Eat and Run: My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness

by Scott Jurek

Combined with heavy sweating, too much ibuprofen can cause kidney failure,

Here’s how: After you’ve been running for 30 to 45 minutes at least three times a week for six to eight weeks, you’re ready to start running occasionally at 85 to 90 percent of your physical capacity, or the point where lactate is building up in your muscles but your body is still able to clear and process it. Build to where you can maintain that lactate threshold level for 5 minutes. Then take 1 minute of easy running to give the body time to recover, then repeat. As you progress, increase the number of the intervals and their length while maintaining a 5:1 ratio between work and rest. So you would do 10-minute intervals of hard running followed by 2-minute breaks, or 15 minutes of hard running followed by 3 minutes of rest, and so on. After four to six weeks, you’ll be able to maintain this effort level for 45 to 50 minutes. And you’ll be faster.

How to run faster

Chocolate Adzuki Bars If you’re going to eat a moist, dense dessert on the run, this one is ideal. Made from the most digestible of beans, along with banana, rice flour, and vanilla, these lightly sweetened bars taste even better than their ingredients suggest. Plus, they are an excellent source of carbohydrates and protein. ½ teaspoon coconut oil 1 15-ounce can adzuki beans, drained 1 medium overripe banana ½ cup almond or rice milk ½ cup light coconut milk ½ cup barley flour ¼ cup rice flour 6 tablespoons cocoa powder 3 tablespoons maple syrup 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 teaspoon miso or ½ teaspoon sea salt ⅓ cup goji berries, currants, or raisins (optional) ½ cup vegan chocolate chips Preheat the oven to 400°F. Grease a 9-inch square cake pan with the coconut oil. Using a blender or food processor, puree the beans and banana with the almond milk and coconut milk until smooth and creamy. Add the flours, cocoa powder, maple syrup, vanilla, and miso, processing until they are thoroughly mixed. Stir in the dried fruit. Pour the mixture into the cake pan and sprinkle the chocolate chips on top. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, until firm. When the bars have cooled, they can be cut into squares, placed in small plastic bags, and refrigerated overnight for the next long day on the road or trail. MAKES 16 2-INCH-SQUARE BROWNIES

Recipe

If you are not on the edge, you are taking up too much room. —RANDY “MACHO MAN” SAVAGE

I wanted to know more about that space between exhaustion and breaking. I wanted to know more about my body and my will.

Its ok to hurt, test your limits, but first you must know yourself

“For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his soul?” The point was living with grace, decency, and attention to the world, and breaking free of the artificial constructs in your own life.

“If your mind is dirty you can run 10,000 miles, but where have you gotten? If you go for a 1-mile run and you’re passionately engaged with the world, who cares about the other 9,999?”

Body, Mind, and Sport, by John Douillard, and learned that breathing through the nose rather than the mouth lowers one’s heart rate and helps brain activity.

Running Wild: An Extraordinary Adventure of the Human Spirit, by John Annerino; Running and Being: The Total Experience, by George Sheehan; and The Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei, by John Stevens.

Books to read

Don’t work towards freedom, but allow the work itself to be freedom. —DOGEN ROSHI

blood type, O, was the least suited of all types to vegetarianism, I worried a little, but not too much. According to D’Adamo, my ancestral profile made me a “canny, aggressive predator” who preferred baby seal meat to bean burritos.

satori—the sudden, Zen-like clarity that comes when you least expect it, often when your body is pushed to the limit.

When you run on the earth and with the earth, you can run forever. —RARAMURI PROVERB

The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places. —ERNEST HEMINGWAY

Thinking is best used for the primitive essentials: when I ate last, the distance to the next aid station, the location of the competition, my pace. Other than those considerations, the key is to become immersed in the present moment where nothing else matters.

Number one: I was exhausted. I let myself feel that and I acknowledged it. Number two: I took stock. I was slightly pissed off that I had just expended so much energy, all to put distance between myself and someone I needn’t have worried about. And I was still exhausted and upset. But it wasn’t life-threatening. Three: I asked myself what I could do to remedy the situation. I could stop, but that wasn’t an option. The answer: Keep moving. And four: Separate negative thoughts from reality. Don’t dwell on feelings that aren’t going to help. I kept moving.

John Annerino’s Running Wild and Colin Fletcher’s The Man Who Walked Through Time.

Books