Today marked my one-hundredth day of consecutive running. This - whatever it is - all started back on June 4, on this blog, when I set myself the fairly humble challenge to run 28 days in a row. Well, I knew pretty quickly that 28 days was not going to be sufficient for my needs, and it only seems like yesterday that I reached day fifty on this quest.

(Read more about my running adventures at my other blog, iRun365.com).

Where is this all taking me? To be honest with you, I’m not really sure. I can tell you that it feels right. That it feels natural. That it feels like something I was supposed to do. But where I’m ultimately going to end up - bar probably sleeping for 24 hours on day 366 - is, at this moment in time, yet to be seen.

I ran three miles today. To be honest with you, I was completely exhausted, both from yesterday’s 12-mile run and a really poor night’s sleep. Still, they were three good and pretty fast miles - my average was 7:32.

They were important miles too, because another milestone was reached today - I passed the 400 mile mark overall! That’s right - it’s taken me 100 days to reach 402.35 miles. I’m quite proud of that, actually.

My average pace for all of that running, incidentally, is a quite-pleasing 8:06.

What Have I Learned In Those 400 Miles?

A few things, actually.

1. My body is actually quite resilient. While I get the odd ache and pain most of the time I’m good to go 24 hours after my previous workout, irrespective of length or difficulty
2. You can, if you really, really want to, run in any kind of weather
3. Heavy gales are murder on your knees
4. Bodyglide is a total life-saver
5. A very hot bath, post-run, works better than a very cold one
6. It is quite possible to run a few miles, at a reasonable pace, even when you are physically and mentally exhausted, sleep deprived, and ill
7. No matter how difficult the previous X miles have been, you can always find a reason to sprint the last one
8. Nobody (friends, family, etc) really understands what I’m doing when I talk about this
9. I’m not sure I do, either. I just feel like I need to
10. Always, always, always give yourself one more yard than you’ll think you need when passing a dog

You’ll also have noticed a few little changes I made to the theme of my running blog. I spent a fair bit of time doing this and I think it looks pretty good, even if I do say so myself. I’ve tested it in the four main browsers, and it works perfectly in all of them except, of course, Internet Explorer 7, which almost renders it accurately, but struggles with one of the background colours. I’ll have to look at that and try and figure out the fix. I haven’t tested it with IE6 - I’d imagine it’s a potential nightmare on there.

Hence, I could do with some help here. Play around with the site a bit. Make sure it’s all working okay. If you discover any bugs, certainly anything major, either write something in this thread or drop me an email. Please let me know what browser you are using, including the version. Thanks!

Here’s to the next 100 days!

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• When Age Meets Endurance, Records Can Fall (Peoplejam.com)
• How To Get Better Results In Less Time At The Gym (Peoplejam.com - this one recently made the front page on Digg, although I’m not really sure why!)
• My Elvis Presley International Race Report (irun365.com)

Also, a little while back I relaunched my message board forums and the site is now know as WeLikeToTalk.com - check it out!

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A week ago I announced a competition on iRun365.com and this is just a quick update post for anyone that has missed it.

Here are the prizes on offer:

To win this competition, you need to accumulate points. The person who tallies up the most points, wins! You earn points by making comments, posts on your own blog or signing up to receive updates from this site through my email feed.

A special second prize will go the individual who I think has made the best comment or blog post on or about iRun365.com over the period of the competition.

Currently, we have two members of our community quite a bit ahead in the lead, almost neck-and-neck, and have been the entire way. A little way down we have a strong placer in third, and then a bunch tallying for the other positions. There are ten entrants in total, and a total of 94 points have been tallied.

It’s not too late to enter - there are three weeks to go, and anybody could still win. To enter, simply read this article in full and then announce your entry in the comments area of that post.

The competition closes on August 20, 2008.

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Break It Down - Consider ‘Micro-Lists’

Your list should follow an intelligent design sequence. There’s a tactic that you can use when lifting weights that involves warm-up and working sets. The warm-up set uses lower weights and higher levels of repetitions to get the muscles ready for the much heavier weights used in the working sets. But one can shorten a workout - and get the same great results - by observing when a muscle group is warmed-up enough to skip any more warm-up sets and just go straight to a working set, even when changing exercises. For example, after warming up and working the back doing a series of chin-ups and then dead-lifts, there would be no need to do additional warm-up sets if you then switched to bentover rows. The back would be warmed up sufficiently for you to go straight to your working set. This not only saves time, but ensures that you are ready for the harder part of your workout - the next level, so to speak.

You can and should apply this logic to the planning of your list, too. Think of the order of your list both in a sense of time and the skills necessary to complete each item. For example, if you wanted to run a marathon, it makes sense to not only learn to run first, but to have experienced smaller race lengths along the way. It’s a cliché but ‘don’t try to run before you walk’ is very applicable in all of this. By doing a 5K first, then a 10K, then a half-marathon, you’d be preparing yourself for the full 26.2 miles. Jumping straight into the latter with no preparation is going to mean failure more often than not. And once you’ve failed a couple of times, the rest of your list will become too daunting to resume.

But these things don’t have to actually become part of your list, at least not in the finished article sense that you might share with friends and family. Look again at Michael Bane’s list above - there’s no mention there of the little things he had to do to accomplish all these goals. Those things got him from A to B, and then from B to C, and so on. For example, before he could cave dive, he needed to get his scuba license. And then his cave diving license. He then completed the cave dive, and all this training, qualification and experience then allowed him to later dive 240 feet down off of Key West (‘Dive really deep’). He couldn’t have successfully completed this part of his list without also putting those other, earlier (and smaller) parts to rest, too.

One way to manage all of this is to break your list down into smaller, micro-lists. Take any one item off of your list, and work out the little steps you need to achieve that. Consider the example above of running a marathon. First you learn to run, then run regularly, then do a 5K, 10K and so on. Or maybe you want to fly and land an aeroplane by yourself. You can’t just do that tomorrow. You have to take (and pay for) pilot lessons, log many miles with a season pilot, practice, practice, practice, and so on. Eventually, you’ll get there, but it will take a fair bit of work. And that’s exactly how it should be - if this stuff was too easy, you wouldn’t need a list at all.

Starting Your List

Take a fresh sheet of paper, and a pencil. Do two lines down the page so you have three columns. Now tear the page into a series of lots of strips, from left to right. You should end up with however many you think you’re going to need - at least ten, and probably no more than fifteen.

The main items in your list go in the left column, and we’ll use the other two for your micro-lists.

Sometimes it’s easier to fashion a finished list by starting with the one thing you want to do the most first. For example, whenever I consider the idea of ‘my list’, the one thing I always come back to is the Hawaii Ironman. This seems to me to be the thing I would like to have done the most.

So, that would go on my list first. On one of my strips, I’d write

Hawaii Ironman

on the left hand side. And then I could build the other things around it, including my micro-lists.

For example, you have to qualify to compete in Hawaii. There is a lottery system, but it’s a real long shot. To increase my chances, I’d need to get into great physical shape and start posting some pretty decent times within my age group at other Ironman-distance events. But even that’s getting well ahead of myself - as of right now, I’ve never even competed in a triathlon of any distance. So I’d need to look at all that, and might write the following down in the next column:

Do A Triathlon
Do A Half-Ironman
Do An Ironman

But hold on - I don’t currently own a racing bike, and my swimming isn’t great. I’ll need Masters lessons there, definitely. So this could go in column three.

Buy A Bike
Masters Swimming Lessons

To accomplish the thing I have in the first column - the Hawaii Ironman - I’d first need to take care of the stuff in column three (buy a bike, swimming lessons), and then take care of the stuff in column two (do a triathlon, half-Ironman, etc).

As time progresses and things I done, I can erase stuff from the page and make adjustments. This is an ongoing work in progress, and it’s pretty essential that you remain focused and cross things off when they’re done.

Once my main item is done - at least in writing - I can then look at that and consider what other things I want to accomplish, and if they are related to what I already have. For example, I want to run the New York marathon. So that would go on my list:

New York Marathon

Now, I already know I need to run a marathon to do an Ironman, so there’s a cross-training opportunity here. But when I think about it, it makes sense to take care of the NY Marathon before my attempt at an Ironman. So, that would need to come before Hawaii Ironman in my list.

Now let’s break the marathon down. Currently, the furthest I’ve ever run is 13.1 miles, a half-marathon, and that was ten years ago. So I’d need to do that again, probably more than once. And I should probably do a few 10Ks before that, too. So in my second column, next to NY Marathon, I’d write:

Do Some 10K Races
Do A Half-Marathon

There’s no need to put anything in column three. Once the items in column two are crossed-off, the main item on my list - the marathon - is up next.

Sometimes, some of things in column two might turn out to be big-enough of a deal to make it into your main column. Again, you’ll know when this is the right thing to do.

Building Your List

As I add things to my list, I can decide where they go in the order by considering the skills I will need to make each one happen. For example, we’ve already seen that it makes sense for me to have run at least one marathon first before attempting any Ironman-distance racing. So that would come higher up the list.

But even that feels a little head of myself. My hometown of Hastings has a half-marathon that is highly regarded throughout the country. It runs every year in March, but I’ve never done it! Time to put that to rest before moving on to anything else. So that would go above the NY marathon.

I’d also like to do the London marathon, too, so that would go after the Hastings half, and before NY.

Anything that I felt was harder than Hawaii - for example, the Badwater Ultramarathon - would be placed further down the list.

Finishing It All Off

Once you’ve arranged all your strips of paper in an order that both makes planning sense and pleases (and excites you), type it up so it’s all official. You may at this stage want to consider pencilling in working dates. I know, for example, that the next Hastings Half Marathon is next March. So I’d write that down, and then work on the rest from there.

My List

As you have probably worked out, most of the things on my list are endurance related. The personal challenge in all these things really appeals to me, and always has. My recent return to running has relit fires inside me that were long dormant, but are now very much alive.

So, as of July 24, 2008, here is my list.

1. Hastings Half Marathon (March, 2009)
2. London Marathon (April 26, 2009)
3. London Triathlon (August, 2009)
4. New York Marathon (November 2, 2009)
5. Swim With Sharks (2010)
6. Wildflower Triathlon (May 2, 2010)
7. Quelle Challenge Roth (July, 2010)
8. Hawaii Ironman (October, 2010)
9. Western States 100 (June, 2011)
10. Primal Quest (June, 2012)
11. Marathon des Sables (March-April 2013)
12. Badwater Ultramarathon (July, 2013)

If this all goes to plan, I’ll be 42 at Badwater. It’s a work in progress.

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In his excellent book Over The Edge, author and self-proclaimed ‘regular guy’ Michael Bane put together a list of 13 high-risk extreme sports, and then went off and did them all, one by one.

“What’s it like to go to the very edge of the world and look over?” Michael pondered.

This list - which became know as The List over the course of the book - cost him thirty thousand dollars and one girlfriend, and was as follows:

1. Windsurf Big Air
2. The Kamikaze Downhill Race
3. Escape From Alcatraz Triathlon
4. Whitewater Off A Waterfall
5. Rock Climb
6. Cave Dive
7. Ice Climb
8. Skydive
9. Skate Marathon
10. Dive Really Deep
11. Badwater Death Valley Run
12. Iditarod Bike Rice
13. Climb Mount Denali

As you would expect, Bane started and finished his journey as two very different people.

Why Make A List?

Lists are very popular nowadays, particularly on the Internet. Bloggers love to make lists, social media sites love to hear about them, and with good reason - pretty much everybody loves to read them. They’re even making films about them. A good list is easy on the eye and the mind - it reads well and quickly, tells you things you didn’t already know, but in brief, and then sends you away to think about it on a whole new level.

I like to make lists, too, from simple, throwaway things like grocery shopping lists, to stuff I want to buy come next payday, and planned articles for the various blogs to which I am a contributor. But I also really like idea of making the list, too - the one Michael Bane wrote about. But where do you start?

How about at the beginning? And I mean the very beginning. Your list needs plenty of thought. It’s not something that you should churn out flippantly or lightly. It needs to be personal and important to you. It’s your list. It’s the stuff you want to do most in the entire world. Before you die, or get too old to be physically able, or even care.

This is more important than you probably think. It’s very easy to reel off a vague, slightly random list of goals and dreams that might seem important or even worthy but unless they’re important to you, then it’s never going to happen. There needs to be some emotional thought here. It needs to matter.

How To Know What Really Matters

In his article How To Discover Your Life Purpose In About 20 Minutes, Steve Pavlina writes:

So how to discover your purpose in life? While there are many ways to do this, some of them fairly involved, here is one of the simplest that anyone can do. The more open you are to this process, and the more you expect it to work, the faster it will work for you. But not being open to it or having doubts about it or thinking it’s an entirely idiotic and meaningless waste of time won’t prevent it from working as long as you stick with it - again, it will just take longer to converge.

Here’s what to do:

1. Take out a blank sheet of paper or open up a word processor where you can type (I prefer the latter because it’s faster).

2. Write at the top, “What is my true purpose in life?”

3. Write an answer (any answer) that pops into your head. It doesn’t have to be a complete sentence. A short phrase is fine.

4. Repeat step 3 until you write the answer that makes you cry. This is your purpose.

Pavlina was writing about your purpose in the singular sense, but again his logic can and should be applied to the creation of your list. Whatever goes on there should, if not actually make you physically cry, then at least move you emotionally. The things on your list must move you when you think about them, and when you visualise yourself actually doing them. When you see others doing these things, it should fill you with hope and even make you fantasise a little.

If any single thing on your list does not do this, it should not be on there.

Don’t worry about how long your list is. It doesn’t have to fill a quota. It might be ten things, or it might be three. It might even be one. Or it might be fifteen. I would say, however, if it’s much more than this, it’s probably not only a little to long to be achievable, but I’d have to question if all the items on there really matter to you to the degree outlined above. Again, don’t be flippant about how you do this - just casually throwing things on there won’t get you anywhere.

This Is YOUR List

It’s important to point out that the list you make should entirely be for you. While other goals in life like maintaining a happy relationship with your partner, having children, living in a nice home, etc, are noble, these are not the kinds of things that have a place in ‘The List’. Maybe they need a list all of their own, but your list will, be definition, be slightly selfish. These are solitary pursuits. Sure, you may do some or all of them with one or more people - again, a common example is to run a marathon - but the purpose here is to accomplish great, life-changing things by yourself. Nobody is running that marathon for you, even though you might be surrounded by hundreds or even thousands of other people. Don’t make a list for others - make it for yourself. This doesn’t mean your list can’t include non-solitary pursuits or even contain admirable goals like reuniting with old friends or lost loved ones. All that matters is that you are a beneficiary.

Go Ahead And Dream – But Be Realistic

Your list should be fantastic and enthralling. It should grip and motivate you. When any given thing is done, it should have changed your life to some degree. When it’s all done, you should be a different person. The things on your list must count.

But don’t go nuts. If the greatest thing you can imagine is becoming a cosmonaut, it’s probably not going to happen if you’re 55 and earn a basic wage. That’s a great dream, but you’ve going to live a life of disappointment if that’s on your list. Don’t give up on it entirely – consider revising it down to something you can achieve.

Likewise, don’t sell yourself short. If you’ve been sedentary and overweight your entire life, the idea of running a mile without stopping might seem huge. And it will be – for a few weeks. Pretty much any able-bodied person can learn to run a mile in less than 4-6 weeks of fairly non-intensive, semi-regularly training.

Think big. But think smart.

Tomorrow: Tips on creating your own list, including the use of micro-lists, plus a list of my own.

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Between September 17 and November 5, 2006, Dean Karnazes completed the North Race Endurance 50 (also known as the 50/50/50), an event that saw him run fifty marathons in fifty different states over fifty consecutive days. Eight of the fifty races were official marathons - the challenge finished at the New York City marathon, where Karnazes ran better than three hours.

Karnazes book, Ultramarathon Man, was a New York Times best seller, and Dean’s journey, and his experiences at the Endurance 50, have been documented in a film, Ultramarathon Man: 50 Marathons, 50 States, 50 Days, which opens in select US theatres on July 31, 2008.

Check out this trailer:

I’m not sure how you could fail to be moved by some of that. Yes, this is a world where the concept of ‘reality’ has been warped beyond recognition, and yes, Karnazes is the master self-promoter, but there’s some stuff in there that echoes within us all. As I’ve said elsewhere, I’m off to Mississippi on August 1 and hope to find this still playing somewhere in the Memphis area.

Meantime, the follow-up to Ultramarathon Man, 50/50: Secrets I Learned Running 50 Marathons in 50 Days, is now available at Amazon.com for pre-order (at the low, low price of $16.49). As you would imagine, this book also details Karnazes’ experiences at the Endurance 50, but also promises “…training tips that runners everywhere will want to know. These include what to do when you hit a wall, how to adapt quickly to drastic terrain, how to get motivated after a really tough day, and the best diet and exercise tips to improve your own best time. Complete with Dean’s practical tips on building endurance, this book will appeal to marathon runners and athletes everywhere.”

Finally, the 2008 Badwater Ultramarathon finished yesterday and Karnazes placed fourth in a time of 27 hours and 11 minutes. Interestingly, he finished just over half an hour ahead of his long-time rival, Pam Reed, which likely will add further fuel to their respective fires.

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In my last article I wrote about the benefits of 80-20 Nutrition. In this one, I’m going to show you how to make the most of your day off.

Recently, my wife won a radio contest, and the prize was a day of luxury at a fancy spa in Brighton. Brighton is the only place I can pick up copies of Triathlete and Inside Triathlon (both are imports) and it’s also a good place for sports stores, so I thought I’d tag along as well, at least on the journey up - after that, we were both on our own.

In advance, we decided that today should be our day off this week. My wife’s package included a free lunch at the spa’s not inexpensive restaurant, and that seemed too good to waste on lettuce soup and sparkling water. So, today became anything goes. Here’s exactly what that means.

On the way, we stopped at McDonalds. I had the Big Breakfast, a coffee (black, sweetener) and an orange juice. I didn’t take any pictures, but this is what it looks like:

After making some new running-related purchases in Brighton, I hit Pizza Hut’s all-you-can-eat buffet. I had a salad for a starter:

Then five slices of pizza and four slices of garlic bread for a main:

Washed down with two glasses of 7UP.

Man, it was good.

An hour or so after that, I went to Starbucks and had a tall soya cappuccino (with an extra shot) and a slice of their heavenly blueberry cheesecake.

To be honest, the cake was a little dry today but it was still good.

I then went home and ran what appeared to be an amazing personal best, but might actually turn out to be a technical error. (Okay, okay - is a technical error.)

Later, I had a kebab. And some chips.

What’s the calorie count of that lot? Who cares. That’s the point - it’s my off day. Okay, so today was a little extreme, and I don’t normally do this, but when in Rome, and all that. The point is that while my calorie intake today was probably double a normal day (maybe more), this spike in my eating habits will keep my body very much on its toes. Tomorrow - as soon as the clock strikes midnight tonight - I’ll go back to my very lean low-GI diet, and that’s what I’ll have for the next 6-7 days.

Believe me, this all works. It may seem a little nutty, but that’s why it’s so wonderful.

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I wrote recently about the great success I’ve had with a low-GI diet. I mentioned there how I feel that the optimum diet for anybody is one that is six days on and one day off. That is, six days of eating clean - i.e., as per your diet - and one day of anything goes. But how does this work in principle?

Each day, I consume five meals - three main courses and two snacks. For six days of the week, I eat a low-GI diet. This is pretty clean - it means no rice, normal pasta, potatoes of any kind and definitely no white bread.

For breakfast, I’ll have 1-2 slices of light wholewheat bread (i.e., Warburton’s, or Nimble) or a wholewheat bagel, usually with organic peanut butter, a bowl of muesli with soy milk and a small glass of orange juice.

For lunch and dinner I’ll usually have a portion of very lean protein - lately this has been fish, turkey or chicken (I’m avoiding beef and pork as I want to drop more weight), legumes, a small amount of cheese, some nuts, vegetables and fresh fruit.

For snacks I usually eat nuts. I like to keep things interesting with a rich variety, but my favourites include macadamia nuts, cashews, almonds, brazil nuts, hazelnuts, pecans and walnuts.

I also drink lots of water, aiming for three litres per day, as well as black coffee with sweetener (1-5 cups per day, depending on whether I’m doing a night shift or not) and Diet Coke. Sometimes before a run I’ll have one can of normal Coke.

So that’s five meals per day. Over the course of a week, that totals 35 meals.

One day per week - usually a Saturday - I’ll have a day off where I will eat literally anything I want.

Yesterday, for example, I had two slices of cheese on toast for breakfast. This was mature cheddar (and lots of it) on two inch-thick slices of wholemeal bread, buttered, and a large glass of orange juice. For lunch, I was at my youngest son’s school fete and had a hamburger there, a few small cakes, and half a litre of Pepsi. For dinner we had Chinese. At work, I ate 58.5 grams of Maltesers.

As soon as the clock rolled over midnight, I resumed my normal, lean diet. This meant a 2am meal (at work) of lean turkey, macadamia nuts and a small amount of cheese. Because I then slept from 10am through 3pm, this meal becomes effectively my lunch for the following day.

From now until next Saturday, I will eat my low-GI diet.

So, over the course of any given week, my thirty-five meals will consist of thirty clean meals, and five meals where I eat whatever I want.

Despite our good intentions, it’s not a perfect world - there are always 1-2 occasions each and every week where, for whatever reason, you have to eat something you weren’t planning on. For example, it might be late and we may have ran out of a certain food (i.e., nuts), or at the last minute I may be called into work or to some other function where I will then need to eat something different to that which I had planned.

This system assumes a failure rate of a maximum of two meals per week. So, that gives us 28 out of a maximum 35 meals per week where we’re eating clean.

28 as a percentage of 35 is 80 per cent.

If you can manage to eat 80 per cent clean for your entire life, you’ll reach a pretty amazing standing of health. Perhaps more importantly, maintaining this 80-20 split is surprisingly easy. The 20 per cent ‘anything goes’ makes the 80 per cent ‘diet’ part a lot easier to (ahem) swallow, simply because you know it’s only six days until you can have a donut again. Or a cookie, or a muffin, some ice cream, some fries, a hamburger, a milkshake or a bottle of wine.

The day off does not hurt your diet at all. In fact, it helps it, as the spike in calorific intake stops your metabolism resting, getting used to the routine (of eating the same kinds of clean, healthy foods each and every day) and, worse, going into ‘starvation mode’, where it starts hording fat and actually makes you gain weight.

What you’ll also find as you lose weight and approach an optimum level of health is that you’ll only want certain things on your day off - your body will crave them, to some extent - and you really won’t gorge at all. You might in the first week or two, but after a while you’ll realise that because you only get one day off per week you’ll want to make sure that the things you have as treats have to be the very best they can possibly be. Don’t waste your day off eating garbage when you could be having fillet steak. And don’t be satisfied with cheap vanilla ice cream when you could be enjoying Ben and Jerry’s Cookie Dough. Ask yourself: is this the thing I want the most in the world right now? If it’s not, choose something else. Choose something better.

Couple this approach with one very clean day each week (or every two weeks), where you eat less calories than normal, and you’ll have a similar effect, albeit in reverse. It keeps the body guessing.

This principle can be applied to any diet - you don’t have to eat low-GI for 80 per cent of your meals. It would work with Atkins, South Beach, low-fat, high-protein, or even a semi-vegetarian diet. Just don’t have more than one day off per week, and try to make sure your day off takes place on one day only. If you try to break it down into ‘cheat’ meals - i.e., breakfast, lunch and dinner - and place those at different points in the week (as opposed to on one single day), you’ll find yourself blurring the clean/less-than-clean nutritional line far too often. You only get two blemishes outside of your day off per week, remember, and these need to be minor.

Give it a try - psychologically, it’s an easy and effective way to do something that will benefit the rest of your life, for the rest of your life.

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One of the biggest problems anyone faces when attempting to become a semi-serious athlete is their weight. Regular exercise will, of course, help you shed the pounds (at least, that’s the dream), but there’s an equilibrium that the body will find where your weight will start to plateau. This is particularly true if you’ve lost a big chunk of body mass over a short period of time, as I did earlier this year.

I weighed myself today, and I’m about 176 pounds at 5 feet 9 inches tall. Now, if you’ll allow me to wax lyrical, I look pretty good at the moment. However, now that I’m running every day, this body weight is becoming a bit of a problem. Quite frankly, I’m still too heavy. Way too heavy, really.

According to the BMI index, I’m right on the line between normal weight and overweight at 26. However, the biggest failing with the BMI is that it doesn’t factor muscle into its equation. Muscle is not, technically, heavier than fat. A pound of muscle and a pound of fat weight the same - one pound. However, muscle mass is a lot denser, and therefore a smaller amount will weigh the same as a larger slice of fat. Two equal sized portions (in height, weight and depth) would, when weighed, reveal the muscle to be heavier.

Why is this relevant? Well, I carry quite a lot of muscle. I’m not Dorian Yates, and nor am I LL Cool J, but for my size and frame I’m fairly muscular. I’ve actually been very muscular in the past - when I weighed 218 pounds last November I was pretty stacked. I was carrying a lot of bodyfat, too, but I was muscular and strong.

Now I’ve shed over forty pounds, I’ve lost a lot of that fat, and some of that muscle - probably in the ratio of three pounds of fat for every pound of muscle. So about ten pounds of muscle in total. But it’s not enough. While I will of course continue to burn bodyfat with my diet and running program, I’ve figured out that I need to burn lean tissue, too. Specifically, in my back, glutes and quads. (Most of the muscle mass I’ve lost thus far has been in my chest, biceps, and particularly my shoulders.)

However, therein lies the dilemma - how do you lose muscle?

There are volumes of information written about losing fat, and there are volumes of information written about gaining muscular mass, but typically the only information you will find about shedding muscle is joke posts that are pointing out the mistakes you can make when trying to gain muscle mass that will lead to what is called atrophy.

Atrophy is the deterioration or shrinkage of muscle tissue. It’s considered a negative, and for a bodybuilder it is. But what if you have too much muscle, at least relative to your goals? Runners are lean. Runners are, in fact, thin. Triathletes are more of an ideal, at least for my interests - somewhere between a runner and swimmers build.

But triathletes weigh a lot less than you probably think. An ultra-lean competitor like Peter Reid weighs 155 pounds - at six feet two inches. That’s a BMI of 19.9, which is pretty close to the underweight zone (18.5). And Reid looks it - he’s pretty gaunt.

What about Dean Karnazes? Karnazes is admired for his non-runner’s physique. It’s true - he looks nothing like your common or garden ultrarunner, who are normally on the wrong side of scrawny. But Karnazes also weighs 155 pounds, at 5ft8, which is a BMI of 23.6.

And someone like Jurgen Zack, who was considered a bit of a beast on the Ironman circuit, even chunky, only weighed 172 pounds at 5 feet 11, which is a BMI of 24. That’s still two points lower than where I am now, even though Zack is two inches taller. Zack used to be lot bigger, but had to drop some muscle to stay competitive.

This is the conclusion I have reached, too. While competition is not really an issue for me now - I’m competing only against myself and, to some extent, the clock - age is. I’m 37 this year. My knees have been a minor problem throughout my athletic life. They used to plague me at key points in basketball and tennis matches. After and sometimes during my runs now, they can be a little tender. It’s not to a point where it’s a real problem, but I’m only running 30 minutes a day at the moment. When that rises to an hour, I can see it being an issue.

Which is why I need to drop more weight. Karnazes build is closest to my own, but he’s over 20 pounds lighter than I am. 176 pounds is way, way too heavy for a runner. I need to get down to around 160. And I think I need to drop some muscle to expedite that process. But how?

Triathlete TJ Tollakson knows the answer. Tollakson, a former competitive bodybuilder, discovered triathlon in 2001, but found his 5ft10, 200-pound frame was prohibitive to speed. He shed a lot of bodyfat to drop down to 173 pounds, but continued to suffer on the run during races. He knew he had to make the next step.

“I had to lose some weight,” recalls Tollakson, “I was already lean, so didn’t need to lose fat - I needed to lose muscle, which I did through catabolism while training.”

Catabolism is a complex, and potentially hazardous process where the body breaks down muscle proteins for energy. By cutting back on calories, and certain kinds of foods, the body loses its ability to utilise fats and instead starts to burn muscle. “Once you start the process, the body has abundant muscle protein to fuel itself,” notes Tollakson. “One of the advantages of doing this while working out is that the body will automatically target unused muscles. If you go out and ride and run and use your quads and hamstrings, they’ll be less likely to be catabolised. What I lost were all the excess pecs, shoulders and biceps.”

I’ve already started myself on this path, as noted above. And it’s certainly true that since I’ve begun running my quads, hamstrings and calf muscles have grown. This is, I feel, the main reason why my weight has not really crashed off. The fat I’ve lost has been offset by the denser muscle I’ve gained in my lower body. So it’s fair to say that I’m not going to lose much muscle mass in my legs.

I can, however, indirectly target my glutes and back, and some more of my upper body, by making some modifications to my diet and lifestyle.

Diet

About a week ago, I stopped eating red meat. This isn’t a permanent change, but I was eating red meat 2-3 times a week (for months) and wanted to cut back on that and my overall protein intake. As a former strength-lifter/bodybuilder, I’ve programmed myself to automatically reach for high-protein foods each and every meal. For the last five years or so my daily protein average has probably been around 200 grams. I’m trying to cut that down to 50 grams now. This means no red meat, but more fish and turkey, and less of it - really one main meal a day. The rest of my meals are based around cereals, nuts, fruits, vegetables and wholegrain foods.

Weight Training

Of course, I’ve stopped lifting at the gym. Indeed, I haven’t been to the gym for a couple of months now, actually going as far as cancelling my membership. Whereas I know that down the line I will need to strength-train a couple of times a week to keep my muscles strong, I’m somebody who gains muscle very easily. Muscle memory is a great thing when you’ve been forced to lay off from lifting for a reason beyond your control (i.e., an injury) but when you’re trying to shed lean tissue it’s a real pain. So, no gym at all for me now. Even then, as I said above, my quads are still getting a great workout each and every single day.

Essentially, I’m hoping to locate that middle-ground between moderate catabolism and general muscle atrophy due to a decrease in resistance training. I certainly don’t want to have a puny or anorexic-looking upper body, and I’ve still got some fat to lose (even with a 32-inch waist), but I feel I can expedite my march towards 160 pounds by dropping some of both.

Naturally, my health is the most important thing but I should be able to monitor any ill-effects in my running log - if a drop in weight equates to a loss of power (and therefore speed and/or endurance), I’ll have to do a bit of clever tweaking.

Until that happens, I’m interested to see how this works out, how easy (or difficult) it is to lose muscle you’ve gained over many, many years, and what benefits it will reap.

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This is a guest post written by my wife. You can read more at her blog, Leanne Bennett dot com.

I am definitely an Internet Widow. But I knew that when my husband and I got together. You see, we met over the Internet. Before that was cheesey. Before it was embarrasing. Really, before there was hardly even an Internet!

We used to chat for literally hours. With the time difference it’s amazing we managed it, but we built a lasting relationship over several years. Then we decided to meet in person, we fell in love, and the rest is history.

BUT, all those hours on the Internet don’t just drop away once they’re established. He still spends hours on the Internet. Not chatting anymore but reading, watching video clips and blogging.

And me? I like the Internet, and I still use it a lot, but I’m not like he is. For me it’s about goals. I use the Internet to find definitions and spellings for words I don’t recall, look up information about people and things I’m interested, get directions to a new place, write about stuff that happens, that sort of thing. I don’t find the Internet entertaining just for its own sake. And there’s a limit to how much time I want to spend on it now. In fact, we now have a running joke based on the first time my husband pointed out the differences in our Internet usage: He was doing his usual surfing when I said I was going onto the Internet on our other computer. After reading all that I wanted to, I closed everything down.

Him: I thought you were reading on the Internet.
Me: I was. I’m finished with that.
Him: You finished the whole Internet in 30 minutes?!

Over the years of me being done with the Internet quickly, but him being on it for hours, I have learned some very useful coping skills. And I now want to share these with other Internet Widows facing life talking to the back or side of someone’s head as that person mumbles “Mmm hhmm” every now and then while his eyes never leave the screen. If this is you, then read on.

Things to remember about the compulsive Internet surfer:

1) Be aware that he actually does believe that he has “only been on for a few minutes” and just needs to “look one thing up”.

He doesn’t intend to spend hours reading online. But when he looks up one thing on Wikipedia, or checks one thing on IMDB, they have all those links there. And he either follows them, or something else pops into his head, and he opens another tab, or another window (if you’re pre-Firefox or -IE7), and he’s off. He honestly doesn’t realise that you’ve been waiting for him to come help you shift the bedroom furniture for 45 minutes. Truly.

2) The Internet really is his favourite thing.

For him, it’s better than books, television, sporting activities, it might even top eating sometimes. (depending on what food’s on offer, and let’s face it, you can eat and read at the same time!) Plus he can read about all the stuff he’s not doing, or even do some of it online. With Iplayer, you can watch TV. You can go to the BBC website and check sporting events, which are updated constantly! You can do your favourite thing and still keep up with everything else!

3) The Internet is the source of all information.

Just ask him — printed books and directories are outdated. Maps become inaccurate. Medical advice changes. Anything that has been done has been documented online. And hey, maybe he’s right. I definitely go there for my information; I just don’t have to stay all day to read it!

And being tolerant, accepting and understanding of his Internet focus can work for you as well.

Here’s how you can help yourself:

a) Be sure to convey all bad news while he is at the computer.

This is a guest post written by my wife. You can read more at her blog.

Tell him about your overspending, plans to have dinner with that boring couple, trips to your mother’s house for the weekend, etc, while he is online. After all, he won’t hear you, and when you later bring it up again you then have the out of saying “But I told you! Remember? You were on the Internet and I said…”

b) Look upon this as ‘me time’ for you.

Hey, he’s only reading right? So if you go take a bubble bath, go out for a run, take a drive, do anything that ties you up physically, HE has to stop and look after the kids whenever they need something. YOU can’t do it, because you are wet/out of the house/whatever. Excellent!

c) Realise that he will be happier if he gets his Internet time in.

Keeping him happy should loop back to help you. If he’s had his Internet time he’s likely to be less cranky, and therefore things will be better between you. PLUS, if you can work in just a tiny, unoffensive reminder of actually how long he’s been on the computer, you may be able to extract enough guilt to get other things to go your way. “Surely we can go shopping for a couple of hours. I mean, you have been on the computer all morning.”

So there you go, Internet Widows. See? It’s not nearly as bad as you think!

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