This is only a test.

It seems like my blog has turned into a shoe review website lately.  The truth is, there are a lot more shoes that I still need to write reviews on.  I just haven’t been able to find the time, or get back into the habit, of writing more.  

This summer I have not raced much.  I have set a 5k PR twice (17:49 and 17:40, had a decent 50 miler (Pineland Farms in 7:51) and twice I have DNF’d.  Once at the Traprock 50k (while in 4^th place) and then at the Vermont 100 at mile 71.  Although I have not been training as hard as the past few years, both DNF’s could have been avoided.  The major problem is my head.

Skechers Go Bionic Giveaway!

In March of this year I posted a review of the new Skechers GoBionics.  To read that review, go here.

Since writing this review I have been asked by a lot of people when they are going to be available.  I am happy to announce that they are finally hitting the market.  These shoes are one of my all time favorites, not only for running, but for everyday use as well.  I have a ton of shoes to chose from, but day after day I almost always chose these to wear.

Merrell Mix Master II Review and Giveaway!

I remember looking at my toes and thinking that I looked stupid.  This was years ago. I had just started exploring the world of minimal running shoes and had bought a pair of Vibram five fingers.  I loved how they felt, but didn't want to wear them anywhere because they were dumb looking.  When Merrell introduced the Trail Glove I was psyched!  Now I could have a barefoot type shoe and not look like a tool.  But what really blew me away about that shoe was the fit.  I had never experienced a shoe that so matched my foot.  It felt like somebody simply put a Vibram sole on my foot.  I ran many miles in those shoes and still have them to this day.

New Balance MT1010 Minimus Amp review

Bryon Powell is such a tease.  He runs irunfar.com and is always getting the scoop on new shoes.  When he posted pictures of the upcoming New Balance Minimus MT1010 Amp's I shot off an email to my contact at NB asking about them.  What I was told was it was built on the Minimus last with the same weight and fit as the MT110's, but with an extra layer of cushioning.

Hoka Stinson Evo review - Fighting PF

Stinson Evo's

Years ago, not long after I started running,  I developed Plantar Fasciitis in my right foot.  After months and months of PT, ice, deep tissue massage, etc it went away.  Having PF and then later Anterior Tibial Tendonitis was the catalyst for my search for better shoes and more knowledge on how running form can cause/prevent injuries. I changed my stride, started wearing less supportive shoes, increased my foot/ankle strength and the injuries went away.  Just like you read about in all the hippy crunchy minimalistic blogs!!

So imagine my surprise when it recently reared its ugly head again, this time in my left foot.  This can't happen to me, I thought.  I run in minimal shoes!  I lost weight! I became Vegan!  I grew my hair out.  I eat goddamn chia seeds!! In spite of all this, it has become worse and worse.   (Maybe I shouldn't have cut my hair..).

The one thing that has kept me running has been the use of my Hoka One One Stinson Evo shoes.  I have a serious love/hate relationship with Hokas.  I have tried every model they have, some with more success than others, but have never really drank the cool aid.  I have so wanted to believe in the idea that a shoe will let me run hundreds of miles without any discomfort, but the reality has been very different.

Mafate's

 A little personal Hoka usage history, before I get to the Evo's.  My first pair was a pair of the Mafate's.  Absolutely the worst upper I have ever used.  Blistered within 3 miles of first run.  I tried for about 100 miles to like them, but eventually I cut off the uppers and grafted the soles onto a pair of Altra Instincts which I wore for the first 47 miles of the VT 100 that year. Next I tried the Bondi B's.  Much better upper and the sole is softer.  I really like these shoes and use them mostly for shorter, less technical runs.  They are much more flexible than the Mafate's. On the negative side, the sole has a road based pattern and the upper is hot (doesn't breath well).  I would never wear these for a 100 mile race because when they are wet they weigh a million pounds and take forever to dry out.

Altra Instincts with Hoka Mafate soles.

As much as I want to wear these shoes for long runs, there is a pattern that happens to me every time I try.  It goes like this.  First 5 miles, I am loving it.  Every step feels like I'm running on a cloud.  I start thinking about running 100's of miles of roads because my feet feel so good.  After 10 miles I still am happy, but notice that my feet are wet and my hamstrings are starting to feel overly fatigued.  After 20 miles my feet are still wet, my hamstrings and glutes (especially my periformous) are starting to scream at me and I am way over fatigued.  Now the soles of my feet are starting to ache, like somebody has been squeezing and releasing them hard every 3 seconds.  By 30 miles I swear I'm never going to wear them again and I'm an idiot for thinking that a shoe could fix all my running problems.

Even after all of that history, I just couldn't help myself from buying a pair of the Evo's.   I was lured into it by the off road tread pattern and the much improved upper.   On my first run I couldn't believe how much firmer they feel vs. the other Hokas.  Like all Hokas, the toe/heel drop is only a 4mm difference so running with a mid foot strike feels very natural.  What is completely gone is any ground feel.  As you can imagine, running with a huge slab of foam under your feet eliminates any propriacipitation. The firm feel seemed to eliminate the fatigued feeling I get in my feet from the softer Bondi's. The big suprise for me was how comfy the upper is.  Even though the toe box is a bit narrower than the Bondi B, it has more room above your toes and my feet don't feel trapped.  I would still like to see a wider toe-box, but I have been able to live with this one.

After doing several shorter (10-15) mile runs I decided to give them a test.  After running 10 miles in the morning I worked all day, came home and ate supper, had a few drinks, played cards with Amy, and then went out into the night and ran 30 miles of pavement.  Besides a very minor pinky toe blister, they were awesome. For the last two weeks I have only done one run in any other shoes (got a pair of the Salomon S-Lab Senses - HAD to try them for a 20 mile run).  I wore them this last weekend for a 7 hour 26 mile mountain/trail run with no problems.  I have even hiked in them and found them to be a great hiking shoe.

Wearing the Evo's on "The Chin" at Mt. Mansfield VT

Some days my foot hurts so much I can hardly walk, but every time I slip on these shoes I am able to do my training runs.  I much prefer the feel of a super flexy, almost not there shoe, but these shoes are letting me get in my 80-100 mile weeks before VT100. I'm not sure that I would even be able to run with out them.  Thats good enough for me!

In summary, here is my Pro/Con list for them:

Cons:
- Heavy.  Sure, they are not nearly as heavy as they look, but I'm used to wearing 6-8 oz shoes.  These are more like 10.  Not that big of a deal.
- Warm.  It would be great if Hoka would come out with an upper that was more in line with other trailshoes.  That being said, these are by far the best of all the Hokas.
- Tall.  Be careful while getting used to Hokas.  They are tall and when you do roll an ankle you have further to go.
- Drainage. They just don't drain well enough.  They are WAY better than the other Hokas though.
- Ugly - Honestly, these things are fugly.  It's hard not to think people will point at you and laugh at your clown shoes.
- Expensive.  $170 for a pair of shoes is a LOT of money.

Pros:
- Comfy. Running on pavement feels like running on trails. It really does feel like your running on a cloud. Rocks and roots disappear.  You can bomb over anything in your way.  It's liberating!
- Fun. It's hard not to smile when you run in these things.  It sort of feels like cheating.
- Quick Recovery.  You just don't feel as beat up the next day when you run in Hokas.
- PF BEGONE!! .  These shoes are keeping me running through my injury.  At this point that is good enough for me.  I have read a lot of reviews from people saying that these shoes saved their running when injured.
- 4mm Heel/Midfoot differential.  Even without having any ground feel, you still run with a minimal forefoot/midfoot stride.  If you want to heel strike in them you can because of all the cushioning, but if you are a midfoot striker you can still keep the heel off the ground.
- Traction - The best traction of any of the Hoka models.

Eating Vegan - Part II - a days worth of food

When my wife Amy read my post last week on eating Vegan she looked at me and asked me why I didn't write the entire story.  Sometimes when I write it flows so quickly that I miss a lot of details.  Amy's family has a very long history of heart disease.  Even though she exercises and eats very well, she is always trying to do what ever she can to ensure that her heart stays healthy.  We talk a lot about genetics vs. environmental causes on our health.

Recently she went to her Doctor to have a full blood-work done.  She wanted to know if her diet and exercise program were keeping her healthy.  She was happy to see that her overall Cholesterol was at 160, but shocked when her Dr. wanted to put her on a low dose of Lipitor because her LDL was 80. Her Dr. wanted to see it at 70 or below. Amy flat out refused to accept the prescription.  From what we have researched, taking Lipitor as a preventive measure shows no effectiveness and can actually cause a ton of physical problems.  I am not going to go into a long post about our medical system, but I can say that it is a shame that we only look at medicine as a way to cover up the underlying reasons for health issues.  Its way easier to take a pill than to discover the cause and modify our habits.

After watching "Forks over Knives" and reading a lot about how animal proteins affect our bodies, Amy decided to eliminate almost all of it (she still eats a little fish and can't live without some milk in her coffee) for a 8 week period and then have her blood work done again to see the results.  She is going back next week, and can't wait to see if it helped.

During this period I decided to do a detox and go back on the no sugar, wheat, etc..Ultrametabolism diet.  Since it eliminates all dairy and many animal products I joined her doing the Vegan thing.  As I posted last week the results for me were very surprising.  At this point, I have no plans to stop eating Vegan.

After last weeks post, many asked what I actually DO eat.  One day last week I took a picture of everything I ate all day.  Below is everything I ate from the time I woke up until the time I went to bed.  If anybody reading is a nutritionist and has an opinion I'd love to hear it.

When I woke up I was hungry, so I grabbed a few almonds before taking the dogs out.

Breakfast - Brown rice, salsa and 1/2 an avocado.  Also had a cup of green tea.

Mid morning snack - Corn thins with Almond butter.

Two almond covered date rolls for snack, as I was going to have a late lunch.

More snacks, corn thins with chipotle hummus

Late lunch - Big salad with pickled hot peppers and garlic.

Snack - Peanut butter Larabar.  3 ingredients: Dates, Peanuts and salt.

Afternoon snack - corn thins and red lentil chipotle hummus.

Some sunflower seeds before dinner.

Red wine with dinner.

Dinner - Brown rice tortilla with spicy homade beans (black, aduki, seasonings), avocado, salsa

More Almonds before bed.

Next mornings Breakfast - Tofu with salsa, avocado and toasted brown rice tortilla.

This is just one days worth of food, but pretty representative of how I eat now.  Of course there are a lot more things that we eat like lots of fruit, veggies, quinoa, etc.  It takes a lot of time to eat like this as almost nothing comes out of a box.  But, it is so worth it. 

And now, just for fun...

Becoming Vegan - 30 days of pure Methane.

Readers of my blog might remember a post I made in September of 2011.  I wrote about discovering Dr. Mark Hyman's book, "Ultrametabolism" and how I went from 170 pounds to 146 pounds in 6 weeks.  I raced the Leadville Trail 100 2 months after reading the book and finished in 37th place out of 600.  Here is a link to that post.

For those of you that don't want to re-read all that, here is the diet in a nutshell.  Eliminate all sugar (except fruit), caffeine, gluten, alcohol, dairy and meat (besides lean chicken, turkey and lamb).  You do this for the first 30 days then gradually add back in grains (whole, not refined), alcohol (sparingly) and dairy.  This allows you to find out which foods are causing inflammation in your body and what you have intolerance to.  You can have dark chocolate, but reducing sugars is something that you strive to do forever.

After my race season I relaxed quite a bit on the diet, but did make some changes in how I eat overall.  Over the holidays I let things slide and don't worry so much about my weight.  This year I slowly watched the definition in my body go away and my weight slowly crept back up.  I never let it get above 160, but it hovered between 153-158 pretty consistently.

After my DNF in last months Traprock 50K I decided that if I wanted to produce good results this year I needed to get serious about my diet again.  Since the Ultrametabolism diet worked before I assumed it would again.  I decided that I would add one more twist as well.  Rather than just eliminating dairy, I would also eliminate all animal protein.  Yes, I went Vegan.  Actually it would be more accurate to say I went Sugarfree, Glutenfree Vegan.

This last Monday marked 30 days that I have eaten a 99.9% plant based diet.  The only exception I have made is that I have continued to occasionally eat Sushi.  I have nothing against eating meat.  I have no problem killing animals and eating them, as long as it is not wasteful.  I made the decision to eat this way purely to see how it would effect my running and racing.  I have several friends that are Ultra runners that are Vegan and they swear that it has a positive role in their success.

So after 30 days I am writing about this because I am blown away.  I have never had something make such in impact on my running.  The one major thing that I can't get over is my recovery.  I'm just not sore the next day after a long run.  The most common comment when you talk about eating a plant based diet is that you can't get enough protein, especially if you are an endurance athlete.  I am not finding that to be the case.

In the last 3 weeks I ran every day (almost 250 miles) with zero soreness and very little fatigue.  I have gone from 153 to 145 pounds and I'm eating like a horse.  I'm getting very lean, even though my diet consists of a LOT of fat (avacado's, nuts, olive oil, etc).  This Thursday I entered a local 5k.  I have done zero speedwork this year, but I managed to place 12th out of 6000 runners and walkers.  I set a new PR by over 30 seconds (17:49) and took 3rd in the 40-49 age group.  This came as a total surprise.  I have no other explanation to turn to except my diet.

The hardest part of this diet was giving up sugar.  It took a few weeks before the cravings went away. Sure, I would still love to have a bowl of ice-cream, but I'm not jonesing for it like I would have before.  Not eating meat has been easy.  Not eating cheese has been a little harder.  Not eating eggs was really tough.  I love eggs!

I have actually been taking a lot of flack for eating this way.  I have been told to eat a cheeseburger or turn in my man card.  People seem to think that I am attacking the way they eat by talking about how I am eating.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  I'm hoping that my regular readers who have been interested in my running might use this as a little food for thought.  The most common question I get asked about this diet is why?  "You run so much and are so fit, you could eat anything you want and you will burn it off".  I don't believe that.

I'm not doing this to reduce calories or lose weight, although when I started I wanted to get down to race weight (150 or so).  I stopped eating sugar because I have seen enough evidence to believe that it plays a major role in heart disease and cancer.  Yes, I really believe that.  If you are not laughing your ass off right now, thinking I'm nuts, then check out this link.  The video is a presentation by Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology.  You might have seen him on 60 Minutes covering the same topic.  Watch the entire 1 1/2 hour if you really want to see the scientific reason that sugar is poison.

I also am curious about the connection to cancer and animal protein.  Again, if you are interested, watch the movie Forks over Knives.  Based on a study done in the 1960's called "The China Study" there is very strong evidence that the government really botched up it's recommendations to the American public about the amount and type of protein that we need to survive.  In fact, the evidence shows a link between cancers and animal protein.

I am simply exploring the connection between what we put in our mouths and how our bodies react.  What I thought was going to be a 30 day detox/experiment has turned into a real surprise.  I didn't expect to actually feel this different.  I didn't expect my running to be so positively affected.  But I am excited about continuing down this path.  I would also love to hear from any of you that have had similar results, whether it is from becoming a Vegan or any other change you made to your diet.

But I would really love to hear from some other Vegans about the farting.  Holy hell this diet gives you a lot of gas.....