Grand to Grand Ultra 2013 - I Am In

Started this day with a grateful heart. I cannot contain my happiness and joy and wanted to share my blessings especially to my very few followers on this blog.

I got accepted, I will be in G2G 2013.

Monday with so much blessings to be thankful and grateful for. I was awaken by a message from a very good friend, the Race Director of Grand to Grand (G2G), a 267km 7 day 6 staged race in Northern Arizona to Southern Utah. She has a generous sponsor who wants a runner to be bringing the Philippine flag to her race for the first time. And she has me in mind.

 

 It has been my desire to join this event since it's inaugural  race last year. I come across this race through the FB announcement sometime March last year, been following the regular posts on the event's official website. Running beside the Grand Canyon and most especially through  the desert of Arizona and Utah is something that I had been fascinated of doing. 

By following the event I found out that the Race Director is a lady and not just an ordinary lady but a lady ultra runner from the Philippines, isn't that wonderful?

This is going to be a great race and I am going to have a grand adventure.

Thank you G2G, thank you Big G for so much blessings.

Grand to Grand (G2G) 

Grand Canyon to Grand Stair Case

Cambodia's Ancient Khmer Path 2012 Race (Movie by Boundless)

"We are running on our own but we work together as a team." Paul

"You take it from what it's worth, but the human body can accomplish with the help of the mind, there are no limits." Simon

"It's been a spiritual journey on this race. It's about the moment, appreciating where you are". Simon

A movie coverage made by Boundless, a Canadian outdoor sports tv channel who covered two of the competitors of my first multi staged race in Cambodia last quarter of last year. I just want to keep a copy of the movie. (I am not really sure though if others can open and view the video.)

Global Limits Combodia: The Ancient Khmer Path 2012 Race

A Long Pursuit of Self

Reposting as Lizzy will always be my idol on the trail. 

As posted at New York Times
By SARAH BARKER
Published: April 15, 2013

“I try to focus on running the very best that I can, literally moment by moment,” said Lizzy Hawker, a 36-year-old British ultrarunner.

Lizzy Hawker had just finished running a nine-stage race through some of Nepal’s wildest trails when she learned that her flight back to Katmandu, about 200 miles away, was canceled because of bad weather. 

In August, Hawker won the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc, a 104-kilometer race that included 6,000 meters of climbing.

So, rather than wait for the next flight, she ran there. 

There were no cheering fans, other competitors or prizes. Instead, Hawker, a 36-year-old British ultrarunner, was intent on beating her time over the same route from 2007, which was 74 hours 36 minutes nonstop. Few cared if she broke her record or abandoned her effort. The competition was with herself. 

“I try to focus on running the very best that I can, literally moment by moment,” Hawker said. “If I’m in pain or tired, I don’t have to fight it. I can be in myself, in the environment. It’s amazing what you can do running moment to moment.” 

About halfway through the run, where her route turned from trail to road, Hawker met her friend Roger Henke from Katmandu and three other Nepalese runners. Their van held food, water and a back seat for napping. Late in the second day, Hawker was nauseated and having problems with coordination, Henke said. 

He recalled: “Having retched out the last bit of liquid from the previous stop, she’d say, ‘Would it be O.K. if I lay down just a bit? Hope you don’t mind,’ with this very British teatime politeness.” 

The van followed Hawker through the last leg of the run, with Henke and the others taking turns running alongside her. 

“Throughout the three days, she slept maybe four and a half hours, never more than 50 minutes at a time,” Henke said. 

She set a personal record to Katmandu from Everest Base Camp of 71 hours 25 minutes. 

Hawker has a reputation for pushing farther, faster and more often, even by the standards of other ultrarunners. In a four-week period in 2012, she won the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc, considered one of the toughest trail challenges; overcame a fall to win the women’s 100-mile Run Rabbit Run in Colorado; and set a course record for women in the 155-mile Spartathlon Ultra Race in Greece. Many ultrarunners would consider that a full year of competition. But Hawker routinely flouts conventional wisdom, partly because she is able to recover so quickly. 

“I might have run better with more rest,” she said. “But again, I might not have.”

During peak training and racing periods, she can log 12 to 14 hours a day on trails over three to four days, with a few 150-mile weeks. 

But she demurred, “It’s not as much as people imagine.” 

Hawker’s résumé tells a different story. She holds a doctorate in polar oceanography from Cambridge, has won the women’s Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc five times, and has finished first in more than 35 trail ultras, including the Annapurna 100, the North Face 50-Mile and the Transgrancanaria 123K. 

Unlike most ultrarunners, Hawker challenges herself on all surfaces. She won the 100K world championship in 2006 and set a 24-hour world record by running a 1-kilometer loop of asphalt 247 times at the Commonwealth Championships in September 2011. She has reached the summit of the 22,349-foot Ama Dablam in the Himalayas without oxygen and was named a 2013 National Geographic Adventurer of the Year. 

But Hawker said her greatest accomplishment was having the courage to try something new, which was how her career as an ultrarunner started.

In August 2005, Hawker and some friends were camping near Chamonix, France. Her friends went home, but Hawker was intrigued by the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc, a roughly 103-mile circuit of the mountain that begins and ends in Chamonix. 

“I ran every day, so I knew I had endurance, but there was no indication I’d be good,” she said. “The idea of making a journey around Mont Blanc just seemed like a good thing.” 

She took her headlamp, a borrowed backpack that was too big for her 5-foot-4 frame and a pair of trail shoes that she had bought at the last minute, and headed to Chamonix. 

“At the start, I was thinking of a line from ‘Alice in Wonderland’: ‘Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end. Then stop,’ ” she said. 

She ran the race with a sense of wonder rather than trepidation, ogling buffets of food at aid stations. She was surprised to be the second woman through the first major checkpoint. It was then that she thought she should really start running. She enjoyed the solitude of running through the night in the tiny bobbing circle of her headlamp, making it through the race one checkpoint at a time. She was the first woman to finish, 24th over all, in 26 hours 53 minutes. 

When pressed about pushing her body to perform without sleep for more than 24 hours, she could identify only one low point in the race. It was in the pouring rain with five or six hours of running remaining. 

“I was longing for a cup of tea with milk,” she said, “but they gave me a cup of meat soup with milk. It was disgusting. And I’m a vegetarian.” 

After the race, the apparel company North Face approached Hawker with an offer of sponsorship. Extremely independent — she trains on her own, coaches herself and belongs to no club or team — she accepted the offer, hesitantly. 

“I wanted to be sure of what they expected in return,” she said. 

Over a period of years, she built up trust with the company. From 2005 to 2008, she kept her research position with the British Antarctic Survey and used her vacation time to race. With a small stipend from North Face and additional money from writing, editing and coaching for the Laufschule Scuol, a training center in Switzerland, she left her job and moved to the Swiss Alps in 2008. 

The soaring Alpine terrain is a far cry from her childhood in Upminster, a suburb of London. Her passion for mountains began when she was 6 on a family vacation to Zermatt, Switzerland. 

“Maybe it was just a reaction to suburbia, but I felt at home there,” she said.

Hawker’s work ethic also started at a young age. 

“I always liked doing things the hard way,” she said. “If I could take a bus or walk, I’d walk.” 

For Hawker, there is no joy in unearned rewards. She has said she would need to hike to the top of a mountain to be able to enjoy skiing down it. She would never buy a lottery ticket, because if she won, she would not feel she had earned the prize money. 

Her work ethic, and the mental fortitude it built, have helped make her one of the top endurance athletes in the world. It requires a strong mind to balance the two competing thoughts at the core of endurance running: listening to one’s body and ignoring it. 

“If you’re hungry or cold or tired or in pain, you have to listen enough to put on another layer or get a hot drink,” she said. “But at the same time, you have to be able to disregard those feelings. In hard patches, I might think about what I’m going to eat at the next aid station, or someone who is waiting for me at the finish line. I try to be in the moment, good or bad.” 

But why Hawker continues to push herself to extremes is hard for some to understand. Most ultraraces, like the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc, offer no prize money. Even the top ultrarunners are little known outside the sport and work other jobs just to get by. Injury is endemic, and suffering is part of the pursuit. 

Alone, cold and tired on the trail, she, too, sometimes questions why she does this.

“You have to give yourself a good answer to carry on,” she said. “I think we’re all looking for that edge, challenging ourselves, whether that’s expressed through music, writing, raising a family or endurance running. 

“During extreme challenges, you come back to the core of who you are; it helps you know yourself. For me, running is a way of moving I really love, and I love being outside in the mountains.”

It All Depends on What You Believe

It All Depends on What You Believe

 

 

Why chia seeds are today’s ‘it’ food

They are packed with nutrition, but experts caution that they are still no substitute for a balanced diet

By Anne A. Jambora
Philippine Daily Inquirer

10:33 pm | Monday, April 1st, 2013 

Runners believe it makes them go the extra mile, bodybuilders swear it helps them build more muscle mass. Heck, even ancient Aztec warriors are believed to have sustained their energy with just a tablespoon of this exotic seed.  

If you’ve been working out in the gym recently, chances are you’ve heard about the mighty chia seeds. But are chia seeds really the superfood many claim them to be, or is their sudden rise to popularity a mere product of clever marketing? 

The fitness industry took interest in chia seeds when American author and journalist Christopher McDougall wrote about it in his 2009 New York Times Bestseller book “Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Ever Seen.”

In the book, McDougall documented the Tarahumara tribe in Mexico, who ran ultra marathons (typically a distance of more than 100 km) at incredible speeds with minimal or no injuries at all.

The tribe’s choice of energy drink? A “home-brewed Red Bull,” wrote McDougall, called chia fresca, made of chia seeds mixed in water with sugar and lime. A tablespoon of chia, McDougall wrote, “is like a smoothie made from salmon, spinach and human growth hormone.”

Wrote the author, “If you had to pick just one desert island food, you couldn’t do much better than chia, at least if you were interested in building muscle, lowering cholesterol and reducing your risk of heart disease; after a few months on the chia diet you could probably swim home.” 

A vegetarian for 19 years, Vesagas said she adds a tablespoon of chia seeds to her coffee three times a day. Chia, when added to water, turns into a gelatinous, chewy substance. “I feel bolder now, more confident, since I don’t get cramps anymore,” she said. 

 Chia, or Salvia hispanica, is a member of the mint family from Mexico and South America. Eaten raw or added to dishes, chia seeds do pack a lot of bang for the buck. Their Omega-3 fatty acids are much higher than salmon, they’re a good source for complete protein, have more fiber than flax seed, and contain a wealth of antioxidants and minerals.

 International Krav Maga Federation instructor Abe Tolentino began taking chia seeds over a year ago when he read about their anti-inflammatory properties. As an instructor, he said, his joints took a beating. He makes green smoothies or puddings with chia seeds. He admits, though, that he is not really sure if the chia seeds have been beneficial so far. 

“I have no clinical studies to show that they make a difference. I’m generally a healthy person. For my raw vegan friends, though, it’s the highest source of Omega-3 from a non-animal source,” Tolentino said. His diet consist of 50-70 percent raw veggies per day.

There are also claims that consumption of chia seeds promotes weight loss because it curbs the appetite, balances blood sugar levels, and lowers cholesterol and trigylcerides and blood pressure. Registered nutritionist, dietitian and weight-management consultant Pam Joyce Laiz, however, cautions the public to remain skeptical of any product whose claims have yet to be extensively studied by science. 

“While it is true that chia seeds contain so many nutrients in just one small serving, claims of their benefits are not proven and need more scientific studies. These are all testimonials. There is, in fact, no such thing as ‘superfood.’ That’s a term coined by marketing people. You cannot get complete nutrition eating chia seeds alone,” Laiz said. 

She said Vesagas’ cramp-free running, for instance, may be attributed to the fact that chia seeds are high in potassium and are extremely hydrophilic. Meaning, they hold water well and retain the electrolytes. For endurance athletes, this is good news, Laiz said. But unless you’re athletic, she said it is best to stick to just one tablespoon or less of chia seeds a day.

Chia seeds are high in fiber, so that consumption of more than a tablespoon a day can cause bloating and constipation. She said that is generally not a problem for active people such as athletes and fitness buffs, who tend to consume a lot of water every day.

Healthy metabolism

The Omega-3 fatty acids in chia seeds, as in most plant sources, are also short-chain, alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), not the long-chain eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) found in fatty fish like salmon. So don’t take chia seeds expecting the benefits of fish oils. The body, however, converts ALA into EPA and DHA, albeit in really low doses.

Although it is not known if both short- and long-chain acids are equally beneficial, especially since EPA and DHA seem to be the popular choice for Omega-3, adding both into your diet, said Laiz, is, in fact, beneficial to the body.

“ALA promotes integrity of cells in the colon. That means a healthy metabolism and digestion. One is not necessarily superior over the other. What’s important is, you get the benefits of both short- and long-chain acids,” Laiz said.

Excess consumption of Omega-3, she said, could cause the blood pressure to dip extremely low, dilate the blood, and malabsorption of other nutrients. Laiz said the daily recommended intake of Omega-3 is only 300-500 mg per day, although it is still safe to go up to 3 grams per day (3,000 mg). Chia seeds, she added, contains around 2,250 mg per tablespoon. (A tablespoon has 68 calories.) 

Since chia seeds are a complete source of dietary protein, packed with all the essential amino acids, muscle wasting, a concern mostly by bodybuilders and those wanting to build muscles, will be minimized. Muscle wasting happens when proteins break down faster than they are replaced. Amino accids, such as those contained in chia seeds, are the body’s building blocks. 

Chia seeds, however, do not act like diet pills. Laiz said because digestion is slowed down, it can give you the feeling of fullness. But this feeling, also caused by its high fiber and protein content, does not necessarily curb the appetite. If you want to lose weight, the most sensible thing to do is to cut your calories and start moving.

 Since the transit time in the gastrointestinal tract is slow, the conversion of carbs to sugar is also slower, so that may stabilize blood sugar, she said. Since it lowers the blood pressure, it may also be beneficial to hypertensive people.

But before running to your nearest health store, Laiz said chia seeds interact with drugs. If you’re taking medications for, say, diabetes, hypertension or cholesterol, consult with your doctors first. She added that heart patients must also seek their doctor’s advice before adding chia seeds into their diet.

Laiz’s conclusion? Chia seeds are a good source of nutrition—loaded with high nutritional values than most food sources in such a tiny serving—but they do not provide you with everything you need. A well-balanced intake of nutrients is still recommended.