Will Thinks His House is Messy; Explains

This is the moment when Will and Alanna met, and though his house is not messy, he thinks it is, and he expains the reason why:

Quit Calling Me a Caveman

So I sent out an email to Will, my mother, and 2 friends (names withheld) in response to frequent and good-humored suggestions that my "Paleo" diet is a fad and/or stupid.  I titled the email "The Scientific explanation that I've never been able to express at the dinner table while you laugh at my "caveman diet" " and it's contained in its entirety below.

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Why am I receiving this email?  One, because I am bored and I just read the NYT article yesterday and because this discussion arose last night over sushi (and by God . . . I had support at the table from a Cordon Bleu graduate).  And, because:

Will, you're on this email for moral support.  Like me, I know you are easily duped into fads and like to jump on any passing bandwagon without researching the matter with a healthy degree of cynicism.  You and I are gullible clones, and your recent 5k times (1 minute faster than any previous time despite years of endurance & weight training and a "healthy diet") have no correlation to a change in diet & exercise.

FRIEND 1, you're on this email because you call it a fad diet, while abiding by one of its incarnations and simultaneously losing tons of weight without exercise.  Evidence in itself that there's something to the idea that our bodies aren't exactly programmed to metabolize grains, and further, that in the absence of grains, our bodies function more efficiently.

FRIEND 2, since you insist on calling it my "caveman" lifestyle and since your boss thinks it's all genetics, I offer the following.  "Cavemen didn't have soy sauce!"  Please disregard the nutty Californian on Nightline who exercises by pulling his Range Rover which supposedly simulates "pulling a bison out of a cave" . . . always be suspicious of people from the West Coast.  Everyone knows that cavemen didn't have Range Rovers.  They would have driven 4-door Jeeps, obviously.  With big tires.

Mom, to explain why I refuse to take home with me the remainder of the delicious cocunut pie, the brownies, the cookies, and why I eat my roast without the rice.  And because you and dad probably think I'm OCD and crazy.

So . . .

If any of you care to read a 9-page article in the NYT, a 3-page article in Details, and/or listen to (2) one-hour-long science-intensive lectures (one of which put me to sleep but seemed interesting for about 30 minutes), these links explain the science behind my (attempted & often failing) avoidance of potatoes, rice, pasta, bread, soy and dessert.  There is also this:  http://whole9life.com/2009/07/dairy-manifesto/  but I have more compelling reasons to avoid dairy.

i.e., there is plenty of boring science to back up this "fad" diet, most of which i cannot regurgitate even on my best day (and much less during a Thursday night supper club or Friday night over a bottle of wine and broth-soaked bread at Wine Country). 

No one wants to hear this stuff while they're having fun, least of all me.

Short term:  Eating grains & sugar will not kill you, just as smoking will not kill you.  Smoking hinders efficient bodily function and athletic performance, as does eating grains & sugar.  Who really cares except compulsive people like me?

Long term:  Inhalation of carcinogenic smoke over a long period of time will kill you.  Eating sugar (and grains which your body converts to sugar) over a long period of time creates an insulin resistance in your body, and that can kill you.

50 years ago, if one would have postulated that cigarette companies would be held liable for millions in tort damages, the person would have been laughed out of the room.  There is now compelling evidence that soft-drink manufacturers (who will become the scapegoat for an entire diet consisting of too much carbohydrate & sugar) know full well that their product is addictive and (by virtue of its effects on the body) carcinogenic.  I see a class-action in the works by 2021.  Call me crazy.  People still smoke, and people will always drink Coke, but in times ahead there will be warning labels on the cans.  Watch.  There is money to be made . . .

And as April 18th approaches, think of the taxes you will pay with the money that you make, and think of all the unhealthy insulin-resistant people with metabolic syndrome on government healthcare (Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security Disability, SSI, Obamacare) that your tax dollars will support in years to come . . . after your tax dollars were used to provide them with government assistance to buy sugar-and-carb-laden food and receive free lunches of the same makeup.  Just notice the "food stamp eligible" stickers at the grocery store  . . . but that is a topic for another day . . .

Please do not "reply to all"  with derogatory comments . . . my mother is on this email.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/paleo-diet-meet-caveman-dieters/story?id=13030483 - ABC nightline story about the diet.  Kind of funny.  That reporter needs to lift more weight and eat more meat.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=4&hp - great article about sugar's link to "diabesity" and metabolic syndrome caused by insulin resistance, sugar's link to cancer, and the idea that a high sugar diet (not a high fat diet) is the leading contributor to heart disease.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM - long lecture

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4362041487661765149 - long lecture

http://www.details.com/style-advice/the-body/201103/carbs-caffeine-food-cocaine-addiction?currentPage=1 - easy reading.

http://whole9life.com/2010/03/the-grain-manifesto/ - why grains are bad


With that said, I'm off to shirtlessly galavant in the carcinogenic sunshine on this beautiful Saturday morning . . .

Grasslands: Ultra Fiasco

By the early part of 2010, Will had run a few marathons.  Somewhere in the neighborhood of eight or ten.  The toughest according to him was Pike's Peak.  (See the "Marathon Man" page.)  I'm assuming it's tough because you run uphill for five hours, but that's just a guess.  Half of the race is downhill so it can't be that hard.  Just saying.

I, on the other hand, had run no marathons, but I was running a lot.  And I was really into CrossFit {more on this later, but doing CrossFit workouts (or WODs, because CF loves acronyms) give you the false impression that you can do anything}.  But most importantly for preparation, I just finished a book.  You may have heard of it:  Born to Run by Christopher McDougall.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=born+to+run.

That book should come with a warning label.

I also recently acquired a certain pair of shoes - you may have heard of those, too.  They're made by Vibram (runners in-the-know say "Vee'-bruhm" but ever since I first noticed the small yellow logo on my Red Wing work boots I pronounced this company's name "Vy'-bruhm", and Vy-bruhm sounds cooler and tougher than Vee-bruhm).  They're called "FiveFingers" and some will swear they'll change your life.  http://www.vibram.com/

So, Will signed up for this race:  http://www.nttr.org/grasslands/.  50 miles.  Horse Trails.  A good "beginner ultramarathon."  Flat terrain, dirt trails, sea-level Northeast Texas.  And the best news of all:  you can pitch a tent and camp 100 yards from the starting line!

We pull into the campground just before dark and pitch our tent.  Seventy-or-so degrees, not a cloud in the sky.  Eat some dinner (again with the Born to Run book) consisting of black beans and quinoa.  The Tarahumara eat this way, so should I, right?  I can be just like them!  I can run 50 miles, too!

On really long runs, you eat during the race.  So in preparation for the next day's event, Will and I sit around the campfire and get a 2-man assembly line going.  We make some peanut butter and honey sandwiches, some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and put them in ziplocks.  We went through an entire loaf of bread making these sandwiches.  Probably had 15 in all.  Like either one of us could consume more than 4 PBJs in a day.  We tend to overdo everything. 

Get in the tent, go to bed.  Will stays up a little later and reads Born to Run.

By midnight, it's raining.  Pouring.  Very few tents are "waterproof" during a thunderstorm and this tent was no exception.  It kept us dry enough . . . but sleeping outdoors in torrential rainfall and thunder is somewhat difficult.  We've done this before . . . not our first rodeo sleeping in the rain . . . nothing we can't handle . . . all about the adventure, right?  Seems to be getting colder.

Out of bed by 6:30, race starts at 7 or 7:30, it's totally black outside.  It's also about 25 degrees.  There was a temperature drop of over 30-degrees since we parked the truck. 

Completely dark.  What to wear for a 50 mile run?  Where's my Body Glide?  It's cold, should I wear a jacket?  Which of the 4 pairs of shoes shall I wear for my first ultramarathon?  It really is cold.  I wonder if the trail is going to be muddy?  I'm getting dressed halfway-in and halfway-out of the Avalanche, in the rain.  Long SmartWool socks.  I'm actually putting on my "baselayer" that I wear when snowboarding.  And a light fleece.  And a waterproof ski jacket.  Except for the shorts, I'm wearing exactly what I wear when I'm boarding on a mountain.  It's that cold.

Head to the starting line where a group of freezing people in very technical looking running gear have gathered around a table serving HOT COFFEE.  The best and most necessary coffee I've ever had.  Hmm, that rain sure is coming down.  People have headlamps, flashlights, shoes that look waterproof, jackets that look like they're not meant to ski in.  Like running jackets, for rainy days.  Beanies on their heads - I mean these people came prepared.  Runner-people have a certain look about them, too.  These people all had that look.  Some came for the half-marathon, some for the full marathon, and then of course there were the 50-milers.  These were runner-people. 

I go to the goodie bag table - one (1) long sleeve dry-fit t-shirt.  That's what I get for driving 4 hours, sleeping in the rain, and running a 50-mile race.  1 long sleeve t-shirt.  But it's Patagonia, and it looks really cool.  So whatever.

Runners are allowed to bring a "drop bag" and place it around the Start/Finish line.  This race has five "loops" and every loop starts and finishes in the same location.  The first loop is a 5-mile "correction loop" to make the race a full 50-miler, and the next four loops are anywhere between 8 and 15 miles.

So your drop bag needs to have all the necessary stuff in it that you might need (change of socks/shoes, extra food, shirts, shorts, etc.).  Again, these people came prepared - there were some waterproof bags out there.  Nope, not mine.  I put my drop bag where I was told - in the middle of the rain on a tarp.  No cover. 

Nervous excitement.  Runner people laughing, smiling, anticipation of the coming kick-off.  Will says he's got to run to the port-a-potty before the start.  He takes the flashlight with him.

In the most unofficial, nonchalant manner I have ever witnessed, the race director tells the 50-miler group that it's time to start.  The starting "gun" was actually a guy saying "OK, 50-milers, GO!"  Everyone takes off.  There is no Will.  It's pitch-black dark outside.  There are 3 clusters of port-a-potties near the start line, each cluster separated by about 100 yards.   I start banging on the doors.

"WILL!  WILL!  YOU IN THERE?"  On every single port-a-potty out there.  Run to the next cluster of potties:  "WILL!  WILL!  YOU IN THERE? THE RACE JUST STARTED.  DUDE.  WHERE ARE YOU?"

Will has the flashlight.  Will is nowhere to be seen.  5 minutes after the start of the race, I start without him.  And without a flashlight.  And it's raining.

Miles 0 - 4.8 / Rain becomes Sleet

Loop 1 is an out-and-back.  I start the race 5 minutes behind everyone else, feeling guilty that somehow I left Will in a port-a-potty, thinking he's probably pretty angry with me right now. 

The trail is slick.  Light brown mud, and "horse trails" is evidently slang for "ditch that collects water and has steep sides."  The mud was cold and the area on either side of the trail was full of thorny bushes and tangled brier.  Your options were to either (a) run along side the trail and expend copious amounts of energy on strategic foot placement, or (b) run in the middle of the ditch and get your feet soaking wet with freezing cold muddy water.  For over 2 miles, I opted for "a".  Slow pace, moving at about 10 minute miles.  Eventually I switched to "b" but in the last twelve months I have not yet decided which of the 2 options was best.  They were both miserable options.

By this time, the front-runners were heading back to home base (they had run the "out" and were now heading "back" on the out-and-back course).  I'm still running the "out".

I see Will's bright yellow jacket that he got in the Pike's Peak Marathon goodie bag.  "DUDE.  You left me!"

"Well I opened the door to the port-a-potty and all these runners were going by, so I figured the race had started.  I jumped in with them."

"Wait for me back at the drop-bags."

Almost an hour after the race started, we're back at home base.  "That 5 mile run just took us 50 minutes." 

"Those trails suck."

"It's sleeting.  Or snowing.  It's freezing.  My feet are freezing."

It was at this moment I decided to wear gloves.  The only gloves I brought.  They were white tuxedo gloves that I bought for $10.00 and had to wear for a Mardi Gras ball a few years earlier.  They were not the super-duper technical waterproof/breathable running gloves donned by so many of the runner-people on that miserable March morning.  They looked like Mickey Mouse hands.

Miles 4.8 - 18.3 / Sleet becomes Snow

Will and I agreed to stick together for the next loop.  We were caught here in the same picture:

At some point, we were running with a pack of guys, many of whom had run ultras before.  They were telling us that there's no need to go fast on a 50-mile race, you're going to be out there all day regardless of your pace.  I heed the warning.

Will speeds up, and I slow down.  Somewhere in that second loop I remember yelling "Will, we've got 40 miles to go, man.  There's no need to get in a hurry."  Will leaves me.

Option "b" :  run right through the middle of the ditch.

The snow is pretty in this picture, but this photo conjures some bad memories:

Great guy, cannot remember his name.  He had the right idea, though.  Slow and steady.  He was run/walking very early on but had every intention on finishing the race.  This was not his first rodeo:

Horrible memories here:

Miles 18.3 - 31.1

Loop 3:  Let the walking begin.  By the third loop I was miserable.  Very few people were on the trail (the first couple of loops included the full- and half-marathoners so you weren't all alone in the abyss of the Texas landscape).  So it's sleeting/snowing, it's cold.  You're on your 2nd pair of socks and your 2nd pair of shoes.  You've been running this race for about 5 hours and you're not even half-way finished.

Outlook of finishing is bleak at best.  Misery sets in.  The pictures on the website showed windmills and sunshine.  The reality was stark grey.  Flat land.  And cold.

I have made up my mind that I am not running anymore.  My feet are ice blocks.  I cannot feel my feet.  They are swollen and they feel round.  They wouldn't flex and move and my ankles felt as if they were locked into place.  This was no longer a "run" . . . it was a forced march through a watery and cold ditch.

I might not even go tell the race directors that I quit.  I might go straight to the camp site and get a beer.  I want to go to sleep.  So terribly miserable.  I am not running the remaining 19 miles.  I am done. 

I haven't seen Will since the midway point of Loop 2.  He was running fast enough and looked to be in good enough spirits and shape to finish this godawful race.  I just knew he was going to finish it and I was going to be the quitter.  Felt terrible.  I had been on the trails for 9 hours and I knew that Will was going to be on his fourth loop, dead-set on getting through it and moving on to the last loop, and that I was going to be forced to await his arrival while sitting in the cold at the campsite. 

I thought about how tired I was, and how exhausted he was going to be.  We were going to have to get a hotel room in Denton because it would not be safe to attempt the drive home. 

I come out of the woods and onto the road nearing the end of loop 3.  Maybe a quarter mile from the home base.  I see a Chevy Avalanche with its lights on, pointing directly at the trail.  Almost a "too good to be true" moment, kind of like spotting an oasis in the desert, I think "that can't be Will, that can't be Will, no way."

"Aw man I'm glad to see you.  I've been waiting here for you for an hour.  I thought somehow I missed you and that you'd started the 4th loop."  It's Will.  He quit at mile 31.  Thank God.  "I was about to put on my running shoes again and get on the 4th loop.  I just knew you had kept going."

"No, I'm done.  Let's pack up that camp site and get the hell out of here."  Nine hours after the start of the race, Will brought me to the base camp and I told the directors that I quit (they were not surprised). 

Fifty people signed up for the 50-mile race at Grasslands that year.  Six people finished.  Forty-four quit the race.

On the way back to Shreveport that night, Will said out loud what was in both of our heads:  "You know, that's the first thing I've ever really tried to do and failed.  I mean . . . I just couldn't do it."

That thought lingered in my head for months. 

Twelve months later it was raining at the start of the Rouge/Orleans 126.2-mile relay from Baton Rouge to New Orleans, along the Mississippi River levee.  This time, it wasn't a cold muddy ditch that hurt our feet, it was big jagged gravel.

Again, Will and I attempt to run an ultra-marathon.  But this time we finished.

Swimming Across the Mississippi River

Ruskey, Ellis & William after the feat

And You Call This Fun?

A canoe trip that has been done thousands of times…not much of an adventure. Where’s the satisfaction in doing what you know for certain can be completed?  The trip would be a social event – but it had so much more potential. The feeling inside of me was of a kid watching from his bedroom window at friends having a blast on the new slip-n-slide. “What could be, but won’t happen”

I was going with a group to canoe down the Mississippi River. First off, I didn’t plan the trip so I knew there was no way we are paddling on the Mississippi. What about the stories my Mom told me about staying away from rivers? They will kill you. Fisherman said whirlpools stopped their boat in an instant almost pulling the entire boat under? Or what about those logs that get pulled under and shot out like an arrow? So I came to the conclusion they were wrong and we would be going down a tributary along side the Mississippi.

I usually don’t do trips unless it involves doing nothing at the beach or is an extreme adventure – one extreme or the other, nothing in between. It was time to put my anxiety about wasting a weekend doing something that thousands have already done behind me and enjoy time with friends – it bothers me to even say that, sit there and just talk??

Life is about two things - God and relationships on Earth. So I need to get better at just sitting and talking and riding in a bus for hours to go on a trip that takes an entire weekend all for the purpose of paddling down a stream that again, has been done and done and done…

The Guide

The Guide - John Ruskey

So on the way to Helena, Arkansas, a guy with us googled the name of the river guide that was supposedly taking us down the Mississippi. John Ruskey. And that was the turning point. This cat had basically lived on the Mississippi for the last 30 years. He has paddled the largest rivers in North America from one end to the other…And then my big break came…this guy has brought people out to swim across the Mississippi River! Now I’m no longer anxious about wasting two days of my life on an expedition that has already been done thousands of times, I’m anxious that not only will I be repeating history for the 5,000^th time, but the opportunity to do what few have done will be sitting right under my nose.

Ruskey got started on the river when he and a friend – inspired by The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - built a raft out of salvage material and paddled from Minnesota to Louisiana. Ruskey had stints in Colorado and Austin but winded up in Clarksdale, Mississippi playing the blues while spending 30 years on the Mississippi. Ruskey has been on explorations all over North America but “Nowhere have I felt as powerfully that feeling of something much greater than me at work then when I feel the fluid motions of that big channel of water. I feel it stronger in the Mississippi then I have in paddling the Pacific Ocean, the Straits of Juan de Fuca, or paddling behind Victoria Island".

“Mississippi Wandering” with John Ruskey

“We All Live Downstream” with Ellis Coleman, Ruskey’s partner

Ruskey describes what one will see on the river: “You will see the third biggest river in the world as it slowly and implacably pours out of the heart of America and winds endlessly towards the gulf of mexico, unheedful of gravity, pursuing strange serpentine pathways through the mud and clay and sand.”

Helena, AR is a small town in southeast Arkansas. Ruskey’s guide service, Quapaw Canoe Company, is based out of an old brick building that appears to have once been a factory. The building is wide open like an empty warehouse. It is filled with hand carved canoes that carry two people and others that carry ten. One of the canoes we took out is a ten person canoe named the Voyager.

The Question

Alright, so how does one go about asking permission to swim across the Mississippi River? If you can’t get the guide alone, you blurt it out in front of everyone and wait for the dead silence at the foolishness of the question.

“Can I swim it?”

“Sure”

“ok”

That could be the most unusual question I’ve ever asked someone. Followed by thoughts of doesn’t the river current need to be right, does it need to be a certain time of year, can we do it from any location? Shouldn’t the factors be perfect to swim? I mean, how do you answer a question like that with “sure”?

Choosing a Spot

Ruskey knew I was serious but didn’t think I would do it. Similar to the people that are going to start the gym next Monday – they are serious at the time but never do it. Ruskey tells me you can swim the river anywhere and anytime. Where’s the logic in that? But the best place to swim is to start on a straight of way that leads into a river bend. Start on the same side of the river as the inside of the bend. As the current is pushing you down stream it will tend to push you from the starting bank (bank on the inside of the bend) and send you to the opposite side (outside bank).

Within ten minutes of getting on the River we stopped on a sand bar. Rusky said this is a good place to swim. Shouldn’t we look for a better place? You’re telling me we are going to be on the river for 6+ hours and within 10 minutes this is the best place you can find? Do you settle on a girl at 10pm when the bar doesn’t close until 6am? (a reference to long time ago – long, long time ago). Oh well, here we go.

The Crossing

The first thirty feet feels like a lake – no moving water. Then I hit the channel where the river is moving 200 – 700 thousand cubic feet per second making it the tenth most powerful river in the world. Underwater sounds like a bunch of crackling – like not catching a signal on an analog TV. A river guide said it was the multi trillion sediment particles hitting together but that is about as scientific an answer as Ruskey saying “oh yeah, this is a good spot ”. At this point in the story, let me clarifier a few questions in your head – no I didn’t have a life jacket or safety device, I didn’t train for this (other than CrossFit which trains one for whatever life throws at you or swimming the Mississippi), I had only swam about half this distance in my life. Anything that would make this decision seem less foolish, I did not do.

Thirty minutes prior, the thought of swimming the Mississippi was non existent.

I oriented my body towards the opposite bank so my motions were as if I were swimming straight across but the current was driving me down stream.

Turbulence

Growing up in a small City on the Red River, I was familiar with the vision from a bridge of turbulent flow in a river. I’m not saying it is ok to jump in a whirlpool, but it is possible to swim through the turbulence. Now Ruskey – with all the reassurance he provided up to this point - said that it may pull me under but it would shoot me right back up – that made me feel safe. The movements you see in the river are eddies and boils. Boils look like boiling water from the surface and are caused by water rebounding off the river bottom. An eddy is a place where the water is moving in a different direction or speed than the main current. Eddies are made by rocks, outcroppings along the side, behind logs, bridge pilings, and on the inside of bends or along the side of the river. The boils knocked me around and even threw me into the side of the canoe that Ruskey followed me in.

Halfway

You want to experience a surreal feeling? Stop halfway across and tread water…in the middle of the Mississippi River. I don’t think anyone timed this event but it was about 25 minutes to get halfway across and the river had brought me downstream about 1 mile. The width of the river was ¾ to 1 mile.

The finale

I get 30 ft from the river bank – finish line – and I wasn’t going to make it. The harder I pushed, the more the distance to the finish line increased. A boil was pushing me back. I had just come within two minutes of swimming across the third largest river in the world. Rusk hollered to fight through the current. With all my remaining energy, I pushed through the boil and it shot me out the other side. A tree branch was close enough to grab and pull myself to the bank – actually, I never made it to the bank. I justified the tree was connected to the bank so I was finished. The guys pulled me into the canoe, I laid out and Rusk casually paddled on because swimming across the Mississppi is a normal occurrence. Half an hour later at the next sandbar stop, Ruskey came over, shook my hand and offered his congratulations. 

“You know in 30 years of being out on this river, I’ve only known half a dozen people to do that”.

“Really? Really!? Because, you made it sound like it was no big deal when I decided to do this nonsense!”

Then he clarified “No, maybe a dozen”.

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“Books may inspire, but it’s the actual doing – the physical participation – of something that’s the real teacher.” John Ruskey