Last year in 2022, I logged over 1,500 miles running in 3 pairs of shoes, averaging close to 30 miles per week and running about 6 miles per run. I was fortunate enough to stay injury free through it all. In addition to the running mileage, I added a over 100 miles of mountain biking, a 4-day skiing trip to Taos and a 40 mile hike through the Sierra Nevada’s in September to round out my adventures in 2022. I love adventure, but my true north has always been running. The ease of access makes it the ideal application of fitness for my lifestyle. No equipment requirement, no dependency on others (although running buddies are always welcome) and you can easily integrate running into travel and your work day. All you need is a pair of shoes, 30-60 minutes and a little motivation to put one foot in front of the other.
According to National Geographic, it is believed that humans started to jog around two million years ago. In fact, research suggests that our ancestors’ adaptation of physical traits developed from long distance running to chase down prey, was instrumental in the origin of the modern human body and may explain why humans look the way we do today. You could even go a step further and opine that the emergence of humans is tied to the evolution of running. Our ability as humans to endure is a distinctive quality that sets us a part from everything else. Not just physical, but the mental, spiritual and emotional endurance in the human capacity is critical to keeping our elevated seat at the top of the food chain.
After turning 40 a few years ago, I’ve been on a quest. A quest for the continual optimization of my running. A honing of my ancestral gift of endurance. Just like most things, breaking things down into components and reconstructing them, gives us a better understanding of how things work. Running is no different and for me optimizing for the next 10 years, means I must continue to breakdown and rebuild my processes. Getting the most out of performance on the road is a matter of mechanics, discipline and planning for what is hard, while it is easy. Whether you are training for a marathon or just running to relieve stress, it is important know how to get the most gains out of each run. And even more important is how you feed those gains back into your life to make not only your running optimal, but your life optimal at the same time.
Absorbing Reality
No matter how good of shape we believe we are in, absorbing the reality of our aging bodies can be a hard thing to come to grips with. According to Runner’s World, on average runners tend to slow by 3-6% over the course of their 40’s, 10% per decade in their 50’s and 60’s and 15% after 70 as their strength, flexibility and bone density diminish (Lisa Marshall, 31 Dec 2015). It’s humbling to regress, especially when we continue to put effort into something. However, just because the average runner will get slower over time, we can develop above average approaches to defend against the decline. The challenge of fighting time and gravity, is one of impossibility. You can never win the race against time nor fully reverse the gravitational deterioration of the body, but you can enjoy the process of trying as much as possible. Getting the most out of our performance on the roads, means trade-offs. Less alcohol, more water to stay hydrated. Less simple carbs, more complex carbs to fuel our depleted energy stores in a sustainable way. Less midnight fast food runs, more herbal teas at night. Lastly, less late night Netflix binges and more deep REM sleep. These trade-offs may seem overwhelming to consider missing out on. These indulgences have emotional roots in us and reinforced in our social structures. I did say “less” not give up all together. But with these trade-offs, emerges a new indulgence. An indulgence of physical, emotional and spiritual benefits that come with getting the maximum benefit out of our performance.
Feeding The Non-Machine
My wife printed this quote a few years ago and stuck it in our refrigerator. It says “Everything you eat is either fighting disease or feeding it”. While this dualistic perspective on food, attempts to minimizes the complexity of decision making when it comes to food, understanding what is feeding or fighting disease can be a life long pursuit of knowledge, experimentation and frustration. For years, I’ve neglected the power of fueling my body with the right foods to optimize my performance. Through brute force and suffering, I’ve powered through many workouts on suboptimal hydration and glucose deficiency only to feel like crap after. That feeling of crap, was my twisted validation that I had a successful work out. While I put in the work and felt good about my effort, my mental focus suffered and my mood would swing. I’ve come to realize that it doesn’t have to be that way. Running is a long game. While a fuel in, fuel out approach will help you get through a hard workout, getting expected gains such as weight loss, body composition and muscle mass will require you understand the macro-nutrients (Carbs, Protein and Fats) of your diet and deploy them accordingly to meet the needs of your workout. Our bodies are NOT machines but rather an integration of complex and dynamic systems that all interact with each other and evolve in a divine orchestration of mystery. Getting your own personal fueling formula right will transform your running, improve your energy levels, provide the physical gains of weight loss / muscle mass and give you a mental edge that feeds this cycle of optimization.
Mixology of the Brain
While externally, the physical results of a life of performance optimization are impressive (weight loss, muscle mass, healthy features) the internal results of mental optimization are even more impressive and impactful to our lives. It all starts with oxygen and blood flow. Think about this the next time you go for a run (or do any other type of physical activity). First, you start to breathe a bit harder, which increases our heart rate. This increases the amount of oxygen in the blood and the flow of that blood to the brain. From there all kinds of magical chemistry starts to take place. One of these processes called neurogenesis, converts this oxygen into neurons (the information messengers of the brain) in the hippocampus region of the brain responsible for memory and learning. According to Whole Brain Health, this increase in brain “plasticity” lowers risk of developing cognitive impairment, such as dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. While these cognitive benefits alone can motivate one to seek a life of sustained physical activity, for me the real driver for a life of constant running is the never ending pursuit of the runner’s high or flow. When you have increased levels of exercise, your body starts to behave like a mixologist creating a potent hormonal cocktail of endorphins, serotonin and dopamine. This subset of what Healthline.com calls the “happy hormones” is at the root of the so called “Runner’s High”. The process may look something like this. As you start to work out, you may get a sense of discomfort or stress, maybe even feel like quitting. Your body’s fight or flight response deploys endorphins, so you persist on. After a period of time you start feeling good, characterized by feelings of accomplishment, new ideas and good memories or thoughts. This is dopamine triggering your reward system which is associated with pleasure, memory and learning. Finally, you are done. You head back to the locker room or shower and have a nice calming sense of elation that can persist well beyond your workout. You can thank serotonin for these good vibes. These hormones have so many more functions beyond the scope of my knowledge and I encourage you to do more research on your own, but understanding the mixology of these powerful neurotransmitters can help us maximize the mental benefits of our workouts. Now with our memory and learning systems tuned, risk of cognitive impairment lowered and our neuro cocktail recipe curated we can take full advantage of all the gifts our body gives us as a result of high performance running or working out.
Road goes on forever … and the party never ends
Well, Texas country and Americana legend Robert Earl Keen, Jr. says it best. “The road goes on forever and the party never ends”.
There is never a destination for me when it comes to running. I think having a road that goes on forever, is the perfect metaphor of a continuous learning and living mentality. Steven Kotler, author of “The Art of the Impossible” and many other books on Flow and high performance says “If you’re hunting the high performance game, motivation is what gets you in the game, but learning is what keeps you there”. The quest for continual optimization of life in general has kept me in the game. Some days are better than the others, but ultimately you just keep lacing up, putting one foot in front of the other and letting the road continue to be your teacher.
-Abe
Humans Were Born to Run, Fossil Study suggests
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/humans-were-born-to-run-fossil-study-suggests
Rules of Running : Over 40’s (Runner’s World )
https://www.runnersworld.com/uk/training/a774274/rules-of-running-over-40s/
Whole Brain Health
The Art of the Impossible, Steven Kotler
Bluescoder I/O 
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