Read more...]

Trail runners and hikers like to set the fastest known time (FKT) on various routes, some of them quite elaborate. More famous ones include through-hikes on the Appalachian trail, and rim-to-rim (or rim-to-rim-to-rim) in the Grand Canyon. Because of Covid19, a lot of formal races and other events have been postponed or cancelled, so FKT attempts provide another outlet. You can do these yourself, you just have to provide the GPS data for your … [Read more...]

Recently I reviewed Tim Davis’s inspiring book Tripolar. I was then fortunate enough to ask Tim some questions in an email and got some great responses. Here are the questions along with Tim’s responses (in italics). 1. Did I get the story right in a nutshell? For your recovery, the 12 step program and support from meetings and sponsors were essential. Endurance athletics, including triathlons, helped more with dealing with … [Read more...]

The air quality was still ok yesterday morning. CalFire the fire that’s affecting us now 86% contained. Go firefighters! So I rode out Redwood retreat rode to Mt. Madonna road, which leads to the back entrance to the county park of the same name. This took about 2 hours and 45 minutes round trip on my e-bike, I could have done it a bit quicker with more assist. I rode around the park for a while checking it out. There appeared to be some … [Read more...]

I just finished the excellent book Choosing the StrongPath: Reversing the Downward Spiral of Aging, by by Fred Bartlit, Steven Droullard, and Dr. Marni Boppart. Fred is 85 years old, and vigorously pursues various athletic activities, including downhill skiing. His story alone is inspiration enough to make it worth reading the book. Stephen is closer to my age, and is a more typical adult in the modern world who had not kept up with exercise and … [Read more...]

The air quality around here still gets to unhealthy by later in the afternoon, because of particulate matter from the fires. But in the mornings the last couple of days it’s been “fair” so I’ve been able to exercise outdoors. I can wear an N95 mask if I have to, but that makes it unpleasant. I think the improvement is because the wind is coming from off the coast with clearer air (it’s not picking up the smoke from … [Read more...]

I just read the book TRIPOLAR: The Story of a Bipolar Triathlete, by Tim Davis. This is a very inspirational book, much more than the title indicates. Tim had a very difficult childhood and became addicted to alcohol and some serious drugs as an adult. His recovery is an amazing testament to the power of 12 step programs like AA, and the support and tough love of his wonderful wife Mariah. Mariah participates in Al-anon, a 12 step group for … [Read more...]

This was taken by a firefighter who’s my friend’s brother, he’s over on the Santa Cruz side of the mountains helping fight the fires over there caused by recent lightning strikes. These are part of the “CZU lightning complex” (https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/): In the foreground is the Santa Cruz boardwalk, with downtown behind it. On the other side of the hill where the fire is burning, there are several … [Read more...]

We have a “high pressure” ridge in our area that’s been trapping the high temperature- multiple days of temperatures over 100 F, and, uncharacteristically for this area, not cooling as much at night. On Tuesday we had a thunderstorm with lightning that started a bunch of wildfires that CalFire calls the “scu lightning complex”.: 157,000 plus acres burning, 5% contained so far, with this description: “Multiple … [Read more...]

One of my goals has been to improve my uphill hiking speed, because I have had difficulty in the past keeping up with faster hiking groups. From my recent training, it seems to be improving: there is one steep road I walk up nearby that was taking about 15:00 minutes and I’ve gotten it down to 12:53. But in a recent issue of Trail Runner Magazine there is an article by David Roche [1], suggesting specific training tips for uphill hiking I … [Read more...]

It’s been really hot here lately, high of 107 F today. So I did strength training in my garage early then went for a walk with my hand weights locally, when it was still down in the 80s. The neighborhood behind us has a nice walking path with some oaks and eucalyptus trees shading it. Next to it is a commercial storage facility with this wall surrounding it. I like to go in the shade along here on hot days: Further along next to … [Read more...]