Run for Your Life

by Mark Cucuzzella

  IF IT DOESN’T FEEL GOOD, DON’T DO IT

  Logically, my long barefoot runs on paved roads should be stressful to the bones and joints (not to mention the skin on the soles of my feet). But my body has adapted to years of minimal and barefoot running, which has made my feet essentially bulletproof. The muscles are thick and the bones dense from the constant loading and recovery.

  The late running doctor and author George Sheehan often wrote that “we’re all an experiment of one.” Humans are all built much the same, though each of us responds to training, and to recovery, a bit differently. Regardless of how we respond, there is one simple gauge that we can rely on: if we wake up with a spring in our step and a desire to run, then we are recovered. There’s no shortcut or “hack” to getting there. The most thorough, endurance-enhancing recovery happens naturally and slowly, following moderate, healthful stress. If your workouts are less brutal, your enjoyment will be greater and your recovery faster and easier. And your performance will improve. A win-win-win.

  My feet after a 20K run on pavement

  Recovery—on the Kickbike

  DRILLS

  An unconventional treat for your feet

  One unusual (and counterintuitive) recovery drill is to take off your shoes and run barefoot on pavement: this forces you to step gently and to slow down. Bare feet connecting with smooth pavement triggers the two hundred thousand proprioceptive nerve endings in the feet to “reset” the mechanoreceptors in the fascia and muscles. It’s what I call “active recovery.” No need for NSAIDs, nutritional supplements, a cold river, or a room full of devices.

  I discovered this in 2011 after running the Boston Marathon, which has lots of downhills. The day after the race I was stiff and sore, as expected, and the most comfortable option would have been to transfer myself from bed to lounge chair to plane. But the morning was beautifully sunny and I desperately wanted to get outside. The thought of putting on my shoes was not a happy one, so I set off slowly down Commonwealth Avenue in my bare feet. (I had earlier experienced some of the mysterious benefits of barefoot running.) After an hour of very gentle running and movement, I felt rejuvenated, ready for playful activity.

  Try this, and see where it takes you.

  Recover from running by sprinting

  This sounds counterintuitive, too, but try finishing your run by opening up your stride and doing some short sprints (and throw in some skips and relaxed running form drills). You’ll end up fully mobile and symmetric, because sprints work like dynamic stretching and set you up for better recovery. So—fly a little at the end of your run! If you finish an exercise session in a tight position, you’ll start the next day in a tight, locked, compromised position.

  Sleep loose

  One of the most important recovery drills couldn’t be easier: sleep. At least two hours before bed, don’t eat sugar, turn off digital screens, find a cool, quiet place, and retire early (so that you don’t need an alarm to wake up). Most of us sleep with our mouths wide open, which is not optimally healthful because we tend to draw in shallow breaths with the upper rib cage. I’ve found that a nasal dilator (such as Nasal Turbine) facilitates nose breathing during sleep, which boosts the parasympathetic system by allowing more diaphragmatic breathing. Or try placing a strip of tape over your mouth at night.

  And get to know your baseline heart rate variability (HRV), and respect that number. Upon awakening, do some slow, deep nasal breathing, then check your HRV reading. This should be a beacon to your level of effort for that day, with a high HRV meaning that it’s okay to train today.

  Water

  Soaking in water is magical. Some like it hot, and some like it cold. I’m a skinny old guy, and the mere thought of jumping into cold water is stress-inducing. I have a small hot tub on the back porch, and I relax and do gentle mobilization in it at the end of the day. Water supports and massages the body in ways that nothing else can.

  Foam rolling

  Gentle fascia mobilization with foam rollers helps keep the fascia and muscles supple. Experiment with your tight spots—generally the hip flexors, quads, calves, and thoracic spine. Rolling should never be rushed or rough. Using different shapes and sizes of tubes, or even a lacrosse ball, roll along the belly of the muscle and into the grooves separating the muscles. Pause over a spot occasionally, take a deep abdominal breath, and flex and extend the joint. This is my five-minute morning routine of gentle tissue flossing. I follow that with some easy hip movement.

  Compression

  The soleus muscle—the calf—is referred to as the “second heart,” because of its ability to activate blood and lymphatic fluid return to the heart, mostly through the simple act of walking. If you sit for extended periods in a car or airplane, or at a desk, or have been confined to a bed (which is best avoided, even in hospitals), then compression socks can help. They aren’t substitutes for walking and moving, however. It’s always best to move and recover actively. Walk it off. But if you can’t, compress.

  The market is flooded with compression products—in every color imaginable, for every part of the body. The effects of gravity and distance from the heart mean that the lower extremities are the most important to compress, and can aid in reducing swelling and discomfort from long periods of sitting or standing. Make sure you get medical-grade products.

  The mind

  Recovery of the mind is essential. If you have been training hard and enter an event, the adrenaline high will be followed, predictably, by a letdown. Anticipate this and give your mind some rest and flexibility, in whatever way works best and fits your schedule. Take breaks from the running regimen.

  CHAPTER 12

  Running a Marathon

  It’s very hard in the beginning to understand that the whole idea is not to beat the other runners. Eventually you learn that the competition is against the little voice inside you that wants to quit.

  —GEORGE SHEEHAN, M.D.

  Everyone should run one marathon. The rest is optional.

  —MEB KEFLEZIGHI

  MYTH: Races are all about winning, or improving your race time.

  FACT: Races should be about setting a goal and achieving it, and about joy, sharing, and health.

  MYTH: To run your best time, you must run “hard.”

  FACT: Running your best is all about relaxing and harnessing the inherent efficiency of the human body.

  For some it can be tedious to exercise and train alone, day after day. As humans, we seek challenging experiences, and we desire to engage with others—to play, to strive, to get in the game—because it’s fun. Without a challenge, there is no growth. So we enter a race.

  As the number of running race entrants has grown, so have the stakes. Events have become more competitive. Times have improved. Distances have lengthened. Obstacles and challenges (such as Death Valley, or mountain passes) have been introduced. Almost inadvertently, an entire subculture has arisen around the ultra-marathon and Ironman circuits, with entrants racing frequently and for prize money. In 1965, the Boston Marathon had fewer than three hundred entrants. By 2017, thirty thousand runners took to the course—fifty thousand ran in the New York Marathon the same year. Many thousands more never reach the ever-tightening qualifying standards.

  As your strength, endurance, and joy increase (because of the principles you’ve applied from this book), it’s natural that you’ll feel ready to enter a race. But run in a race only if you are well prepared and if you are confident that it will bring you joy. Too often, obsessive runners harm themselves by not sufficiently slowing down and preparing for longer distances. They are tearing themselves down, rather than building health.

  ONE STEP AFTER ANOTHER

  Like many, I have regarded the marathon as a lifetime goal, and feel privileged as a representative of the U.S. Air Force to have run twenty-five Marine Corps Marathons, fourteen Air Force Marathons, and twenty-four Boston Marathons. I’m s
till learning, and I love to share what I’ve learned with others.

  The biggest milestone en route to running a marathon comes when you are able to run three miles comfortably. That first three miles—5K—will happen only when you have established a foundation of health and fitness. Once you can run a 5K race, you can run a 10K.

  Running a marathon successfully, on the other hand, involves science, overall health, faith in yourself, smart training, discipline, restraint, creativity, and a small load of luck. So, what do you get in return for that investment of time and energy? The marathon distance offers little or no health advantage over shorter races, such as the half marathon. (Over the 26.2 miles of a marathon, the runner takes more than fifty thousand punishing steps, after all.) But entering a marathon is an empowering undertaking. And simply finishing conveys confidence into other parts of one’s life. And if you can run a marathon, chances are that you can readily step out and run shorter distances.

  I’d like to share with you the strategies that you can use to build and maximize your level of performance as marathon race time gets closer. You can apply this to a half-marathon event as well.

  Friends set out on the Freedom’s Run marathon in West Virginia.

  DON’T EAT AND RUN…

  Running a marathon for me, at age fifty-one, entails cranking out 6:45 miles—which admittedly is faster than the training speed dictated by my maximum aerobic heart rate. Four to six weeks before a race, I’ll do some six- to ten-mile runs at this quicker, marathon pace, just to feel the coordination of movements needed and to dial in the sensation of relaxing at a faster speed.

  Most of the time, I do what I call metabolic training. I teach my body to maximize its aerobic fitness (and to burn fat) by not eating before or during my long runs. When fasted, the active body adapts to its (foodless) environment. If sugar is readily accessible (following a high-carb meal, for instance), then the body doesn’t bother switching to fat-burning mode. If you eat carbs, you’ll end up burning carbs (at least some of them). But if you eat fats (or don’t eat at all), you’ll burn more fats—if, that is, you haven’t jacked up your insulin response by eating carbs. Insulin inhibits the body’s utilization of fats as fuel. This is critical to understand.

  Long runs in a fasted state—as much as two hours at an easy to moderate pace—drain the slow-twitch (“red,” oxidative, aerobic) fibers of their glycogen, and force more capillarization of the fast-twitch (mixed aerobic/anaerobic, largely “white”) fibers. This shifts the fast-twitch muscles into a more aerobic (oxidative) state. In essence, when you run before eating you are adapting your body to function better in a carbohydrate-depleted state, by teaching it to draw on the stores of energy that are the most abundant and efficient—the fat. You’re instructing your muscles’ slow-twitch fibers (and even the fast-twitch oxidative fibers) to generate more fat-fueled energy.

  You may want to try some fasted long runs before your next marathon. Race day itself will be different, because you’ll be going for outright performance, not creating adaptations for performance.

  Remember that the sweet spot for working out is thirty to sixty minutes of movement, most days of the week. As you ramp up to a marathon or half marathon, extending this to two or three hours, one day a week, will get you to the start line healthy and hungry to run.

  THREE DAYS PRIOR

  Three days before a marathon, fill your glycogen stores by resting and eating fat, protein, and topping off with some healthy carbohydrates. Don’t overeat, and don’t “load.” You can store only so much. Fat is the primary fuel, but you might as well fill the sugar tank, too.

  And sleep. Follow your usual routine, and avoid being on your feet all day. Do some relaxed running—jog slowly a few miles. Relaxation takes precedence over training. You may be traveling the day before a race anyway. It’s best not to fill your head with whatever else you might have done to maximize your training and readiness. If you make it to the starting line in good health, injury-free, and confident in your preparations, you’re almost to the finish line.

  THE NIGHT BEFORE…

  Psychological preparation is as important as physical fitness. The race day checklist should include a mental plan for dealing with adverse conditions, because it is completely normal to have bad patches. (With relaxation and a reset when you are struggling, you can usually emerge and shake it off.) Anticipate this by rehearsing complete relaxation from the top down—eyes, jaw, shoulders, arms, legs.

  Self-confidence is critical. Visualize all the miles you have already run. Place yourself in the frame of mind that you have completed the real work. The race is just the final touch, the final lap, the fun part.

  Four-time Olympic Trials qualifier Josh Cox offered me a great tip for putting your mind at ease the night before a race: on the floor, lay out your outfit and gear—everything that you’ll wear or use the next day—in the shape of an “invisible man.” On race day, scrambling to find your bib number, socks, favorite hat, or other items only adds stress. Then get some sleep! At a talk two days before the 2016 Air Force Marathon, I mentioned the “invisible man.” The next day, a runner came up to me with a smile and a new pair of running shoes. She said she went home after the talk, laid out her gear, and realized she had forgotten her shoes.

  RACE DAY MORNING

  Don’t sabotage your performance by consuming a large, carbohydrate-heavy breakfast, which would elevate your insulin levels and hijack the ability to burn fat. Have a light breakfast of fat, protein, and a small amount of carbs, along with your morning coffee if you’re a coffee drinker. For me, this amounts to a banana with some almond butter a couple of hours before the start, and a shake of low-carb UCAN about an hour prior. I like a product called VESPA, too, which supports fat metabolism.

  THE START…AND THE EARLY MILES

  To sum up the best mind-set to adopt for a race of any distance, it’s: relax. Don’t start a race too fast. Your objective, from the starting gun, should be to dial in the proper balance between your fat and sugar fuels, such that you’re optimally efficient for the duration of the race. Going too hard early on will deplete the sugar stores—the gas tank—and shunt too much blood to working muscles. You need to tap into your reservoir of fat (electricity), using the same metabolism that allows a bird to migrate thousands of miles without an aid station. It’s all about pace. You’re migrating.

  FARTHER ALONG…ENERGY MONITORING

  For a marathon, your sugar stores of blood glucose (less than 20 kcal), liver glycogen (300–500 kcal), and muscle glycogen (1000–1500 kcal) provide you with only about half the needed energy to get you the full distance. This is why it is essential to draw as much energy as possible from your own body fat. It’s best to rely on “electricity” and conserve “gas” early in the race. Operate in hybrid mode, and cruise on the electricity as much as you can.

  Carry a few glucose gels with you at the start. If you can take in a bit of glucose along the way, then you can permit yourself to run a bit more in gas mode if called upon. If you’re running too fast or if the temperature is high, however, your blood migrates to the skin to help with cooling—which diverts blood from the gut, so nothing digests. If you have remained in hybrid, sugar/fat mode in the early stages, you can add small quantities of glucose along the way. After the start, a gel every sixty minutes can usually be digested and helps top off the tank. This helps maintain mental energy, too: studies have shown that even swishing a sports drink in your mouth (and not ingesting any) delays exhaustion.

  If you take gels, you can drink water (according to your thirst) and avoid the energy drinks, which have an unpredictable glucose content. (The Marine Corps Marathon, for example, has twelve water points and four food stations.) But don’t drink too much water, as it can lead to a dangerous condition called hyponatremia. Calorie-free electrolytes like UCAN Hydrate are great to add to water and easy to carry. You might also want to study the tips on this page
for running in the heat, when hydration needs increase.

  HYBRID MODE VIGOR

  So, how do you know when you are running in your best hybrid mode? That’s tricky to say, because it’s difficult to sense the subtle but important aerobic threshold as readily as the more profound anaerobic (or lactate) threshold, discussed in chapter 7. A slight increase from your optimal pace may cause you to exceed the aerobic threshold, and quietly switch you from hybrid mode to all gas. The effects will be felt miles later, when your energy crashes.

  If you’re tempted to apply some speed early on, I have one recommendation: don’t. Instead, relax and maintain a comfortable effort and pace (though your speed may change). You should feel comfortable in the early stages. It’s a marathon, after all.

  I try to belly breathe, by filling the lower reaches of the lungs where more complete oxygen exchange occurs. If I’m taking an in-breath and out-breath (one cycle) for every five steps, then I’m in sustainable hybrid mode. If I’m breathing faster, then I’m burning mostly gas—glucose—as fuel. Notice the breathing efforts of those around you. Many will be breathing rapidly, and they are the ones likely to suffer after the halfway point. If you use a heart rate monitor in training, consider wearing it during the event.