Older, Faster, Stronger: Going the Distance
Join me in my 2014 challenge: To get fitter this year than I was last. After trying to achieve the fitness of a 20-year-old in 2013 (by some measures I made it; by marathon measureI fell 3 minutes short), I will “re-do” key races this year, in an attempt to best last year’s personal bests. Redoing the exact same races is a fantastic way to measure fitness improvements.
Another runner on her own version of that challenge is sprinter Christa Bortignon (see picture below; she’s in the black T, to right of me), a 76-year-old sprinter who set seven world records and won 16 gold medals at world championships in 2013, earning her the World Masters Female Athlete of the Year Award. But is she resting on her laurels? In an email last week, Christa told me she felt sore after back-to-back personal training and sprint-training sessions. Clearly, this 76 year old is not letting turning 77 slow her down.
I explain the Do-Over Year challenge in my new running column, Going the Distance, to be published each month in The Globe and Mail. Targeting one race for a PB could lead to disappointment because so much can go wrong. A saner approach, suggests one of Canada’s top running shrinks, sports psychologist Kim Dawson, is strive for an improvement over the entire year.
Each month in the Globe and more often here, I will share what I’m learning along my journey. The goal is not only to get faster and stronger as I get older — and the book on that will be published by Rodale Books in October 2014 — but to keep up training intensity or, in other words, stay young by training young. Because my ultimate goal is to be running strong and long at 101 and having a blast doing it.
And one of the best lines of advice I received to achieve that came from ultra runner Pam Reed: “I run to protect my running.”
If you have advice, thoughts, questions, drop me a comment and I’ll do my best to address them in a column.
Happy running and happy holidays.
Competing in the World Masters Games 1/2 Marathon in Italy. # 73 pulled far ahead of me to take the bronze, but I managed a 4th in my age group.
Why All Women’s Races are Winning Fans
An inside peak at the biggest phenomena in running: Women’s only races
By Margaret Webb, first published in Canadian Running Magazine, 2013
It is the forecast that race director Cory Freedman dreaded: Predictions of 75 kilometre-per-hour winds, a 25-centimetre dump of rain, potential dangerous flooding around waterways like the Don River, which roils right alongside her race course in Toronto’s Sunnybrook Park. From across Southern Ontario runners are driving through the deluge to participate in Freedman’s usually sold-out Toronto Women’s Run Series. Typical for a woman’s event, many of the 1200 women and girls struggling to the start line of the 5 and 8 k events are relative novices or even racing for the first time. On top of that anxiety, they have no idea what to expect. Will the races be cancelled? Will they actually have to run through this petulant precursor to Hurricane Sandy that will smack into the city two days later? And how does one compete, stay warm, keep safe when Mother Nature is throwing a major hissy fit?
The one thing not stressing the runners is the nature of the race itself — that it is all women. When they arrive and hear the event is on, the tribal sisterhood of runners heaves into full-estrogen, she-wolf bonding frenzy that seems to stop the storm in its tracks. Or at least nothing seems quite as bad while women are hustling about in packs, always in packs, middle-aged gal pals, mothers and daughters and grandmothers, nine-year-old pony-tailed phonemes about to find out how awesomely fast they are. Even sponsored elites cuddle clump together from portapotties to bag check-in to start line as if the first rule of women’s racing is to leave no woman behind.
All around me, they shout out fuzzy feel goods (Girl, you are so going to do this!), tease each other into hysterics (I think we need our third pee! Now!) and hug, oh lord, but do women racers hug. They are inventing an entire language of skin speak at these events, from the oh-my-frig-I-lost-sight-of-you-for-a-minute! wrist grab to the you-are-so-awesome back rub and the we’re-so-fabulous full-body mugging at the start, which is repeated with suffocating intensity at the finish, because, well, it would take a huge piling on of words for women to communicate the glory of what it means to run together.
On this rare occasion, I am racing without my own she pack, yet I’m enthusiastically hailed to the start line by two veterans of the women’s running community, Charlotte Davis and Francis Lamb. Davis wanted to race in the inaugural event five years ago, but it sold out before she could even sign up. She volunteered instead and loved it so much she’s been working the start line every year since. Ditto for Lamb. Their job in the chute is to keep the runners not only safe but feeling special. The race director “is adamant that volunteers greet, encourage, cheer, celebrate and congratulate every single runner,” says Davis. “It makes it a more welcoming and supportive atmosphere than most mixed races and that attracts a lot of women who might not normally race. It’s striking a chord. I can’t deny there’s a movement going on and it’s fairly powerful.”
Indeed, though the Toronto series struggled to attract sponsors when it launched during the recession in 2008, it has had no trouble attracting runners, regularly selling out. Now sponsors are starting to take note of the surging popularity of women’s events. A fledgling national series, Run for Women, will double to six races across Canada this year and landed a title sponsor in TKTK. South of the border, women’s events have exploded with some eight national series (more than 200 events) vying for the fastest growing segment of the running market — according to Running USA, women now account for 55 percent of all participants in road races and nearly 60 percent at the half marathon distance. Yet with women out numbering men in most races, it begs the question: Why the huge demand for women’s events?
Back in the starting chute, the announcer, Debbie Van Kiekebelt, a former Olympian, urges racers to step up to the start line. It may be her toughest call of the day. Davis and Lamb have been waving, encouraging and cajoling women to close the gap and join the elites on the line. The women seem more interested in giving each other send-off hugs. Lamb, a 2:55 marathoner in the 1980s who has watched the women’s running boom explode, laughs. “That would never happen in a mixed race,” she tells me later. “Men would be elbowing and pushing people out of the way. In the mixed runs, the men are in front, men get the attention and the glory. This is about women, for women, and it celebrates the women’s experience.” These races, Lamb has no trouble saying, are “about the love” and likens the supportive atmosphere to a giant hug. “If you could bottle this energy, it would be amazing.”
Comparing a race to a lovefest may seem bizarre until you consider the tribal nature of running, that women — and men — can’t help but bring our prehistoric brains to the start line. And those brains, fired by ancient hormonal circuitry, shaped by primordial evolutionary goals, have developed vastly different reactions to stress according to Dr. Louann Brizendine, author of The Female Brain.
To alleviate anxiety — say of a race — men strive for rank in the social pecking order, for power, respect, even domination, which explains the aggressiveness of some at the start line. Or the thousand-yard stares. Or the quiet, individual focus. It’s fight or flight time.
But women, four times more likely to suffer from anxiety given that our brains are hardwired to intuit danger lurking everywhere, get our stress-relieving oxytocin rush by making social connections, to support and watch out for each other. Women’s genetic inheritance, after all, comes from cave gals who formed female bonding communities to protect each other and their young, in some cases from the sort of caveman behaviour some men unwittingly display during racing. Rather than fight or flight, women runners are learning to marshal up a third and ancient response to stress, a let’s unite and fight. As Brizendine puts it, a hug seals that social pact and releases calming oxytocin, which gives women runners a high even before the race starts — and clearly energy.
When the horn finally blasts, the frontrunners go out hard, not competing against each other so much as with each other. I am swept up in that pull, flying out at a PB pace rather than my planned practice pace for a half marathon the next weekend. I struggle to slow down, remind myself not to blow my target race by going too hard in this one. But as I near the 2.5K turnaround of the out and back course, I feel fantastic, fast yet in control, my brain dosed up on feel-good hormones.
The frontrunners charge back, clearly buoyed by the blast of being in a rare place — the spotlight, leading the race clean. Elites love competing for the chance to win the race outright, not just be first woman finisher. And without men clogging up the course, age groupers can also see their competition and race head on. Swept up in the you-go-girl vibe of the event, I cheer and clap on the frontrunners rounding the turn until I realize, whoa, I am among them. There are maybe only 15 ahead. This is an entirely novel place for me, I assure you. And that first-ever whiff of the front-end excitement of a race gives me yet another adrenalin kick.
Farther back in the field, the race means something different to every woman in it. One told me later that she had only run six times before, ever. Dragged to this by friends, she was thrilled to run her first 5K nonstop. “Now I’m hooked on running,” she beamed, “and racing!” Same story from a 50-something woman who hadn’t raced in years and finally succumbed to pressure from her running gal pals to give this one a try. Loved it. Hooked. Another who had taken up running to lose weight said she would be too self-conscious to ever run in a mixed event. “I don’t want men looking at me,” she laughed. “I mean, I know they’re not and everything, but I just feel more comfortable here.” Others told me they love women’s races because they’re generally smaller and more intimate and definitely more welcoming for all sizes, paces, experience levels, ages (many young girls run with their moms) and ethnicities (some women run in burkas). Another big draw, the races tend to support charities that focus on women and families. And gals love the female-centric touches — clean and abundant portapotties, chocolate stations, sometimes jewelry instead of yet another gaudy hunk of finisher medal, the post-race festivities with women’s music, firemen at the water stations, though the latter is a disappointment today. “It was too cold for them to take their shirts off,” lamented one racer.
With more women’s events emerging, each are developing their own unique character while keeping a celebration of fitness and the running sisterhood at their core. At a very few — too few say some critics — there’s a focus on drawing elites and developing the next generation of talent. Ottawa, for instance, is one of the few to offer prize money to top finishers while this series offers free registration to elites. Other races held at destination hot spots, such as Niagara Falls and the Zooma and Diva half marathon series in the US, have developed a girlfriends’ weekend-away theme with resort getaways, local tours, and parties adding to the hoopla. Yet others haul out gender stereotypes, playing up girly, pink princess themes, encouraging racers to wear tutus and tiaras, inviting firefighters to beefcake up water stations and medal presentations. That super femmy-ization is a trend some women race directors aren’t thrilled about. “We’re women and we like to do things women do and that’s how we design our events,” says Zooma’s Brae Blackley who left corporate law to found the series. “But we don’t want over-the-top girly. We want women to take themselves seriously: onour your training, honour your commitment. So we don’t encourage people to run in costumes or feather boas.”
Priscilla Uppal, a professor, poet in residence at the London Olympics and author of the resulting Summer Sport: Poems, says she will only run in women’s races and can “defend” the girly frills “slightly.” She likens the events to a testing ground, a place women can explore what it means to compete and be an athlete. “There have been a lot of bad stereotypes with being a female athlete. What goes on (at a race) is a lot about breaking down those stereotypes. Women are battling the idea that being an athlete is not sexy or integral to who they are. They might find it difficult to make running a priority in their lives when they have so many other responsibilities. They may feel vulnerable and exposed when they try to get in shape after many years or having kids. Women understand all this. They’re so supportive and encouraging. And the firefighters make them feel that there’s a community of men who support what they’re doing.”
Still, Uppal, who regularly places top three in her age group, laughs that she’s running too fast to notice the firefighters. She’s more intrigued by the nature of the competition — that the race provides a safe space for women to unleash their competitive drive and also learn how to compete with each other. “Competition isn’t male or female, but women who display competitive characteristics have been looked down on, for being ruthless or single minded or not compassionate. Competing isn’t about putting each other down. It’s about pushing each other to achieve goals, and that spills over into all areas of life.”
In this race, the top three gut it out right to the finish, seconds separating them. In mixed races, this last dash can be the toughest for women. So many elites have stories of being locked in foot races with overzealous guys who use every nasty race tactic to claim bragging rights of beating the first female finisher — cutting her off then slowing down in front of her, crowding her, clipping her heels, even bursting ahead at the last second to take the ribbon put out for the first female finisher, as happened to pro triathlete Suzanne Zelazo when she won the women’s Toronto Goodlife Half in 2009.
In this one, Sasha Gollish takes the ribbon clean, to ecstatic congratulations from race announcer Van Kiekebelt. The Pan Am games gold medalist in 1971 has been calling these races since the inaugural one and gushes about how much she loves it. “There’s just such sheer joy and excitement. It’s like a collaborative team effort. It’s us girls against the world. When I was competing, women didn’t have this incredible camaraderie that they have today, that has developed from women running together, and it shows in these women’s races.”
As runners cross the finish line, Van Kiekebelt calls out the first names of each, though I confess I don’t hear mine. I am too much in shock — by a massive PB, at age 50!, and a first-place in my age group. Rather than draining me, the effort fills me with confidence, and I will PB my next race – that target half the next week – by five minutes.
But in this moment, along with other finishers, I rush to the finish line to cheer in the rest of the field. Despite the rain and cold, we can’t pull ourselves away from the drama: the ecstatic joy, the massive smiles of so many first-time racers crossing the line. Race director Cory Freedman, bundled up in a parka, can’t get enough of seeing the happy faces and the raucous support women give each other. “People cheered them on, they had a good time, they want to keep running,” she says. “That’s pretty cool. This is living the dream.”
Margaret Webb blogs about running at www.margaretwebb.com
SIDEBAR ONE: FLASHBACK TO THE FUTURE
An international women’s racing circuit developing future Olympic stars and attracting world-wide media attention: That might sound like a far-fetched dream for women’s running, but it’s actually history.
The guest of honour at this year’s Niagara Falls Women’s Half Marathon and the first woman to officially run the Boston Marathon in 1967, Kathrine Switzer, was instrumental in launching the Avon International Running Circuit in the late 1970s. Realizing that growing the sport was fundamental to getting the women’s marathon accepted into the 1984 Olympics, she worked feverishly with Avon to launch a race series on four continents. It was a spectacular success, garnering network TV coverage of marathons, developing future Olympians and drawing tens of thousands of women to the sport. “It was an example of corporate sponsorship creating a social revolution,” says Switzer who wrote about her proudest accomplishment in her memoir Marathon Woman. “So many who became Olympians were products of that program. There was such talent out there, and they didn’t know it.”
But most of the races collapsed or morphed into other events when Avon withdrew its sponsorship in the mid 1990s, as a result of a downturn in the economy, Switzer contends, rather than any lack of interest or promotional returns. The women’s running pioneer had a chance to revisit what might have been when she opened one of the few races that endured: the Avon Women’s 10K in Berlin. Some 18,500 women stepped up to that start line last spring.
Such massive women’s races are common in Europe. In Dublin, the women’s 10K attracts 40,000, Vienna 30,000, Paris 20,000. “Imagine if Avon had stuck with the race series through the women’s running boom,” says Switzer. “Avon would own women’s running now.”
Ironically, attracting title sponsors and media attention remains challenging for women’s races. While Switzer is thrilled by the women’s running boom — “It’s truly for every one now and we can relax and have fun” — she is concerned about the development of the next generation of elite talent and believes race series, sponsors and media all have a role to play. “Women have more endurance, stamina, balance and flexibility. It doesn’t make us better than men. It makes us different athletes. Men have been running the marathon for 2,500 years, women for only 30. We’re just beginning to explore women’s capability in the sport.”
Older Faster Stronger: Celebrate the Running Sisterhood With an All-Women’s Race
Signing up for a race or five over the season is a fantastic motivator to step up your training. And what more fun way to test your fitness than a spin with the running sisterhood? All-women’s races are incredibly welcoming, inclusive and celebratory. And with an elite field pushing the front runners, they can be pretty darn competitive too.
Never raced? Many women choose all-women’s races as their first — check out my story, “A Race of Their Own,” in this month’s issue of Canadian Running magazine for a flavour of what these races are all about. Hopefully, I will see you at a few.
Canadian Women’s Races
Sports 4 Emilie Mondor 5K Memorial for Women, Ottawa
Billed as the fastest women’s 5k in Canada, the event has prize money for open and masters. Also has a children’s mixed 1k. June 22, 2013 www.runnersweb.com/running/EmilieMondor.html
Toronto Women’s Run Series
A three-event series featuring half marathon, 10K, 8K and 5k races, with about 1500 runners in each. Set away from traffic but on paved paths in Sunnybrook Park in the Don Valley. Fundraising partner is the Pediatric Oncology Group of Ontario (POGO). www.towomensruns.com
Island Girl
An intimate half marathon, half-marathon relay and 5K on Toronto Island, with a festive Caribbean vibe and only 500 runners. Fundraising partner is Willow Breast Cancer Support Canada. Sept 22, 2013. www.islandgirlrunning.com
Niagara Falls Women’s Half Marathon
This course takes 2,500 runners and walkers past the falls twice and follows the raging Niagara River. Special guest this year is Boston Marathon great Kathrine Switzer. Fundraising partner: Women’s Place. June 2, 2013. www.nfwhm.com
Calgary Women’s Run/Walk
This 5K and 10K (with mother/daughter divisions) is one of the oldest women’s races in Canada, debuting in 1979. Fundraising partner: Connections Counseling. Aug. 25, 2013. www.calgaryroadrunners.com/events/calgary-womens-runwalk
Run for Women National Race Series
Doubling this year to six races (Vancouver, Calgary, Unionville, Quebec City, Ottawa, Halifax), these 5K and 10K events (with a 1K for girls 12 and under) feature Olympian keynote speakers and attract some 1500 to 2000 each. Charity: Because I Am a Girl. Www.runforwomen.ca
A Sampling of Top US Women’s Races
Freihofer’s Run for Women 5K, Albany NY
Significant prize money draws an elite international field of open and masters runners, along with some 4,500 recreational runners. Celebrates its 35th anniversary June 1, 2013.www.freihofersrun.com
Zooma Women’s Half Marathon and 5k Series
An intimate boutique series run by women, set in destination resorts with post-race parties, wine, yoga and massages. Www.zoomarun.com
Diva Half Marathon & 5K Series
The largest women’s race series packs on the parties and the pink for its “diva” runners, in US vacation destinations. www.runlikeadiva.com
See Jane Run Half Marathon and 5K Series
Focus is on inspiration in this four-race series, along with complimentary chocolate tastings, champagne and sports massages. www.seejanerun.com
Nike Women’s Marathon and Half Marathon
The largest women’s race in North America, with some 20,000 runners in San Francisco (October), just got a little half sister in Washington, DC (April).www.facebook.com/NWM26.2
Run Like a Mother
Cool series of 5K races in multiple cities to celebrate mother’s day, including 1K runs for kids. www.runlikeamotherrace.com
Gazelle Girls Half Marathon
A new race that will take you to Grand Rapids, Michigan, in April 2013. www.gazellesports.com/info/255-GazelleGirlHalf.html
Thelma and Louise Half Marathon
This course in Moab, Utah runs through the desert but not, they assure us, over a cliff, June 1, 2013. www.moabhalfmarathon.com/tlhm/index.cfm
Disney Princess Half Marathon Weekend
If you love pink and tiaras, this race is for you: Feb 22-24, 2013.www.rundisney.com/princess-half-marathon
Dirty Girl Mud Runs
At these 5K mud runs, PMS stands for pretty muddy stuff. Some 50 events all over the US. www.godirtygirl.com
Iron Girl
Athleta apparel sponsors some 13 US-wide events varying from 5K to marathon, duathlon and triathlon. www.irongirl.com
A Sampling of Top International Women’s Races
Flora Women’s Mini Marathon, Dublin, Ireland
Started in 1983 with 9,000 participants, this 10K had more than 40,000 women on the start line in 2011, who made it the biggest single-day charity fundraising event in Ireland. June 3, 2013. http://www.florawomensminimarathon.ie
Avon Women Running Frauenlauf, Berlin
Prize money attracts German and international elite runners to this 18,500-women strong 5K and 10K, now in its 30th year. May of every year. www.berliner-frauenlauf.de
Austrian Women’s Run, Vienna
The glamour event of women’s racing in Europe, this 5K and 10K attracts some 30,000 women, with divisions for elite and recreational runners, even company and family teams. May 26, 2013. www.austrianwomensrun.com
La Parisienne Women’s Race
This fun 6K starting under the Eiffel Tower attracts some 28,000 women. September 15, 2013. www.la-parisienne.net
Older Faster Stronger: 85 and still running strong
Had a chance to hang out with World Record holder Betty Jean McHugh as she underwent a battery of tests at McGill University, the Montreal Masters Study, to find out how she has managed to run marathons so well for so long. Great genes? Yup, probably. Consistent running, yoga, weight training and hiking routine for past 35 years? Most definitely.
Here are a few things to ponder:
1) BJ, at 85, has a higher VO2 max than I do at age 51, and I qualified for the Boston Marathon (and ran it last spring) so I’m hardly a slouch.
2) BJ has 4 more pounds of muscle that I do.
3) BJ has less body fat than I do.
4) On our walks around Montreal, I didn’t want her walking any faster or I could not have kept up.
Hey, 85 is looking pretty fabulous!
Check out BJ’s wonderful book, My Road to Rome, which takes readers from her early days growing up on a small Ontario farm, to adventures in Toronto during the 1940s, across the country to settle in Vancouver where she raised a family before taking up running at age 50 and proving that she is an incredible athletic talent. She has set world records in the marathon and ran three marathons the year she turned 83!
World-record holder in the marathon, at 85, BJ McHugh — she’s on the left. That’s me on the right.
Older Faster Strong: Setting World Records at 50+
It was totally inspiring to see top masters sprinters in Canada — Patty Blanchard, Karen Gold, Donna Dixon and Laurie Meloche — team up at the Canadian Indoor Nationals to set a new World Record in the 4X800. They did it definitively in 10:32.66, peeling about six seconds off the previous WR set in 2012.
Older, Faster, Stronger: Yes, but not invincible
Janet thought the snap was a tree branch, as her right foot, at full running stride, plunged into a pothole and remained there, while she abruptly collapsed down onto it.
I didn’t hear the crack but saw the results: her foot turned at an angle that suggested a very bad break.
The moment was sickening for a whole whack of reasons – my friend’s searing pain, the odd angle of her foot (gut wrenching for any runner who fears leg injuries); and then, finally, the terrifying realization that we were in the worst possible place on our day-break run for this accident to occur: a remote stretch of the Don Valley running trail, a kilometre from the nearest stairs leading up to a bridge and help.
And we were without a cell phone.
That was our second mistake.
About eight minutes earlier we stood on the walking bridge that joins the west and east Riverdale Parks, looking down at our usual route along the path by the river, which was covered in thick snowy slush. We contemplated taking the road, but dissed that option as if it for wimps and decided to risk getting soakers.
That would be our first mistake: That we risked far more than soakers when we did not base our decision, first, on safety.
Sometimes – too often — we runners feel so strong, so invincible, like superheroes who can extend the range of a car because we can run a half marathon or marathon distance to fetch gas should that mere machine run out of fuel in the middle of nowhere.
Tuesday morning reminded me that a) we should always carry a cell phone, even while running with friends b) we are not invincible; our bones do break c) Toronto may be a big city yet we constantly run into remote wild spots or even dodgy urban pockets that put us out of reach of easy help.
Our usual group was slimmed out that morning – by illness, injuries and yucky weather – leaving just the three of us, but thankfully, there were three of us.
Imagine yourself with a running buddy too hurt to walk, in a remote area, on a path so slushy or icy that others are unlikely to pass by to offer help. And you have to decide whether to leave your pal behind in the snow and cold – while she gets hypothermic and possibly even goes into shock – or stay with her and risk having no one pass by to help.
At least we didn’t have to make that sickening decision. Janis stayed with Janet, packing snow onto her fast-swelling ankle, while I ran back to call an ambulance and fetch Janis’ kids’ toboggan to use as a rescue sled. I grabbed a sleeping bag along the way to keep Janet warm and, as I ran back by Riverdale Farm, flagged down a runner on the street – I feared how Janet might be by the time I returned and wanted all the help we could get.
As we ran across Riverdale Park to the bridge, I asked this good Samaritan stranger if she might be able to help pull a toboggan.
“I just came back from Crossfit, dragging tractor tires across the floor,” she said.
Finally, a lucky break to follow the bad break. Mystery woman also came up with the great idea of pulling Janet down to the Queen/King bridge where the stairs led up to the street, more accessible for the ambulance than the Riverdale bridge. Having another brain along in an emergency can be as important as a strong pair of Amazon legs.
We got Janet into the sleeping bag and onto the sled, and we took turns pulling as we ran her down to the bridge where paramedics met us. Janet was unbelievably gutsy through the whole ordeal, smiling and even laughing through pain as she hopped up a good part of those stairs because, let’s just say those paramedics who were supposed to be carrying her could use a dose of Coach E’s training.
But within the hour, Janet was in the hospital with X-rays being taken of her ankle – a bad break and several fractures that will require surgery to set. Even after hearing that, Janet was still cracking jokes. Two of them: She has an Around the Bay bib to give away; and she took this bullet for our Tuesday morning run group, knowing it could have been any of us hitting that pothole lurking under the slush.
After Janet was safe, I was still shaky. I could not stop replaying the morning drama in my mind. Yes, our running pulled off the rescue mission – but our running decisions got us into the trouble that necessitated the rescue.
Lessons? I will now make my cell phone part of my running gear, and safety will be the first decision I make on any run.
Janet – we wish you speedy healing. And please, no more tough lessons from you.
Older, Faster, Stronger: People Been Writing About My Diet
The Caveman Diet – Make Your Body Roar
By Kirsten Bedard, reprinted from her fantastic Ladylean blog, with Kirsten’s permission.
No one can better attest to the power of proper fuel than an endurance athlete. Strenuous activity requires the right diet for both performance and recovery. While an inactive person trying to shed a few pounds can focus on calorie deprivation, someone who demands work from their body knows that the RIGHT food is the only way to keep their engine firing. Of course, if you are already an athlete, you may think that training is key. To a degree. But if you want to reap greater rewards from your training, diet is the determinant of success.
Margaret Webb, a 50-year-old marathoner, is living proof of how a few pertinent dietary changes can lead to dramatic increases in both physical performance and body composition. We met a few months ago to discuss how she could become a faster, stronger runner – IF this was possible.
“You better believe it!” was my response.
I advised her to follow a lower carbohydrate diet, with a primary focus on maintaining balanced blood sugar levels ALL day, especially before and during her workouts. This is the same way of eating I recommend for someone who is trying to lose weight, lower cholesterol levels, increase energy, or age gracefully. Store less, burn more. It’s a simple equation and it works.
It works if you DO IT, that is. And Margaret has done it, and continues to do it. Since she started eating this way, ten pounds have fallen off her frame, her speed on both long and short runs has improved, and her energy and recovery have sky-rocketted. If an already trained athlete like her can experience positive change, then the diet works. The proof is in the pudding.
Endurance athletes are reluctant to lower their carbohydrate consumption, yet this is EXACTLY what most of them need to get fitter and faster. One of the first things I advised Margaret to do was cut out grains – the high density, inflammatory, acidic sugars that make up the bulk of most people’s meals. Was she reluctant at first? You better believe it. Who wouldn’t be? Everyone loves a bowl of pasta or a hunk of baguette, and running marathons seems like the ideal excuse to eat more of them. But after two weeks, she was convinced.
Eating for fuel means that vegetables and fruit provide her primary carbohydrates. By avoiding high insulin meals she ensures that her calories are never unnecessarily stored as fat. This takes care of weight and energy levels, while the addition of more glucose concentrated carbs prior to and during long runs, provides the sugar she needs when her body needs it most. There is NO benefit to shovelling in the sugar in high quantities any other time of day. What people don’t often realize is that during endurance activity, fat is a longer lasting form of fuel than carbohydrates. So let your body use it.
Don’t forget the fat. Unsaturated fats are found in avocados, olive oil, fish, nuts, and seeds. Margaret adds one of these to every meal and snack to stabilize her blood sugar, preventing over-eating and constant craving. Who would believe that eating more fat could help you lose fat? Margaret does now. Her new pre-long run meal is a couple of dates filled with almond butter. That’s more fat than sugar. She says her long runs are easier than ever.
And then there’s protein. Proper recovery requires amino acids, as does muscle building. These processes boost her metabolism and better her performance. Like for many athletes, before she tweaked her eating, protein was not a primary consideration for her. Now it is. Fish, eggs, and lean meat all break down into the building blocks needed to keep her body repaired and ready. Along with the healthy fats, protein also keeps her energy levels stable and alleviates the desire for dense carbs.
Whether you are training to run marathons or trying to lose weight, the right way of eating remains the same. And the response of a well-trained body is the true test of what works.
Your body is a machine. Fuel it right. Keep it lean.
Older Faster Stronger: The Cavemam Diet
This is the first thing I did on my road to super fitness.
Lost 10 pounds in five weeks. Super-charged my energy and health. Didn’t count a single calorie. And developed a new delicious way of eating that feels as if it will stabilize my weight for life.
When my nutritionist/personal trainer Kirsten Bedard suggested doing a version of the paleo diet, I may have grunted, intentionally disparaging our ancestral heritage. No grains? No dairy? Are you kidding me? As a menopausal marathoner, I figured those two major food groups were exactly what I needed. Plus, I had just finished writing a book about sustainable, local and organic foods, and now I was supposed to go pre-agriculture?
“Just try it for two weeks,” she said.
I tried to get my family doctor to say going paleo was crazy. He didn’t. Nor did a sports physiologist and a sports medicine doctor I consulted. “It’s the way we were meant to eat,” was their common response.
That was four months ago.
Except for one or two meals a week – I’m not a fanatic — I have eliminated virtually all processed food, sugar and grains from my diet, and my only dairy is a tablespoon of Greek yogurt and two tablespoons of cottage cheese over a breakfast bowl of fruit. My meals consist of all the veggies I can eat (though not much corn or white potatoes); fruit; protein in the form of meat, fish and eggs; and good fats such as avocado, olive oil, flax and nuts (though not peanuts). My carbs come from vegetables and fruit, which pack a lot more nutritional punch per calorie than high-glycemic grains and rice. And with my menopausal metabolism slowing down yet heavy marathon training to fuel, I need excellent calories not junk calories.
Kirsten warned me that I might feel a bit wonky in the second week as my brain grew accustomed to its new chemistry. I felt fantastic, like I was super charging my system on micronutrients and vitamins. Before paleo, I had crashing fatigue nearly every afternoon, yes, about an hour after eating a sandwich. Now my moods and energy stay high – and steady – throughout the day. And the deep muscle soreness I experienced after a hard long run has abated. Next day, I am sufficiently recovered — and keen even — to do a major strength-training session for my legs and some kick-ass core work. Paleo experts say the diet aids in muscle building – perhaps my stunning new glutes can be Exhibit A and B in that case.
I did learn (by getting very light headed) that supplemental glycogen loading is required to fuel hard workouts longer than an hour. Kirsten recommends a “timed release” of carbs by taking a power bar or gel before and fueling with gels or sports drinks during the workout. As I’m not a fan of processed food, I’m still experimenting with alternatives – two majool dates stuffed with almond butter sustains a hard 90-minute interval training session.
I’ll talk about the science and application of paleo a lot more in my book, as well as my most excellent paleo stools. But for now, no more disparaging comments about Neanderthals. Call me Cavemam and I’ll take it as a compliment.
Older Faster Stronger: The Plan
If you think turning 50 sucks, try running a little harder then watch time spin backwards. The research is spilling out — that endurance training can stall and even reverse the clock on aging. I lap that stuff up because, hey, I want an entire second act to my life. I want that birthday fantasy to come true — of having the wisdom of a 50-year-old inside the strong body of a 20 something (okay, can’t do much about the wrinkles).
Is it possible?
Well, I’m putting the research to the test. My goal is to get in the best shape of my life, after 50. My proof? Setting personal bests in every race I enter — 5k, 10k, 1/2 marathon, marathon. And then race against some of the world’s best oldest athletes at the World Masters Games in Torino, Italy in August 2013, which I will do with my running buddies above (who range from 50 to 61; pretty awesome, huh?).
I’m three months into that year-long plan to Super Fit Me. And here’s (in brief) what’s happened so far:
Lost: 10 pounds & super-charged my energy.
Gained: Two power-piston glutes and stronger hammies.
Partially Recovered: From a midlife crisis.
Improved: My mental attitude and also 1/2 and marathon paces by about 20 seconds/km.
Set: Personal bests in every fall race I entered, so will have to top all those results again. Not goofing around. Setting the bar high here.
Won: And this for a gal who has never gotten within a dirty sock sniff of the podium, two first-place finishes (a 5k and 10.8k), one third and one fifth (in half marathons) in the 50-54 age group. How’s that from someone who was cut from her grade school track team and never thought she could be fast enough to even run with a club. This from a flat-footed menopausal menace who packed on 20 pounds eating her way across Canada researching a food book. (Since that buffet-athon, I have run about 6,000 kilometres.)
How did I do it? How will I get to the next stage of super fitness? Please join me on the Older Faster Stronger journey. And hey, if you’re under 50, do Younger Faster Stronger. Subscribe on the RRS feed at the bottom of this blog, follow me on facebook and twitter, or check in here for regular posts.
Welcome to the “Next Big Thing” Blogathon
Started by Kathryn Kuitenbrower, the “Next Big Thing” poses 10 questions to writers about what they are working on. I answer those questions here. See links below this post to find out what big thing other writers are working on.
1. What is the working title of your current book? Older, Faster, Stronger.
2. Where did the idea come from for the book? I have been wanting to write a book about running since, well, I started training for my first marathon three years ago. And then a book editor approached me to ask if I was interested in writing a running book.
3. What genre does your book fall under? Sports, adventure, memoir, health!
4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? This is part memoir and part quest to find eternal youth through running. Since people have told me I look like Sally Field when we were both in our 20s…if she ran, she could really be the flying nun.
5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? A runner’s quest to find out how women are running faster and stronger into their 50s, 60s and beyond,and what the women’s running boom can teach us about living younger and stronger, longer.
6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? Samantha Haywood of Transatlantic Literary Agency represents me.
7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? I’m projecting a year from now will see me with a complete MS and a couple of personal bests in the 5k, half marathon and marathon.
8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? My favourite running books are Born to Run by Christopher McDougall and To Be a Runner by Martin Dugard but I’m waiting for a scintillating running narrative written by a woman so why not write one? Maybe my book will be The Next Big Thing?
9. Who or what inspired you to write this book? Simply put, running. Running transforms you. It makes you physical and mentally strong and confident. Millions of women have taken up running and the sport is transforming them – it’s the wave of feminism that will see women take control of all the leadership roles in the world. You read it here first.
10. What else about your book might pique your reader’s interest? Barring me being hit by a bus, I believe running will help me live young until I’m 100 and maybe longer. That will buy an entire second act to my writing career and life. And it can for you too. What’s not to like about that?
Other writers at work on The Next Big Thing: