Discovering some pretty hefty musics this week, that I am stoked about. Flying Lotus and Madlib. Both have it’s places and times, but they are great wind down artists. I listened to some of their tunes. Minimal, chill-out, downtempo mixes, great background noise. The French Radio – Radio Frequence K have epic playlists time to time, I really enjoy their showdowns. That is when I heard them actually .
I love this one !
That is a teenager question, to know how to judge each other, kind of: “what music you listen to ? ” – kind of “are you cool” ? – on a way. I am way away from being in my teens, but I never adhered to this kind of behaviour. I often shocked people that I can integrate into any group and understand or even know other style of musics than they are used to, from me. For instance one weekend going to a rave / hardcore party with Dune, Thunderdome and Charly LowNoise, then a couple of days later “doing the pogo” in a friend’s garden to trashmetal and hc, like System of a Down, Cannibal Corps and Sepultura. In the meantime at home I would listen to Mendelssohn, Rachmaninoff, Ravi Shankar and her daughter Norah Jones together with Yehudi Menuhin. They had some great work together. In one of our liked clubs I would totally get locked on Ray Charles. I enjoy Sinatra, Creedence, Offspring, Kansas, 2pac, Eminem, RunDMC, Jedi Mind Tricks…
Enough from music listings. I never really hook on to music while running, but time so often, it happens. I have multiple playlist developed throughout the years and like every 15th run I have my miniature MP3player with me, with the only bearable earphone while running, the yorbuds. Not the best quality sounds, but it doesn’t hurt my ears, nor does it fall out. I use some old tunes from Michael Jackson, Survivor, Rocky, Kickboxer and Bloodsport to warm me up. I also have different playlists for track sessions or trail rampages. I have fun with Deadmouse and Paul Oakenfold mixes on the track, running the 400s, but also turning on the Paradise City, Offspring-Nitro, AFI-Totalimmortal when the motivation is down.
Run after a long pause
Finally, I got to my first run. Nothing Special. Just went for a little MAF type of JOG. 20minutes of Walking, about 5minutes of jogging, then another 10minutes to bring my heart rate up to 140 to 143. Hold it for 5minutes then cool it off.
It is hard as with the element of cycling in my life, my endurance is monstrous. Yeah I ride 12h+ days 4 times a week and over 6 to 10 hours other days. I think that at this moment my high end is very low, close to my aerobic max. This is great if I wanted to run a 24h track event, but when must shoot out from corners in a whirly 12k trail race, well, not that so !
I am not running yet, though. That one outing was just to bring back impact. I will do one tomorrow morning too. 2 days easy and the beginning of an 8week gradual and strategic phase will start.
I will completely adhere to the MAF method, as I have been doing so, for almost half decade now, at the beginning of every season. Later on, like next April, I will really start banking on this, when the hard speed sessions will get introduced.
Either ways, I find it too fast and too hard to run at my MAF heart rate. I have to get used to it. I will do tons of flat, up and downhill MAF intervals. Even up to 20 x 1km and 10 x 2,5km at the end of this period. I am prepping for a 36km flattish trail event. It is a straight line, with short and snappy ups and downs. The longest uphill is like 80meters, but there are so many 15 to 20meters bumps, that it adds up to 1000meters of elevation gain. Up and down all the time. Quiet technical with 7km of flowing white sand ! Trail de Caps – St Tropez !
For 3 years now, I have been starting every year with this event. I won the first one and while shaved off 5minutes from my time, I finished only 3rd 2 years ago. Last year it was cancelled due to the damage caused on the trail by forest fires. I think, if prepared well, a sub 3hour effort is possible, what is 12km/h speed. At this moment we are way over, like 20minutes over. However, again this année, my prep is only 8weeks, including the 2 weeks of gradual taper beforehand. Not gonna be perfect, but, I’ll do my best.
Digestion, food, stomach and health issues
After the TOR, honestly I was feeling like riding on heart rate waves. Sharp and short ups with long and painful downs and some signs of greatness.
I felt amazingly low, the lowest in a decade ! For almost 5days in a row. Then like nothing happened, for 2 days I was great. Another 3 days back to the low. Now this is the 5th day I am high again. I restarted measuring HRV, morning heart rate and really observing sleep quality.
What did I feel ? That my stomach was over working. That I feel like having a translucent but somewhat blocking white curtain front of my eyes, that I wanted to sleep, but when was there in the bed I couldn’t. Having eaten some, I felt nauseous, but in 20minutes I was hungry again. Sometimes after eating I was KO, sometimes feeling energised. If you knew me, you know, that I don’t eat crap, I don’t engage in snacking and I consume 90% of my food organic. Loads of veggies, some fruits. I eat veggies raw and cooked on a daily basis that others might consume twice a year. Endives, red cabbage, beetroots, red carrots, bok choi, plantain, manioca, fresh garlic, red onions, kiwis with skin, spinach and kale. I mean when you ask most people, “when was the last time you ate shredded red cabbage ? ” – they won’t even remember, if ever eaten. I consume it at least 3 times a week. Celery roots, fennel and roquettes too.
I think that my system was really, really exhausted. The messenger work did not help either. Now it seams, that after 4-5 days I am stabilising. I am sticking to a somewhat strategic carb backloading daily approach. It works still very fine.
I have a high fat coffee with spices about 6am. At 9am I am going for a full chicken, except the breast, what my wife takes. I don’t like chicken breast too much. Yesterday was an 8egg omelette with 2 giant pieces of raw bacon cooked into. Day before yesterday, again it was pork chops with lamb chops and green cabbage. This fuels my cycling day till like 4pm. I consume only water. At 4 I have a little break, when I eat over-salted walnuts, hazelnuts mixed with some raisins and a can of sardines, where I drink the oil too. Back in action till 10pm, when I arrive home. At this time I try not to complicate it, but chewing it a lot. I mean my starchy meal. Basmati rice, with olives and a very dark local lettuce or baby spinach.
I also was juicing. Beetroot and celery with carrots and lemon, ginger and curcuma. It helped too, I guess. The infusions mixed with small amount of charcoal is also a great addition to my daily recovery ordeal.
PS: Finally the AM chicken was not a good idea. I should have reread some older posts, what I deleted. Chicken is very low in energy. Beef, porc, game, sheep, they are fantastic, energising. Today I was hungry and eating already at 1pm, just 5hour hours after the entire chicken.
When ate the omelette or the porc chops, I ate first time at 4pm. 8hours of near constant cycling with only on water. That is better. During the day I have very salted nutmix with me as a second meal, to avoid night cramps. I need tons of salt ! I’ll be back with more info on this diet and lifestyle experiment !
Boundless Runner 
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