Category: wfpb

backpackingblogRunningsarekvegan

How running has changed my backpacking

on August 11, 2017

Last year I made a 7 day trip through Iceland, north to south through some incredible countryside and even meeting up and joining the Laugavegur trail for 5 days. It was a lovely trip and I had about 10 kilos of gear and food with me for the excursion. The hike at times was tough, or atleast one or two days of the journey was tough, all in all, on a scale of 1-10 for difficulty I would rank it around a 5. A great trail for anyone who is properly prepared. There are however two major inclines (major..) on day one while leaving Landmannalaugar and day 5 between Porsmark and Skogar. These two inclines kicked my ass in every possible way. The last day I was so tired on the incline between porsmark and skogar that I thought I would die. If memory serves me the total incline was around 900-1000 meters. I thought at the time, that considering the circumstances (climbing a 1000meter cliff with backpack on), that I did quite well. It wasn’t until I did my recent trip through Sarek national park in Northern Sweden, that I realized the truth behind my Iceland trip.

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Let me paint a little picture here. Hard wind, rain, knee high swamp for hours on end, daily 500-1000 meter inclines and declines, waist high wading and to top it all off – no trails. Complete wild and a 13kilo backpack. That was my most recent trip to the Sarek national park in Northern sweden, a few hundred kilometers north of the arctic circle. This trip was demanding in every possible sense of the word. On my gear, physique and psychology. But I didn’t feel it. My body was such a well oiled machine for this trip that I literally felt as if I could turn around and do it again without any problems. I didn’t have any of the normal knee, back or lung issues. And on the last day I was afraid to tell my traveling companion just how damn good I felt (after a 1300 meter incline with my backpack on) because I didn’t want him to think I was doing the “manly” thing of bragging about how cool I am I could carry my backpack up a hill. (like many of the heavy miserables that like to brag about how much weight they can carry)

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My body was functioning better than it ever has on a backpacking trip, this was on minimal sleep and a deprivation diet. Honestly, no matter how much food I pack and eat I still run a deficit on these kinds of trips. The changes this year compared to last year, and the relatively easier Laugavegur trail? My running and diet changes I made late last year. Since going full vegan and running I have lost around 22 lbs (10 kilos) off my body, that’s 10 kilos my legs don’t have to carry when backpacking and the insane amount of carbs I eat on the diet fuels me like nothing else. My running has improved my cardio exponentially, when last year I could barely make the last incline on the Laugavegur trail, this year I did that same 0-1000 meter climb on several occasions and felt damn good.

 

While my backpacking trip wasn’t full vegan, in fact I snuck in some powdered milk to my breakfast and cheese on the last day at the hotel.. Oh and I did make the mistake of eating a sausage, it had always been the mainstay of my backpacking trips – the reward at the end of the day kind of thing. Only to realize my taste buds have changed, and what once tasted like gods hands massaging my tongue, now tasted like salted dead pig and had the effects you would expect on my daily shitting habits. With that said, I don’t beat myself up about it, I am always working towards long term health goals and benefits, and I can’t kill myself everytime I make a slip up. Beside, being a bitch to other people about their habits is probably the worst thing to do to get converts.

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Anyway, last year after laugavegur I was satisfied, ready to hang up my boots for a while a relax. Much like a traditional hiker who normally takes a year off between longer hikes, I felt much the same. Now, the only thing I want to do is get out again. My body, feet and soul feel perfect after my last trip and I can only credit my diet and training habits.

 

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RunningTrainingveganwfpb

My training and progression in running

on April 16, 2017

I just ran my first half marathon, my body and feet are still sore and my stomach now full from my first real meal in 7 hours. I certainly didn’t break any records on this run, but considering in January I was puking from a 10 kilometer run, I would say I feel damn good. I had no real reason to run other than the fact that I felt like it. The weather was nice and I needed to get out and explore. It was an excellent run, and while certainly tough, was a lot of fun.

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In January I ran my first 10k ever in my first competition ever called the Stockholm winter run. It sucked. My time was 1hr 7minutes and I thought I was going to die. I never considered myself a runner, but I had always fantasied about it. In the last 5 years I might have run a total of 10 kilometers and on top of that I haven’t done any kind of training in well over a year or so. I was convinced running was for other people, you know, the small, skinny people who couldn’t cut it at any other sport.

My training program

I will be honest with you here.. I am by no means an expert when it comes to training for my runs. As I wrote earlier in this post, I haven’t run much in my life. But I have read a few books, and really tried to get caught up quickly, and so far what I am doing seems to work. My first 10k I ran in January took me 1hr 7 minutes and nearly killed me. My heart rate was firing hard and I had to take a few breaks along the way. My second 10k that I ran two months later I did in 56 minutes and I felt I could have done a lot better, my energy levels and endurance was through the roof. I originally got my idea on training from again the book born to run. Or atleast the idea of how running should be and I kind of took it from there.

In the book born to run the author talks about how his trainer said ”slow down, if it’s not fun your doing it wrong”. Or something like that. So I kept that in mind when I started my training, I would slow down if I was breathing hard or feeling that my run was tough. Why not very specific, it worked in keeping me motived in the beginning. From there I later read a book by Rich Rolls called Finding ultra. Here he gets more specific and talks about heart rate zones. Namely he discusses how he could go hard but would burn out quickly. So his training coach told him to never pass 140 beats per minute and run longer.

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After playing around with different training and running apps I eventually landed with iSmoothrun that allows me to pretty much do anything I need from an app and export to any other systems such as strava and so on. I setup my heartrate in 5 zones. 1 is a light walk, 2 is a bit harder walk, 3 is a light jog, 4 is a good race pace and 5 is death. Well not really death, but I can’t run very far in zone 5. Zone three is somewhere between 135-143 Beats per minute (bpm), and this is where I do all of my training in.

I try to do 4-5 10k’s a week (about an hour and five minutes in zone 3) and now I added 1 long run on the weekend which is anywhere between 1 hour – 4 hours. Distance is not as important for me as time running. I find that because I haven’t run a lot in my life that I definitely have to work on my endurance. I already know I can keep a good pace for over 2 hours, now I just have to increase the amount of time running.

Heart rate zones:

1 – light walk

2 – faster walk but not running

3 – Light jog – builds endurance and is fun to run in

4 – tougher, good race pace

5 – max heart rate zone

Running:

Always do all my training in zone 3. It’s fun and builds endurance.

Every run is at-least 5k (35 minutes). While most runs now are around 10k (1 hour)

I try to run 4-5 days a week with a long run on the weekend between 2-4 hours long.

Though I am still working on my endurance for the long run – it wasn’t so long ago that I couldn’t run a 10 k (less than 3 months ago), now I am running them several times a week and having a blast.

Perhaps soon I will include 800 meter yasso’s

Yasso: take the time you plan on doing the marathon (your 10k times 4) for me this would be 4hours and 15minutes (I’m not breaking any records here). Anyway you run 800meters in the time in minutes and seconds. So for me this would be 800meters in 4minutes and 15 seconds, then light jog 4minutes and 15seconds and repeat 6-7 times.

I haven’t included yasso’s or any other kind of sprints into my training as I am still just trying to build endurance and not really too concerned with speed yet. Perhaps that will be at a later time. But so far I love my long endurance runs and I don’t really want to burn myself out doing sprints and anything else that could kill my motivation.

Nutrition

I found rather quickly that I simply couldn’t keep my standard paleo diet any longer the more I was training. Besides the fact that I was always getting sick, I realized that I simply didn’t have the needed energy to do my runs as often as I wanted to, as my body simply needed a lot more high quality carbs. So I made a change over to a WFPB (Whole Foods plant based diet) – vegan. And found the results to be amazing so far. I have a lot more energy, I’m not getting sick anymore (from 2-3 times a month for the last couple of years to nothing), and as an added bonus I’m not getting cramps anymore nor am I bed bound after a heavy meal.

My pre-run nutrition on regular 10k run days is just about any vegan meal a few hours before my run and coconut water with me along on the run. This gives me plenty of energy for these runs. I run mid-afternoon usually right after work as it’s a good time for me. It’s easy to get motivated to run after sitting at a desk for a few hours.

Perhaps later on I will try and move this to early mornings as I’m usually awake around 5am anyway, I just haven’t found the motivation to change this part of my routine yet.

I’m still working on my nutrition needs for my long run days, but so far I usually do my long runs on the weekend so I eat my morning bowl of oats laced with Maca powder, spirulina powder, sunflower seeds, pumpkin and chia seeds. I give my stomach a two hours to rest, then a drink a small smoothie consisting of beets, coconut water, bananas, apples, some nuts and seeds as well as Maca powder and spirulina powder and topped off with kale.

On the long runs themselves I bring coconut water and two homemade energy bars consisting of dates and nuts of some kind. (Can be found in backpacking recipes section of this site.)

That’s it. That is my running nutrition at the moment and I feel amazing. I feel like I’m in my teens about energy wise and my recovery time is fantastic.

Goals:

So now that I am running my ass off what is my motivation? In the beginning I started running because I felt it was something I had always wished I could do. Felt like something that I had to do. My duty as a human I guess. Can’t explain it. My other motivation is that I figured if I could run a marathon than my long hikes should never be a problem again. As I started to run, and now I feel like I am getting pretty good at it, my goals include running ultra marathons, marathons and trail running. No real reason anymore, just a ”why not” kind of thing. Kind of like backpacking, or as Scott Jurek likes to say ”sometimes we just do things”.

It’s fun… it’s as simple as that!