Estuary
Starting the process of getting a clinic launched closer to the source of the material and improving the supply line. Still doing really well and interestingly my bowel movements for the last couple days have looked exactly like the donor material. I have changed a lot in the recent days so not sure what to make of it. Could be something new in Mexico this far South or it could be there was something bad in San Diego.
I got the flu two days before Christmas and it laid me down for a full two weeks. I guess my new biome cannot do everything perfectly. It took another couple weeks to get back to where I was feeling close to normal so I wanted to test my legs in a local 5K. I have been hovering around a 19 minute 5K for a year now and had no expectations for this race. The course was an out-n-back and a little short but I threw down a sub 19 by a wide margin 18:29.
Since my flu I have been feeling exceptionally good. I have a hypothesis that flues and the fever that go with them are the forest fires of the gastrointestinal ecosystem. I hope I burned off some gunk that I have replaced with my donors biome. Mood and energy flow have never been better.
Sub 19 is not a big deal for serious runners, but for a hobby jogger like me it is pretty cool and good enough to place in my age group. Next goal will be to run a sub 40 10K and I have a long way to go to get that.
Not to throw shade on anyone but out and back courses without a timing mat at the turn around lend themselves to all kinds of shenanigans. That is all I am going to say about that. This race was my first 18:xx 5K. Woohooo!
Swimming with a Whale Shark in the Sea of Cortez 2016.
Just a quick summary of the year-to-date. Ran five Ultras and four Marathons this year. Set new PRs in a range of distances and completed my first 50 miler. Took a couple months off after my last training cycle to recover and enjoy life. Including a two week trip down the Baja coast to explore and feel out a more permanent move to Cabo.
I am back up to 172lbs. which is my preferred non-competition weight. Went all the way down to 158lbs. for the Bizz Johnson race which makes me look skeletal. Overall the healthiest year I can remember. My immune system and metabolic systems are doing well, but even better may be my mental state.
Looking back at 2016 the one thing I am really aware of is how happy I have been. One of the great mysteries of life for me has been how I frequently I have seen happiness in places you would not expect to find much of it. Doing the collection in Kenya was the first time I became acutely aware of extreme poverty and I was surprised to find villagers that were, despite their circumstances, singing and dancing while gathering wood or preparing food. I found the same thing in the Amazon Basin and in Copper Canyon. People living on less than a dollar a day and they were just in a better mental space than I was.
Compare that to the richness I would commonly find in Southern California and as often as not I would discover, for all their wealth, miserable/sick people. Not to over-generalize, there was certainly misery in some of the places I have done my field work, but it just seemed different to the general malaise I see in so many people living with unimaginable abundances. I would include myself in the latter category with the exception of this last year-and-a-half.
This whole experiment has made me realize that putting the life back in my intestinal tract has made me happier. One of the things I frequently experience when I am running out on the trail is a state of flow. I can be running and a whole hour can just disappear and it is a very restorative feeling. Other runners have described it as a complete immersion in the moment. Others have described it as optimal experience. You are not thinking about the past or the future but just completely present in the now. I never used to get that. Running was just a means to an end; now it has become something different and much better.
What I realize is that I should be trying to find that flow in other aspects of my life (or maybe I am just being greedy). So much of the modern world in designed to keep us out of the moment and fearful of the future. I am becoming more and more interested in the Tarahumara concept of Iwigara. There is no perfect translation but it could be described as breath or soul. The Tarahumara attribute illness to a broken Iwigara and when that happens they have a saying, "pe mukureke binoi" or "He is dead just a little".
2016 was the year I may have unbroken my Iwigara or at least made giant steps in getting it fixed. Looking forward to building on that base in 2017. Happy New Year!
Two years ago today I took this trip to Copper Canyon to collect samples. So far it has worked out better than I could have ever imagined.
3 hours 26 minutes and some change.
Had a good plan but need another hard training cycle to qualify for Boston. If it was easy everyone would do it. Next big race is Caballo Blanco in Copper Canyon, MX. Then maybe another fast road marathon.
Less than a week to the fastest Marathon in California. This will be my best chance at a Boston Qualifer since missing my time at the Bizz Johnson Trail Marathon four weeks ago. The pieces of a 3:22.00 marathon (the time I will need to qualify) are all there I just need to put them together.
Downhill courses are kinda cheating but the way Boston allows enrollment based on fastest finish times this is a reality of qualifying. According to the website this course is 21 minutes faster than the San Diego Rock-n-Roll course where I ran a 3:30. The trick will be to not blow up the quads on the descent, not cramping miles 20 to 26.2 and having good weather.
Carrera de los Muertos 5K. 19:09 faded miles two and three. With a more consistent pace, on the right day, I might be able to get that 18:xx. Come on you middle-aged body! Gotta find 3 sec. a mile. 9th overall/1st age group.
Surf City 10 miler. 7:01 minute miles on smoked legs from last two weekend. First time in my life I have run marathons on back-to-back weekends. Not to mention, that one of those marathons was the SkyRunner Finale that took 7+ hours at 7,000+ ft elevation. I weigh 162 lbs. in this picture.
Lots of miles trying to get my Boston Qualifier. One thing I am noticing is that when you get this lean there is significant social pressure to put weight on. Every extra pound you carry is just that much more unnecessary weight to haul 26.2 miles. I already have more upper body muscle than most marathoner so I am doing my best to ignore the peer pressure.
I should add that the peer pressure is coming from my non-running friends and acquaintances. I look normal in a group of runners. From an evolutionary perspective being lean is normal. Random but interesting quote from Facebook in an optimal foraging thread:
"I've lived twice with the Maasai in recent years and when we see them we think they are underfed or undernourished and want to cry for them. They remind me they are optimal health and can walk or run dozens of miles in a day. Western/modern culture puts an amazing amount of pressure on society to be heavy and overeat."
- AB Dada
Bizz Johnson Trail Marathon 2016. I got down to 158 lbs. for this race.
I had set a goal for a sub 4 hour trail marathon this summer and I was a couple months late but ran the Bizz Johnson in 3:30:47. Managed several months of +240 miles in training which is something I never thought I would be able to do. Getting the chronic, systemic inflammation turned off allows for the body to do some remarkable things.
