"The Tartar Steppe" -- A great read for athletes and beyond

No one will be surprised to learn I read a fair amount about endurance sports.  Sure, there are lots of "Get Psyched Up!" ghost-written biographies out there that amount to, "Me train hard go fast.  You no go fast; that ok."  Some of them are decent, but they do tend to blend together.

The thing is, I'm only modestly interested in hearing tales of glory recounted.  I'm more intrigued by the psychological side, specifically, why endurance athletes are driven to be weirdos.  They do objectively unreasonable things at great expense along every relevant dimension -- physical, financial, and interpersonal. And, when you ask many of them, they'll have a hard time telling you why; they'll often admit that training can dominate their lives and races are often stressful, but somehow putting those two negatives together creates a positive, and an addictive one at that.  Why?

Endurance athletes' biographies are largely unhelpful in answering this question, although it's really the reason that their books exist.  Behind the hand-waving, mostly it seems to boil down to (i) proving something to oneself or others, (ii) the desire to set and meet goals, and (iii) the search for meaning that's so often missing from life in a cubicle.  Fair enough, but it sort of begs the central question: When the point is proved and the goal is met, does that lead to happiness over the long term?  Is the searched-for meaning ever found?  I suspect that, for many people, it might be painful to think honestly about the answers to those questions.

I've struggled a great deal with this stuff, sometimes publicly.  My posts here, here, and here ruminate explicitly about it.

In the past few months, I've been pleased to discover a few books that are helpful in thinking about why endurance athletes do what we do.  The thing is, the most insightful books on endurance sports I've found haven't been about endurance sports at all -- at least not literally.

Here's one of them.

Although it's a bit obscure, several creditable lists identify The Tartar Steppe, written originally in Italian, as one of the best novels of the last century.  The dust jacket accurately describes it as "a meditation on the human thirst for glory."  A young military officer, Giovanni Drago, is posted to a remote fort in mountains that overlook a vast desert.  He intends to leave as soon as possible, but gradually becomes entranced by the romantic notion that an invading army will someday materialize in the mist-shrouded distance to allow him to achieve glory on the battlefield, and his life will then be purposeful.  Drogo dedicates himself and his life to visions of this distant dream, only to find in times of doubt that he no longer has any choice but to continue, as his years in the fort have rendered him lost anywhere else.  When at last the enemies amass at the gate, Drogo is old and infirm, and he is transported from the fort in preparation for the dreamt-of battle.  Having dedicated his life to the pursuit of a vision, he finds that it has materialized too late.

A "meditation" is the right description here: The Tartar Steppe is a novel that compels one to think.  It's an enigma.  For most of it, almost nothing happens, but that "nothing happening" is largely the point.  In literal terms, the book has nothing to whatever to do with running or riding a bicycle, but I think on some level it has everything to do with those things.  How often do we, as endurance athletes, sacrifice aspects of our lives in pursuit of a distant vision of glory?  How often do foresake opportunities to do memorable things, all because we're "training with dedication"?

So once more Drogo is climbing up the valley to the Fort and he has fifteen years fewer to live.  Yet he does not feel that he has changed particularly; time has slipped by so quickly that his heart has not had a chance to grow old.  And although the mysterious tumult of the passing hours grows with each day, Drogo perseveres in his illusion that the really important things of life are still before him.  Giovanni patiently awaits his hour, the hour which has never come; he does not see that the future has grown terribly short, that it is no longer like in the days when time to come could seem an immense period, an inexhaustible fund of riches to be squandered without risk.

Will we be faster next year?  Will we go farther?  The year after that?  Then what?

Shooting for 600k -- My Ultracycling Setup

Tomorrow I'll be attempting by far the longest ride of my life to date: 600k (375 miles), with 24,000 feet of climbing.  My previous record is about 250 miles.  If all goes well, I'll finish in 28-30 hours.  40 is the limit.

Adding to the intimidation factor is the fact that it'll be entirely unsupported -- I'll be riding alone.  Honestly, I'm a little apprehensive, but I suppose it's just a question of keeping the pedals turning.   I'm planning to ride straight through the night, which will be a first for me.  This is all in preparation for the 1200k ride I'll take on in Alaska in 3 weeks.  In that ride, the plan is to ride an initial chunk of 600k before bedding down for a bit, so tomorrow's ride is something of a dry run.

Tomorrow's route isn't something I just made up.  Instead, it's a "permanent," which is essentially a brevet, complete with control points and the like, that one can arrange to ride alone at a designated time.   My route tomorrow will take me from Haymarket, VA, west through Marshall and Middletown, and then south to Clifton Forge, which is a stone's throw from Roanoke.  And then I'll come back, hopefully before work on Tuesday.  :-)

Over the months and years, I've tried a lot of different bike setups for ultra cycling rides from 200k-400k.  This is not a "racing" setup by any means.  Instead, it assumes I'll be unsupported, and the priority is on comfort and durability for the long haul, complete with anticipating any reasonably foreseeable contingencies.  For my ride tomorrow, I'm doing a dry run of something very close to the setup I'll use in Alaska.  Since I know several people who have expressed interest in ultra cycling, I wanted to explain my setup.  Rather than write 375 pages, though, I thought a video might make the most sense!

Listed below the video I link to certain items I discuss.  Please let me know if you have questions about anything.  I didn't talk about the many things I've tried and chosen to leave home, which is a worthwhile topic in of itself.

Magnic Lights -- note that this page shows the older, initial Kickstarter design

Dura Ace Tubeless Wheels

Hutchinson Sector 28 Tubeless Tires

Hed Clip Lite Aerobars -- mine are an older version

Banjo Brothers cue sheet holder

Revelate Designs Gas Tank

Exposure Lights Strada (front light) -- with triple-cell backup battery.

Exposure Lights Joystick (helmet light)-- with single-cell backup battery.

Arkel Randonneur Seat Post Rack with Tailrider trunk bag

Anker A2 USB battery

Recovery Boots update: Still diggin' 'em

About 18 months ago, I wrote a review of the Recovery Pump system. I know it's the time in the year when people's volumes are ramping up toward Ironman and other big adventures, so I thought it worth saying once more that I think these things are great, and I continue to use mine constantly.  

I'm at the point in the year when I'm trying to balance a lot of things: getting my running legs back after surgery, going on increasingly ultracycling adventures, and trying to hold it all together.  As a result, I'm spending a lot of time with my feet up in the boots, napping, reading a book, or watching a movie.  I've noticed that I'm not alone in finding them addictive: the system is spreading rapidly among those who try it.  For example, the newly opened Athlete Studio in Dupont Circle has a system that local athletes are using with great success after events.

Featuring Dawn Riebeling, one of my Ignite Endurance teammates!

One thing that's changed since I published my initial review is that the system no longer requires a prescription.  

If you're thinking of getting one for yourself, you can save a bit of money, get free shipping, and snag a couple of free extras by using code A11018 or using the link on the right side of this blog.

Happy training!

Product Review: Altolab Hypoxic Trainer

A few weeks back, I engaged in my annual stupid tradition of impulsively signing up for an inaugural Ironman in a beautiful place that presents an opportunity for an "interesting race report experience."  In 2009, it was the Cozumel Mosquito Coast.  In 2011, it was Tropical Storm Wales.  This year will be Mont Tremblant, and in 2012, it'll be Lake Tahoe.  Tahoe will be gorgeous; the problem is, the swim is at 6,200 feet, and the bike climbs well above 7,000 feet.  It won't be possible to get there more than a couple of days in advance, so I got to thinking, how am I going to do this?  And I did some research.

Many people have heard of the benefits of altitude training.  It turns out that the benefits aren't clear-cut, because while living at altitude has a stimulatory effect on red blood cell count, it also inhibits recovery and doesn't allow one to train as intensely.  The response has been the so-called "live high, train low" approach, in which people live at high altitude, but do their intense training at low altitude.  There are only a few places where this is possible, however, and it's certainly not possible for the everyday age grouper.

Hypoxico altitude tent


Enter altitude tents.  These are portable airtight canopies that one puts over one's bed, and they're connected to large, heavy, expensive ($5,000) units that look like portable generators.  These units substitute nitrogen for oxygen, and thereby create lower oxygen percentages, much (but not exactly) as one would find at altitude.  Athletes sleep in these tents at up to 10,000 feet or so for a period of weeks leading up to a race.  The tents can be effective, but they're uncomfortable to sleep in due to noise from the generator and buildup of heat and humidity within the tent.  I owned one of these for a year or so, and I found that I had so much trouble sleeping in it that the downsides outweighed the benefits.  Still, I considered renting one of these for a couple of weeks before Lake Tahoe; they can be found for a few hundred dollars for brief periods.

In the course of my research, though, I stumbled upon a solution I hadn't seen previously: the Altolab system. These aren't cheap -- about $600 -- but in the world of altitude simulators, that's not too bad.  I decided to take the plunge, reasoning that I could benefit from altitude training for races leading up to Tahoe as well.

The Altolab system works on the principle of intermittent hypoxic exposure, i.e., brief periods of relatively intense hypoxication with recoveries in between.  In an altitude tent system, you might sleep for 8 hours at a simulated 10,000 feet.  With Altolab, in contrast, the protocol is one session per day, and the session is 6 reps of 6 minutes of hypoxication, followed by 4 minutes of breathing normally.  The key is that the Altolab can simulate much higher altitudes than the tents -- if a tent can simulate up to 10,000 feet, a typical level, the Altolab can simulate well in excess of 20,000 feet.  In the world of altitude training, a tent can be thought of as a very long Z2 run, whereas the Altolab is more like intense hill repeats for a shorter period.  Research on runners and cyclists has shown a clear performance benefit from intermittent hypoxic exposure, a technique that was originally developed by the former Soviet Union.

The Altolab system is dead simple to use, although it's somewhat hard to describe.  It consists of three basic parts: (i) a breathing tube with mouth piece that's connected to a bacterial filter; (ii) a green hypoxic silo cylinder; and (iii) several "altomixer" cylinders.  The green hypoxic silo consists of particles of soda lime, a chemical that absorbs CO2, and the altomixers contain sponges that simply inhibit air flow to a minor extent.  The functional principle is that, when one inhales, the gas consists of a high percentage of oxygen.  The oxygen is absorbed by the lungs, and when it's expelled, it contains more CO2 and less oxygen, along with some nitrogen.  Normally, when one inhales fresh air, the level of oxygen inhaled remains constant.  The Altolab changes that, because when one exhales into it, the soda lime in the green hypoxic silo absorbs the exhaled CO2, leaving only a reduced level of oxygen, as well as the nitrogen.  On the next inhalation through the Altolab, the removed CO2 is replaced by additional oxygen and nitrogen (fresh air), but the exhaled nitrogen remains.  The overall effect is that, when one breathes through the Altolab, the percentage of oxygen inhaled decreases, and the percentage of nitrogen inhaled increases.  (This is why the system is different than breathing through a long tube -- there, the CO2 remains, and you'll eventually hyperventilate trying to get oxygen.)

An Altolab kit comes with 6 black "altomixer" cylinders, and each cylinder used increases the simulated altitude by about 5,000 feet.  Use four of them, and you're essentially breathing at 20,000 feet, which is like being on the peak of Denali.

All of this may sound speculative and gimmicky, but it quite clearly works.  The Altolab comes with a fingertip device that displays blood oxygen levels in realtime.  Normal oxygen saturation is about 98%, but using four Altomixers, at the end of six minutes, I can see my blood oxygen levels dip to about 75%.  This is interesting to play with: take just one normal breath in the middle of a 6-minute interval, and after about 20 seconds, my blood oxygen level spikes back up into the mid 90s before dropping again.  In other words, the altitude simulation demonstrably works.

The AltoLab training protocol is pretty straightforward: an hour a day (6 minutes on, 4 minutes off, and repeat 6 times) for 15 days.  In those 15 days, one gradually adds black Altomixer stacks according to a prescribed schedule, which gradually increases simulated altitude.  After that, every three weeks, one performs a 5-day "top-off" session at a pretty high simulated altitude.  These sessions are easy to do while watching tv or doing anything passive, although they tend to make one a little spacey, so no driving, and probably no reading.

An important note: the soda lime in the green hypoxic silo, which absorbs CO2, becomes exhausted after a couple of uses and must be replaced.  These silos are quite pricey ($15 ea or so, even if purchased in bulk). Thus, if bought in the usual way, each day of altitude simulation will run $7.50-$8.00.  That's still not exorbitant compared to the cost of buying or renting a hypoxic tent, but there's a better way: one can purchase soda lime directly from a medical supply company and simply replace the soda lime in the hypoxic silo.  Using this approach drops the price to about $1/day (not counting the initial investment), which is very affordable.  Below is a video showing how it's done -- though, note that the manufacturer does not endorse this approach.

In all, this is a pretty cool product -- easy to transport (unlike an altitude tent and generator), and reasonably affordable, considering the alternatives.  I've completed a 15-day cycle, and I'm now in the midst of my first top-off phase.  It's been pretty straightforward, although it does make one tired afterward.  I'll be interested to see the results in my races!

Book Review: "Wheat Belly" by William Davis, M.D.

Readers of this page will know that, in the last fifteen months or so, I've been directing my OCD laser beam on issues of sports nutrition.  It's turned out to be a fascinating and engagingly reticulated field to study, and one with surprisingly few certainties, at least on a prescriptive level.  Michael Pollan has singlehandedly waged a pretty effective public-relations war on the corn industry, long thought to be an innocuous source of staple food products.  Michelle Obama took a lead public relations role in replacing the established, if deeply misguided, food pyramid with something called "My Plate" that, according to certain pundits, has been a spectacular failure.  In each case, the modern thinking is not only different from what the government had advocated previously, it is almost directly contrary to it, implying that the previous advice that consumers were given would actually have hurt them if followed.

Diets are, if anything, even worse.  There are innumerable ones out there, from Atkins to Paleo, South Beach, Weight Watchers, Dean Ornish, Blood Type, Zone, and even Subway.  Consumers could be forgiven for concluding that any dietary approach will lead to weight loss except their present one.   Everyone has an opinion on the right way to eat, and it's not hard to marshal facts in support of virtually any approach when outlets like CNN are reporting breathlessly that a professor of human nutrition lost twenty-seven pounds in two months eating nothing but a Twinkie every three hours.

Apparently no one chooses My Plate.

Despite the overwhelming amount of often-contradictory information out there, I've come to think that there are right answers, or at least better and worse answers.  I overhauled my diet pretty thoroughly last year, dropping ten pounds while building lean muscle in the process, and my race results showed it.  I think that further improvements are always possible, however, and in any case, I simply can't stop myself from cramming as much information into my head as I can find.  And so it was that I heard a podcast interview with William Davis, MD, the author of "Wheat Belly," who argued broadly that, for countless reasons, wheat in its modern form is a pernicious, toxic substance that is substantially responsible for a wide range of modern disorders and diseases ranging from obesity to diabetes, and including perhaps even arthritis and autism.  Davis's argument seemed somewhat overstated to me, which made sense -- he was trying to sell a book, after all.  But, on the chance that there was something to it, I quickly picked up the book and got stuck in.

There's a lot to say, but here's the main thing: If you care about your health, I would put this book very firmly in the "must read as quickly as possible" column.  I've rarely come across a book that so decisively changed my perspective on a food or even methodology.  Until now, I thought of wheat as a grain whose proteins trouble certain people but that otherwise was fairly benign, if not particularly nutritious.  I hadn't been eating much of it when I was on a strict nutrition plan because it was a source of relatively empty calories, but I certainly indulged in pasta before races, pizza at finish lines, and cake on special occasions.  After reading this book, at least for the foreseeable future, I will do none of those things, and I predict that anyone who reads it with an open mind will be very tempted to make a similar decision.

The book starts with a simple, but fairly devastating, fact: whole wheat bread, long thought to be a staple of healthy living, spikes blood sugar levels far more than just about any other substance, including table sugar.  In carbohydrate terms, wheat is basically rocket fuel.  Biochemically, a spike in blood sugar causes the body to release a flood of insulin, which is disturbingly effective at converting that blood sugar to visceral fat, which accumulates around the midsection.  Visceral fat is a particularly bioactive and harmful type of fat that releases triglycerides and even estrogen, thus causing Gynecomastia, i.e., "man cans," on some unfortunate souls.  Chronically high levels of insulin can cause the liver to become desensitized to it, thus causing the pancreas to emit yet more to rid the blood of sugar, which leads to a cycle that culminates in diabetes.  It is therefore no surprise that obesity and diabetes are strongly correlated.  And it is also no surprise that the skyrocketing rates of diabetes (up 500 percent since 1980) and obesity are also correlated with a marked rise in the quantity of wheat consumed.

When I listened to the podcast, one objection I had was that, look: people have been eating wheat for thousands of years, even back to biblical times, and it's a staple of countless religious traditions, so it can't really be so toxic.  But the book anticipates and smacks this point down pretty thoroughly, explaining that the modern variety of high-yield "dwarf" wheat is substantially different, both physically and chemically, from anything that existed before the late twentieth century.  It is simply not the same plant that our ancestors ate: its glycemic index (the amount by which it raises blood sugar) is far higher, and its gluten is more pronounced so as to support the processing into baked goods and countless other products.  There is therefore little reason to draw comfort from past experience -- although Davis also argues that there is no variety of wheat, regardless of how old, that gets around many of the problems that the book sets forth.

The problems are legion.  Wheat has been linked to, among other things, osteoporosis, irritable bowel syndrome, anemia, cancer, fatigue, sores, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, and various other autoimmune diseases.  Gluten, furthermore, is linked to many psychiatric and neurological diseases, including anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, dementia, migraines, epilepsy, neuropathy, and even autism.  This page, compiled by another physician,  discusses some of the problems.  Davis includes perhaps twenty clinical anecdotes of chronically ill patients without outward signs of celiac disease or gluten intolerance, but who nonetheless were quickly and sometimes completely cured simply by eliminating wheat from their diets.

For me, certain parts of this hit close to home, at least on a potential level.  Since my college days, I've suffered from bouts of cluster headaches about which the less is said, the better -- suffice it to say that I can think of few less pleasant sensations.  These headaches have come and gone seemingly without reason.  I noticed this fall, though, that it had been over a year since I'd last had a symptom, a period that corresponded rather directly to my dietary reforms, one of which was a virtual elimination of wheat for most of 2011.  In that time, I hadn't felt a stitch of discomfort, whereas I'd previously suffered a couple of weeks' affliction a couple of times each year.  In December of 2011, however, after Cozumel, I allowed myself a month of "normal" eating that included pizza, bread baskets, and lots of sandwiches around the holidays.  And, starting late last week, i.e., around New Year's Day, the headaches came back, and I've been fighting them ever since.  I'm back on the dietary wagon now, though, so it will be interesting to see whether wheat is indeed a contributing factor.

In all, I think anyone who takes health and nutrition seriously should pick this book up and devour it forthwith.  Endurance athletes, in particular, should be quite concerned if Dr. Davis's thesis is correct, because many indulge in virtually limitless bread, pasta, pancakes, bagels, and other wheat-based foods in the belief that it's acceptable, and perhaps even necessary to support the training load.  I've personally found that not to be the case, and this book confirms that there is every reason to doubt the wisdom of a grain-based diet.

The book is written in a highly accessible manner, is full of concrete anecdotes, and is well-sourced.  In the later chapters, some of the biochemical explanations for observed phenomena are quite detailed and technical, and I can't honestly say that I followed it all.  Still, I appreciated that the proposed causal chain is set forth should I want to invest the time to understand it down the road.  I also found that, toward the end, the anecdotes began to blend together, but only because they all fell into the pattern of "serious diseases cured merely through excising wheat from the diet."  On the whole, I suppose that, if they're true, such anecdotes can't be offered too often.

If You Don't Want to Buy One, Don't Try One: Recovery Pump Review

NOTE: I'VE WRITTEN AN 18-MONTH FOLLOW-UP TO THIS REVIEW.

While my race performance at Rev3 South Carolina was a bit of a mixed bag, one thing that was unambiguously great about the experience was that, at the expo, I had the chance to try out new product called the Recovery Pump.  Experienced triathletes (and athletes in any sport) recognize that proper recovery from workouts and races is nearly as important as the workouts and races themselves, because it's only during the recovery phase that one actually gets stronger as the body overcompensates for the stress that it's experienced.   With three sports to account for, triathletes as a rule train too much and recover too little, thereby often experiencing overuse injuries and performance levels that plateau for long periods.

While triathletes are loathe to take time off of training, they're much more willing to consider methods that accelerate the recovery process.  The traditional method is, of course, the dreaded ice bath, whereby one fills a bathtub with icy water and sits in it for 15 or 20 minutes.  The theory is that the cold reduces inflammation and also draws blood to the chilled areas, which aids recovery by flushing out lactic acid and other pernicious byproducts of hard training.  Although many athletes swear by ice baths, the downsides are obvious: they're very painful, and also inconvenient.  You need a bathtub, a large quantity of ice, 20-30 minutes to spare, and you can't take them anywhere.  Ice baths after cold winter runs are a particularly unwelcome proposition.

The second traditional rapid-recovery strategy is the massage.  Especially popular immediately post-race, massages can work wonders, but for most athletes, they're reserved for rare occasions due to the cost (often as much as $80/hour before tip) and time-consuming nature of the visit itself.

The final established rapid-recovery strategy has involved the use of compression garments, such as tights and calf sleeves.  The best of these garments use graded compression, i.e., they squeeze most strongly at the foot, less around the mid-leg, and least around the quad, such that blood is forced up out of the leg and inflammation is reduced.  Compression tights are great, and certainly warrant a place in every athlete's wardrobe.

The Recovery Pump is a new, FDA-approved, prescription-only product that essentially combines most of the benefits of all three strategies listed above, while minimizing the inconveniences.  In essence, the pump system is a pair of inflatable boots that cover from the tip of the toes to the base of the glutes, and an adjustable air compressor that progressively inflates the boots from the bottom up, releases the air, and repeats the process.  In Recovery Pump's lingo, it's an SIPC, or "Sequential Intermittent Pneumatic Compression" device.  

Each boot is connected by pneumatic tubes (they look like white wires, but are hollow) to the very small compressor box to the right of the picture.  Each boot contains four chambers: one around the foot and ankle, the next around the soleus and calf muscles, the third around the knee and lower quads, and the fourth around the quads and lower glutes.  The lower-most chamber inflates first, followed by the calf, knee, and quad chambers.  The inflation is held for a few seconds, and then all four chambers deflate simultaneously with a minor "whoosh," and there's a palpable feeling of blood rushing down your legs into your feet.  Then they inflate sequentially once more, and the process repeats itself.  Both the intensity of the compression, and the "deflated" time between compression sequences, can be adjusted easily using dials on the compressor.

You might think that pneumatic -- or "air pressure" -- compression wouldn't feel like much.  But you'd be very wrong.  The closest analogy I can draw is to the strength of a blood pressure cuff: imagine four cuffs that, together, cover your whole leg, and that automatically inflate and release.  I can't imagine many people wanting stronger compression than you get on the highest compression setting.

The end result of the compression and deflation sequence is that blood is pushed progressively out of your beaten-up legs, and then rushes back in, and out, and in again.  This is exactly what compression garments attempt to do, but their compression is clearly weaker than the Recovery Pump, and it's obviously not cyclical.

The most obvious thing to say about the Recovery Pump is that it feels absolutely, positively wonderful.  At the Rev3 expo tent, people would park themselves in the boots and essentially decide to stay there indefinitely.  In the two weeks I've had the boots, I've done some very serious workouts, and it's gotten to the point where, afterward, my main objective is to shower and get some food as quickly as possible so that I can collapse onto my couch with the boots and bliss out.  They are utterly relaxing in the way that a gentle massage is, and my legs feel just terrific after I use them.

Feeling great is one thing, but an obvious question is, do they facilitate recovery?  Here's how the Recovery Pump folks explain the benefits:  "When the athlete stops exercising, venous return decreases significantly, slowing the evacuation of Lactic Acid, Carbon Dioxide, other Metabolic Waste and water.  The challenge is to continue the process of clearing these elements after exercise has stopped so as to NOT allow the accumulation of these waste to sit in the muscle for long periods of time.  By clearing these elements quickly, better O2 perfusion occurs as does the delivery of plasma through capillary action of blood flow.  Plasma and O2 are the lifeblood of healthy cells.  The more cells get, the healthier they are.  The accumulation of Lactic Acid, Carbon Dioxide, water and other metabolic waste blocks the perfusion of new 'food' to the cells.  Lactic Acid clears relatively quickly (in a matter of a couple of hours or less), but many of the elements in Metabolic Waste can take a much longer time, so long that soreness can increase or even onset up to 48 hours later. Thus, clearing these elements quickly and efficiently through improved and energized venous return is essential for healthy cell prolferation and activity."

Now, I'm just a lawyer, so I don't pretend to understand any of that.  But here's what I can say, after having these for two weeks: you'll have to pry them off of my cold, dead legs.  Since I've had them, I've done my best to destroy myself through training, putting in two weeks of ~25 hours of quality training, including a 127-mile ride, 4-hour trainer ride, 20-mile run, 3:23 marathon, 1.5 hours/day on the Elliptigo, 2x/week Computrainer workouts, 3x/week swims, 3x/week yoga sessions, and 2x/week hard track workouts.  And yet, after all of that, I can honestly say that I've never felt stronger.  Three days after the Marine Corps Marathon, I had the best track practice I've ever had, and I followed it up today with the strongest Computrainer session I've had this year.  You can bet I'm wearing the boots while I'm typing this.  Thus, although my evidence is purely anecdotal, I have every reason to think that regular use of the boots has helped me handle a training load that otherwise I might not have.  N.B. also was eager to take a turn in them after her 139-mile bike adventure, and generally fights me for them whenever possible, which I take to be an endorsement.

Aside from "feels great" and "seems to work," the final thing I'll mention about the boots is that they're convenient.  One significant drawback of ice baths is that they're time-consuming, but using the Recovery Pump really doesn't take much time out of the day -- you can catch up on Jon Stewart, surf the web, pay bills, write blog posts, or even nap while you're using them.  And, significantly, the system is highly portable.  Although the boots look (and are) large when they're fully inflated, here they are deflated:

Beyond the boots, the entire system comprises the comrpessor box, pneumatic tubes, and a power cable.  Here's a picture of the compressor box next to a paperback book:

Recovery Pump compressor and book for comparison.

As you can see from the picture below, everything together is a surprisingly compact package:

Compressor, boots, and cables.

This, to me, is one of the great benefits of the system: it easily fits into a suitcase or duffel bag, so I'll bring it with me to use in the days before and after races, like Ironman Cozumel later this month.

Having sung the praises of the system, I should mention two drawbacks.  The first is relatively minor: the boots are warm.  There's no air circulation in them, and for hygenic reasons (your legs can sweat a bit), the instructions direct users to wear long paints, such as track pants, and socks when using the system.  Thus, when I take them off, I find that my legs are often a little bit sweaty, and if you use them in a hot room, it can be minorly uncomfortable at times.  I've rarely had a problem with it.

The bigger drawback is the price.  The list price of the system is $1395, although they're currently available at the introductory rate of $1195.  (Using coupon code A11018, or purchasing one using the link on the right side of this blog, will get you a $25 discount, free ground shipping, and a complementary tote bag.)  No two ways about it, the system is expensive.  I'd submit, though, that among expensive triathlon-related things, the return on investment is very high, although perhaps not quite on the level of the Computrainer, which I've been addicted to for six years.  Put it this way: for the price of two Zipp wheels, you could get two Reynolds or Hed wheels that are likely just as fast, and a Recovery Pump as well.  You also could get a Recovery Pump using the money you'd save by selecting Ultegra instead of Dura-Ace components on a bike.  Based on on my experience so far, I would certainly make either of those trade-offs in order to get one of these things.  (For perspective, it's worth noting that the only marketplace competitor for Recovery Pump, the Normatec MVP, retails for $4,850.)  It's also worth noting that, if the recovery benefits help to avoid injuries that require medical treatment or physical therapy, it could be less expensive than it looks.

In any case, there is some good news on the price front.  Because the Recovery Pump system is a prescription-only, FDA-approved medical device, you can purchase one pre-tax using a Health Savings Account or equivalent.  If you're wondering what to do with your expiring funds before year-end, I couldn't think of anything more worthwhile.  [Edit: Since I wrote this review, the device has ceased to require a prescription.]

In short, as is obvious, I'm kind of in love with these things.  Check 'em out!

Book Review: The End of Overeating, by David A. Kessler, M.D.

I've spent a lot of time in the past year reading and listening to everything I can find on the subject of nutrition for endurance athletes, and it's helped: in the two months before the Eugene Marathon this spring, I dropped from 8.5% to 5.0% body fat without losing any lean muscle mass, and while putting together the training necessary to PR two marathons in two months.  (I'm currently employing a similar protocol to prepare for Ironman Cozumel next month, and as the race gets closer, I'll explain in detail how I've been going about it.)  The conscious focus on weight was a new one for me; I've never been heavy by any stretch, and for years, it seemed like my weight was an immutable 168 pounds no matter what I did, and that there were thus few gains to realize by focusing on diet.  As a result, I acted like a typical carboholic triathlete, binging on pasta and sweets and basically eating everything in sight, on the logic that I'd burn it all off, and that, in fact, my training required gluttony.  Friends would remark that I had a big appetite, but I never believed them; I thought plowing through a large pizza by myself was normal for someone my size.  When I realized this spring that I could, in fact, get lighter, and that each pound lost equated to about 2 seconds per mile when running, I knew that the concept of "race weight" was something about which I needed to learn a lot more.

As part of my ongoing reading on the broad subject of nutrition, I picked up The End of Overeating by David Kessler, a former FDA commissioner.  The book certainly isn't intended specifically for endurance athletes; instead, it might best be described as a biological and psychological expose of the food industry.  People who have watched Super Size Me and read Michael Pollan's books will find certain of the book's themes familiar, but the thrust is somewhat different.   Super Size Me's blunt theme is that fast food is designed to make us want more of it, and that eating more of it -- 5,000 calories' worth each day, no less -- is toxic.  Pollan is more  of a guru, expounding on the health and societal benefits of eating whole, unprocessed food, and eschewing the processed gunk that clogs the middle aisles of the grocery store.  Kessler, in contrast, takes an explicitly scientific approach to investigating how the food industry exploits our brain chemistry to benefit its bottom line, and gives concrete suggestions about what we, as consumers, can do about it.

The first part of the book, titled "Sugar, Fat, and Salt," explains how, and why, this unholy trinity of ingredients triggers addictive patterns in the brain.  The discussion is clear and conversational, peppered with interesting experimental outcomes and anecdotes that underscore the disturbing fact that, when these three ingredients are found together, the body's reaction is not to be satisfied, but to demand more of them -- "priming," as it's called.  I know that, personally, when I'm trying to drop weight, having pizza, ice cream, and mixed nuts around is a recipe for disaster because, as the commercial for Lay's implicitly recognized, it's incredibly difficult to stop eating these things once I've started.  I realized that all of the foods over which I seem to lack impulse control are essentially sugar, fat, and salt, one on top of another.  And, as Kessler explains in a discussion reminiscent of Super Size Me, the food industry has long recognized this fact and tried to exploit it to the greatest degree possible.  This part of the book is particularly entertaining and concrete, with specific attention paid to Chili's, Cinnabon, and "the science of selling" food products.

The middle portion segways from brain chemistry to psychology, and explores the emotional dimension of overeating that quickly results from the sugar/fat/salt cycle.  Dr. Kessler emphasizes in several places that, for the overweight, the problem is not a lack of self-discipline, but rather is the result of patterns of behavior that are subconscious and virtually impossible to resist without explicit acknowledgment and preventative measures.  In essence, the stimulus-response pattern triggers anxiety that can only be relieved by consuming food, but the food provides only partial and temporary respite from the "war within."  And, very much like a drug, each loss in the war means that the urges grow yet deeper, and the problem becomes more intractable.

All of this is interesting and useful, but without more, the book would simply be an accusation and academic lament about the manipulability of mankind.  Happily, however, Kessler moves on to offer extensive, and very concrete, insight and guidance about how to reframe the subject of food to circumvent the biological triggers that the food industry tries to exploit.   For example, he quotes Arnold Wishton: "We talk to patients about playing the tape until the end.  The cognitive strategy is to become well practiced in recognizing when you're having euphoric recall and selectively remembering only the good parts [of overeating].  Then, in your mind, you play the scenario out to the end and you say, 'This is what's going to happen.  I'll feel good for two minutes, and then I'll feel horrible.'"  That is doubtless a familiar thought to guilty overeaters; what is more valuable is the following recognition that "new behavior must come to have an emotional value that carries its own rewards.  Unless a person makes the cognitive shift, where it's more reinforcing to have a life without the substances than it is to have a life with them, recovery is not obtainable."  To me, this sounds much along the lines of certain sports psychology principles I've learned, i.e., that one has to avoid negative expressions of goals, because the brain misinterprets them.  To wit, if the goal is to run every step of the marathon, the goal should not be expressed and repeated as "I'm not going to walk," because the brain doesn't hear the "not," but instead hears, "walk!"  The goal should should instead be that "I'm going to run to the finish line."  In short, when learning to avoid overeating, one must not focus on avoiding certain foods or the negative consequences that will come from eating them, but must instead focus on the affirmative rewards from embracing a new behavior.  "It'll feel amazing to be slimmer and lighter," rather than, "I hate my belly and can't find my abs."  Or, as Dr. Kessler summarizes, "Effective treatment of conditioned hypereating is dependent upon making that perceptual shift and learning new behavior that eventually becomes as rewarding as the old."

Another concrete emphasis is that we have to discard the notion of food as reward, because that simply reinforces the psyghological patterns that we're trying to break.  He puts his finger directly on psychological avoidance strategies that people employ: "Thoughts like, 'I deserve this' or 'I'll only have a small piece' are strategies for easing our discomfort about behavior we know is not in line with our goals."

The last example I'll mention -- although there are many others that we'd all do well to recognize -- is the power of explicitly labeling the feelings that one is feeling at a moment of craving.  The very process of objectifying the feeling brings it from the realm of primal urge to mere idea that can be accepted or rejected. As Dr. Kessler recommends, "Ask yourself, 'Will eating help me truly deal with this feeling?'"  Often, merely asking that question is enough to subvert the urge, or at least to give one a potent weapon to resist it.

Obviously, the book doesn't focus on endurance athletes.  It isn't a diet book by any stretch.  But I think its messages are valuable to us as well -- how many times do we have a burger, fries, and milkshake after a long run or ride on the logic that "I've earned this?"  Or, even if we don't think we've necessarily "earned" a 2,000-calorie meal at Five Guys, don't we find ourselves rationalizing that, "Well, I've done a lot of work, so it probably isn't as bad as it normally would be"?  The first line of thinking elevates toxic foods to the status of reward, thus reinforcing the very cycle we ought to be trying to break, and the latter is simply a "discomfort easing" strategy for consuming foods we know, on some level, we shouldn't.

In all, I found the book insightful, concrete, and useful.  It's worth a read.

I'm ElliptiGOin' places

For the last couple of years, I've been commuting to work by bike come hell or high water, and we've had a little of both.  It's about 7 miles each way, mostly downhill in the mornings on the way to work, and mostly uphill on the way back.  It's gotten to the point where I just don't even think about traffic anymore, because it doesn't affect me; in fact, I can tune into my favorite podcasts and enjoy the outdoors, and it's one of my favorite parts of the day.

The only issue I've found is that it can be a bit tricky to integrate the commute with the rest of my training schedule, which often has me cranking out high-intensity intervals after I get home.  Rolling downhill to work in the mornings is fast, but it doesn't do much for my fitness.  The uphill slog home does more for me fitness-wise, but almost too much so, as it's tough to hike up steep hills for miles on the bike, wearing a loaded backpack, only to hop on the trainer right afterward and hit my target wattages.

I've also found myself wishing that I could integrate more of a running workout into my commutes, because that's been my limiter, historically speaking.  The challenge is that running 7 miles each way turns into a pretty bloody hard day, especially when you mix it in with swimming, yoga, lifting, normal running workouts, and my cycling routine.  Do it every day, and you're suddenly at 70 miles a week of running before you've even done a real workout, which is patently untenable.  All things considered, I've wanted to get a moderate running-type workout without actually running quite so far, and without the impact stress.

Enter the Elliptigo, which I bought last Saturday at Revolution Cycles, and which I've been using to commute every day this week.  It's probably not quite like anything you've seen before -- think of it as a running bike, or an elliptical on wheels. It's a pretty ingenious design: a fully-adjustable elliptical bike that was designed by two Ironman triathletes specifically to mimic a proper running motion.  It's nothing like the looping effect you get on some commercial ellipticals; rather, you really pull almost directly back with your glutes and hamstrings, much the same way efficient runners do when they "claw" the ground for horizontal propulsion.  Here's a video of what it looks like in practice, except I look far more suave and certainly don't grin like a dope:

It's gotten some endorsements from pretty well-regarded athletes who are serious about what they do, including the Ultramarathon Man himself, Dean Karnazes:

My interest having been piqued by reading countless glowing reviews, I decided to give it a try on a Saturday afternoon when I was recovering from illness and didn't want to risk an actual long run.  I checked one out of a local bike shop and rode it around the neighborhood for 10 minutes, and instantly knew I'd found what I was looking for.  I bought it, rode it 20 miles that day (from Clarendon to Bethesda and then home), and I've commuted on it every day this week.

Here's what I think.  First, it is absolutely, positively, ridiculous looking.  But I think it's ridiculous in an endearingly nerdy, environmentalist sort of way -- it's the perfect thing to ride to a Star Trek convention in Berkeley.  (Fittingly, it's the ride of choice for Sergey Brin, one of the founders of Google.)  And man does it get looks.  I've had my picture taken by at least one person every day this week, and when I'm stopped at lights, people can't stop asking about it.  I'm sure that the some of the preening roadies who see me on the trails are quietly disdainful, but heck if I care; I'm not insecure about my ability to ride with those guys when the time comes.  The thing is, I don't actually do my cycling workout until after my commute.  During my commute, I'm training to run.

The Elliptigo itself is a joy to ride, plain and simple.  It can go faster than you'd think, up to 20-25 mph on flat ground, although comfortable cruising speed is probably 15-17 mph.  Its small wheels allow it to accelerate quickly, and it's much more nimble than I expected.  Riding around cars is also quite different from riding on a bike, because you're up much higher.  In fact, I can see straight over the top of even the biggest SUV's, and the upright posture makes it much simpler to swivel around to check for cars doing stupid things.  The shifting on the model I got is 8-speed internally geared, so it withstands the elements well and has the ability to climb any hill that Arlington can throw at it.  The disc brakes are clearly preferable to my road bike's Dura Ace calipers.

One thing I didn't quite count on is how much work this thing is.  It's a 45-pound mantis of hurt.  The leg motion is almost entirely forward and back, and with the toe cages I have on it, it's hip flexors and glutes.  My commutes, which used to be just moseying along on my road bike, are now very serious cross-training.  Even in the relatively cool 60s and 70s, I get home dripping with sweat.  But, because it targets the running muscles, I'm able to get in a quality bike workout afterward without much interference at all, as that's quad-intensive.  The weight-bearing nature of the activity also makes it a much more efficient calorie burn than a normal bike.

Aside from the price -- $2400 or so, although there's a 3-speed model in the $1800 range -- the other potential downside I'd mention is that, due to its 45-pound weight and somewhat awkward shape, it's not much fun to carry.  If someone lives at the top of several flights of stairs and has to carry his bike up or down each day, the Elliptigo may be frustrating.  

In all, in case it's not clear, I'm pretty darn impressed.  Every now and then someone comes up with a product that just works, and this is such a product.  People have ridden these things in RAGBRAI, as well as in very difficult century rides, including the nortorious Death Ride:

It has also been used as a cross-training and physical therapy tool with some startling success, including in this story, where a top U.S. mountain runner came back from almost losing his leg even stronger than before after training on one of these.

Elliptigos are, in short, the real deal.  I've only been on mine for about a week, but I've retired my road bike from commuting, and I'm very optimistic about what this will do for my running and general fitness.

Updated: 12/7/11:  Washingtonian Magazine did a review of the Elliptigo, and quoted me a few times.