We’re also not getting any sleep. Which doesn’t slow down our three-year old one bit, so the fun is compounded.

Every minute, morning and night, it seems, is occupied by a kid. Our house is a happy, lived-in, played-in wreck right now, and it’s all I can do to carve out an hour to run each day. (Mega-props to my wife, Erin, for holding down the fort while I got in 24 miles on Sunday in preparation for my 12-hour race, in just nine days.)

So you can bet the coffee is flowing. But although I’m a bit more caffeinated than usual (on my second cup, as I write this), I’m pretty proud of how well we’ve managed to keep eating well, during this time when I’m sure we need good nutrition more than ever.

Almost every night, we’re tempted to “just get takeout, tonight, and then we’ll get on top of things after that.” While the latter is proving elusive, I must admit we’ve done a good job of cooking all our meals and avoiding the 40-dollar bill (minimum) that accompanies takeout.

So I thought I’d write a quick list of the way we’re making healthy food work when we’ve got zero time — not so that you can weather the storm your next newborn brings with him or her, but in hopes that maybe you’ll find one of our strategies helpful with whatever keeps you busy, day to day.

How to Eat Healthy When You’re Short on Time

1. If you can find a free 15 minutes, make a huge batch of a high-energy, healthy snack that you can grab throughout the day to keep everyone happy. Before we had our first child, we made an amazing peanut butter granola with pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, almonds, and dried cherries. This time, it was seasoned, smoky almonds glazed in maple syrup. Both recipes are in my book that comes out in the fall, but in the meantime, it’s not hard to find homemade granola or trail mix recipes (I’ve got a bunch listed on the recipes page here). Or pickup a pre-made one at Whole Foods or from the farmers market, knowing that the additional five or ten bucks you spend will save you lots of stress and probably an impulse takeout meal.

2. Use the Dr. Seuss meal planning strategy to limit the possibilities and make it easier to choose what to make, quickly. In other words: find one main ingredient that either you already have (the best case) or is in season. Once you’ve committed to the star ingredient, it’s easy to narrow down recipe options or do a quick Google search for a recipe based on it. Often, this leads to the realization that you have everything you need to make a recipe, or can easily substitute a few ingredients to avoid a time-costly trip to the store.

3. Don’t ignore the prepared foods counter at Whole Foods. I don’t mean the hot foods bar, which is uber-expensive and not that good, but the cold deli counter, where they sell pre-formed veggie burgers or tempeh salads. They list all the ingredients right there for you, and most of them actually are whole foods (somebody was thinking when they named their store!). In a pinch, spending just a few dollars extra here can prevent the food-binge takeout trip, and the effort to heat up your food in a pan or toaster is minimal. Example: dinner tonight in the Frazier house is fresh black bean burgers — I got four of them yesterday, weighing over a pound total, for six bucks.

4. Give yourself a break, and buy some of the other foods you normally make. If you’re reading this, I bet you’re weird like we are, and pride yourself on making what most people buy. Hummus, almond butter, granola, pizza dough … all of these foods are things we normally make from scratch. They’re also all foods I’ve bought in the past week. There’s a recurring theme here: spend a little bit more than you usually do, for something slightly less healthy than you usually eat, in order to stave off the big, unhealthy, expensive takeout trip which can quickly become a habit.

5. Put out a healthy snack bowl for the kids. And the grown ups. We got this idea from Dr. Joel Fuhrman in his book Disease Proof Your Child: Every day, we put out a healthy snack on the table so that anyone who walks by can grab a handful. Sometimes it’s a simple trail mix, other times it’s vegetables with hummus or almond butter or goddess dressing to dip in. The idea here is that if everybody grazes throughout the day, people stay happy and nobody wants to cannibalize the sweet little newborn when mealtime arrives an hour late, for some unforeseen but inevitable reason.

6. Love the sandwich. For the most part, I’ve stopped eating sandwiches since I went vegetarian and eventually vegan. Without the meat or at the very least the cheese, I can admit that the thrill is gone. But that doesn’t mean they’re not still the ultimate healthy and convenient meal. Buy some sprouted Ezekiel bread (4 or 5 grams of protein per slice), load it up with whatever vegetables you’ve got around and a good shmear of hummus, and you’ve got a lunch to tide you over. (For car trips, we’ll just do almond butter on Ezekiel bread or hummus without the veggies — our son loves this lunch.) The popular one in our house these days involves hummus, avocado, tomato, the leafy green du jour, homemade vinaigrette and a pinch of sea salt.

7. Make salad ‘n’ beans sexy. Cold beans on a salad, even for lunch, sounds awful to me. It’s what I used to think you had to eat all the time if you were vegan, switching out the beans for spongy tofu when you were feeling really saucy. But here’s how I’ve come to love the old S ‘n’ B: Take a can of chickpeas, drain and rinse, then dry well. Toss the chickpeas in 1 tablespoon flour, then put them in a skillet over high heat with a teaspoon of hot oil so that they crisp up a bit. Season with salt and black pepper, then add to your salad. Sure, the flour and oil probably make the beans slightly less healthy than without, but come on — you’re eating a big-ass salad for dinner! The warm, salty, slightly crispy chickpeas absolutely make the salad meal-worthy, especially if you include some high-calorie, high-nutrient foods like avocado, hemp seeds, nuts, etc. And the total prep time is probably 10 minutes.

On that note … add beans to everything you can; they’re an easy way to substantiate and up the nutrient content of any meal. Twice I’ve made pasta al arrabbiata in the past three weeks, since we had the stuff we needed on hand, and both times I threw in a cup and a half of cannellini beans we had made ahead of time and frozen (a can works, too, of course) — to make a healthy meal out of one that would otherwise fall just short, in my opinion.

8. Simplify the smoothie. I’d be remiss not to mention smoothies in a post on quick, simple, nutritious food (or any post, for that matter ). Those times when I can’t count on all of my meals being rich in nutrients, I can always count on my old blended buddy the smoothie to deliver. The way to keep it from becoming a preparation beast of its own is to take a few minutes and put all your dry base ingredients (seeds, protein powder, etc) into single-serving, reusable cups, so you can store them in the fridge and just pop one open to dump into the blender instead of having to get out all the stuff, every time.

9. Go back to basics with a grain, a green, and a bean. This meal is a miracle for four reasons — it’s substantial and healthy, you almost always have the ingredients on hand, active prep time is almost zero, and it dirties only one pot. I like adding some rice to a version of this one, and tossing in tons of baby spinach during the last few minutes.

And one more …

As I was putting this list together, I thought of a few more little tips that didn’t lend themselves well to a list, and the most important of them is this:

Do everything you can to pick up one or two extra meals at the grocery store when you go. Nothing eats up your time like going to the grocery store every single day — and I definitely tend to fall into this habit when things get busy.

But recently, when I run to pick up the ingredients for a meal, I’ve been able to improvise and grab more stuff that I know I can make into something good for the next night or two. Base your choices, again, on what vegetables look good or what you know you have at home in the freezer. You’ll get better at this as you cook more and become comfortable with making substitutions in case you forgot to pick up something. This is also a time when swinging by the prepared foods counter can be a lifesaver.

Whatever your method, it feels great to know you’ve got 2 or 3 minimal-effort meals in the hopper so you can grab an extra 20 minutes to kick back with a mojito in the evening. Or not.

Alrighty, that’s all for now. I’m sure somewhere in the house there’s a diaper that needs changing or a story that needs reading or a scraped knee that needs kissing — not to mention seven miles that need running — so I should probably get to work. See you soon!

As he walked up the stairs, Rich had to stop, bend over and catch his breath before he could continue. Sweat was on his brow. The stress and busyness of life on the partnership track at a law firm had taken their toll on the body of this former Stanford swimmer.

Instead of blaming his work or coming up with another excuse, Rich did what most people don’t. He seized the moment. He decided then and there that things would change — that things had to change.

It’s hard to believe that just two years after the staircase incident, Rich finished one of the most grueling endurance events on the planet — Ultraman, essentially a double Ironman-distance stage triathlon — in 11th place, no less. And the following year, Men’s Fitness magazine named him one of the 25 Fittest Guys in the World. (Oh, and did I mention Rich did it all on a plant-based diet?)

In this episode of No Meat Athlete Radio, Doug and I had the absolute pleasure of hanging out with Rich, author of Finding Ultra and now host of the wildly popular Rich Roll podcast, to pick his brain about the behaviors and mindset that allowed him to make such dramatic changes, going from overweight and unhealthy at age 40 to one of the most famous vegan athletes in the world — all in the span of about two years.

We’ve also got a special giveaway with this episode: to celebrate the debut of the paperback edition of Finding Ultra (affiliate link) next week (that’s May 21), Rich and his publisher, Three Rivers Press, have generously provided several copies for some lucky NMA Radio listeners! (I also somehow ended up with an extra copy of the hardcover version, so I’ll throw that in the pot too.)

Here’s how you get your hat in the ring to try to win one:

1. If you just want to do the bare minimum, leave a comment on this post. On May 21 (the day the paperback edition is released), we’ll randomly draw winners and announce them in the comments section here.

2. As the Chotchkie’s manager in Office Space says, “Look, we want you to express yourself, okay? Now if you feel that the bare minimum is enough, then okay. But some people choose to wear more, and we encourage that.” So show your flair and get a second entry by leaving us a rating and honest review on iTunes (and letting us know here that you did).

Good luck, and enjoy this inspiring episode!

Click the button below to listen now:

Download audio file (nmaradio12.mp3)

Or:

• Click here to download the MP3 file (you may need to right-click and “save link as”)
• Subscribe to the show on iTunes

As always, please leave us a rating and review on iTunes if you like the show, so that we know to keep ‘em coming!

Doug, Rich, and Matt at DC Vegfest 2012.

Links from the show:

• Rich Roll’s Website
• The Rich Roll Podcast (iTunes)
• Finding Ultra
• Jai Seed Cookbook
• 7 Day Vegan
• From Chicken-Fried Steak to 26.2 Miles on Plants: Wendy’s Story
• Couch Potato to Ironman — In 20 Months (Susan Lacke’s story)
• The 4-Hour Workweek
• 10 Uncommon Superfoods from the World of Ultra-Endurance (Rich’s post on Tim Ferriss’ blog)
• Why Vegans and Paleos Should Stop Hating Each Other
• No Meat Athlete Triathlon Roadmap

Thanks for listening, and special thanks to Rich for taking the time to chat with us and share his insight and wisdom. Check out his podcast to hear more from Rich every week.

Most of the foods that I eat — and those in a typical healthy vegan diet (as opposed to the junk-food variety) — are Paleo.

Sure, the seeds are iffy. And I probably eat beans three or four times a week, and even wheat once in a while, which Paleos wouldn’t do.

But beyond that, the foods on my list, by and large, could have been eaten by a caveman.

Guess what? The converse is true, too. Most (yes, most) of a Paleo dieter’s foods are vegan. They’re whole foods, including a ton of vegetables and nuts, a fair amount of fruits, and no dairy.

Though we focus on the differences in our diets, and fight like pissed-off hornets as a result, the healthy versions of both Paleo and vegan diets look an awful lot alike.

Here are just a few of the things we agree on:

• Vegetables are good, and organic vegetables are better.
• Nuts are good.
• Fruits are good (with some qualifications).
• Fast food is awful.
• It isn’t natural or healthy for adult humans to drink milk meant for baby cows.
• Whole food is crucial; we should eat food as close to its natural state as possible.
• Processed food is evil, and there’s something very wrong with the system that is foisting it upon us.

Do you realize what a small minority these shared beliefs put us in?

Each day, 1 in 4 Americans eats fast food. Forty-four percent eat it once per week!

Only about a quarter of Americans never eat fast food, so we’ve got a lot in common already, without even considering our common avoidance of dairy. I can’t find a figure for how exclusive a group it is that doesn’t consume dairy, but and as NY Times columnist and Vegan Before 6 advocate Mark Bittman puts it, “Drinking milk is as American as Mom and apple pie.”

And we still haven’t even cordoned ourselves off from the masses who buy mostly processed, packaged foods to eat at home — the vast majority of whoever remains after we eliminate fast food and dairy, I’m sure.

Essentially, those of us who avoid fast food, pass on milk, and choose whole foods are the weirdos, in a world of processed food and rapidly expanding waistlines.

Even when it comes to meat — the “staple” of the Paleo diet (more on this in a second) — I think most Paleos would agree that what our factory farm system produces, whether due to the way the animals are confined or what they’re fed or what’s injected into them, is not healthy.

And the healthiest vegan athletes, by my judgement anyway, advocate limiting grains or avoiding them entirely. Very often they rely on pseudograins like quinoa (technically seeds) instead, which don’t jive with Paleo, but I think most Paleos would agree that seeds trump wheat and grains any day.

Basically: we’re far more alike than we are different.

So why do we hate each other?

I get that the ethical issues muddy things up a bit. Vegans hate that Paleos so proudly eat meat; Paleos hate that vegans try to tell them something that humans have done throughout our history is suddenly wrong.

But for now, let’s put that aside, and acknowledge that if all meat-eaters ate meat raised the way the Paleo diet specifies it should be, our food system would be a heck of a lot more humane (and healthy) than it currently is.

Speaking of meat, I asked my online-buddy Joel Runyon, what he thought about the vegan/Paleo feud, he had this to say:

The biggest misconception about the paleo diet is that it’s all about eating meat. Not true! Paleo is about eating whole, real food that hasn’t been processed a thousand times & packed with tons of sugar.

And as he explains on his new site, Ultimate Paleo Guide,

… that means no twinkies, oreos or your favorite breakfast cereal. Sorry, but we’re not sorry … if it’s got a bunch of chemicals that you can’t pronounce in it, it’s probably not paleo – sorry!

Gee, sounds a lot like how I eat.

We can argue forever over which diet is better. Guess what? Nobody is going to convince anyone to switch sides; the argument just entrenches each camp even more.

Who is to say what “better” even means? Do we look at pro athletes and see what they’re eating? Okay, in which sports — endurance, or speed and strength sports? Or should we instead choose not to look at the healthiest, most genetically gifted individuals on the planet, and instead focus on the masses of people who just want to stay reasonably fit and live to see their grandkids graduate high school?

Do we theorize about how humans are meant to eat, or should we look at empirical studies of how humans on these diets have actually fared? (Of which, unfortunately, there are few that isolate the variables we want and span a significant length of time.)

There’s no right answer. Sorry. But in the face of the obesity epidemic our processed-food society faces, it doesn’t matter.

That’s right — when you set ethics aside and talk about health, my view is that is that the distinction between Paleo and vegan is completely insignificant.

As time goes on and more research is done, it’ll be nice to have a clearer picture of which of these two diets leads to long-term disease prevention and health. That I wholeheartedly concede.

But most people — indeed, the 35 percent of Americans who are obese — don’t need to worry about which is better right now. They need to worry about not being obese, soon, so that the “long-term” even matters for them.

And for those people, people who are overwhelmed with the conflicting information out there and don’t know where to even begin, our blog posts and articles that trash one diet in favor of the other don’t help. Instead, they confuse, to the point of inaction.

Vegan ultra-endurance athlete Rich Roll had an interesting discussion about this same topic last week on his podcast, where he talked to Andy Bellatti, MS, RD about the pointlessness of the Paleo/vegan feud. Before they even got to it, Rich mentioned a friend of his who wanted to get in shape.

Like any friend of one of Men’s Fitness magazine’s 25 Fittest Guys in the World would do, this friend called Rich. He wanted to pick Rich’s brain about exercise. Aerobic, or anaerobic?, along with other specific questions.

Rich’s answer? Get yourself outside and go for a walk. That’s how you get started. That’s as much as you need to worry about right now.

And that’s really the point I want to make with this post. Ignoring ethical arguments, which don’t have a place in a discussion that’s purely about health, the message that people who don’t know how to eat healthily need to hear is as simple as the dietary equivalent of a walk in the sunshine.

It’s a recommendation that Paleos and vegans alike will agree on: Eat whole foods.

What we could do instead of fighting

We want so many of the same things.

We want people to be healthy. We want farming to be separate from the word “factory.” We want our food system to provide us with real food, and to treat people, animals, and the earth with respect.

So instead of fighting, let’s do some things together.

The posts on No Meat Athlete about plant-based Paleo diets are a start. Dena Harris went further with it by creating PaleoVegetarians.com.

But these aren’t even what I’m referring to — these simply make Paleo fit into a vegetarian/vegan-shaped mold. They’re as Paleo as possible while still being strictly vegan or vegetarian.

Why not throw away the mold entirely? I think Vegan Before 6 is great. Why isn’t there a podcast with vegan and Paleo co-hosts, who get along and have intelligent discussions and promote eating whole foods above all else? How about a blogger who eats vegan during the week and Paleo on the weekends? How about vegan at home, Paleo at restaurants?

(If any these things exist, which they might, I’d love to hear about them. I’d probably be a fan.)

I’m not suggesting we throw away the labels. Vegan means a lot to me, for ethical reasons and for health-related ones too. I’m sure Paleos feel the same about their tribe. I’m just saying let’s work together, instead of against each other, for the good of everyone who simply wants to learn to be healthy, and doesn’t care how.

I understand that some vegans will be turned off by this post (Paleos too, but that’s no surprise, given the very rift I’m writing about!). We’ve taught ourselves to disdain everything Paleo, and I’ve met plenty of vegans for whom it’s vegan or nothing — flexitarian, pescetarian, vegetarian … none of them is any good if it’s not 100 percent vegan.

This is where I’m different. I’d rather see 100 people go mostly vegan than 25 people go all the way. 1000 people go Vegan-Before-6 than 100 go vegan. And I’d take a million Paleos over a million Standard American Dieters any day. This is why I don’t hate the Paleo diet, or its legions of adherents.

Oh yeah, and there’s a more personal reason I don’t want to hate Paleos. My dad has gone Paleo (or Primal, really) in the past year, and I’ve been happy to see the improvements — yes, improvements — in his diet and his health since he started. Which is convenient, since I really didn’t want to fight my dad anyway.

Before Paleo, he ate like most people did. Now, he pays attention to what he eats, making sure to have a salad every day, bringing fruit and a homemade sandwich to work, cooking most of his food, and avoiding most dairy and wheat. He eats meat, of course, but no more than he used to, at least as far as I can tell, and he cares about how the animals it comes from were fed and raised. He gets eggs directly from a small local farm you can go visit, and has even mentioned wanting to raise his own chickens.

I don’t think I need to point out that I’m not arguing for Paleo. I’m arguing for whole food, food that is easy to pronounce and prepare and doesn’t make a secret of where it came from. Call it whatever you want.

That’s what will make the difference in people’s health and in our food system, and it’s neither Paleo nor vegan. Whole food is both, and that common ground, along with tremendous passion we all have for healthy eating, is something we should leverage if we want to make a real difference.

They’re fun, sure, and everybody likes saying “Hey, I eat that one already!” But as far as actually helping us to eat better, lists like these are pretty worthless.

The problem? None of them helps you to eat these foods habitually. We see the list, we make a mental note to eat more X, Y, and Z, and then we forget we ever read it as soon as someone sends us a cat video.

With that in mind, I present my version of the list — with a twist. The foods here are the ones I actually do eat every single day for their health benefits, but more importantly, I explain how I make sure to eat each one.

You’ll see that incorporating these foods daily (or any food you want to eat daily) is like creating any other habit.

You’ll also see why I link to the Perfect Smoothie Formula so often, and believe that adopting just this one habit can make a dramatic difference in your health. 

Here they are, in roughly the order that I eat them each day.

1. Berries.

Blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries are perennial favorites on Top 10 Superfoods lists, so I’m sure this won’t be the first time you’ve heard that they’re packed with cancer-fighting antioxidants, and that they can slow the aging process and prevent heart disease, among many, many other good things.

How I get them each day: A few handfuls in my smoothie, first thing in the morning. I almost always use frozen, which aren’t much worse than fresh in terms of nutrition, but when they’re in season and I can get them at the farmers market, I’ll use fresh.

2. Broccoli. 

Still not breaking any new ground here — everyone knows that broccoli is good for you. Besides the commonly cited reasons to eat broccoli, like its Vitamin C and A contents and its anti-cancer, anti-heart disease properties, broccoli is rich in calcium and even protein (but by weight, not volume, so enough with the “broccoli has more protein than steak” arguments already).

The problem, of course, is that most people don’t eat it. I actually think well cooked (i.e., crisp-tender) broccoli is delicious, but if broccoli with dinner isn’t your thing, try it in the morning. That’s right.

How I get it each day: In my smoothie. Whenever we cook broccoli for dinner (which is often), we chop up the stem and freeze it along with any leftover florets. We toss a handful of these into the smoothie (along with the tops of strawberries, which we save in the same container), and our Blendtec takes care of the rest.

3. Pumpkin seeds. 

Pumpkin seeds, also called pepitas, offer a host of benefits and are a good source of protein, but the main reason I eat them: iron. Iron is one of the more common deficiencies for vegetarians and vegans, and although you can get it in other vegan iron sources like beans, grains, and veggies, it’s nice to know I’m starting each morning with some.

How I get them each day: Smoothie, again. Use about a 3 tablespoons of raw pumpkin seeds for two smoothies.

4. Chia seeds.

Thanks in part to their prominence in the Tarahumara diet explored in Chris McDougall’s Born to Run, chia seeds are enjoying their moment in the sun. As McDougall writes:

In terms of nutritional content, a tablespoon of chia is like a smoothie made from salmon, spinach, and human growth hormone. As tiny as those seeds are, they’re superpacked with omega-3s, omega-6s, protein, calcium, iron, zinc, fiber, and antioxidants. If you had to pick just one desert island food, you couldn’t do much better than chia, at least if you were interested in building muscle, lowering cholesterol, and reducing your risk of heart disease …

Sold. Even if the above overstates the case a bit.

How I get them each day: Smoothie, again. Use 2 tablespoons of chia seeds for two smoothies. (I get them in a bag and keep them in the fridge.)

5. Flax seeds.

Flax seeds offer a bunch of nutritional benefits and are relatively high in protein, B-vitamins, and phytochemicals, but mainly, I eat them for the omega-3s.

If you don’t mind grinding seeds each day — or better, if you have a high speed blender that will do the job for you — get flax seed in whole form. You’ll need to grind it in order for your body to absorb the nutrients, but if you let the powder sit around, it’ll go rancid quickly (as high nutrient foods often do).

How I get them each day: Where else? Smoothie. Use 2 tablespoons of flax seeds for two smoothies.

6. Brazil nuts.

If any of the foods on my list is controversial, it’s this one. Besides fighting the Big 3 (cancer, heart disease, and aging), Brazil nuts are extremely high in selenium, which helps with testosterone production. You hear a lot about decreasing testosterone levels among aging men, but a 2007 study showed a population-level decline of testosterone levels in American males.

Vegan superathlete Rich Roll mentions in Finding Ultra that he eats Brazil nuts for testosterone production, and Tim Ferriss suggests the same in the 4-Hour Body. (Although testosterone is less important for women, it’s not something to ignore entirely, especially for the over-50 set.)

While I haven’t had a blood panel done, if this simple self-test [warning: slightly NSFW] is worth anything, the Brazils are working.

The controversy around Brazil nuts is threefold:

First, they contain a fairly high amount of saturated fat. Not a big concern for me or most other vegans, since plant foods for the most part contain very little saturated fat.

Second, they contain more radium (a naturally occurring radioactive element) than any other food. This amount is small compared to environmental sources, though, and the body absorbs very little, so Brazil nuts are not believed to pose a serious health risk.

Finally, while some selenium is essential, too much is a bad thing. Further, Brazil nuts vary drastically in selenium content depending on their age and whether they’re shelled or not. For this reason, I limit the amount I eat to between one and four Brazils each day.

How I get them each day: After I write for 30-60 minutes each morning, I take a little break. During that break, I eat 1 to 4 brazil nuts, with Super Exciting Bonus (below). When I used to take a multivitamin, I took it during this break as well.

Super Exciting Bonus: B-12 supplement. 

Look, if you’re vegan (or perhaps even if you’re a vegetarian who eats dairy), don’t mess around with B-12 deficiency. There are all kinds of myths floating around out there — the one I fell for was that it will take many, many years after you stop eating animal products for a deficiency to develop. This isn’t true, and I believe I experienced some of the symptoms last year until I started taking a supplement.

Some people will argue you can get B-12 from chlorella or “dirty produce,” but why risk it? By the way, get your B-12 in methylcobalamin form, instead of the cheaper and more common cyanocobalamin, which is not absorbed well.

How I get it each day: After eating brazil nut(s), I take a 1000 mcg B-12 lozenge (as methylcobalamin), dissolved under the tongue.

7. Green tea.

Besides being an anti-oxidant powerhouse, green tea is an anti-angiogenesis food, meaning it “starves” cancer cells by inhibiting blood vessel grown in tumors. (At least that’s my understanding; see Dr. William Li’s TED talk on the topic.)

Green tea happens to be delicious and extremely interesting, in the same way that wine is, and I’m on a bit of a green tea journey myself. Dragonwell is still my favorite, but I often drink Sencha and Liu’an Gaupian too.

How I get it each day: During afternoon break from work — I either brew it fresh or drink it out of the fridge, where I store it in a beer growler, since the leaves are good for 3+ infusions and I can never drink that much at once. I drink it alongside dark chocolate (below).

8. Dark chocolate.

Another antioxidant-rich, anti-angiogenesis food, and another delicious one at that. I used to hate dark chocolate as a kid, but my tastes have gradually changed. Now I can’t get enough of 88% Cacao Endangered Species chocolate, and I don’t feel bad about eating a lot of it, as the fat and sugar contents are minuscule compared to what’s in the sweet stuff.

Read about many, many more reasons to eat dark chocolate every day, from Mark’s Daily Apple.

How I get it each day: During afternoon break from work, about half an ounce, with green tea (above).

9. Dark, leafy greens.

A no-brainer. If there’s a single food most of us need to eat more of, it’s dark, leafy greens. Just a few of the options — spinach, kale, collards, chard, arugula, and others on this infographic. Eat them raw as often as possible, wash them well, and vary your choices so that you’re not eating the same one over and over, to avoid potential dangers of concentrated heavy metals.

How I get it each day: Salad before dinner (if I didn’t already eat one at lunch).

10. Avocado.

It’s not just for guacamole anymore. Avocado packs high levels of healthy monounsatured fats to help lower bad cholesterol and raise good cholesterol levels, along with lots of vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients. Honestly though, for me it’s the calories. The fat (and hence, total calorie) levels of avocados might be a concern for some, but as a vegan runner who goes through tons of calories, I don’t know of many whole food sources that are as densely packed with energy.

How I get it each day: Half an avocado with salad before dinner (if I didn’t already eat one at lunch). Occasionally, on a sandwich with Ezekiel bread for lunch.

Other Foods I Eat Several Times a Week

Though I eat the above foods every day, they’re really only a small part of my diet. There are many others that I eat several times a week, or even every day, but not as part of a habitual routine like the ones above. In short, these foods that show up in a lot of the recipes I cook anyway.

• Beans
• Assorted fruits, mostly oranges, apples, and bananas
• Raw nuts, especially almonds and walnuts (usually in raw trail mix from Whole Foods)
• Coconut products (coconut manna/butter, coconut oil, coconut milk)
• Garlic
• Turmeric
• Ginger
• Tomatoes (usually cooked, since this helps increase levels of cancer-fighting lycopene)
• Lemon juice (you can get the previous 5 foods in a single Indian meal, which is partly why my family eats so much Indian food!)
• Dates (usually only while I’m running)

Three Points to Note

I hope you’ve noticed three things in particular about this list.

1. It’s not about the food, really. Many people will disagree with my choices and omissions, and that’s cool. What I hope you get out of this post, more than anything, is the idea that you can treat eating superfoods like any other habit. Adding a certain food or two to your diet happens to be a very easy habit to start, so use standard habit-change procedures to incorporate the foods you want into your life.

2. I didn’t include obscure superfoods. There are lots of foods out there that blow away most of these in terms of certain nutrient contents, but I tend to eat pretty simply. If you’re into superfoods and don’t mind searching high and low for them, the list to check out is the one Rich Roll posted on Tim Ferriss’ blog: 10 Uncommon Superfoods from the World of Ultra-Endurance.

3. There are two other foods (drinks, really) that I consume just about every day. These are a small cup of coffee, and either a beer or a glass of wine. I don’t necessarily believe they’re healthy — I know articles touting their benefits get passed around the workplace all the time, but I tend to think this is because we like to hear that coffee and alcohol are good for us. But it’s not that I think they’re bad, either. Each has pluses and minuses, and you need to decide for yourself if they’re good for you, because different people will value health issues differently.

For example, alcohol seems to reduce incidence of heart disease, but slightly increase the risk of some cancers (even in small amounts, like one drink per day). Since heart disease runs in my family more than cancer does, I’m okay with a drink each night. I’d be lying if I said that enjoyment didn’t play into this decision, but I’m not ashamed of this — happiness is a pretty big part of healthfulness.

The Unrelated PS, and a Request

Yesterday, I had the immense pleasure of being featured in an interview on Copyblogger.com. The interview isn’t about health and fitness, but rather about what I’ve done to build No Meat Athlete from a little journal of my experiment with vegetarianism into whatever it is today. I learned so much from Copyblogger to aid in that process, and if that interests you, I hope you’ll check out the interview. Thanks!

It’s been a while since I put up a collection of my favorites, so … here goes! The best ones we’ve gotten since the beginning of the year (as judged by me, based mainly on factors like coolness, absurdity, and general running-carrotness).

Enjoy!

NMA All-Stars

Gregg and Kellie, proud finishers of their first ultramarathon, the 50K Trail Mix Ultra in Minnesota. Yep, that’s snow.

Michael outfitted the Stop & Shop produce department, which could not possibly have been in the manual:

Oh, you know, just a typical first marathon — through Death Valley, home to the hottest temperature ever recorded on planet Earth! Way to pick an easy one for your first, Jeanette.

Susan and Heather, who collectively racked up over 110 miles during their 12-hour race!

A group of animal-rights loving zombies let Melissa pass by, and even gave her some high-fives (really!) during her Run for Your Lives Zombie 5K, but as happens all too often, the zombies got her in the end:

Tom, sporting NMA green (and a wig, I hope) on St. Patrick’s Day:

Paul, also on St. Paddy’s day, while perhaps not as festive as Tom, let his running do the talking with a sub-40 minute 10K!

Lily took 1st place in her age group in her very first 5K! Undefeated at the 5K distance!

Don’t mess with Kyle, aka the Vegan Grappler:

Claes, all the way from Paris (and I could have sworn that was Las Vegas in the background):

Emily, during her 45K trail run in the Victorian Alps (Australia) — I always do this in my races too.

 Helena, sporting the brand new NMA cycling jersey:

 Laura, showing off the back (at CicLAvia):

And finally, Asia before her Color Me Rad 5K …

… and Asia after. 

This is why we can’t have nice things.

Thanks to everyone for wearing your NMA shirts proudly and submitting them on Facebook. No Meat Athlete would be nothing without its peeps on the ground.

2 Ways to Get in on that Sweet Action

I know, I know … you’re just dying to know where you can get one too, to enjoy your 15 minutes of something not even remotely close to fame on the NMA blog. Well, you’re in luck!

1. You’ll find most of our stuff in the No Meat Athlete store. We just got a big shipment of shirts in, and just about everything is in stock except a few random sizes, and some of the men’s tanks.

2. Cycling jerseys and triathlon tops (shown at the bottom of this post) are only available by pre-order (they’re way too expensive to stock for little old us). You can order one now, but only through May 1, 2013. They take a while to process and print, so this batch is scheduled to be delivered in early August. Please consult the size chart before ordering, as the vendor can’t do exchanges or returns for sizing issues.

In the meantime, keep sending in those photos! This post was full of stupid jokes, but in all seriousness, thanks so much for representing No Meat Athlete at your races. It means the world to me and all of us at No Meat Athlete.

Leo Babauta has been vegetarian for quite some time now — in fact, the decision not to eat meat was a major factor in the life changes that prompted him to start Zen Habits, which now reaches over 1 million readers with advice and strategies for living a simple, healthy, fulfilling life.

But more recently, Leo has embraced a completely vegan diet. And to answer the question I posed at the beginning of this post: When a blogger like Leo goes vegan, he introduces a lot of others to this lifestyle — in his decidedly non-preachy, no-pressure, strikingly effective manner.

Thus was the born the 7 Day Vegan challenge, a collaborative project that Leo created by bringing together lots of well-known vegan bloggers, cookbook authors, and athletes (including fellow podcaster Rich Roll).

The site provides exactly what it sounds like: the framework for a week-long challenge to help readers try out a plant-based diet, complete meal plans, recipes, advice on habit change (Leo’s specialty) and nutrition and lifestyle tips. And it’s all completely free, there simply to help spread the message about this lifestyle we enjoy so much.

In this episode of the No Meat Athlete Radio podcast, Doug and I had the pleasure of hanging out with Leo for 45 minutes to talk food and healthy eating. Along with details about the 7 Day Vegan challenge, our conversation is all about simplifying the process of healthy eating in general — whether that means vegan, vegetarian, or just curious.

Enjoy the episode with Leo, and please, check out and spread the word about 7 Day Vegan. I really think it has the potential to do so much.

Click the button below to listen now:

Download audio file (nmaradio11.mp3)

Or:

• Click here to download the MP3 file (you may need to right-click and “save link as”)
• Subscribe to the show on iTunes

If you like our podcast, please do us the huge favor of leaving a review on iTunes, so we can record episodes more often!

Links from the show:

• The 7 Day Vegan Challenge
• Zen Habits
• A Guide to Eating a Plant Based Diet
• Finally, the Truth about Soy
• Being Vegan is Easy
• Doug’s 50-Miler Recap
• What it Means to be a Runner (post after the Boston Marathon)
• NMA Radio Episode 10: How Do You Bounce Back When a Race Goes Horribly Wrong?
• 8 Lessons Learned in 8 Weeks of Training for a 100-Miler

Like most new triathletes — especially those who started out as runners — I had a lot of really strange questions when I first decided to take on a triathlon.

Though I was comfortable as a runner, learning how to add a swim and bike turned me into an inquisitive pain in the ass around my triathlete friends:

“Why do you wear those pointy helmets? Can I wear arm floaties on the swim? Where did all the men’s body hair go?”

One of the questions I had was particularly puzzling:

How the heck does anyone eat at these things?

I know I’m not alone in that bewilderment. As I’ve worked on the upcoming No Meat Athlete Triathlon Roadmap, I’ve encountered a lot of people who once felt the same way. For many runners-turned-triathletes, their fueling routine for running was nailed down, but triathlon was weird.

In a marathon, I knew to fuel early and often, taking in carbohydrates nearly from the start of the race. So in a triathlon, did that mean I was supposed to start eating during the swim?

What? How? Didn’t Grandma say something about waiting an hour?

With time, of course, I began to learn that fueling for a triathlon isn’t so confusing after all. It just takes a few rules of thumb and a lot of experimentation.

In triathlon, nutrition and hydration are so important, they’re often referred to as the “fourth discipline” of the sport. But no matter what distance you’re racing, whether it’s your first sprint or a full-on Ironman distance, the key elements of fueling for your triathlon are the same.

Here’s a look at 12 basic guidelines that apply to triathlons of most any distance:

Pre-Race

1. The morning of your race, take in between 200 and 500 calories.

It’s a wide range of caloric intake, and your pre-race breakfast should be based on your own preferences. Also consider how much time you have before the race – if you’re eating three hours before the starting gun, that will give you more time to digest a bigger breakfast.

2. Get a good mix of carbohydrate, protein, and healthy fats.

As Matt points out in the 5 Essentials of Pre-Workout Nutrition, 3 grams of carbohydrate to 1 gram of protein is typically said to be the perfect ratio, with a splash of healthy fats for good measure. Some typical race-morning breakfasts:

• A smoothie with protein powder
• Bread, English muffins or toaster waffles with peanut butter
• Cereal with almond milk
• Fruit and yogurt
• A banana with almond butter

There are also a lot of atypical race-morning breakfasts: cold pizza, ice cream, and soup are some race-morning breakfasts I’ve seen fellow triathletes consume. It’s up to you to decide what works. Some people do well with fiber, while others experience gastrointestinal issues with it. Some like a big breakfast, while others would rather just eat a gel or nutrition bar. Again, experiment during your training to find your perfect race-morning nosh.

3. Caffeinate (maybe).

If you’ve had coffee, tea, or another caffeinated beverage on training days with no ill effects, then go ahead and drink it on race morning. Some people drink it for the caffeine jolt, while others pick it up because it makes things – ahem – move before you start moving. If you’ve ever visited a port-o-john before a race, you know what I’m talking about. (Wink. Nod. Air-gun.) You don’t specifically need coffee for that – a mug of hot water will do the trick, too.

Race morning is not the time to suddenly start a coffee habit! Some people resemble a rabid labrador on crack cocaine after a cuppa Joe. This sounds like it’d be perfect for getting some free speed in a race, but in actuality, it just makes for anxiety, difficulty focusing, or nausea – not at all what you want on your big day.

4. Drink water.

Guzzling gallons of water on race morning will not really do anything for you except make you have to pee. Instead, drink lots of water throughout the days before the race, and drink some on race morning to “top off the tank.”

During The Race

5. Fuel the machine.

Your main objective during the race is to stay on top of nutrition and hydration. In shorter races, this is easy to achieve, since the body’s natural stores of glycogen will often suffice. Longer races, however, require strategic planning.

Your body’s stock of carbohydrates will keep energy levels up while you’re racing. No matter what distance you’re racing, take 100 to 200 calories of easily-digested carbohydrate (gels are perfect for this, as are dates) with a healthy gulp of water 15 minutes before the race. This will give your body an extra boost to draw from during the swim.

There’s no shortage of posts from running bloggers claiming they don’t deserve the title, despite logging 30 or 50 or more miles every week. (Here’s mine, from over three years ago.)

For me, it took six marathons and a Boston qualification before I began to think of myself as a runner. But now that I’m comfortable with the name, I understand that being a runner has absolutely nothing to do with achievement.

Rather, it’s a mindset, a sense of connection with other runners … something that you just feel.

You feel it when you pass the same runner, day in and day out on your little neighborhood loop, and exchange that almost imperceptible nod that says, I understand.

You feel it when you’re in the car and you drive by a runner laboring to get her day’s miles in, and you wish that your little tap on the horn and thumbs-up could somehow express to her, I know exactly what you’re feeling, I’ve been there; come on, you can get through it.

And you felt it yesterday — Patriots’ Day, Marathon Monday, our sport’s proudest day – when you heard that something had gone horribly wrong at the Boston Marathon.

I think you become a runner when you recognize, in your own running, the essential kernel that motivates you and every other runner to get out there and log in the miles at the expense of so much else. Some runners do it for the medals and the t-shirts. Some run just to stay in shape. And others do it because, as they say, running is cheaper than therapy. But I think that at the most basic level, every one of us who runs does so because, deep down, we crave that little daily battle — against busyness, distraction, adversity, self-doubt — that every time we lace up our shoes, push ourselves out the door, and run, we win.

And when you reach the point when you look at another runner and sense that he understands the ins and outs of the very same struggle you do — and that, whatever his method, he manages to win it, over and over, just like you — you feel the connection.

To me, that’s what it means to be a runner.

When I got the text message yesterday saying there had been explosions at the Boston Marathon finish line, it was just about time for my scheduled five-miler. But as I watched the news with my wife (also a runner) and it steadily became apparent that this tragedy was no accident, I lost any motivation I had to run.

Something about running felt selfish … or maybe I just understood that, no matter how well I ran, there would be no win today.

For most of the afternoon, I just wanted to forget. To forget that no big city marathon, especially not our beloved Boston Marathon, would ever be the same. To forget that the very phrase “Boston Marathon,” with all the majesty and history and charm that are inextricably wrapped up within it, would be for many years supplanted by “Boston Marathon bombing,” words that would recall the images of the bloody sidewalk and the videos of flashing light, smoke, and panic.

And for a few minutes, I wanted to forget that I was a runner at all. As if distancing myself from it all would help to numb the pain.

But as the evening wore on and tragic details continued to trickle in, I felt something I’ve never felt before in my years as a runner: I sensed that I had to run … not for myself, but for someone — or something — else.

To say that I ran to honor the victims would feel a bit phony — when I headed out to run, there wasn’t any information about who they were or how old they were. All we could really guess was that each of yesterday’s victims was either a runner, or someone who loved a runner. And while it didn’t feel like it was my place to say that I was running for people I didn’t know, as I ran during the last hour of daylight last night, I got the distinct sense that I was running for something I did know — deeply, and personally.

I was running, really, for running.

I longed to see just one other runner, someone with whom to share that familiar, subtle nod that would say I understand, but mean so much more this time.

In the whole hour, I didn’t see a single other runner. But I knew they were out there, and that any who were would be thinking and feeling the same things I was.

And that, of course, is again what it means to be a runner.

I get the sense that, with time, we’ll come to view yesterday’s bombing as an attack on our country. But in the moment, it felt like it was an attack on the much smaller community surrounding our sport. After I got home and my wife and I hugged our son extra tightly before putting him down to bed, I signed onto Twitter, to connect with the community of runners I am lucky to have there.

I was unprepared for what awaited. There were hundreds of uplifting messages — quotes like Katherine Switzer’s, “If you are losing faith in humanity, go out and watch a marathon.” Posts from runners who said that earlier in the day they had questioned their goal to one day run a marathon, but now felt more strongly than ever that they had to make it happen. News that everyone would be wearing a running shirt today, Boston gear if they had it, in a show of unity. And of course, the outpouring of support for the victims and their loved ones, the city of Boston, and the runners, many of whom were still in their running clothes and without a place to stay, their flights cancelled and their bags lost in the commotion. Without a place to stay, that is, until others stepped up and offered to help.

And when I went to bed, after a day that lasted far too long, I felt something I didn’t expect to feel.

Comfort. I was proud — and above all, grateful — to call myself a runner.

To the victims of the Boston Marathon tragedy and the people who love them, we at No Meat Athlete extend our sincere condolences. The running community is our family, and a tragedy like this one makes our hearts hurt.

I’m talking about when you have a race so bad that in the lowest moment, you tell yourself (and completely believe) some variation of the following theme:

As soon as I get through this, I’m going to quit running. For real, this time.

I’ve personally retired from running a good three or four times in my head. And I’ve heard the same from many others, including my podcast co-host Doug, who emailed me after a 50K last month with his own version of the “I quit” story:

… I fell apart. 3 miles of some of the lowest running moments I’ve ever had. Thought very seriously about dropping, quitting the streak, and taking the rest of the year off from running.

Even when it’s only the outcome of a race that’s so disappointing (as distinct from the physical pain) the urge to hang up the racing flats shows up as a way to forget about the failure.

When I was training to qualify for Boston, my mindset with each race I entered was, “This is the one.” But five times in a row, it wasn’t — even when I ran a PR each time, it wasn’t good enough to get to Beantown. That hurt, and the pain once prompted me to take six months off from any running at all.

And yet, we always find our way back.

Doug is running a 50-miler this weekend, just three weeks after his disaster. And I qualified for Boston on attempt Number 6, after Number 5 left me injured and more disheartened than ever.

So what it is that brings us back every time we say (and mean) that we’re done? What is it about running for us, football for Brett Favre, and hip-hop for Jay-Z? (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

Perhaps it all makes perfect sense: Maybe, just maybe, if running weren’t sometimes so painful as to make us want to quit, we wouldn’t do it at all.

That’s our topic for this episode of NMA Radio; I hope you enjoy it.

Click the button below to listen now:

Download audio file (nmaradio10.mp3)

Or:

• Click here to download the MP3 file (you may need to right-click and “save link as”)
• Subscribe to the show on iTunes

If you like our podcast, please do us the huge favor of leaving a review on iTunes, because that’s how we’ll know to keep making more episodes!

Links from the show:

• 30-Day Juice Challenge
• Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead
• Running on Juice
• Jai Lifestyle (Rich Roll’s health product company)
• NMA Radio Episode 9: Ultramarathons
• Moving Forward, Broken Ego and All
• Stumbling on Happiness
• Zen Habits
• What Do You Say to Yourself When It Hurts the Most?
• Finding Ultra
• Eat and Run
• The Power of a Running Mantra

This is terrifying, in the best way possible.

It’s the same type of fear I had when I trained for a 50-miler the first time. The feeling where even though you know that humans routinely (sort of) run the distance, on some level it just doesn’t seem possible. Especially not for you.

That’s the nature of ultrarunning though. You don’t get anywhere near the race distance in your training. For my 50′s, I never ran over 31 miles (50K)  in training. For this 100, I’ll do a 50K and one run longer than that — however far I get in a 12-hour race around a 5K loop that I’m doing in June. Hopefully 100K (62 miles), but anything over 50 miles will do. But that’s it for runs over 30 miles.

And then on race day, you wake up, go out, and get it done. And here, “get it done” just means running 40 miles (!) farther than you’ve ever run in your life.

No big deal … right?

What Training for a 100 Has Taught Me So Far

Shorts-staining fear aside, I’m really enjoying the training. I’m not doing any speedwork (but tons of hills), and most of the miles are done at a comfortable pace. Which means lots of time for thinking, listening, enjoying the mountains, and thinking some more.

Here are 8 lessons I’ve discovered in all of that running (and thinking), one for each week of training.

1. The difference between a 100-miler and a shorter ultra is almost entirely mental (really).

The training itself isn’t much different at all. Like I said, there’s only one run longer than 31 miles. It’s not much different from just training for a 50, running it, and then deciding you’ll do a 100 a month later.

Mentally, though, the difference is immense.

Right after I finished my first 50-miler, I asked a friend who has run many 100′s how it’s possible: I just couldn’t imagine what it would be like to get to the finish of that 50, turn around, and do it all again.

“It’s a mindset thing,” he said. Great. And so very not helpful.

I thought he meant on race day, and maybe he did. But I’ve noticed it throughout these 8 weeks of training, and after 16 more, I believe I’ll be mentally ready to run 100 miles.

When I run now, I don’t think about pace. I don’t even bring a watch. I just go run, mostly mountain roads, until I’ve covered the day’s distance. I seek out hills (and they’re easy to find here), so that I can train myself to hike them efficiently, and to make the long run take longer. The goal is time on your feet, on terrain like you’ll have to run on race day.

I’ve even picked up a few shifts waiting tables on nights after long runs to get more feet time and acclimate myself to misery. Okay, that part’s not true.

2. I can’t yet run in minimalist shoes every day.

Oh, how I would love to. My runs in my Brooks PureDrift are so much more enjoyable than any others. That whole “connection with the ground” that barefooters talk about is pretty woo-woo, but I can feel it in these shoes.

The problem is I’m not ready to be an exclusively minimalist runner. The PureDrifts don’t have five toe slots and therefore don’t look ridiculous — in fact, they look pretty much like normal shoes — so it was easy for me to forget that they’re not.

I did every run in them for the first two weeks of this training program, and for another month before I started the official plan. And then I started getting sore.

My lower legs ached after every run; tightness woke me up in the middle of the night.

I thought it was hills, so I did my best to avoid them for a few weeks. No help.

I did more foam rolling. No help.

I scaled back the mileage for two weeks. It helped, but as soon as I picked it up again, the soreness and tightness occurred.

Finally, it occurred to me to try new shoes. So I put on my 890′s, ran 18 miles, and felt just fine.

I still love my PureDrifts. I run in them as often as I safely can, and right now, that’s about two short-to-medium length runs per week (12-15 miles).

Funny that when someone asks me for advice about running in minimalist shoes, Rule #1 is always “Transition slowly!”

Ah, the taste of vegan humble pie.

3. “Hills are speedwork in disguise.”

Frank Shorter said this. But I never really got it — I just figured it meant, “Hills are hard, so you can elevate your heart rate and your exertion level without actually increasing your speed.” Pretty obvious.

But that misses the “in disguise” part. I think what Frank meant was that if you’re running hills, even when you don’t feel like you’re working hard, you’re still getting in a pretty good workout.

I won’t pretend to understand how it’s physiologically possible to work harder than your exertion level lets on, but I noticed something rather remarkable that serves, at least, as anecdotal evidence: After a year of so-so, only halfway-consistent training in Asheville — on hillier terrain than I’ve ever consistently run in my life, a few weeks ago I ran my fastest half marathon.

In training. As part of a longer run. On hills.

Granted, I’ve never clocked a great half marathon time because I tend not to run half marathons. Prior to this, my fastest half marathon was both the first and second halves of my Boston-qualifying marathon.

Still, I have no business running a PR half marathon without really trying. And so I credit the hills, the only real change in my training over the past year.

4. Fresh dates are a fantastic fuel source.

Gels gross me out. Even homemade ones, now.

But Mother Nature gave us another portable, energy-packed source of gooey, sugary, quick-digesting carbohydrate: dates.

Get fresh, medjool dates — the kind with the pits still in them. Even pitted dates that call themselves fresh are tougher and not nearly as delicious. The fresh ones are so soft you can push out the pit with your fingers, or just take a bite and remove it.

I carry a few in a plastic bag in my pocket and eat one every few miles. Each one has about 18 grams of carbohydrate, 16 of which are sugar. They’re like gummies, but real food.

5. It’s better to walk up hills with good form than to run up them with bad.

Ultrarunners have known forever that walking up hills is often better than running them, since you save a lot of energy while losing only a little time (which you’ll make up on the way down).

But in my training for this race, there have been several occasions during my long, slow, hilly runs, when I just haven’t had the energy to run strongly up a hill. The choice is between running weakly and walking strongly.

Since I’m going to be walking hills in my 100 — all of them, if I listen to most of the advice for first time 100 runners — I figure it makes sense to train my hiking muscles. And if I can do that with good form, instead of doing that horrible, slouched-over shuffle thing that we runners do when we’re wrecked but really don’t want to be seen walking, so much the better.

6. Back-to-back long runs are the key to saving your Saturdays.

I once wrote a post called How You Can Run an Ultramarathon (and Still Have a Life). Because I like having a life.

I’m different from many other runners. They like having lives too, I’m sure, but they also really, really, really like running.

I like running, too — for about an hour. That’s enough time for me to get the endorphins flowing, listen to an audiobook without getting bored, or think about life before my thoughts drive me crazy. Once it goes beyond 60 minutes, though, it’s work. Again, much more mental than physical — I just get bored.

Back-to-back long runs, which are used extensively in my training program (from Bryon Powell‘s Relentless Forward Progress), offer an interesting alternative.

The idea: instead of running, say, 5 hours on Saturday (1 hour of fun, 4 hours of work), then taking Sunday off, run 3 hours on Saturday (1 hour fun, 2 hours work) and 2 hours on Sunday (1 hour fun, 1 hour work). That’s 2 hours of fun, 3 hours of work.

Less work, more fun. Less feeling like your run (along with the after-effects) takes up your whole day.

And since my 100 is probably going to take me around 24 hours, I don’t think too much is lost by spacing out the miles over a 24-hour period instead of doing them all at once.

7. Ain’t nothing wrong with roads.

Like many runners, once seduced by trail running, I went through a road-backlash. When the alternative was beautiful, unpredictable, peaceful, dirty trails, I never wanted to run roads again.

But now that I live in a place where the roads are interesting (complete with snakes, bears, and pheasant/turkey things that I can’t identify) and offer climbs up mountains, I actually do much more road running than trail running.

I like that I can leave my house and just start running, without tacking 20 minutes of driving time onto each end of the run. I like passing houses and people and even running through downtown. And since my race has a large amount of roads, I think it’s important get my legs accustomed to them.

I’ll do some trail running too, and I’m sure I’ll swing the other way again and go anti-road. But for now, I’m back to roads.

And where we’re going, we don’t need roads.

Oh wait, that makes no sense and is the teaser for Back to the Future Part II.

8. Run the way that makes you happy, because that’s what will make you run.

Number 7 is one example — for a while, I felt oddly like I “had” to run trails, that I was committing a crime against running humanity by choosing roads.

Another one is listening to music. I went through a phase where I didn’t listen to anything while I ran. In some way it was because I wanted it that way; I was into meditation and really “feeling” everything about the run, especially my breathing. But partly, it was because I had heard too many runners scoff at the idea of desecrating the act of running by involving earbuds.

I get that in some situations, headphones are dangerous. And that wearing them in a race, especially on trails, is inconsiderate of other runners who depend on your hearing them approach you to pass.

But when I’m on my own, if listening to music or (more often) an audiobook is going to make the difference between getting out the door and not — and sometimes, for me, it does — then I’m firing up the iPod. I’ve come to look forward to my daily runs as a time to listen to something interesting, something that I might not make the time for otherwise.

This isn’t about listening to headphones while you run, of course. It’s about engineering habits so that you stick with them, really, and not listening to those who tell you you’re wrong.

So I hope that one of these eight lessons is useful to you … and if I could pick just one, it’d be this last one. I’m beginning to understand that the differences between sticking with something and quitting are very, very minor — things that seem inconsequential, the choice to “just suck it up” instead of doing it the way that feels good. If you want to keep at something that isn’t always easy (like running, for me), set it up so that you enjoy it. That’s so simple, but so crucial. No extra points for pain.