Collateral Benefits of Running Outside

I struggled with calling this post “Collateral Damage of Running Outside”, but I’m trying to take a positive view on it lead to framing this as benefits.  And that is a fair characterization rather than just trying to be all smiley and rainbows about pain.

What’s the beneficial damage?  Blisters.  I’ve blogged about this a bit already, but it’s become really clear to me what has been going on.  As I got back into running after having to take a few months off due to having two hernias and then having surgery for them, I started outside right off the bat to take advantage of the gorgeous Summer weather we’ve been having courtesy of a drought.  When I first got into running, I started on the treadmill for a couple of months before venturing out (it was Winter).  When I started, I had minimal blistering or skin issues at all – never enough to keep me from going at it the next day.  This time around, it’s been a very different story, with several blisters that were so bad that I had trouble walking the next day, let alone going for a  run.  It got to the point where each run resulted in more blistering and needing to take a couple of days off to heel.

Then a tight schedule lead to an insight.  I didn’t have time to get all suited up to run outside, so I just hopped on the treadmill.  (“Suited up?” You ask?  This isn’t really about getting dressed so much as getting ‘kitted out’.  Mainly, this means getting my iPhone strapped to my arm, setting up the 3 apps I use to run (iTunes, Seconds and Nike+ Running), getting my Nathan hand held water bottle filled, connecting my Jaybird Freedom Bluetooth headphones waiting for GPS locks on my Nike+ GPS SportWatch and iPhone, etc).  I did a 30 minute interval session on the treadmill and had zero skin issues at all – no blisters, hot spots, etc.

Great!  I took that to mean that my feet had finally toughened up enough that I could just keep moving forward.  The next day, I ran outside, and got two really bad blisters on my mid-foot.  Then I had to take 3 days off as a result.

When I got back at it, I went right to the treadmill for my next two runs, and was fine.  It all hit me then.  I thought running on pavement wasn’t any harsher on my feet than running on a treadmill (not a very forgiving surface).  They’re both pretty consistent and predictable.  So what could it be that outside runs were causing so many issues?

Turns out, it’s turning.  The little rotations I do when running outside to go around corners, move around people, etc.  That’s all it takes to cause blisters, and it’s the one real variation from the treadmill.  As my friend Matt pointed out, I run minimalist, so it’s basically all happening directly on my skin whereas his thick Nikes protect him with their ample cushioning.

So, while running outside adds other benefits around how it develops ancillary muscles, it also adds benefits of toughening up your feet.  It strengthens more intricate aspects of your feet muscles as you deal with variations in the surface (cracks, rocks, grass, pavement, slants, etc), but also the strength of the skin on your feet.  That’s the collateral benefit.  While it is damage, it heels, and you end up stronger.  Isn’t that what building muscle is – doing a little damage that you come back stronger from?

As an update, I ran outside yesterday after coming to this epiphany, and was much more aware of how I twisted my feet as I turned.  The result was zero skin issues, and at the same time, I did more work with my calf muscles as I used them to stabilize my feet better.  Overall, good stuff.  Looking forward to another run today…outside.

Q: Why do I feel miserable all the time (Hint: I eat junk)?

Q: Why am I always tired; fall asleep really early, but wake up in the middle of the night and can't fall back asleep; feel run down and achy all the time? I can't start working out and stuff if I feel this way.

A: This is something I hear quite a bit of. It's not that the person is trying to make excuses for not getting on top of their fitness, they genuinely feel miserable most of the time and have very odd sleep issues.  While there may be a genuine medical issue going on (so be sure to talk to your doctor before starting a fitness program), a quick look at your lifestyle may hold all the answers you need.

For the person who asked me this, I had the privilege of seeing their diet on a regular basis.  It consisted of basically all take out, and the take out consisted of really poor choices - everything was fried, sitting in a heavy, sweet sauce, dessert was often included and many times the only thing that actually got eaten.  Veggies?  No, not really.  Regular meal times?  Not so much.  Candy and other junk food?  Yes.  Soda?  Uh huh.  Coffee?  Yup.  More coffee?  Yessir.  Chips, crackers, etc?  By the bag full.  Processed sugar and carbs?  Tons of them.

See, this is where my spidey sense started tingling.  OK, I don't have spidey sense, but if I did, it would tingle.  They are eating horribly.  Horribly.  Their body is getting a sugar rush several times a day and slammed with all sorts of chemicals and preservatives.  So their body keeps going through these ups and downs, and never gets what it needs in terms of vitamins or 'good' fuel.  Protein comes in small doses that don't suffice, and never come very cleanly as those doses include sugar and carbs and other junk.

How could you expect to feel marginally ok with a diet like this?  How could you expect to sleep well when your body is constantly going through these sugar ups and downs, and left empty of what it needs (so you wake up hungry and uncomfortable)?

While I could preach at this person until I'm blue in the face, for it to really work, they need to come to their own realization. They could make slight changes to start feeling better.  That progress would beget more changes and progress.

More than anything, I know they want to be feeling better.  The desire is there.  The path is fairly obvious (or at least these things need to change whether there's a bigger medical issue or not, and you can't really figure that out before you clean up the 'garbage in' approach that's leading to a 'garbage out' feeling).

How about you?  What's your diet like?  How do you feel every day?  Could you do better?  Do you want to feel better?  We could all pretty much answer yes to those last two questions, so let's enlighten our bodies.

Balancing Doable & Challenging in Your Workout

My wife and I were talking tonight as she begins to workout a bit again as her health stabilizes.  She shared a really interesting perspective that I wanted to blog about.  She recounted when she was younger and worked out a lot, she kept adding to her routine to keep it interesting and challenging as she got in progressive better shape.  The problem was that she started looking at 60+ minute workouts and that became daunting from a time-committment and started to feel like a chore.  It became something she had to push herself to do, and make sacrifices to make work schedule-wise.  Right now, she's doing little things in small doses so she can fit them in, and they're almost too short and simple to even begin to question doing - but they're enough that she's noticing the good feeling she's getting as a result.

I told her about how I'd do 70 minutes of elliptical work every day before I got my masters (which is when we met), and it just worked for me,  I didn't think of it as a chore, didn't question it, but did build my life around it (single, no kids, no real plans any given night after work, etc).

This is the key learning - it boils down to finding the right mix for you where it's enough of a challenge to do something for your body, yet not so much that you really question doing it.  Remember, Principle 3 is "don't question it" - one way to avoid questioning it is to develop a routine that doesn't even risk triggering the part of your brain that would question it.

That balance isn't set in stone.  It varies by person, by situation, by time of day/week/month/year/your life, and will vary based on the exercise in question.  For some people, lifting will trigger an instant question, and for others, they can lift all day, but suggest a 5 minute run, and they start consciously or subconsciously building excuses to get out of it.

So, work at it, and try to figure out where your balancing point is.  If you can find it, you're much more likely to stick with your workout program and see results.  That's how you enlighten.your.body.

Quick Meal Prep Tip

I've been getting quite a few questions about meal prep and cooking.  People can't seem to find a quick, easy and, perhaps most important, recipe that is Slow Carb Diet compliant.  I did post a little PDF cook book on the newbodi.es links page, but people want more than that.

So, while I toy with the idea of doing a few meal prep videos, I thought I'd share a tip that's at the heart of much of my cooking.  Three basic veggies, some olive oil and a pan.

The three veggies are frozen diced onions and frozen shelled edamame, plus fresh baby spinach.  You can use baby kale, too, but I find the spinach to be really tasty.  I use organic options for each. The pre-diced frozen onions are great since dicing onions can take some time.  The trick is to throw some olive oil (or macadamia, if you can find and afford it) in a pan, throw in the frozen veggies, and start the heat on medium-ish.  Then, after it warms up, you have a decision to make - what else are you going to add, if anything. You could add more veggies, or perhaps another protein beyond the edamame. Cashews and almonds go well with this dish, as does some shredded or cut up coconut.  I typically add an animal protein (usually a piece of fish or shrimp), but you don't have to.  This setup forms the basis of a fast, complete and tasty meal.

If you're going to add something pre-cooked like canned tuna, hard boiled egg, pre-cooked chicken breast, etc, you should add the spinach now while raising the heat to a medium high level.  It needs about 2 minutes to cook while being tossed so the oil gets it well covered.  I typically fill the pan with spinach as it cooks down fast and dramatically.  When it's still visible as leaves but darker in color, throw in your pre-cooked item, reduce the heat to medium, and let it sit for a couple of minutes to warm the pre-cooked stuff. Move the pan around occasionally to keep things mixed, free from sticking and so things heat evenly.  That's it.

If you're adding nuts, the story is the same, but you should consider pan roasting them a bit before adding them. Throw in a little sea salt (unless they're already salted), roast them in a little bit of olive oil while moving them around in the pan for 2-3 minutes, and throw them right into your veggie mixture.  Is really just about combining at that point, so you can even plate the veggies, and pour the nuts over the top.

Another option is to add lentils - an amazing source of vegetable protein, very hearty, and pretty filling. I tend to cook a put of lentils each week, and spoon the into various dishes.  I put some cayenne and a little sea salt into the water when cooking them.  Throw about a cup per portion into this meal, and it is a really complete dinner.

If you chose to add a raw item, like fresh fish or chicken breast, first make sure it's not a huge piece, or better yet, cook it a bit in another pan while you were warming the frozen stuff and oil.  Then throw it in, cover the lid, and raise the heat slightly toward medium high.  Let it cook for 5-10 minutes depending on the size of the item and what it is (chicken will take longer than fish or shrimp, for example). Move the pan around occasionally to keep it from sticking.  Check it, flip it, cover the whole thing is spinach, and then put a cover back on.  Then let it cook until the raw stuff is cooked through as you like it.  Be sure to move the pan around occasionally, and check it now and then to see doneness.  Just don't check too frequently so you don't release all the heat that's building up under the lid too much.

All in, you're looking at 10 minutes including prep and clean up without raw animal protein, or about 20-25 with it. Not bad at all.  And it's a pretty easy meal to make in terms of intensity.

A couple of side notes.  First, I don't insist on animal protein at all.  This dish works really well as a purely veggie dish, and you'll see it has no dairy, so it's easy to make it vegan. One thing I do insist on (if I can be so bold) is to really load up on the portion size if you aren't adding animal protein. Spinach is awesome, but cooks down really fast, and isn't very dense or filling.  Diced onions are kinda worthless from a 'fill you up' standpoint. Edamame is better, but still not filling enough in small to medium amounts.  The only trick is the lentils, which will fill you more than the other veggies.  But, do keep in mid, this meal will be fueling you for many hours.  For me, I typically eat around 5:30pm, and have breakfast the next morning around 5:15, and I might even work out again at night. Just be sure you are respecting your body's need for fuel and not thinking a cup of cooked veggies is sufficient. I typically have a fully loaded plate of this stuff, with the load being about 2.5 times as big when I go vegan on it.

"Principle 3: don't question it" Keeps Coming Up

As I've said many times over, I wrote my 10 Principles to help boil down lots of the advice out there into what I think is the set of essentials behind fitness success.  The third principle is "don't question it," and it reads like this:

don't question it
letting doubt in is the first step to failing. nike was right - just do it. don't start arguing with the rules of the diet or how you can't make it work because you love xyz. do you love your body? are you happy? really? obviously, you can do and be better, or you wouldn't be here. same for exercise. if you stop and think about whether you have it in you, you will find reasons not to have it in you. if you just do it, you get it done. stop questioning, and start doing.

Over the past two days, this kept coming up all over the place.  It started with a great blog post from Dai Manual, a really inspiring guy I follow on Twitter with a similar back story to mine (though he was overweight for a shorter period of time, and is ridiculous physical condition today).  He was posting about pushing yourself through those moments of doubt, and how you will feel better later.  He posted this great Bruce Lee quote in his post:

Then, when I went to respond to the post, I noticed the first comment, with another great quote that gets at the idea:

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. You can act to change your life; the procedure, the process is its own reward. 

– Amelia Earhart

 Really powerful stuff.

OK, moving on from Dai's blog, I was in a meeting with my direct reports at work, and we always close with a fun/quirky question or fact about each other. This time, the question was to write a fortune for a fortune cookie.  I don't have the exact words, but one of the people on my team had a quote that was about the same idea.  She talked about action being a greater endeavor than thinking of action.  I of course used my new-found Bruce Lee quote.

In another meeting, we were tackling a thorny corporate issue, and had to make a change to handle the situation.  Each option was difficult, and a few people had push back for each option.  The thing is, we have to take one of them because the status quo is no longer viable.  We can't just question the whole idea of doing.  We have to get on with it.

Then the day ended with me noticing a photo on Dai's Facebook page.

Totally.  If you're wording, the J stands for 'Just', the D for 'Do' and the I for 'It'.  The F is self explanatory.  Though, if you're not into swearing, it could mean 'Fantastically'.  That works, too.  So does 'Ferociously', but it doesn't really fit with the 'Calm' part, does it?

Atrophy from a 2.5 Month Hiatus from Running

I just did my second run since having to stop before my hernia surgery about 2.5 months ago.  I thought it would be interesting to share the areas of atrophy I've noticed - including some unexpected ones that may not qualify for atrophy in the medical sense so much as in the metaphorical sense.  These are really based on my observations from the second run alone since the first was so low impact that it hardly counts as a run.  It was more of a walk/job medly. The second had real running in it, with my pace getting down to the 7 minute mile mark, and even dipping below a couple of times, but averaging more like 7-8 when running and 12-14 when walking in between running intervals.

The Expected
Skeletal Muscles
This was no surprise. You stop working muscles, and they get weaker and smaller. I can see it all over my body in terms of size and definition. I also absolutely feel it today, one day after my first real run.  Stairs are a bit tough, and I didn't move with what would describe as grace this morning (though a 35 min elliptical session helped add some grace back into my step).  While it stinks, this isn't a huge deal, and I will get it back. One of the nice benefits of my high protein diet is that I see my muscles rebound really well once I start working them again.

Cardio-Respiratory
This was also no surprise, yet definitely upset me more than losing muscle. You expect your muscles to shrink, but I don't think most people include muscles like the heart and those you use to breath in that bucket.  Well, they do.  Like any muscle, reduced use will result in reduced performance and/or endurance. I definitely don't have the oxygenation capacity I did before my surgery, which is clearly showing up in my endurance.  I could do a 5k run in the heat, hop in the shower, and be back into playing with my three year old easily. Let's just say I needed a minute yesterday, and I didn't do 5k (overall, or at a running pace). I also couldn't sustain as fast a pace as I did, and my slow intervals included walking with some serious huffing/heaving breathing, whereas they used to be jogging without any real labor in my breath.

I will get this back, too.

The Unexpected (aka Metaphorical Atrophy)
Feet
I could have called this atrophy of calluses, too.  Basically, my feet have really toughened up from running.  While much of the surface of my mid foot pads are still tough, after my run, I had a blister on the bottom of each of my feet in roughly the same spot (just in front of the ball of my foot). And during my run, there was definitely a feeling of sandpaper underfoot.  High grit sandpaper, but sandpaper nonetheless.  This will get better as my feet toughen up again, but man do those blisters hurt!

This may technically qualify as atrophy, but I don't know.  I'm not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV.

Time Perception
This last one is definitely a metaphoric atrophy. That run seemed to last forever yesterday. I run a 0.6 loop in a local park, and I would eat those loops up before without even really noticing. I would lose count of how many I had done. Yesterday, I was acutely aware of each loop and how long it seemed to be.  I kept being surprised when my Nike+ Running app would announce my progress in 5 minute intervals, and I had only done X minutes each time.  So even though I knew my last check was 5 minutes earlier, I was still shocked it was only 5 minutes later. I kept hoping I had zoned out and missed a check in or the app had crashed, and I was magically 20 minutes farther along than I thought.  No dice.  It didn't help that it was 93 and humid, but my last 5k was in 90 degree direct sun and was more like 6k because I didn't realize I had passed my goal.

This will get better too.

None of this scares me or frustrates me more than in a little way just because I need to claw back the progress rather than continuing on from the great place I had been.  It's ok - I will get there soon enough, and probably sooner than I think since I'm much smarter about how to do it now than when I did it originally.  I have enlightened.my.body.

Work Through the Pain to Stop Hurting

For those who have been following my recovery from hernia surgery, skip this intro bit.  For those who haven't, I had double hernia surgery in June, and was doing really well with my recovery.  My two week check up ended with my surgeon telling me, "You can run in a month."  Awesome.  Then the next day (July 6th), I turned to the right, and felt like I ripped every stitch and was in misery nearly all the time for the next two weeks.  Her response to that, "Take a week off from any exercise (I had been doing fast walks and some work on the elliptical) and let things cool down.  Then just do slow walks for the next month, and see what happens."  Obviously, I was less than thrilled.

Well, I got through the 'no activity' week and saw my pain diminish slightly, but it was still really strong.  Then I went into the slow walk thang, and was OK, but not great and pretty bummed.  I found that my pain was less intense but much more frequent.  I was really discouraged.  I wrote about all of this in a blog post.

(OK, if you knew all of this, start reading again)

I decided to reach out to a family member who had gone through two hernia surgeries, including an open double operation like me.  I asked about her recovery, and she said a few things that helped.  She had pain like mine, and it wasn't there from day one, like mine.  It lasted through to about month three.  And the thing that got her through it was the elliptical.  The reason was that it was a smooth, non-jarring way to stretch the scar tissue, build muscle and keep her fit and strong.  I couldn't say that about walking on a treadmill at a slow to moderate pace (3-4 mph).  I decided to ignore the advice I got from my doc, and add some elliptical into my morning 'PT' routine.  I started with five minutes with very little resistance (5 out of 20 on my Life Fitness equipment).  It felt great - no pain, no awkwardness, and no more issues afterward than I had before.

Today, I replaced my entire morning walk with 30 minutes of elliptical work at 7 out of 20, and felt good again.  In fact, the rest of the day, I can say this is the best my incisions have felt in nearly a month.  I decided to go for a brisk walk outside this afternoon (in 90+ degree heat!), and ended up jogging (8-8.5 minute mile avg pace) half of it (1.2 miles) in two intervals with 14 minute mile walks in between, and really wasn't in any more pain than when I was walking for the other half.

What hit me is that I did the right thing in reaching out to my family member and then judging my body and what is best for it myself.  For one thing, I needed the piece of mind I got from having someone who had been through this tell me that they lived it, understand what I mean, and they got better.

My surgeon didn't have much of an explanation and didn't seem to think she's heard of this from other patients (she's done this surgery a lot, and has literally a perfect track record of zero recurrence, so she knows her stuff).  My surgeon is great and really listens and cares, but she only knows my situation based on how I describe it and how she interprets that.  I also feel like doctors inherently will tell you to rest rather than work through it in a different way (maybe due to liability and fear of getting sued?).  That's not to say you should blindly ignore medical advice, and it's hard to know when to listen and when to decide you know better what will work for your body, but it's important to know that you can and should at least challenge advice a bit and see if another approach is out there which could work.  Know your alternatives.

Lastly, what hit me is that this was an example of what I blogged about from chapter 3 of Tread Lightly by Pete Larson and Bill Katovsky.  It's a great chapter on injuries - avoiding them and how to recover from them.  Larson talks about changing what you're doing to use different muscles and apply different forces to your body than the those you get in the exercise that hurts you.  Moving to the elliptical was a bit of this - it uses my body differently from what I was doing (more jostling/jarring motions) while allowing me to go through the necessary process of stretching my scar tissue so I can get back to normal.

So, a bit of reinforcement to my prior blog post, and a bit of advice about recognizing when you know your body better than someone else and that it's OK to get a second opinion, whether from another doctor, a family member or even yourself.

Fit Isn't Invincible

This may seem obvious, but it does warrant discussion.  Being in great shape does not make you invincible.

As I've mentioned before, I recently had double hernia surgery with the full open method (rather than laparoscopically).  I got in as good physical shape as I possibly could to try to aide and speed my recovery.  I had developed strong abs and a solid core, with a six pack for the first time ever in my life. As a result, at my two week check up, the surgeon was really amazed at how much progress I had made, and told me I could start running at the six week mark.  Awesome.  That was Thursday, July 5th, meaning I'd be running in early August, and able to enjoy some summer runs.


Friday, July 6th, while sitting on the floor next to the tub that my son was having a bath in, I turned my torso toward him so I was looking about 70 degrees from where my legs were (basically, not quite looking dead on sideways).  WOW.  That hurt like crazy.  The only way I could describe it was that someone had taken a dagger and shoved it in my pelvis on the right side.  I thought perhaps my son had snuck a shiv into the tub and made a play to break out of our home. No dice. He only had a piece of soap in the shape of the letter "O" and a cup he kept putting the soap into and then dumping it out while yelling at the soap for being silly.


I didn't understand.  I had been walking every day for the past 10 days, and had cut my pace down from about 22 minutes per mile to 12 minutes, and felt great.  I had been doing the elliptical for about 30 minutes on low resistance, and had built up to moderate resistance without any pain.


I didn't have much pain at my surgical sites in general (unless I pressed on them or wore something fitting rather than loose/baggy), and had brought my body fat back down to about 8% (from a high of about 11% during my recovery due to a sedentary lifestyle and more bread and fruit than I typically eat, which was basically none). How was looking to my side causing so much pain?  Worse yet, why wasn't the pain going away?  Had I ripped a stitch?  Had I aggravated a nerve?


I decided to take a break from PT, and increase my regime of icing my surgical site (as I had been doing a few times a day already).  Unfortunately, the weekend saw the pain stay extremely intense, and get more frequent.  I put a call into my surgeon on Monday, totally befuddled as to why I was in so much pain given how well I was doing and how strong I was overall and in the surgical area.


Her thinking was that this wasn't a ripped stitch, but an aggravated nerve.  The prescription was to lay off all exertion and PT for a week and call her back.  After a week, the severity had reduced a little, but the frequency was going up - I was in some kind of pain pretty much all the time.  Her advice was to keep taking it slow, but to add walking back in (though not at a high pace.  The running in August thing?  Out.  As much as that stinks, I'm ok with it. I'm more hoping for the 'no being stabbed constantly in August' thing instead.


Why did this happen, and with such a small movement? How could it have happened given where I was at? Simple. I'm not invincible. No matter how well I prepared for this, it's surgery on the human body. Heck, even if it wasn't surgery, I still could have injured myself with some stupid turn or other lame incident.


Watching the Olympics, I see the same message.  I watched an amazing German gymnast basically fold his foot in half on a dismount in a qualifying round to try to get to the medal round. And he wasn't the only one. No matter what shape you're in, or how perfectly you train, you can still get hurt.


The point is, you can't think that, just because you're fit, nothing will happen to you. Whether we're talking about injuries, or eating a sundae every night and clogging your arteries with cholesterol from it. Be smart. Be safe. But remember, you're human, so be mindful. It's all part of how you enlighten.your.body.