Willingness to Experiment

I ran this morning with minimalist shoes. Running with minimalist shoes is something that I’ve been slowly and steadily reintegrating into my routine. Most of my “runs without cushion on my feet” are slow-paced and shorter in distance.

Upon returning to minimalist shoes and the occasional barefoot walks, I quickly rediscovered the value of minimalist running. Minimalist shoes do quickly bring me closer to what I would describe as a “natural stride.” Cushion tends to blunt the mind’s ability to register bad form. We have a gazillion nerve endings in our feet and their duty is to detect danger; numbing them with foam doesn’t necessarily help our form.

Minimalist shoes also seem to work the calf muscles more than “maximal shoes.” I certainly felt more of a “calf burn” on the last mile.

There is value in trying new things. I’ve gained something from running in both maximal and minimal shoes. I don’t necessarily prefer one over the other. I can say that when running at a high intensity for a large number of miles, I find cushioned shoes to be pretty useful. I also find minimal shoes useful for correcting my form and general casual activities.

It’s important for me to not peg my identity on a brand, a style, or even a category. I’m not a “minimalist runner” any more than I’m a “maximalist runner.” I simply run by using whatever manner works, and I’m willing to try a different method if it reads as interesting. At the end of the day it’s an activity that we were born to do, and it should be fun. So, I’m willing to use whatever methods make running fun.

On another front, I’ve also been experimenting with diet. For example, upon returning to the US from China I dedicated myself to intermittent fasting. I stuck with it for the better part of three years and had a degree of success with it. How much of my improved health was actually a result of fasting, though, versus a multitude of other factors (caloric restriction and increased exercise, to name two factors) is difficult to say.

I abandoned intermittent fasting because I found it difficult to maintain running and cycling performance while adhering to a feeding window. I’ve tried a few long fasted runs over the past few months and even completed a fasted half marathon. However, I found my power to be limited and my abilities in a fasted state to be confined to a “low heart rate range”.

Also, there is no extra medal given for completing a run without food. If you lose to a guy who ate pancakes for breakfast, you still lost.

Moving away from intermittent fasting was simple because my feeding window was simple: I skipped breakfast.

Are there advantages to fasting? Sure. When deprived of carbohydrates, the body uses fat as its primary fuel source. The advantage of this is that fats are an extremely efficient form of energy. If my aim was simply to walk around the world on minimal fuel, a diet high in fat and low in carbohydrates might be a wise option. Fasting can also be an effective means of weight loss for this reason, especially if your body is not adept at fat oxidation due to carb overload.

For me, fat is not the best fuel source when seeking running and cycling performance. Glycogen provides me more power and arguably requires less oxygen to burn. The downside is that glycogen depletes quickly, so you need a lot of fuel. That said, for what I’m seeking (my best possible marathon time), I prefer relying primarily on glycogen.

This means I’ve largely abandoned my fasted runs and fasting routines. Maybe I’ll do some fasting during the occasional break from running, but I don’t view it as a priority. I haven’t noticed any diminishing returns from eating breakfast yet and it’s been about a month since I quit fasting.

Like I regard running shoes, I don’t want diet to define me. It’s easy to label oneself based on current diet. One can be “keto,” “vegan,” “carnivore,” “paleo,” or “low carb,” among a multitude of other things. I don’t want to permanently peg myself in any one category because it prohibits the opportunity of trying another. There’s a valid argument to be made in a lot of them; otherwise, they wouldn’t have popularized.

I can say that these days I’ve limited my meat intake and increased my carbohydrates. I generally feel better and I’ve noticed a very sizable performance increase. I’ve been eating some meat for the occasional dinner, but that’s about it. Starchy foods and vegetables have largely replaced what was once plates rife with beef.

The point is not that one diet is better than another, though: the point is that there is value in self-experimentation. We only have one life so we might as well learn what we can!