Spruce Mountain - 25 May 2013

I have had a bad, bad case of wanderlust for the past few weeks, and this weekend I finally got to satisfy a small chunk of that.  For the most part, I have spent this year on level ground, working on cardio fitness and overall training.  It has been fantastic, and while I feel great and have had some wonderful experiences, it’s time to get some elevation.

I also needed to test out my gear, since I am pushing myself to transition fully into minimalist footwear.  Since, I knew that none of the shoes I have are waterproof, I wanted to know how bad it would really be.  Saturday looked like the best bet, and when the opportunity presented itself that afternoon, I geared up quickly and headed out.  The day was cold and rainy, so I stopped at the Stewart's in Greenfield Center to get some coffee.  I was at the trailhead by 15:15, and headed up the trail by 15:20.

The trail itself is comprised primarily of multiple logging roads with a few single track segments thrown in to keep you guessing.  There are very few markers, and some of the markers that do exist lie boldly to your face.  “The trail goes this way!,” they whisper, knowing full well that no one believes them.  Only an idiot would choose to blunder out the door without at least reading the trail description one more time, so as to be forewarned about these myriad follies.

I am that idiot.

And I stumbled through myriad follies.

I managed to guess correctly at the first junction, based on a trail marker that consisted of the remnants of a piece of paper stapled to a tree.  I wish I was joking.  When I arrived at the point where trail cuts back on to private land, I wasn’t convinced that I was supposed to proceed across the private land, and instead followed what appeared to be a trail that went off on the public side of the property line.  That turned out to only be a herd path, going nowhere, fast.

Backtracking, I started to head back down the trail, looking for an unmarked junction that I must have missed.  Eventually I gave up and consulted my phone; I confirmed that the trail did, in fact, still proceed over private land.  Eventually the trail dwindled down to a grassy old woods road with a single track running through it.  To keep up the excitement, it disappeared briefly right near a junction.  To the left, I could see a woods road that was still in use, based on its condition.  To the right, I could see the grassy remains of a wood road, with a broken single track pretending to wander down it as it had down the previous lane.  After a minute or two of Pooh-ish pondering, I headed up the right-hand track, which turned out to be the correct route.  Eventually I saw a few cairns marking the path, and knew I was on the correct course at last.

The excitement was short-lived.

After the grassy section, the trail heads into the woods again, following a stream up the mountain.  I stopped and took several pictures of the first honest marker I had seen that day: a white Saratoga PLAN marker.  As the trail proceeded upwards, the stream got wider and wider, until there was no distinction between the two.  This was good for my LNT training, since it gave me ample opportunity to walk through the wet sections.

Not far up the trail, I came to a proper pond, the size of any respectable kiddy pool.  To the left, just a short way up, I could see a Saratoga PLAN marker.  I waded up, only to find that I was quite literally walking up a stream.  There was no sign of a trail at all, except for the markers on the trees that told me I was heading in the right direction.

They lied.

This was the abandoned side trail that the ADK Guide Book authors had warned me about.  Once again my decision to not give the guide book a proper read came back to haunt me.  I blundered onward, and came out to an old woods road, which I would have been able to follow had I gone straight at the kiddy pool instead of angling to the left.

C’est la vie.

The rest of the trek was uneventful, aside from losing the trail several times over the next quarter mile.  Eventually I came to realize that the trail just kept splitting and rejoining itself, and that it didn’t really matter.

By 4:30 I was standing on the summit.  I took a few pictures, had a snack, and then headed over to check out the fire tower.  Right next to the fire tower was an interesting looking pool.  It wasn’t immediately obvious what was feeding it, but it seemed to fall away at the far end.

As for the descent, well, the service road that went back down to where I had parked loomed right behind the fire tower.  The wind had picked up, and it was still raining, so I opted for the easier route down.  Down I went.

The road leads past several buildings and numerous side roads. Perhaps the most interesting feature of the road and the surrounding land was how open it was, often with grassy fields on the side.  At one point, I came to a junction with a map and several signs sitting on one side of the field.  Walking over, my first thought was that it was some kind of promotional sign, but it turned out to be a map for snowmobilers.  The map showed where the user was, and the trail network in general. There was also a junction sign on the other side of the clearing, similar to what you would find on a hiking trail.  To top it all off, there were route markers (corridor 8) and real, reflective trail markers leading off into the woods.

Near the bottom I passed one soul enjoying his or her (or their) cabin.  I realized that that was the first sign of another person that I had seen on this hike.  A few minutes later, I was back at my car.  I cranked up the heat, downed the rest of my coffee, and headed on my way.

This trail crossed private land, so I’d just like to say “thank you” to everyone who opened up their land for us hikers to enjoy.  Thanks!

P.S.  I realized while I was posting this that I forgot to describe how the shoes did on the hike.  I intend on writing a full post on this in the future, but for now, here's what I wrote on the Flickr picture, which I think sums it up:

So, this was my first hike up a mountain wearing VFFs.  They did very well, in terms of traction, but this particular model (Bikila LS) has no water resistance at all.  They breathe really well, which works on warm days, but doesn't work so well on wet ones.  Especially not trails that have been turned into streams by the May rains.

So, I'm looking in to my options.  There are a few water-resistant models (no GoreTex, though). There's always wax/oil, as well.

Despite the permeability issues, I had no blisters after the hike, which is the main reason why I transitioned into them: to reduce blisters caused by my feet getting crushed inside traditional boots.

One other positive aspect is how well they flex; on several occasions I felt more of my foot go against a slanted or rounded surface than would have made contact if I was wearing a traditional boot.  This extra traction was a plus, and I can't wait to see how they perform on more difficult hikes.

Thanks for reading!  Until next time: "be excellent to each other!"

Searching For Answers

My heart and my thoughts go out to the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings and their families.  For those who were not wounding physically, I know that that psychological scars cut just as deep, and you are in my thoughts and my heart as well.  It is a senseless tragedy.

I had intended today's post to be a trip report, or rather a series of reports.  I had an excellent run on Sunday, and found that I was at a fitness level that I hadn't realized I was at.  I also have several older trip reports to catch up on.

Most of them will have to wait.  Probably indefinitely.  I'll relate portions of two reports in this post, and that'll be enough for now.

One of the things that pushed me on Sunday, and especially on an impromptu run a week before, was grief.  Last Saturday, April 6th, marked the 35th birthday of my friend Suzy Lyall, who disappeared 15 years ago, on March 2nd, 1998.  All these years later, I still invariably get hit with what feels like a ton of bricks on one or both of those dates, and this year was no exception.  I was in a funk all day, despite having taken measures to avoid it.  A few years ago, I lined up a chronological playlist of her favorite band, RUSH, in iTunes, and used it as a mechanism for channeling and focusing the grief and the rage.  I had started a traverse through that playlist on Friday, but it still wasn't enough.  I was barely functioning, though I couldn't see it.  My wife had told me to go take a drive, go for a run, anything to clear my head, but I was so far gone that I resisted, insisting that I was fine.

Eventually I went out.  I headed to Target to get a chocolate bar for dinner.  (Dinner of champions, I know.  There are very few chocolates left that I can eat without getting sick, and Target sells one of them.)  It was something to do and it got me out.  When I got back to my car, I broke down.  I don't know how long I sat there, texting my wife while tears were rolling down my face, but I eventually snapped out of it long enough to come to a clear decision: go run.

I drove over to Camp Saratoga, and ran.  The park was closing soon, I was in street clothes, my pants were falling down, and my hiking shoes hurt my feet, but I ran.  I picked up some of the older pathways, just faint herd paths now, and crossed some decaying bridges that had been pivotal in my younger days as a Boy Scout.  In effect, I ran into the past, the distant past, to a time when I still had a naive world view.

It helped.  A lot.

Fast forward a week, and Sunday rolls around.  I had a chance to go for a run, so I did.  I built upon the catharsis from last week, channeled that grief and rage, and anger, and confusion, and pain, and ran.  I thought about Paula Barton Viesturs' comment to her mountaineer husband, Ed, after the deaths of Rob Hall, Scott Fisher, and so many others, and "(ran) like I have never (run) before".  Before the snows hit, I hadn't been able to run for longer than a mile before my body screamed for a break.  When I was running on the snow, I could last for... 90 seconds... before I had to shut down and switch to walking.  On Sunday, I set a good pace, and ran for a good 42 minutes at a 12:00 pace for 3.5 miles before I took my first walking break. I know it's nothing to write home about, but it was a major step forward for me.

I was also running in and out of my history here as well, at Saratoga Spa State Park.  At one point I ran down an old road and suddenly was faced with the backside of a view that I had seen many times before in the 90s, when a few friends and I had come here to cook out, including Suzy.

So, the theme for today's post / trip report was supposed to be about these runs, about finding relief, and channeling grief into something productive.  There's a lot more to the story that I think needs to be told.

Instead I'm sitting here, dumbstruck, wondering why some idiot or idiots would choose to (apparently) detonate bombs or IEDs in the middle of people waiting for runners in the Boston Marathon.  I don't understand the increase in violence that has occurred over the past year or so.  Mass killings are becoming a regular occurrence in this country.  I don't understand what makes a man walk into a movie theater and start firing, or a school, for gods' sake, and start shooting elementary school children.  I don't understand how someone can willingly bomb crowds of innocent people, here in the USA, or abroad.  It doesn't make any sense.

I also don't understand how so many people disappear each year.  So, I'm still sitting here, searching for answers, for today and for yesterday.  Perhaps I always will be.  The only conclusion I can come to is that we have to live our lives to the fullest, because you never know what will happen tomorrow.

Hennig Preserve - 4 Jan 2013

The wind here has a name, an unpronounceable one, and it screams this name until you look up to try and see where it's coming from.  That's when you realize that there's a wall of snow moving swiftly towards you.  You have a precious moment to throw your hood over your head, before the snow does its best to creep down your shirt and chill you to the core.  Sometimes you're successful, sometimes you're not.  You could just leave your hood up, but the thumping, creaking, squeaking and screaming all around you makes you constantly look from side to side, just to confirm once again that the sound is yet one more tree grinding against another.  Such was my existence for two frozen hours on Friday, while I attempted to work out the gearing and layering that I would use for future training runs and hikes in this strange land of sugar icing.

I was testing out my new snowshoes at the Hennig Preserve, a large preserve in the town of Providence, NY, only a stone's throw from the Adirondack Park itself.  The preserve reminds me of the Adirondacks, though I can't get a good look at the ground to confirm that, because of the snow that covers it.  All of the trails on the south side, where I spent most of my time, were well-packed by other snowshoers.  I was pleased when I saw this; I didn't want to mess with ski tracks, since skiers apparently get upset when you do this, and I didn't want to cut new trail for the entire time, because I wasn't wearing snowshoes meant for that.  I was wearing snowshoes that were meant for running on groomed trails, because I'm in the middle of training for an upcoming snowshoe race, and I thought I might try some novel form of training, such as putting snowshoes on and running in them.

It turns out that running in snowshoes isn't as difficult as I thought it would be, at least from a logistical standpoint.  I automatically increased my stride so that I wouldn't trip on my own shoes, and according to my recorded track, I was able to get up into the 15:00s.  Nothing to write home about, but pretty good, I thought, for a total beginner.  The major limiting factor, it turns out, was my heart.  After less than a minute I was reaching for the 170s and starting to shut down.  This was completely disheartening, since on snow-free routes I'm able to run a mile in the 12:00s, and my heart stays in the high 150s to low 160s.  Again, I know it's nothing to write home about, but my point is, running in snowshoes is significantly more difficult than I had anticipated.  Trying to make the best of the situation, I resolved to push on and just hike as far as I could for as long as I could.  I broke into a run a few times, but for the most part I hiked.

Personal problems aside, the trail and the woods were beautiful.  There was a trail labeled as "Esker Trail" on the map, and I was cautiously optimistic that it was a trail named because of an esker, and not because of a certain Mr. or Mrs. Esker.  As I slogged up a slight uphill that marked the start of the trail, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I was, in fact, standing upon an esker.  It wasn't very tall at first, but as the trail traversed the ridge, the ground below the deposition grew further and further away.  The esker itself does more undulating than it does winding, and it doesn't show up on any topo map that I've found, but it's most definitely there.  You can see it from Glenwild Road, as well, on your approach to the preserve, and you can see the road from the end of the esker.  From the map, it doesn't look like it goes any further; there's something that looks more like a kame on the other side of the road, with a gravel pit excavated from one end of it.



I should also add that I loved being on top of the esker.  I had made it a goal of mine last year to visit one, after reading about the eskers in the Five Ponds Wilderness and seeing them laying there like serpents upon the topo maps of the region.  The experience itself was a bit surreal, both from the slopes falling away on either side and from the physical reminder that thousands of feet worth of moving ice once stood above this very spot.  I can't wait to check out the massive eskers at Five Ponds.

The wind made itself known while I was up there, as it had while I was gearing up on the road, but once I descended off of the esker, the valley on the other side was sufficiently sheltered for me to warm up and consider dropping a layer.  I didn't, mostly because I just wanted to keep moving and cover as much ground as I could.  It was late in the day, and I knew that I had to keep pushing on.

At one point I came across a barely frozen stream, with the loud rush of a small waterfall only barely hidden from sight.  In one spot a hole had opened up, and I could see the water rushing past.  I awkwardly forded the stream, following another soul's foot placements.  This was repeated several times on the hike, and it was always a bit nerve-wracking.

The other end of the blue trail meets up with the end of both the orange and the green trail, as well.  I contemplated going back on the orange trail, which would have led me back to my car by the most direct route, but I choose to go the long way instead.  It was on the green trail, on the back side of a small ridge (possibly the same esker line), that the wind started whipping through the trees, dumping snow on me and the forest ahead in a moving wall of snow.  It was also back here that I heard some of the strangest noises coming from the trees as they rubbed together.

The green trail travels through some lovely country, and I found myself wanting to linger on several occasions.  Twice along the green trail, I crossed over another trail (or road) without P.L.A.N. signs on it, and there were several other points where I thought I saw herd paths or old trails.  I also passed by a snow-covered, barely visible old stone wall that I only noticed when I glanced back at one point.

The only people I ran into were four seasoned gentlemen who were coming out as I was heading in.  We stopped to chat briefly, but in my haste to get moving, I forgot to thank them for breaking (or re-breaking, more likely) the trail for me.  If any of you happen to read this, thank you!

All in all, this was a fun trip.  My legs were sore afterwards, especially the outside of my thighs, so I'll count this as a decent workout even without being able to run very far.  The preserve is beautiful, and the Hennigs and now Saratoga P.L.A.N. have done a good job in keeping the land pristine.

The trip also convinced me that I'm not ready for this race.  My pace for the day was 27:56.  On the 2011 Camp Saratoga 8K Snowshoe results page, the slowest runner ran a 19:22 pace over the course.  If I were to perform like I did today, it would take me over 2:18 hours to complete the course.  I'm simply not ready for it, and I don't want to make some poor souls sit around in the cold waiting for me to prove that I'm not ready for it.  So, I'll skip this race, and start looking toward a race in the fall or late summer, as well as a snowshoe race next season.  In the meantime, I hope the snow sticks around so I can train some more in it!

For more information on the Hennig Preserve, please visit Saratoga P.L.A.N.'s website, here: http://www.saratogaplan.org/HennigPreserve.htm.

Malta Ecological Park - 22 Dec 2012

Having failed at Gray's Crossing a second time, I decided to check out another park that I had seen a few times, and had confirmed the existence of trails within via a GIS link off of Saratoga PLAN's website.  This tiny park, called Malta Ecological Park, has about a mile of trails at the moment.  These trails explore various natural areas, including a small pond, and serve as a means of getting to and from an open field.  The sign at the pavilion near the entrance says that they may expand the park to include several more miles of trails, exploring more areas of the plot.

I did the outer loop once, exploring the area, and then settled in to doing laps on the trails that go around the playing field.  The outer perimeter loop is approximately 0.7 miles, and the inner loop showed up as 0.37 miles every time I ran it.

It's an interesting area, and I hope that they choose to expand it in the future.  As it stands, the trails all appear to be constructed of a thin layer of woody material on top of plastic sheeting, and they're all double wide.  There are no elevation changes of note (I varied from 280' to 310' across the entire course, and at no point did I actually see a hill).

Gray's Crossing - 22 Dec 2012

I went to Gray's Crossing for the second weekend in a row today.  I had gone there last Sunday, to check out the park that I had seen a few times while driving down Northline Rd.  It's a cute park, with a small picnic area right next to several bends in the Kaydeross (aka the Kayaderosseras Creek).  I had seen a trail leading off to the left of the picnic area, almost immediately, and when I saw a sign stating "Burl Trail", I got my hopes up that I had found another place to run in the area.  Unfortunately, it dead-ended after about a tenth or two of a mile.  The dead-end was a fenced off area, curiously with the words "Protected Area" on a sign on the OTHER side of the fence.

Today I went back, after having confirmed that I missed a turn to the left, and that I also missed the other half of the trail going off to the left right near the start.  I scouted out the area, using My Tracks so that I could see my (approximate) position on the map and compare it to the mapped version of the trail.  I scoured the area, but could find no evidence of a trail to the left.  The only conclusion I could come to was that the trail itself had been fenced off.

So, I backtracked and went down the other half of the trail, only to run into ANOTHER fence.  This one cut across the trail at a diagonal, and extended off in either direction.



This leads me to believe that either a) Saratoga Spa State Park fences off the trail during mud season, b) it's closed off due to the construction, or c) something else is going on and I'm completely missing something obvious.  I guess I'll go check it out again in late spring.

Rowland Hollow Creek Preserve - 8 Dec 2012

I visited two local areas today; the first turned out to be a bust, but the second was a total gem.  Rowland Hollow Creek Preserve is a new preserve (only a few months old, according to the brochure in the box), built beside a new housing development being put in along Grand Ave in Saratoga.  I went for a run here, and loved it.

The trails aren't very long, a total of 1.0 miles, making for a 1.15-1.20 out and back run.  I went clockwise around the loops, and got to see some of the prettiest woodland trails I've seen in a while.  Add to that the fact that it was drizzling the entire time, and it ended up being a magical day.  My first time through I ran the entire way, hitting each possible bit of trail at least once.  The trails are arranged as two lollipops (stacked on top of each other) with a dogleg down to the eponymous creek off of the second one.  In order, they run as white, red, then blue (then red, then white, then out).

After coming to the loop portion of the white trail, and going left, I was immediately presented with a wide trail, double or triple track, carpeted in pine needles and curving just enough to be interesting.  At the end of this is the intersection with the red trail, as well as a feeder trail going off to the right, which leads into and out of the road around the new development's stormwater pit.  Following the red trail, you drop down into the floodplain of the creek.  The short trail to the creek itself is pretty, especially at the very beginning, where a toppled tree presents a natural entranceway.  The creek itself is roughly 10' across and not very deep.  I didn't see any signs of life in the creek itself aside from plants, but it's the wrong time of year to see things.  The temperature stayed in the 37-38 deg F range while I was out.

I headed back around on the rest of the red loop and then the white loop.  This was the steepest portion, climbing out of the floodplain and then up along a minor hill until the trail leveled out again.  Along the way I came across a stone wall that looked like it had been partially removed to make way for the trail.  I made my way back to the parking lot, and then did the whole thing again, this time taking walking breaks to take photos and explore some.

All in all, it was a fun run.  It's a tiny network, unsuitable for anyone looking to run any sort of distance, but I would say it's perfect for someone who is just starting out (like me).  The beauty is captivating and motivating at the same time.  This is also a perfect place to take kids for a walk in the woods.

I'd also like to say thank you to the people responsible for creating this preserve.  Thanks!

Pics are here.

Skidmore's North Woods - 1 Dec 2012

I had visited Skidmore's North Woods once before, recently, but I had been walking, and I had only explored the Red trail and the meditation trail; the latter was by accident.  Please note that the only activity permitted on the meditation trail is walking.  Although it doesn't show on the map, there is a connector trail leading toward a few benches, just off of the red trail.  Details and map are here: http://www.skidmore.edu/sustainability/northwoods/regulations.php.



Having missed both of my running workouts this week, I was keen to get out and cover some miles.  I set off at an easy pace, conscious of the snow, leaves and wet rocks under my feet.  I made it down the Red and onto the Blue trail, then around to the backside before I took my first break, both because my lungs were starting to get upset and because my brain was screaming at me to slow down.  Perhaps I sensed what was coming, but the next quarter mile or so was treacherous.  After that, I ducked down onto the Orange trail and explored that.  It's absolutely amazing, how many other (unmarked) trails and woods roads are present in these woods.

The Orange trail cuts across a stream, ducks down a side trail, and then a short while later, cuts back across the same stream, this time on a series of bridges.  It eventually comes to a crossroads, and then begins the climb that I had seen previously, which constitutes, far and away, the hardest climb I've seen so far on local XC trails.  Over 0.4 miles, it climbs approximately 120', along a winding course and over a series of steps at the end (it switches from the Orange to the Red trail near the top).  Nothing to write home about, in terms of trails, but it was interesting nonetheless.  It's tame compared to the 1000' over 1 mile pitches that seem to dominate the final pushes of ADK climbs, but I've only walked up those, and they usually require pauses on the way up.  I hope to be able to run up that last bit of the Orange Trail, some day, and perhaps even more difficult bits.

After that, I made my way past where I had turned off last time (onto the meditation trail, by mistake) and explored a bit around the water tower, before I managed to find the Red trail that I was looking for (the Red and Green trails are non-linear).  I made it one lap around the Red trail, running almost the entire time, and back up to the water tower a second time before my knee started to hurt.

Since I was (am) still recovering a bit from the Blackhead hike, I decided to drop down to walking for the remainder of the outing.  I still wanted to pick up some mileage, since I was down for the week, so I decided to walk the length of the Blue trail, which I did.  I poked my head down one of the Green trail lines, but since I didn't realize it was a valid trail, I didn't go exploring, since I didn't want to trespass.  The trail marker didn't look Green to my colorblind eyes; it looked like an abandoned marker.  I completed my loop and headed back to the car, coming it at just over 4 miles for the day.

All in all it was a good outing, but the rock/leaf/snow combination made this a bit more difficult than what I was expecting.

Faster

I realized that on my previous post, I made a mistake: I reviewed pace instead of time.  The speed trials that I had set up are done for the most part on a single course, with a specific start and end point, so that I can rule out GPS wobble.  On any given walk, my distance will be measured between 0.85 and 0.89 miles.  It isn't a huge difference, but when you're talking about a few seconds of pace difference, a tiny delta in the distance becomes significant.

So, here's the latest version of the graph, measured in time, instead of pace:



Here are the significant data points:

• 7 May 2012 - 13:45 minutes.  First data point.  The next 3 data points are all in the 13:50 and high 13:40 range.  This is my best time so far.
• 23 Jul 2012 - Either 14:23 minutes or 13:13 minutes.  I'm not entirely sure what's going on with this one; rubiTrack says 13:13 minutes for the Active duration, and 14:23 for the Total duration.  I have 14:23 written down in my spreadsheet.  Looking at the graph, it makes more sense that it was 13:13.  It's also interesting that this is from the week that I chose to stop eating meat.  Since it's an anomaly, we can discard it.  It doesn't matter.  What matters is the next data point, and what happened after that.
• 6 Aug 2012 - 13:26 minutes.  This is a clean reading; there's no discrepancy.  I measured a full 19 seconds faster than my best time a couple of weeks after going vegetarian.
• 13 Aug 2012 - 13:37 minutes.
• 28 Aug 2012 - 13:52 minutes.
• 4 Sep 2012 - 13:59 minutes.  These data points are all leading up to the backpacking trip.  I'm getting progressively slower, despite regular walks to build up leg strength.
• 14 Nov 2012 - 14:25 minutes.  I had been eating meat for a day, including a major creatine source the day before.  It was also colder than it had been in a while, and I got a cramp in my leg halfway through.  So, I'm OK with discarding this time.  It doesn't matter one way or another.
• 19 Nov 2012 - 12:54 minutes.  Best time to date.
• 3 Dec 2012 - 12:07 minutes.  Insane.  I knew that I was walking fast, and I was able to keep pushing hard until the end.  Of note: I had only eaten one meat dish and one egg dish between my last intense workout, a run on the 1st, and this walk.  The remainder of my protein sources during that time had been vegetable-based.

What I get from this is continued confirmation of what I suspected in my last post.  I was still building muscle while eating a vegetarian diet; I just wasn't able to push myself as hard in an intense situation.  I suspect very much that this does come down to creatine stores.  If it does come down to creatine, there seems to be a lag between when it's first ingested and when it's available, though that may just have to do with my body's enzymes.

At some point I'd like to revisit this, and see if I can achieve the same results on a vegetarian diet.  Clearly, there are people out there who are able to perform at a high level on a vegan diet (i.e. Brendan Brazier and Scott Jurek).  Furthermore, I found Susan Lacke's recent experiment with a Paleo-Vegetarian diet very interesting, and I might try that next time around.  For now, though, and for the foreseeable future, I'll continue on with my "flexitarian" diet.  (Or, if you prefer, "flexible pesco-ovo-vegetarian".)  While I might be able to get the results I'm looking for without the flexible portion, on a diet where I get my protein and other nutrients from plants, fish and eggs, that wouldn't work due to social constraints.  I don't think it would be fair to my wife for me to be eating fish at the dinner table, which she despises, and not eating the dishes that she kindly cooks for our family.  It's tough enough when I'm not eating meat.

Anyway, I'm done with this topic for now.  Back to the reports.

I stand corrected...

I mentioned in part one of my Lake Colden / Mount Marcy trip report how well I had been doing on a vegetarian diet. I said:

"On the subject of food, this trip proved to me that I could survive (thrive) on a plant-based diet, even under heavy exercise. I had finally made the switch to vegetarian stick at the end of July (after a decade of attempts).  Adding to the complication was the fact that I was essentially eating like a vegan, since I had found out a few years ago that a good deal of my physical ailments were caused by dairy products."

Then I finished loading in my recent walk, hike, run and (exercise) bike data in to rubiTrack, an activity tracking software for OS/X that I was recently clued in to.  It comes with reporting capabilities, including the ability to review a data point (i.e. distance, pace) in a given set over time.  You can define sets by tags, location, time, distance, equipment and more.  While playing around with it, I stumbled across data that suggested something was amiss.  The most telling number came from my "Speed Trials", which are walks where I walk one of a few set courses as fast as I can.  I had known, from a spreadsheet that I used to keep, that my speed had decreased a little after going vegetarian.  I had no idea it was so obvious, though:



It becomes even more obvious if you remove the blank month (October), though, due to the way the graph renders:



My pace has absolutely slowed over time, after July, when I was approaching the 4 mph mark.  I cut out meat at the end of July.

Hiking also supports this view:



That's insane.  The June hike is Lower Wolf Jaw, the September hike is Mount Marcy, and the October hike is Giant Mt.  The only thing I can think is that the long walk in to the base of LWJ and the flatter sections on the Marcy hike are skewing the numbers.  On Lower Wolf Jaw, my brother and I were stopping to catch our breath every 20' on the steepest portion.  Furthermore, we spent a considerable amount of time checking out a series of waterfalls at the base of the climb to the col.  (Perhaps the software is filtering out the stopped portions?)  On Marcy I did somewhat better, but I still had to stop often to catch my breath, and Ken was usually way ahead of me.  On Giant, however, Ken and I pushed hard and consistently throughout the hike.  We stopped occasionally, but I feel like we stopped far less on Giant than we did on Marcy.

That was my perception, at least.  I thought my performance on Giant was better than on Marcy, which in turn was better than on LWJ.  The numbers say something else entirely.

On the Giant hike, Ken let me lead, so I was setting a pace that worked for me.  That might explain the change in pace, but I would have assumed that a steady pace would be better than a slow, halting crawl.  On Marcy, Ken and I had just carried 50-60 lb backpacks for 5-6 miles the day before climbing Marcy using day packs.  I felt like I was floating without the heavy backpack.

There are other examples, too, but they're a bit more anecdotal.  I ran the same 5k trail course twice during this period, once in September and once in November.  I ran the one in November a full minute and a half slower, despite having kept active that whole time.  It's hard to say for certain, though, what caused this decline, since I had been doing more targeted cardio prior to the September run, and that may have affected the numbers.

On the flip side, the numbers for ~2 mile walks at about 80% effort trended towards an improvement while eating vegetarian.  Furthermore, on the anecdotal side, my leg muscles look bigger.  A lot bigger.  Whether this is due to a size increase, a reduction in fat, or both, though, I'm not entirely sure.  I am at about the same weight I was went I went vegetarian.  The muscle change could all be in my head, since perception is a funny thing.

So, where does that leave me?  There are a few more points to consider.

Prior to this effort, I had tried several times to make a vegetarian diet work, and failed miserably.  In recent years, when I had tried, I actually became angry a few days to a week after making the switch.  It was this that caused me to try a semi-vegetarian diet (called "flexitarian" by those who like portmanteaus, like myself).  This provided a good balance, and seemed to work, but I wasn't fully committed to it, and after a while I found myself eating meat twice a day again.

This time around, I finally managed to come across a forum where another person was going through the same thing.  The suggestion there was to increase fat intake.  I tried that, and it worked.  I don't fully understand the mechanism.  My best guesses deal with the fact that our brains are mostly fat, and also that fat (cholesterol) is used in the synthesis of testosterone, but I honestly don't know for sure what caused the change in attitude.  I do know that eating more fat helped, and I began supplemented with flax seed oil in addition to eating olive oil on some portion of dinner almost nightly.  I also started using coconut oil for some cooking.

Other nutrients followed, and soon enough I was supplementing several times a week with protein powder and daily with brazil nuts (for selenium).  I also was careful to ensure that I was getting enough lysine every day; roughly 5-6 servings of legumes (or pistachios) were required to make this work, most of which came in the form of soy milk (which also provided calcium), peanut butter, and cooked beans.  On the subject of calcium, I was also careful to split my calcium-rich meals from my iron-rich ones, and to consume vitamin C-rich foods with at least one of the iron-rich meals.  In short, I read up at much as I could, and I applied it as best I could.

So, I don't think I was too deficient in terms of nutrients.  I also supplemented with vitamins to hedge my bets.

One more point:

A friend and former co-worker stopped by the office where I work the other day, and we got to talking.  He had been one of my motivations for going vegetarian, since he had been able to make it work for years, he was fitter than I was, and significantly faster on the trails than I am.  I mentioned to him that I had finally made being a vegetarian work, and his response was that he had eaten beef the other day.  I would have been shocked, except that this isn't the first time that this exact same scenario has happened.  Several years ago, another friend and former co-worker went from vegetarian to eating meat occasionally around the same time that I had made the switch to vegetarian.  She had been a vegan at the time we first met, and had eventually made the transition to lacto-ovo vegetarian, before finally beginning to eat meat again.

What this told me, the second time around, was that it can be difficult to maintain this diet.  In both cases, the reasons for eating meat were at least partially, if not wholly, driven by social aspects.  I drew the conclusion that it's difficult to sustain a vegetarian diet when your partner doesn't follow the same diet.  It's difficult to cook in this situation, because you're preparing two protein dishes for almost every meal, and potentially two starch or vegetable dishes, depending on everyone's requirements and tastes.  Furthermore, and this came up during my recent conversation, when you're visiting someone's house, it can be a bit difficult to turn down food that someone has prepared for you.

I could probably go on, but I'll skip to the conclusions.

I like my vegetarian diet.  It has forced me to learn and grow, and my meals are more healthful as a result of that.  I also feel like it's working, and I don't feel like I'm wasting away as some friends cautioned that I would.  However, I cannot deny the fact that my pace has slackened over time, despite continuing efforts to increase my pace that had been working prior to the switch.  I cannot say for certain that this is directly caused by my switch the vegetarianism, but I can say that it correlates.  The social aspects are taking their toll, too.  My wife has been incredibly supportive, but it's difficult for her to prepare meals when Thing 1 and Thing 2 are so picky, and I'm off preparing and eating my own food. 

I think that a vegetarian diet can be perfect for endurance sports, which by the way, a lot of people use it for.  No Meat Athlete is published by and read by people who run half marathons and up as well as triathlons on a vegan or vegetarian diet.  It absolutely works.  Brendan Brazier's success with a vegan diet also shows how well it can work at the ultra and triathlon level.

The problem is that it isn't working for me, once again.  I engage in activities that require both endurance and strength, sometimes explosive strength.  So, I'm starting to integrate fish and meat back in, in small quantities, while maintaining roughly the same diet otherwise (a semi-vegetarian diet).  Hopefully that will give me the results that I'm looking for.  I might give vegetarianism a try once again in the future, when I can keep a tighter control on the variables and determine more conclusively if I can make it work.  I want to make it work, and I'm a bit disappointed that it didn't this time around.

C'est la vie?

P.S. Dr. Google says the missing ingredient might be creatine, which we produce within our bodies, and also ingest through meat or supplements.  I sincerely hope that isn't it.  I tried supplementing with that years ago, for other reasons.  While the results were promising, I didn't like the way it made me feel.

Scorn

This isn't the first time that this has happened.  I scoff at some thing that's different from what I'm used to, and some number of years later, I've completely reversed my position on it.

When I was younger, and spent more time in malls, my friends and I would make fun of the kids spending time on the DDR machine with their wallet chains flapping all over the place.  Fast forward several years, and I myself was standing at one of those very same machines, pounding out more and more aggressive rhythms.  It turns out that DDR is actually excellent for cross-training: it builds coordination and timing, in addition to aerobic fitness.  I even went so far as to purchase a used PS2 and a RedOctane Ignition mat specifically for the purpose of practicing DDR at home.

Trekking poles are another great example.  While out on the trail I would inwardly jest at the fools (so I thought) walking past with their poles.  "What in the world are they doing with those poles?  Just walk!"  Fast forward several years, and I'm bringing mine on almost every hike.  They serve a number of purposes, but my primary use is to increase traction, especially on the descent, where my injured knee becomes a liability.  They can also assist with the ascent, helping you up the random small rock steps and ledges you're bound to encounter, and they also help engage the whole body in the hike, which helps to build fitness.  As Dave "BIGfoot" Felkley puts it, in one of his sidebar notes on Gene Prater's Snowshoeing treatise:  "There is no reason to be in two-wheel drive while in four-wheel drive country." Obviously, he's referring to the additional balance that poles give you on snow, but the statement stands true on terra firma as well.

Which brings me to the point of this post:



These.  When I started this journey into running, I made a decision to that I was going to go minimalist.  It falls in line with the work I've been doing over the past few years to shed as much weight from my body and my pack as is possible while still being safe.  Shedding weight from my feet is a natural extension of this reasoning.  When I started looking for trail running shoes, one of the sites I looked at was Merrell, since I was already familiar with and a huge fan of their hiking boots and shoes.  I found their minimalistic Trail Glove, which was available in my odd foot size and positively reviewed on many of the sites I frequent.  I picked up a pair, and so far I'm loving them for trail running.  I wore them around the campsite at Lake Colden, too, and they did incredibly well in that capacity as well.  On that occasion, I wore a significantly thicker sock than I do for running, but I never felt like my foot was being squashed.  The Vibram sole on the Trail Glove also gripped the rocks just as well as the Vibram sole on my boots and hiking shoes, despite having almost no tread depth.  I was impressed.

The Trail Glove, however, still looks like a shoe.

I had already made up my mind years ago that I would not try on those funny toe shoe things.  My friend Rob had been running barefoot and minimalist for a while, and I just couldn't fathom it.  Furthermore, the shoes just looked... weird.  I openly derided them, and the whole concept of running barefoot, especially on trails.

I was up near the summit of Colvin last year, attempting to assist a few other hikers who had gotten stuck on the very last problem before the summit, an 8-10' scramble up a sloped rock.  There are excellent holds once you look at it (at least for someone who is in the 6' range), but I completely sympathized with the stuck hikers.  It had taken me a few minutes to work it out, and I know that when I was younger, it would have confounded me.  I simply didn't have the mind for it.

I tried to help them out, by offering a boost, to no avail.  It looked like they were going to have to turn around 20' below the top because of this challenge.  Then a mother and daughter came by, and the mother was able to help the stuck hikers out, by showing them how to climb the rock instead of just offering them a boost and a spot.  It hadn't occurred to me to try that approach, for whatever reason.  She got the younger of the stuck hikers up, and then I assisted the other up by bracing her foot so that she could make it past the steepest section.  (A definite advantage to wearing full boots: I could create a virtual ledge.)

The other thing that impressed me about the mother/teacher was the fact that she had just climbed Colvin (and Blake) wearing Vibram FiveFingers.  I asked her about them, and she said that they were excellent, and she couldn't imagine hiking in anything else. I was a bit freaked out, wondering how one would deal with sharp rocks, pointy twigs and knobbly roots with so little protection, but I was also impressed. A few days ago I met another woman on Giant Mountain who basically said the same thing about her VFFs.

When faced with the reality that I wouldn't be able to effectively build a trail running habit right now (with winter coming on fast) due to the lack of nearby trails that are open in the dark, I realized that I would need to add street / track running to fill in that gap, and save the trail running for the weekends.  I had already proven that running in "traditional" (thick soled) running shoes on pavement wasn't going to work for me.  My knees ached way too much, and that was a surefire way to destroy the habit before it was established.  I also knew from the reviews on my Trail Gloves that running on the street would wear them down unreasonably fast.

So, I decided to try the Bikila LS.  Rob had discussed them on his site, with high marks, and they are designed specifically for running, so I figured it was worth a try.  I measured my foot and then ordered that size and the next size up from EMS, along with a pair of toe socks.  Worse comes to worst, I figured, I could just return them to the store.  I picked up the socks because I was unsure about my skin's reaction to the fabrics being used, and because I knew I'd most likely have to return at least one pair.  I thought it would be more respectful to the future owner if I used a sock.  I ended up having to return both pairs, and go up one more size to fit my foot volume, but I managed to get them on.

I've done just under 3 miles in them over the past week, and I'm amazed.  I have been following the advice on Vibram FiveFingers' site about walking for a few weeks before running in them.  Despite hiking at least once a month for the entire year, and walking regularly, I've found that my calf muscles ache after walking a mile in the VFFs.  Most of my other leg muscles ache as well.  If nothing else comes out of this experience, I can at least say that walking in FiveFingers is an excellent way to round out your leg strength.

Who knew?