After completing my first ever double century last fall in Death Valley, I set a goal this year to complete at least three of them. This seemed like a good challenge, and would allow me to earn the California Triple Crown jersey.
Hardcore Paleo enthusiasts would frown upon such behavior, as they believe that the “chronic cardio” associated with training for and completing ultra-distance events is hard on your body. In addition to the danger of overuse injuries, you have the oxidative stress associated with running your body in the glucose burning aerobic zone for extended periods of time. Our bodies are very well adapted to moving over long distances at a sub-aerobic, fat-burning pace. They do less well when you ask them to perform high-octane cardio work for twelve or more hours.
I think most ultra distance runners and cyclists sense the danger (especially the day after an ultra event), but it’s hard to give up the challenge that longer distances provide. It’s also hard for many of us to believe that exercise could somehow be bad for you.
In any event, after ramping up my training for a double this February way too fast, I managed to tweak my knee and create a few other soft tissue issues. After completing the Camino Real Double, I had to drop out of the spring version of the Death Valley Double.
Since then, I’ve dropped my cycling mileage way back, and I’ve been trying to do a lot more cross training: hiking, kettlebell, pilates, etc. The hope is that eventually I’ll be able to increase the mileage again (slowly) and the cross-training that I’ve been doing will leave me less prone to overuse injuries. Or it may be that I’m just not cut out for the ultra stuff. Maybe the hardcore Paleo guys are right after all . . .
The good news is that cross-training is actually a lot of fun, and I’ve rediscovered the joy of hiking. My dog Zayzay is especially psyched about this new trend.
After the desolate splendor of Haleakalā, here are a few pics from some of the rain forest hikes I’ve been doing on Maui:
