Why I run far, very far

"You can't outrun a bad diet" - Vinnie Tortorich

One of my earliest memories is seeing my grandparents and parents bring out their tray of prescription drugs every evening.  I was told how when we get older we get sick and the drugs help. 

My great-grandmother lived to be 102 and her daughters all lived into their 90's.  My great-grandfather died in his mid 50's and my uncles were lucky if they made it past sixty.  The men that I inherited my body type from all died much earlier than their sisters & spouses. The women tend to get the same metabolic conditions but generally lived with it longer.  We were told, "it's just part of getting old".

Even now most medical doctors will tell you as you age it's normal to suffer from metabolic diseases. Depending on your genetics you get diabetes, cancer, heart disease, arthritis, and so on.  It is normal if you eat a modern diet. 

We have much more control than we are led to believe.

I see my children as they reach thirty begin having issues with weight gain and hypoglycemia.  Our store shelves are filled with addictive processed foods more than ever and my grandchildren love them.  Rarely do children eat real fats and unprocessed food.  Most people today get a gag reflex if they see fat or bone in their meat. If they even eat meat.  The taste of fish is repugnant.  Organ meats are not even considered. The gag reflex is learned based on what food you are raised with and used to. A few exceptions may be genetic like how you perceive the taste of liver and cilantro.

Modern processed foods loaded with carbohydrates and seed oils are extremely addictive. Sweets are now everywhere.  They used to be seasonal in the form of fruit and honey.  Eating a lot of sugar helped us put weight on which gave a survival advantage for the lean times. Their addictive and non-satiating nature used to be an advantage.  Now we eat thousands of times the volume in sweets than our ancestors and our bodies are not adapted to such a high volume being consumed year-round.

I've figured out the problem and solution for myself but how do I communicate that to my young ones? It has to be blatantly obvious and destroy the prevailing false "wisdom".

Running involves a lot of impact and stress on your body.  Many exercise experts advise against long endurance training due to the inflammatory response and instead recommend weight lifting or short burst interval training.  It makes sense.  Even at age 19 when I was in the Marines and training hard, I had issues with tendonitis, sore joints, and always felt pain while I trained.

Then why when I'm almost sixty is recovery from endurance training quicker than in my youth?  The answer is diet.

Training for an ultramarathon

I first heard about low-carb high-fat dieting combined with ultramarathons and zone 2 heart rate training by listening to podcasts from Vinnie Tortorich.  After changing my diet over 5 years ago, I started jogging about 6 miles per day about 4 days per week.  Since I was slow I thought I was probably around zone 2 but I never measured my heart rate. After my wife's death, I decided I need to become serious. I set up a call with Vinnie, ordered a Polar H10 chest strap heart monitor, and put together a training plan. I was wrong on being in zone 2. My heart rate on those runs was way too high.

Based on my age and my measured max heart rate of at least 180 beats per minute (bpm), I try to keep my heartbeat under 135 bpm.  So, if my heart rate creeps higher, I walk until it drops to 125 bpm or lower. In the beginning, this meant a lot of walking but made it easy to dramatically increase my distance. I've been doing this for over 4 months and seen my heart rate gradually decrease for the same effort and am walking less and less while covering distances up to 30 miles in one day.

I'm expecting to be able to do my first 50k within a year at the age of 59. I'll post more details on my training regimen and progress.

Sorry kids, there are no more excuses for your weight gain, diabetes, alzheimers and autoimmune issues.  Diet is sufficient, you don't need to become an ultrarunner. If something is off with your health, first change your diet. Better yet, change your diet now.  Love you all.  --Grandpa Scholes