Thai Trail Run: Khao Lak Lam-Ru National Park

Located just two minutes from the main strip of Khao Lak (which, actually, is pretty much all of Khao Lak) is the beautiful Khao Lak Lam-Ru National Park. The park, which contains a beautiful cliffside restaurant elevated into the jungle canopy overlooking the Andaman Sea, is solid rainforest pressed up against the tropical coastline.

On our first visit to the restaurant early in our time here in Thailand, I saw a trailhead sign near the restaurant indicating a 1.5km trail leading to a remote cove beach in the small park's interior. I'd looked forward to making the short trek ever since seeing it and finally the day came. After running laps around the same running track for the last three weeks, I was ready for some new scenery. My plan was to make the walk down to the beach with my wife, get all set up, and then run repeats of the trail section.

It was- for reasons very soon to be mentioned- not fully accomplished.

My wife Kendra along the trail

I was carrying the pack and after parking the car nearby, we headed down the path. I stopped about 10 feet in to grab the camera out of the side mesh pocket of my trusty backpack. Kendra continued walking and as I reached behind I maintained my gaze forward, distracted by the beautiful jungle scenery. The glint of sunlight off a spider web caught my eye and I followed it to the web's center where

holy-hell-there's-a-spider-the-size-of-my-face!

I just stood there and stared at it.

I suffer no ill will towards spiders, mind you, and have nothing near a phobia of anything save an irrational fear of sharks, but it was all I could do to just keep standing there staring at it. Kendra, further along the trail that quite inconveniently passes directly beneath the beast, senses I'm not behind her and turns around. She sees me just standing there staring and, immediately concerned, asks what wrong. Speechless, I just look down at her and then back at the spider. It would be indecent for me to repeat the words she then used.

Anyway, I overcame my initial surprise and managed to walk under the thing. We maintain a blog about our trip and I posted a picture there which I'll now link just in case the arachnophobic triathletes viewing this entry would prefer not to be involuntarily accosted by its image. It was, by our estimate, 8 inches in total length, with a body about 3 or 4inches long (very similar to or larger than the size of my thumb) and you can see it here . Turns out it's a Golden Web Orb Spider (turns out our 8in estimate was right on), and given its intimidating nature and position at the start of the trail, we would name it "The Gatekeeper."

Turns out, the Gatekeeper wasn't alone and we would encounter 5 more along the trail. In the interest of self-preservation, Kendra had me lead the length of trail to the beach so I had the privilege of discovering each of them. After the third, I just stopped telling her as it's simply easier to pass by them without knowing. It's safe to say that the plethora of giant spiders with a propensity to span the trail significantly dampened my previously unbridled enthusiasm to get in a trail run. Nevertheless, I was able to do laps of the sections that were proven safe. Here are some pictures along with some shots of the beautiful beach we found at the trail's end.  

A scenic, rocky viewpoint early on in the short hike

Running one of the 'safe' sections. When it comes to giant spiders, there are no safe sections.

Mitigating factors notwithstanding, the jungle was a beautiful, shady place to run.

The hike in, though short at just below a mile, had enough ups and downs and rugged patches to make reaching the beach feel like a pleasant reward. The warm water and small schools of fish made swimming around a pleasant way to cool off coming out of the humid jungle.

Playing with shadows on the powder-soft sand

Pictures from the running track in Thailand

Becoming Better: Skills Acquisition

My current favorite author is Atul Gawande. A general surgeon in Massachusetts, Gawande's writing style is both highly engaging- he frequently incorporates narratives of dramatic experiences accrued throughout his medical education- and quite authoritative- through a liberal citation of research studies. Two of the books he has authored that I have purchased, Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance, and, Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science, accompanied me to Thailand and I continue to learn from them as I re-read them.

In one part of Complications, Gawande depicts the necessity of tenacity and determination in regards to the successful acquisition of a skill; be it surgery, playing the violin, or professional athletics.  Gawande cites the conclusion of researchers who examined the disparity between top performers in many fields (mathematics, music, chess, etc...) and lesser performers. The difference did not lie in innate skill, but in, "the cumulative amount of deliberate practice they've had" [1]. The potential limit imposed by one's genetics upon their VO2 max is an oft-cited claim for prowess in triathlon, but maybe this is just a minor part of the story. Gawande cites the conclusion of cognitive psychologist K. Anders Ericsson when he writes that Ericcson notes, "that the most important way in which innate factors play a role may be in one's willingness to engage in sustained training" [1].

My experience with swimming certainly supports this line of thinking. Starting my freshman year of college, I began to swim in the university pool. I pursued swimming more intelligently than passionately, forcing myself to hop in the cold water and repeat stroke drills to improve my speed and efficiency. In the pool, I met Alan Jacob, a much better swimmer and very prolific cyclists (and now very good friend). Alan routinely swam daily and would clock +20 hours of riding each week regardless of the season.

When I first started swimming with Alan, I would finish maybe half of the set's 200-yard interval before he touched the wall. I remember once playing around with a warm-up by swimming with fins and thinking to myself how nice, but seemingly impossible, it would be to swim this quickly. Then Alan passed me in the adjacent lane. Swimming so slowly was frustrating.

But I kept with it. My weekly yardage held constant during the busy school year and, come summer break, I would build it up further. With each year of college, my average weekly yardage would increase and my interval splits would drop proportionally. Now, of course, it was the increase in yardage, guidance from Alan, and improved stroke mechanics that made me a better swimmer. But it was a continued willingness to go to the pool and repeatedly throw myself at a task wherein I improved very frustratingly slowly that facilitated these changes.

Leading the swim in a super-sprint triathlon held at the college during Sophomore year. I'm the closest swimmer and Alan is in the adjacent lane. I'd actually lead the race into T1, but only because Alan elected to wear bike shorts and had to keep pulling them up as he swam. He beat me by 5 minutes on the 12-mile bike leg anyway...

I remember one set Junior year. Alan and I were doing a workout we called the 400 medley, which was a continuous 400 consisting of '100 at moderate pace, 50 breast stroke, 100 build (slow to med to fast pace), 50 kick, then 100 build to a sprint. We were coming up to the wall just before the final 100 of the last 400 yard set. I was, for once, right alongside Alan. Feeling confident, I said, with a cocky edge to my voice, "I'm still here, Alan," while still staring at the wall of the pool inching closer. Alan turned his head ever so slightly and just gave me a look.

I got absolutely smoked on that last 100. Yet even though I lost the battle, in my mind I'd won the war. I was improving. In our workouts Senior year, Alan would come in slightly ahead of me on each interval just as often as we would glide into the wall together. But that improvement wasn't made from just the laps, the drill work , or the core workouts we did afterwards. It was made at 8:00 at night while staring out the window to pouring rain and a mile-long walk in the dark to the pool.

In one of our last swim workouts together after I graduated from college, I came across Alan doing some repeats with Kevin Wang, one of my school's best swimmers and now coach of the team (and the local Master's club that I swam with. Kevin was also a great source of guidance and inspiration). I hopped in and after a quick warm-up gave it a go. Kevin destroyed us both, but I glided into the wall in second place.

"Wow, you're really fast," Alan told me during the rest before the next set.

Elated at the compliment, I just smiled, dropped under the water, and kicked off the wall to start the next 200-yard interval.



*Gawande is a MacArthur Fellow, a general surgeon at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, a staff writer for The New York Times, and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health. He's also, I've found, an excellent writer.

Sources:
[1]. Gawande, Atul. "Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science." p.20 . Picador Publishing, U.S.A. 2002

Today's Run

Upon arriving at the Step Ahead Khao Lak center, I was relieved to find a great place to run just 200 yards up the road. A widespread disregard for traffic safety makes running or riding along the road more dangerous than petting great white sharks and almost as dangerous as cycling in Texas.

The loop is approximately 1 kilometer long and circumnavigates a large pond (pictured above) in a D shape. The circuit is completely flat, but that just means I'll need to be creative. Various fartleks (or, speed play) runs will comprise a lion's share of my outings. Example farleks include surging the straight section (the backbone of the D), accelerating each time I round a corner (the path isn't curved, but segmented, so that would make for about 6 surges each lap), or varying my pace with the tempo of the song I'm listening to on my iPod Shuffle.

The sunrises and sunsets I catch from the little pond loop are extraordinary and I'll photograph and post them soon. Also, the loop appears to be a public park, and several locals walk laps each morning. I'm always greeted by warm smiles as I run the loop and do my best to exchange a cheery 'su wut dee krap,' or, 'hello' ( 'krap' in Thai is a word that makes a statement polite).

The Thai Diet

Sunset view over the Andaman sea from my new favorite restaurant

In his excellent book, Racing Weight: How to Get Lean for Peak Performance, Matt Fitzgerald outlines virtually everything the serious endurance athlete could care to know about optimizing body composition. Though I'll post a thorough review of the book later, it should suffice to say that I certainly recommend it if one needs to seriously address this issue in their training and racing.

Though the book has many benefits, one of them is assisting the reader in developing a proper diet strategy based off knowledge gleamed from diet journaling. Fitzgerald adds a quote to the effect of, "A measured quantity is a managed quantity," and while I'm not measuring my food on a scale a la Armstrong, I am addressing the fueling of my body with great focus.

In doing so, I have determined that, though I was eating very healthy foods, I was also eating more of these foods than was metabolically necessary. I was quite literally having too much of a good thing.

Enter the Thai diet.

For the 6 month period before I begin medical school in early September, my wife and I will be doing volunteer work in Khao Lak, Thailand. We are working with Step Ahead, a Christian organization that works towards local community development by assisting women and children at risk, teaching English and German, and many other special projects (such as developing sustainable agriculture in a nearby impoverished village, a project that I'm excited to be working on now). Should the urge strike you, you can read about our adventures on our trip's blog at yrockmovement.blogspot.com. 

Part of being in Thailand means I have the good fortune of having unprecedented access to Thai food. It's actually cheaper here to eat out than it is to make your own meal, as only 30 baht per dish makes each dining experience $1 USD. The portions, however, are certainly Thai-sized, and with meals just rolling around three times a day, I am probably eating in the neighborhood of 60% of the volume of my American diet. Combined with daily runs timed at sunrise and sunset, I have an excellent chance of making my way to my optimal race weight and a significant improvement in performance.

I'll measure my outcome by my performance in a penultimate running event, either the Phuket Marathon, half-marathon, or 10km on June 13th, in addition to measuring my body composition (lean mass and body fat % relative to my desired body weight). I'm excited to track this transition on these pages and look forward to faster running splits once I return to the States.

I can't say that I'm too excited to return, however, cause even though we spend quite a bit of time working, we have very easy access to paradise (and, as it turns out, vacant beach resort chairs near the beach). Please note the European-tourist in the background. It's like Kona in October over here- all of the Europeans are in Speedo-style swimsuits and none of them appear to have ever heard of skin cancer. I guess I'll add sunscreen advocacy among tourists to Step Ahead's agenda.  

Examining Diet Soda

Drinking diet soda instead of regular soda is like smoking cigarettes to avoid taking meth. It doesn't make sense. At least, that's how I feel now. After buying a few Coke Zeros recently, I thought I would research the health implications of diet sodas and was surprised by what I found. 

More Diet Soda = More Obesity. And Diabetes.

Sharon Fowler, MPH, and her colleagues at the University of Texas Health Science Center-San Antonio collected data on consumers of diet soda for 8 years and presented their findings at the annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association in San Diego. The surprise finding was that those drinking only diet sodas had a much higher prevalence of obesity than those who drank the sugary versions of the soda. As Fowler tells WebMD, "There was a 41% increase in risk of being overweight for every can or bottle of diet soft drink a person consumes each day" [Source 1]. Concerning diabetes, in a study performed by the Journal of American Medicine, the daily consumption of diet soda was associated with a 67% increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes. 

The authors of the study did note that diet soda consumption wasn't likely the primary cause of the weight gain. But not only does diet soda have this high degree of correlation to obesity, it can also be unhealthy itself and lead to poor dietary decisions. To understand this, we should take a closer look at the main ingredient of diet drinks- Aspartame.

Aspartame: what is it? 

Two forms of Aspartame

Aspartame, the main sweetener in U.S. diet drinks, is distributed under several trade names- such as NutraSweet® and Equal® -and is approximately 200 times sweeter than sugar. So little of it is necessary to achieve a sweet taste within a beverage that it's caloric contribution is negligible. Upon ingestion, aspartame is catabolized into smaller molecular components, principally aspartic acid, phenylalanine, and methanol. Whereas phenylalanine and aspartic acid are both commonly encountered naturally in the body (the former is an essential amino acid in mammals), methanol is toxic and only 10mL of it will cause blindness while 100mL can cause death. Is the concentration of methanol resulting from aspartame metabolism unhealthy? Very likely not, but methanol is there, and that's a health concern to be aware of. 

In a survey of U.S. consumers performed by the FDA, the average aspartame intake was found to be approximately 200mg per day, or, 7% of the ADI (with ADI essentially being the recommended maximum daily consumption allowed to avoid health risk). A widespread controversy surrounding aspartame is that it's linked to an increased risk of various cancers. In a study published in 2006, however, the National Cancer Institute compared individuals who consumed aspartame-containing beverages to those who didn't. They found that increasing levels of aspartame consumption were not correlated with any risk of lymphomas, leukemias, or brain tumors in men or women.

My conclusions on aspartame- it seems like a perfectly acceptable artificial sweetener except for the fact that it's metabolized into methanol. Even though the quantity of methanol would likely be negligible, it's a toxic chemical that I want no part in voluntarily consuming.

So, despite my aversion to methanol consumption, the trial of diet soda seems to pass the aspartame test. But what about the affect of diet drinks on one's dietary choices.

Diet Soda: same great soda taste, but, well, even more calories. Just in a different form.

The main point of this entire blog entry is to reveal the hypocritical nature of diet soda consumption. There's a documented "Sweet Tooth" Syndrome induced by diet soda consumption wherein a person is more inclined to desire and consume sugary foods following diet coke consumption. Though the Diet Coke in your hand may have zero calories, the cookie likely to follow it has quite a few.

In a paper published by Behavioral Neuroscience, adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were given a differential experience in terms of foods provided with varying sweetness and caloric content. Here's the quote:

 "We found that reducing the correlation between sweet taste and the caloric content of foods using artificial sweeteners in rats resulted in increased caloric intake, increased body weight, and increased adiposity, as well as diminished caloric compensation and blunted thermic responses to sweet-tasting diets. These results suggest that consumption of products containing artificial sweeteners may lead to increased body weight and obesity by interfering with fundamental homeostatic, physiological processes."

The effect is similar in humans. In a study performed by the University of California- San Diego, 12 women were scanned by functional MRI while sipping water sweetened with either real sugar (sucralose) or artificial sweetener (sucralose). Though the women's palates couldn't tell the difference (sucrose and sucralose are registered the same by taste buds) the brain could register a difference. In the study, the sugar activated the pleasure-related regions of the brain more intensely than Splenda. To paraphrase, the artificial sweeteners got the brain all excited, but didn't deliver the goods. Another study by the researchers found a similar effect, where rats fed yogurt with real sugar and artificially-sweetened sugar consumed much more of the latter. They suspect that the sweeteners inhibit the brain's ability to regulate its caloric consumption. 

In addition, as anyone who regularly consumes diet soda will tell you, they're highly addictive. A fairly high concentration of caffeine combined with the seductive claim of being a zero-calorie indulgence can lead individuals to consume several daily. A study was performed where rats were fed artificial sweeteners in order to elucidate the addictive nature of the sweeteners. Not only did the rodents gain weight to the point of obesity, when given the option of consuming cocaine or diet soda, they preferred the... diet sodas!

Finally, though diet soda may replace regular soda in the diet, it is itself replacing actually healthy beverages like water. Try obtaining your caffeine fix from healthier sources, like coffee or tea, and stay away from diet soda.

Sources:

[1] Denoon, Daniel J. "Drink More Diet Soda, Gain More Weight?" http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20050613/drink-more-diet-soda-gain-more-weight . WebMD.com

[2] Better Health: Smart Health Commentary. "Do Diet Sodas Make You Fat?" http://getbetterhealth.com/do-diet-sodas-make-you-fat/2009.12.21#more-13550

[3] Scientific American. "Artificial Sweeteners Confound the Brain- May Lead to Diet Disaster." http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=artificial-sweeteners-confound-the-brain

The Complete Triathlete: A Quiz

A significant portion of triathlon's appeal lies in the attempt of mastering a sport that itself consists of three quite separate disciplines. If you've ever seen a runner try to swim, you've witnesed firsthand the challenge that triathlon presents to the athlete. But I've found that rather than embracing the subtle nuances of the sport, most triathletes- myself included -are often quite unfortunately content to swim, bike, and run lots then hope for the best on race day.

To address this problem, I devised a list which I made into a quick yes or no quiz. It's by no means comprehensive, but by taking it and analyzing the results, you can determine places you may be able to improve within each sport, your lifestyle, or triathlon as a whole.

I'll be doing my best to better address each of the questions listed below. I'd suggest embracing a couple, several, or all of them as New Year's Resolutions, but everyone knows, as demonstrated by gym attendance, that Resolutions only last until February.

SWIM
1. Do you swim with a Master's Swim Team
2. Have you had your stroke videotaped and analyzed by a qualified individual?
3. Do you not only perform drills each workout, but drills specifically addressing deficiencies in your stroke?
4. Do you practice strokes other than crawl/free-style? (For example, by swimming a small percentage of your weekly yardage backstroke, you can develop muscles that are neglected by crawl stroke and make your muscular development more balanced and your body stronger overall + less prone to injury).
5. Do you flip turn? If so, do you flip turn well?

BIKE
1. Have you been professionally fit? For example, by a F.I.S.T. certified individual, Serotta Fit Institute Certified individual, or by a service like Retul .  If not, have you put continued effort into studying and improving your position?
2. Do you train intelligently with a power meter?
3. If you train with a power meter, do you leave the numbers alone once in awhile and just go for a perceived-effort ride?
4. Do you perform a majority (about 80%) of your rides at a low-to-moderate intensity and have the remaining amount dedicated to high-intensity training (ex: tempo workouts, hill sets, sprint sets)?
5. Do you ride with a local club or team?
6. What color is your bike? Black is the fastest color, and white is even faster.
    (that's a joke, but it's also probably true)
7. Have you analyzed the relative performance of each leg with a basic or advanced exertion test?
8. Do you perform bike-specific drills like single-leg pedalling, riding a fixed gear, or riding on rollers?

RUN
1. Are you more than 10% heavier than your optimal race weight (if you know it, or over 10% above what you would expect your optimal race weight to be)?
2. Do you train for and race running events in addition to triathlon training? For example, a local 5km, 10km, or half-marathon?
3. Do you regularly perform running-specific drills each week? Ex: Before each run, do you warm-up, stretch easy, do drills, strides, then your workout?
4. Do you do a regularly core workout program which emphasizes the muscles that get under-worked compared to the running-specific ones? Ex: exercising the hip adductors and abductors?
5. Do you run consistently, have a decent variety of workouts, and have a longer run each weekend?
6. Do you only increase your mileage by about 10% each week when building up?
7. Do you get a new pair of shoes every 300-500 miles?
8. Do you make a consistent effort to run on soft substrate?

RECOVERY
1. Have you tried regularly icing, massaging, elevating, or compressing (i.e. compression apparel) your muscles to see if they improve your recovery?
2. Do you get an optimal amount of sleep (likely +7-8 hours) consistently?
3. Do you address impending injuries rapidly and diligently or try to train through unusual soreness/pain?
4. Do you have a post-workout (within 15min) recovery snack like a protein bar or fruit smoothie to replenish your glycogen stores?
5. If you've been injured in the past, have you kept up on preventative measures to keep from becoming injured again? Ex: you had ITB impingement and used a hip roller to recover and now use a massage stick daily.


NUTRITION
1. Do you eat many 'nutritionally-empty' foods?
2. Do you eat smaller, healthy meals at regular intervals during the day?
3. Do you consistently measure (as in, once a month) your body weight/composition? (A quote I picked up from Matt Fitzgerald's Racing Weight, which I'll write up a review of in the near future, spoke to the effect of "A known quantity is a managed quantity")
4. Does your weight during the off-season (usually the Thanksgiving-Christsmas desert fest) inflate beyond 10% above your training weight? For example, the weight you achieved before your taper for the previous season's A race?

LIFESTYLE
1. Are you regularly negatively-stressed? Have you identified what's causing the stress and worked towards reducing it?
2. Do you manage your time well?