My approach to steady state run training

 

It's odd that I've turned to explaining how to do things that I'm absolutely not an expert on lately.  Similar to drawing on 2 1/2 years of dabbling with fasting to ground a recent post, I've been running for the past 6 1/2 years, but have really only ramped up training to a significant level over the last 3 or 4.  Even then that relates to running 20 miles / 30 km a week at a moderate pace, when I'm more active, doing 10 minute miles or 6 to 7 minute kilometers.

The point is that I've changed practice organically, and have evolved to a form that works well for me, working around unusual limitations related to recovery issues (at 56 years old now).  Longer runs seem to provide a more complete workout, up to 12 km / 8 miles recently, which I first took up about 14 months ago, but I definitely can't sustain running that far even every other day.  So this spring I've been running every third day, mostly, and last year I tried out 3 runs over 5 days, with a 3 day rest cycle, covering an 8 day cycle.  Back in Bangkok I typically only run 10 km, since that's a lot, with heat stress as a factor.  Sometimes I'll run less, mixing in an 8 km run when I'm not feeling it, or the day is quite busy, but over the last six weeks I've mostly only ran that 12 km.

For everyone who runs a main underlying concern is the goal, or goals.  Most people would include health benefit, and for me that's essentially all of the point.  I don't run to compete in races, and it doesn't support some other sports performance or more specific fitness goal.

What is "steady state run training?"

I've seen a video not so long ago (a few months back) referencing the concept of weight training using the same weights and reps over a significant period of training time.  This opposes a much more standard approach to weightlifting, and athletic training in general, of using "progressive overload" to build up an exercise base, along with progressively increasing demand, which encourages your body to develop an adaptive response.  In the case of weightlifting this is probably muscle strength, or maybe hypertrophy (adding muscle mass), but in running it might relate to running pace increase or the ability to run further.

I think generally the same thing is something of a goal, when using this other kind of approach, to train to increase capacity in some sense.  It's just a counter-intuitive means to getting there.  I'm using the approach of not increasing running pace, or even volume, related to feeling like where I am for total pace and volume is fine, that it fulfills my goals.  And probably more importantly, it maxes out my recovery capacity, so that I can exercise at moderate intensity and considerable volume (for me), which isn't easy to escalate to more of either.

It's probably going to work better to explain what I've been doing, and then move onto why, in more detail, instead of laying out the entire theory first.  This approach evolved organically, and seems to work for me, coaxing my body to tolerate roughly as much training load as it seems comfortable with.  Intensity I could really bump, increasing running pace, if I used more short interval training, but that would involve some injury risk, and trade-off related to experienced volume.  Eventually I'll explore that, but for now since I only maintain these higher levels of exercise exposure for a couple months at a time, before something disrupts my schedule.  Then I build back up to the same level.  It kind of works.

A bit more background

It could seem like I'm going to conclude what type of training provides the most benefit, for a general fitness support goal, but as far as I know there isn't so much consensus on that.  One general recommendation is to get 3 hours of moderate intensity cardio exercise per week, which I definitely cover running 20 miles a week, at or just under 10 minutes per mile (200 minutes per week, leaving space for the annual average, since my long-term schedule includes plenty of lower volume weeks).  

Maybe that's higher intensity than is necessary, and related to even considering that breaking down exercise intensity is difficult.  I'll cover further here how most of that running is occurring between 135 and 145 beats per minute heartrate, but I never really do evaluate if that's a great goal for me.

Here's a very common version of that background guideline (running intensity in relation to heart rate), so universal that Google's AI answer sums it up clearly and accurately:

To find your optimum heart rate training zone by age, you can use the general formula of 220 minus your age to estimate your maximum heart rate. Then, you'll target a range of 50% to 85% of that maximum heart rate for moderate-intensity exercise. 

So I'm 56, leaving me with a maximum heart rate of 164.  That is roughly as high as I ever go; for maximum intensity over short periods it's fine to maintain 160, and 164 is pushing it.  50 to 85% of that relates to a range of 82 to 140.  Sounds low, doesn't it?  82 isn't so bad for a resting heart rate; how am I supposed to do much activity at the level?  Mine might drop to 60-some, or maybe 70, but it's not all that low, in comparison with people who run a medium amount.

I still could circle back to original assumptions and goals, but let's follow this on to more details about my training, to see where those numbers are coming from.

For people more familiar with US / imperial unit pacing 6 minutes per km is equivalent to 9.7 minutes per mile, 6.5 relates to 10.5, and 7 equates to 11.3.

All of that pacing is inconsistent enough that to make sense of it I can explain what happens over a 12 km run, then get on to critiquing intensity and pace a bit.

I run less than 1 km before doing a warm stretch, sometimes using a park restroom at that same time.  To me it's all a part of the run, so often my first km time will be 9 or 10 minutes, with a couple of minutes of that not actually time spent running.  It throws off the pace average meaning much, but again to me it's part of the experience, and I'm comparing run to run, not trying for a certain goal.

The second kilometer is a relatively steep hill climb, up the south side of Diamonhead, even though that time doesn't necessarily reflect that it's the hardest part of the run (the 6:42 second km, here).  I take a short break at the top of the hill, as much to enable pushing harder going up it as anything, which is why the third km time is 7:20 (that day; all of these times vary day to day).  I think I wasn't really feeling the second uphill on the north side, and walked a bit more, leading to a longer 8:33 minute fourth km.  In general short rests are built into two places on the run, at the top of the first hill, and prior to the last 2 km stretch, and taking a third short walk break is really not typical.

the view from the top of that side of Diamondhead (at road level)

Diamondhead from the Ala Wai canal

the other side; it's a bit over a mile long

The 6:01 split relates to a downhill section, of course.  I cross an intersection as I'm moving from the Diamonhead area / Kapiolani park part on to out and back the Ala Wai canal; that cross-walk wait led to an 8:01 split.  I do a short walking break to catch my breath right at or after 10 km, but it doesn't show up as much delay.  I probably ran a 6:15 10th km, and walked for half a minute.

 

this total distance and time is an app glitch, but this shows the route

Back to goals, and the steady state theme

I'm running to stay in shape, and because I like to run.  Those km split times look to be all over the place but really I'm running between 6:15 and 7 minutes / km essentially all of the time, which is already a good bit of range.  But why at that pace?  Because it's comfortable; because that's what running at moderate effort works out to.

I will often ramp it up over the last km or two to run faster, bumping heart rate up to 155 at times, and pace up to 6 min / km.  It's odd that I can run at moderate effort for 6:20 or 30 pacing, then it really escalates speeding up just a little, but that's how it goes.

One might wonder if it's unsatisfying to not improve, to gradually drop km split times / pace from 7 minutes to around 6 1/2, then to get back "out of shape" during extended travel, or when I take time off to spend more of it with the kids.  Not so much.  I've been through very minor injuries before, and it's nice to be able to run 20 miles / 30 km a week at moderate intensity, and to almost never experience any of those problems.  3 hours a week of running between 135 and 145 bmp heart rate seems like a decent amount.

I've been swimming quite a bit lately too, a few times a week, for outings of 400+ meters in the ocean for a nice half an hour swim (or maybe 20+ minutes; I don't track that).  And I often walk the 10,000 steps in a day; errands and a busy schedule add up, and the kids and I use beach walks as a time to chat and check in.

flag 200+ meters out in the ocean (tourist for scale)

I do notice that I improve gradually, that slight increase in pace, and that it's most pronounced after I've been running consistently for about 6 weeks.  At that level of training burden (the 20 miles / 30 km) it seems natural to give it a break after a couple of months, or even earlier, to let the aches completely drop out.

Other approaches

It would be normal for people to use more frequent runs as a training base, adding 5 to 8 km easy runs on "recovery days."  Then also normal to use some shorter interval training to make it seem normal to run faster, to condition down to 5 minutes per km instead.  Running quarter mile intervals at much faster pace would help, or any number of varying approaches along that line.

Or maybe not?  According to this, which I don't really trust as universally accurate, people in my age group (55 to 59) run 5 k races at an average of 12:08 minutes per mile, or 36 minutes per 5k.  That doesn't sound right, does it?  I'm running 2 5k distances back to back, at 32 to 34 minutes each, aside from a stretching break, then another 2 km a bit faster, all relatively continuously.

If people are doing park runs without training all that much this makes sense.  It would be hard for me to train to break a 25 minute 5k time, no matter what I did, but if I shifted training emphasis to speed conditioning for that distance it would come, in time.  In "running circles" there is a lot more focus on the marathon than on a 5k distance, and 10k runs are often seen as fun-runs.  People more serious about moderate distances might use local 5k races to test out their current fitness level, running 15 to 17 minute times, but they would be an exception in a local event field.

From February 2024; I was a little more consistent then, even though that was in hotter weather, back in Bangkok.  The point here is that I'm not really pushing for long-term improvement.

I was more consistent about doing an escalating heart rate / gradually increasing running intensity back then too.

This has just been about passing on what has seemed to work for me.  And maybe the higher order theme that whatever suits your goals and experience preferences should be fine, for running, or other exercise forms, or any kinds of hobbies and self-expression.  I don't see these running stats as all that impressive, but then the point isn't really to impress anyone.

Anti-aging protocol

 

This is something I've ended up discussing a good bit over the past few years, one of many subjects I've become interested in.  My fasting practice ties to an interest in this, even though it started as a result of a chance contact saying that it would bring about spiritual practice benefits (and maybe it did?  hard to say, since that is hard to track).

I'm no expert on avoiding aging effects, but I am a good example of how it can work out.  I'm 56 now and could pass for 40, or maybe even 30-something, and I am active to say the least.  I've just switched my runs back to 12 km per outing, not quite at 3 times per week, but it will level off to at least 30 km / 20 miles per week.  It's hard to justify that I'm more active in general, or more flexible related to being open to new experiences and learning, the less explicit themes related to aging.  It seems so, to me, but it's hard to support that.

56 compared to 16, but I think his genetic potential might be even better

It's strange using yourself as an example like that.  The same general theme came up related to discussing intelligence on Quora before, a favorite topic earlier on.  I'll skip passing on an IQ stat but mine has been tested at significantly higher than the 130 cut-off for grade-school gifted program participation.  People there--Quora--would always claim "intelligent people are less socially oriented," or something such, prone to whatever other malaise, but to me a lot of that ends up being hearsay patterns that don't necessarily hold up in most cases.  Intelligence is like any other aptitude; it can couple with a broad range of personal characters or other aptitudes and weaknesses.  

The nerd or geek persona is separate from intelligence; the two themes may tend to correspond, but they are not tightly causally connected.  Maybe people embracing those character or self-identification themes tend to be above average in intelligence, but it's not as if one is a sign of the other, or that intelligence leads directly to preference of those forms of experience (an interest in sci-fi or computers, etc.).  Somehow it all naturally groups together, that people with certain capacities tend to explore using them in similar ways, but there is no necessary connection.  Plenty of people with sports aptitude are couch potatoes, and plenty of people with very limited athletic potential are still active in sports anyway, they just couldn't excel at the highest levels of competition.

Back to the aging theme; I was responding to this question on Reddit:

If you are aging, what if any supplements did you take in order that you thought might reverse aging or made you feel decades younger again? I mean do you have a sip of certain juice a day or take something to make yourself feel decades younger?

Who isn't aging?  Of course people there recommended diet and exercise, as I did.  But I added some less standard thoughts and practices.

Nothing like that [referring to the magic bullet / take a pill potential], but I can suggest things I know work, for sure, and a couple that might help that are less certain:

exercise: you should try to get at least 3 hours of medium intensity exercise per week. If you want to use weightlifting as this input, to double up on improving muscle conditioning and joint health, you can just increase overall intensity by rushing the sets. Some input should be cardio though; intense beyond walking pace input.

sleep: 8 hours per day is an absolute minimum, unless you somehow don't need much sleep. Coupling a bit of extra sleep with bumping up exercise input will change everything, along with diet change.

diet: cut out processed foods, sugar, junk foods, fast food, unhealthy snacks, etc. Eat natural foods, meats, vegetables and fruits, some whole-grain starch input. Nuts and beans can help with keeping protein intake up, which is important for exercise recovery. You probably don't need to supplement much if your diet is great, but taking a multivitamin couldn't hurt, and some basics like extra magnesium and D.

drugs, cigarettes, alcohol: get away from ingesting any.

tea (onto less certain input): I drink lots of varied tea, of good quality, and that may make a difference (I'm holding up great for being 56). Lots of the polyphenols are probably helpful, along with mineral input. People claim green tea is best for heart health (cardiovascular health), but I think drinking diverse versions would be better, black, green, oolong, sheng pu'er, some hei cha, etc.

goji berry: I eat a little of this daily, re-hydrated dried versions soaked in hot water for some minutes. The extra vitamin A (beta carotine) and xeaxanthin might be most helpful. It's probably good for eye health to also take in a good bit of lutein, but eating leafy green vegetables would cover that.

fasting: this should probably be back in the "certain" grouping. Fasting for 3 to 5 days at a time, at least 4 times per year, could change everything related to aging experience. I think my greying hair reversed mainly because of this input; it had been partly grey, and now isn't. Brain health seems to also improve, mental clarity and memory, which is difficult to achieve.

from 2024, but I don't have many clear photos of myself

Expanding on that:

What about new types of supplements anti-aging gurus promote?  Maybe those could work.  I wouldn't know, since I'm not on any.  I've not even had my hormone levels checked, a far earlier and more basic starting point than taking up hormone inputs or exotic supplements.

What about specific exercise inputs, adjusted sleep forms, less developed supplementation (taking zinc or turmeric / curcumin), specific diet forms (towards keto, Mediterranean, etc.)?  Sure, lots of approaches or inputs might be positive.  Per my understanding being quite active is the main helpful input, walking a lot, doing lots of low intensity activities, like laundry, cutting firewood, walking and hiking, swimming, and so on.  Even gardening, doing lots of very low intensity tasks, supports maintaining flexibility, by forcing you to move in different ways, with significant exposure level.

Getting some sun alone could be helpful.  It could be hard separating causes and effects, related to an input like that.  If someone were to swap out lying motionless while watching streamed video content for walking in the sun they'd never know which input helped most, the sun, the walking, or just not lying motionless.

I think diet alone has the most potential for change, especially if someone is on the standard American diet.  I've been moving back and forth between Bangkok and Honolulu and it takes a lot more focus to maintain a decent diet here (I'm in Hawaii just now).  In Bangkok fresh fruit is sold everywhere, exotic and delicious tropical versions, and even street foods can be relatively healthy, those literally sold from carts out on the sidewalks.  And inexpensive; it costs $20 for just about any meal in Hawaii, and probably over $30 if it's actually healthy.  

"Juicing" has lots of potential; drinking a bit of mixed vegetable juice every day, as the kind of extra bump the original question was asking about.  I practiced that at two different times in my life, probably over a period of at least a half dozen years, or maybe closer to a decade.  I was also a vegetarian for 17 years; maybe that helped?  Often with special diets the inclination to avoid some inputs, like over-eating, or junk foods, might be more important than what you actually consume.  A vegetarian and keto or carnivore diet might end up providing similar benefits for similar reasons, for those limitations, even though the apparent diet input is completely opposite.  Maintaining moderate body weight could be the overall main factor, in limiting aging, and eating a good diet and exercising could help lead to this, but from different directions.

Of course exercise inputs have plenty of potential too.  My health radically improved when I took up running, back at 50, and it improved again when I conditioned enough to ramp up training intensity and volume.  Swimming here in Hawaii has seemed to improve my muscle tone and flexibility quite a bit.  Doing yoga when I was 50 to 52 made a lot of difference, but Covid closed our local favorite yoga studio, so I let that go.

I swim in a swim lane between coral reefs not far from here

Fasting practice is especially promising.  It's too long a subject to add much more about why I think it helps (in a word, autophagy), or approaches that might be best.

I can't really place tea as a positive input either.  Research evidence of tea being quite healthy is very mixed in forms and results.  It probably is, but it's not the simplest thing to test for, and there is limited academic interest in reviewing that, since there is limited corporate commercial interest in leveraging tea sales as a health input.  In the US health care of sick people is far more profitable than preventing illness, especially through inexpensive food inputs.  There's a lot one might consider in relation to Traditional Chinese Medicine perspective on how tea is healthy, and in what optimum forms, which would vary by individual related to best fit or best overall balance.  I drank a lot of tisanes from the age of 22 up to 40; it's not just "real tea" that would have a lot of potential. 

Health risks related to tea are a potential concern, but there isn't a lot to look out for.  Caffeine intake should only go so far, and fluoride input is something to think through.  If you drink high quality tea (less mass-produced, chemical supported growth versions) risks from pesticides and heavy metal inputs are probably quite limited.  There are outliers claiming there are more significant, common risks to avoid, but in my opinion as long as you don't take a "more is better" approach to input tea is very safe.  Consuming up to 20 grams per day of it should be fine.  

You can offset any potential risks by varying types and sources.  You could maximize those risks in the opposite way, buying a kilogram of the most inexpensive, questionable tea you can find from an Indian or Chinese market source, maximizing your contact with those somewhat rare inputs by concentrating the same exposure form.  I don't necessarily trust all the "wild origin" claims I hear, but if half of the tea I consume really is of that form that seems positive, and at this point most of what I drink is represented as such.

One might wonder what all of this is based on, beyond my own personal experience, and where it ends, what aging is likely to be like in one's 70s or 80s, if all goes well.  My parents have observed many of these practices, and are in great health at nearly 80.  Many of my family members lived healthy lives well into their 90s (which of course introduces a potential genetic input).  My Thai mother-in-law is from a family where people tend to not experience much of their 60s and she is holding up well at over 80 now.  Activity seemed to make a difference, and decent diet.  Her sleep regimen is awful, and she never does significant cardio stress exercise; one might get away with letting one of these positive inputs drop.  Her mobility is severely limited now; any gap may come at a price.

I hope that some of this is helpful to others.  There's more I could add about perspective shift that might help, about meditation as an input, for example, but I'll get back to that kind of thing more later.

my wife Eye also holds up pretty well in spite of only experiencing some of these themes

Running shoe review: New Balance 880 and Fuel Cell Propel

 

I just bought two new running shoes, the New Balance 880s and their Fuel Cell Propel model (versions 14 and 4; Propel seems to be on 5 now, and the other is the most recent).  I've liked the other New Balance shoes I've been running in, an earlier 880 model, and multiple versions of a now-dated 1080 model.  

I tend to buy closing out versions of the old model, to keep cost low, so this won't work as a guide for what to buy of what just released.  There probably isn't much of a potential audience at all, since there wouldn't tend to be for shoe models that have been around, and this is a tea blog, and I'm not a running authority, of any kind.  Maybe some others will wonder what's up with running shoes now, which could be more relevant if they already run, in which case they'd probably have a pretty good idea.

For awhile I was into watching some channels that do shoe reviews.  Which was odd, because I couldn't afford to buy essentially everything they described, so that didn't last.  My favorites were Kofuzi's channel (some guy who reviews shoes, who is personable and relatable), and Believe in the Run, a whole channel of different people who are also like that.

It was interesting hearing the theory, what people are looking for in better shoes, and a more diverse range of them than I'll ever experience.  It covered foam types, and thickness, and plenty of other design aspects, about the soles, the upper (fabric part), and parts you normally wouldn't think about, like types of laces, the tongue, and the cuff padding, the opening part.  If you just happen to own a couple of decent pairs of shoes all of that isn't all that relevant, until you want to replace them, but someone might find it interesting anyway.  I did, for a limited time.

How that relates to these shoes

The 880s seem like basic, traditional design running shoes.  Maybe I should start further back than that though, about themes related to different companies.  I've only owned one other pair of Asics (Novablast), in the last few years of running, and I've only ramped up distance and intensity in the last 2 1/2 years or so.  I might run 20 miles a week now, and more typically not quite that; not so much.  

It's my impression that New Balance is well-regarded as shoe producers go, making a range of different kinds of versions.  That part runs long, how many categories of running shoes there are now.  There are racing-oriented models, a range of those, trail shoes, and then a broad range of different training versions, designed for running at different speeds, or for feeling different in different ways.  Amount of support is another variable, but that kind of simplifies down to some people needing additional support for a tendency to not run "neutrally," for their foot to roll or to contact more on the outside or inside.  

Amount and type of cushion is more of a main factor.  Lots of versions are designed with a lot of midsole, quite well-cushioned, a trend Hoka was instrumental in making quite mainstream some years back.  Now shoe designers would work around following that theme, or else going against it, in different models.  Use of carbon fiber plates has been big for awhile, mostly in racing shoe versions, to return energy in a vaguely spring-like function, but now as a part of expensive training shoes too.  By expensive I mean that lots of running shoe range costs $150 to 200 now, with most of the range under $250.  Maybe that sounds like a lot, or maybe it doesn't, given that fairly ordinary versions tend to start at $140 anyway (on the New Balance website Black Friday sale the 880 is discounted from $140 to $110).  

People cutting corners buying older versions, like me, might try to spend around or under $100, making it a challenge to buy what they actually like most and still spend very little.  $110 isn't too bad, but on a clearance sale in Bangkok I paid less.  

One might wonder if shoe technology isn't mature now anyway, related to the model-year issue.  Running became popular in the late 1970s, and I owned what seemed like well-developed but basic Nike running shoes in the early 80s (an early Pegasus version, a line that's on something like the 41st or 42nd version now).  They keep updating foam technology, and the plate thing is new, and beyond that maybe they are just changing things around as much as improving them.  

To hear shoe reviewers describe it all the new shoes are always new and different, year after year.  They have to use more and more refined, altered language to describe that, and they're working from a shared knowledge base relating to the last 100 popular shoe versions.  It gets a little silly, people commenting to online content posts about comparing the half dozen closely related shoes that they own, or sets of shoes that go together well.  There's nothing inherently wrong with owning a dozen pair of running shoes, that you currently wear, but it seems to me that at this point it's mostly about owning stuff, not running.

Getting back to it, New Balance makes basic, well-designed, high quality shoes, and plenty of range that's not so basic.  Of course Nike didn't disappear, and Asics is another main player, and there are plenty of others.  It's funny how the general style of those shoes I'd been using is so different, their older Novablast version (they're two more models along now; maybe they're much better), and the two older New Balance shoes I had used, and these two newer versions.  Those Novablast were quite light, made from very light foam and cloth material, with a thick foam sole, designed to emphasize a sort of trampoline-like function.  

I guess in a sense the whole theme of the Propel shoe is taking the next step; a plate--a plastic one, not carbon fiber based--uses that plate and other foam to more literally create a spring and lever mechanism.  Does it actually propel you, and "return energy?"  Maybe a little.  Maybe not in the sense of the mechanics emulating a spring, which sort of would occur in those higher end racing shoes, but to a very limited extent it probably does catch and return a very limited amount of that energy.  The feel would be the thing though, not a mechanical advantage.  If it feels comfortable, and lively, and seems to encourage a smoother or faster running stride then that's great.  I suppose it sort of does?

The 880s feel softer; it's as if there is more foam catching your weight, dampening that impact.  I'm not sure if it's just my subjective impression but it feels more pronounced in the front of the foot.  It's at least possible that there is more foam there.  The 1080s I run in--an older version, mind you, so I'm not describing their state of the art newest version--have a much different form construction, with more emphasized "rocker" design, built to emphasize your foot's rolling motion as you catch your weight and roll of the front part.  

Is that good?  It might be that any one design, which emphasizes any running mechanics, might work well or badly for people depending on how they happen to run, or how their foot is shaped.  Permit me another tangent.

Long, long ago when I first ran I competed in cross country, back in the 80s.  I wasn't good; this isn't going there.  I thought since I wasn't that good I could duplicate my old race times now with sufficient practice, if I ran consistently for years now, but it turns out that I was fast enough that it's hard to do that.  I could run 5k trail races in around 19 minutes.  Under 18 minutes might place in a race back then, if the field was weak enough, so nowhere near that, but it's hard to run 5k in 20 minutes in your 50s, apparently, unless you train directed towards doing that, and I really don't.

Back to the point, the conventional running stride looks like people normally think of one, a loping sort of affair, and back then that was more or less how people seemed to run.  Then as an option people could use more of a shuffling gait, which was known of then, but didn't appeal to many people yet, and didn't have obvious advantages.  Later it seemed to turn out that for recreational runners, as I now am, even for those who are much more serious about it than I am, variations of a shuffling form seemed to convey some mechanical advantage, at some paces; it could be quite efficient.  Someone could easily bang into the ground a bit hard using a more conventional form, maybe in a formerly conventional heel-strike motion.  As you train more, adding volume and intensity, that brings up wear problems for your joints.

It seems like this is heading towards me drawing broad conclusions about ideal running forms, or more ideal patterns, but it's really not.  The point here is that people run in completely different ways; mechanics vary a lot.  The same person probably runs using very different mechanics at different speeds, typically, but even beyond that there is plenty of variation.  So it's back to different shoes working well for different people.

Skipping ahead, to which shoes work well for me, the 880s, which I've described as a supporting, basic, stable, old-school sort of form, or the Propel is designed to try to catch your weight and use some of that energy, if that's even possible.  Or at least they pass on a feel that could be interpreted as such, "lively."  Generally all running shoes are on the light side now; there are lots of minor differences, but producers have been changing around design features and materials for awhile, with an eye towards that.

They're both fine.  I always did like the older 1080s version I used because that odd design form, that really seems to try to work along with your running mechanics, maybe even to alter them, seemed comfortable to me.  The older and newer 880s weren't so far off that, they just seem to interact less with how you are running, just catching and supporting your foot.  The beat-up older version I use to walk in now work really well for that purpose, for that reason; it's as if the ground itself was well structured for walking.  But then the old Asics Novablast always felt like walking on a wrestling mat instead; I suppose that's nice.

It may be that if I ran at different paces, faster, I'd see more of a difference, and preference would shift by varying speed and mechanics patterns.  I've not had great luck with that.  I change how I run all the time, and how I train, and at one point I was pushing a lot harder for faster one-km sections at the ends of runs, getting down to 5:45 being normal for 1 or 2 (so still not very fast).  Now I tend to not do that, and I'm back to running most at 6 1/2 minute kilometer pace.  

I just broke 6 minutes for one km on a recent outing, and ran two consecutive one right at that pace.  Those are exceptions, but I'm probably due for shift in pacing.  My running mechanics still won't change much; shifting from 6 1/2 minutes to 5:45 still isn't bumping the pace enough for that.

It's not much of a testimonial, is it?  NB 880s or Fuel Cell Propel are both fine, but their 1080s or a lot of the Asics line probably also are.  

Kofuzi or the Believe in the Run reviews would fill in the next 2 or 3 levels of details, and offer 100 different shoe alternatives, including a few that are most comparable.  It's interesting that they're all made of different types of foam, designed at different heel and forefoot heights, I just haven't looked that up for these, even though ostensibly this is a shoe review.  The NB site listing, that I checked price on, only mentioned "the drop," the difference between heel and forefoot, but one was for Propel v5 (8 and 9 mm; doesn't mean that much to me).

I do love the shoes.  The 880s feel that little bit more stable on your foot, but I'm not concerned about turning an ankle in the other ones, the Propel version.  They feel like you might be able to run 15 or 20k in them, or walk around in them half a day after a run.  The extra foam depth--I think there is more--and minor adjustment to mechanical form might make the updated 1080 version even better for a really long run, but the Propel feel like they could handle picking up the pace a bit.  

Probably if spending $200 on shoes isn't an issue the rest of the Asics range might have a slight edge, depending on preference.  They're swinging for the fence in terms of evolving design forms and foam development, or at least that seems likely to me.  I'd know better if I'd bought a few more pair of their shoes.

If someone reads all this and considers putting it into practice related to using shoes just to walk, or to stand around in, a main consideration is how they feel in terms of fit (or related to running, of course).  Width is important, and the style matching your foot.  That "rocker" / curved bottom sole could be a huge benefit for someone that it suits, or it could be off-putting.  Shoes can break in a bit to feel more comfortable later but how well it feels right away is an important sign.  I've went this far without mentioning arch support, or saying anything about heel cuff padding or different tongue designs, but it all works together, and how it seems to feel sweeps in most of all that.

A running friend recently mentioned that per his understanding of conventional wisdom runners would have at least two pair to offset the shoes reinforcing slight differences in running mechanics.  That sounds right.  Beyond my level of interest and training probably more would be better, but early on just owning a couple would do.

Run training update from Honolulu, Hawaii; lessons learned

 

Running has went well while living back in Honolulu; it's a beautiful place to be outside, and the weather is perfect for it.  At least compared to back in Bangkok it is, where it's always way too hot.

This update isn't meant to be informative related to training approach for experienced runners.  I'll still include some "lessons learned" related to experiences at the end, but many runners have been through a lot more training scope than I have.

I've looked into what I might be doing differently if I was training more seriously before, watching the typical training theory videos, which would go better if I was 20 years younger, or on steroids / hormone replacement.  At 55 I need to work around limited recovery capacity.  I'm up to running 37 km / 23 miles per week recently, so related to volume that's not bad, but I'm not running as fast as I was a year ago, so intensity (speed) has needed to drop out, at least until I can work back up to that.

Some general and aesthetic background first:  I live at the Eastern edge of Waikiki, near Diamondhead, and run around Diamondhead three times a week, then out and back the Ala Wai canal after that.  It's beautiful there.  It was a stretch moving up to that weekly volume, but it works out.

view from the Diamondhead hill, on a really early outing

the opposite side of the run, the end of the Ala Wai canal, after circling that volcano

there really are a lot of rainbows here

Back to running progress

That's what run pacing looks like recently, if anything on the fast side.  I brought a watch that tracks heart rate but lost the charging cord on the trip, so I let that part of tracking stats go.  It was interesting varying running intensity but I can feel how that's going, and more typical challenges are pulling together motivation, effort level, sorting through stiffness, and breathing.  

That initial 10 minute km--in the stats / picture--is from walking over to the park (I start it at home since that phone has no active SIM card in it), then a short stretch, with a second warm stretch after a warmup run.  It takes doing loosening up.

A typical route looks like this:

I usually run the 12 1/2 km route, doing the canal out and back; that's slightly longer, going through that other neighborhood area.  There are two hill sections on the route and I'll usually walk a little at the top of the first steeper one, or sometimes both.  Frequency looks like this:

I wasn't running that far at the beginning of April, the current 12 km, and switching over took some doing.  Sometimes I walk a good bit, hike, ride a bike, or swim, and I've been ice skating twice in the past month, and mixing activities can tax training recovery.

Lessons learned

All well and good, but what do I understand differently now after this experience?  I ran an equivalent amount last May, but still my impression of it has changed a little.

Effort required to run at a relatively normal pace, for me, that 6 minutes per km (9 1/2 minute miles), stays on the high side.  I could be clearer as to why.  It seems like it's hard to improve conditioning without varying training intensity, doing faster shorter interval running, so that the normal pace feels more moderate.  That risks injury for me, if I don't take that slow, and for whatever reasons my interest has been to increase training distance instead.  I'm really running to stay in shape, and to experience it, not to train for fast race times.  I don't race.

I haven't fallen into a clear routine for timing, related to exactly when I run, and I think that throws off making improvements.  Early morning is most pleasant, but I'm not a morning person, and that requires running without ingesting any caffeine first.  I need to also eat when I drink tea to protect my stomach, or at least that's how I see it, so I can't run too early if I have a light breakfast.  Sometimes I run in the afternoon instead.

It's interesting how relative effort related to body tension and breathing forms works out.  For pushing it for distance increase it's hard to fully recover, and carrying leg and body tension from not being completely recovered seems to add a lot of extra work (and adds a few minor aches, of course).  It's odd how the two things inter-relate, experience of tension and effort level required to run.  I've experimented with shifting posture, relaxing my shoulders, and using different hand positioning to help with relaxation while running, but I would expect that what works for anyone is a bit individual.

Often I'll experience a very stable, slow form of breathing that only evolves as I fully relax, usually after 6 km.  I might push that pace to as fast as 6 minutes per kilometer, but often that's not fully sustainable, and I'll alternate a faster and rougher breathing pattern.  I don't know what that means, but it seems the faster and shallower form might relate to my body clearing lactic acid or carbon dioxide faster, or maybe I just need more oxygen.

Related to that running theme of muscle and soft tissue recovery, very light activity, like swimming or walking, seems to speed that process up.  Youtube running channel content producers always claim that slow "recovery runs" work better than rest days, and it seems that might be right.

I think I could push it a little harder.  I'm concerned about injury, since I've experienced three very minor injuries in the 5 1/2 years I've been running.  Those issues were nothing that required much treatment, all just extended extra soreness in a tendon or ligament, but taking a month or more off running definitely throws off progress.

It's not just that; part of the running experience is about enjoying it, relatively speaking.  Focusing and leaning into the pace over a shorter run, for example for 45 minutes, isn't so bad, but pushing it doesn't work well with longer hour and a half range runs.  I could emphasize the divide that's already happening in these runs, starting slower, and changing pace at the mid-point / 6 km mark, but part of the conditioning input that's not as clear in the stats listing is about grinding out two uphill sections early on.  Leaning into the hill climbs is a little rough but also kind of pleasant.

To offer others advice, for people regularly doing shorter runs or always at a moderate pace, it worked well for me earlier this year to divide a run into an initial slower pace then a later faster one.  It was odd how close the two were in terms of actual running speed, both essentially right around 6 min / km or 9 1/2 min / mile, but easing off a normal pace just a little made it feel much less intense.  In a sense that's like using the first 5k of a 10k / 6+ mile run as a long warm-up, which is probably not ideal for maximizing training effect, but it took the sting out of working up to normal effort level several times a week.

some of that is heat stress, running back in Bangkok

she is hardly ever in the social media photos

light hikes can be nice here, very scenic

Tracking heart rate while running in Bangkok heat

 

I'm not sure who a run training update would be interesting for or helpful to, which is why I don't write these very often.  I'm not sharing results on Strava or anything like that either, racing, or running with friends, so I just keep doing it to exercise, as my own thing.

Trying out tracking heart rate is the newest thing.  I suppose what seemed like a minor injury back in October or so had been the newest thing earlier; I never knew what to make of that.  A knee issue seemed inconsistent, as if tendons were sore in different places, maybe moving around because the real cause of the problem was elsewhere, a glute or hip stabilizer muscle issue.  Who knows what it was.

After resolving that through rest and time off, and building moderate intensity weekly mileage back up, to about 30 km per week now, I tried out using a very basic heart rate monitor.  

It's not so uncommon for people to use low heartrate training as a main approach, to calculate some relative low-intensity optimum, and then instead of running miles or km at a set pace to keep heart rate consistent.  That was never the plan; I was mostly just curious what it was.  It seemed interesting to be able to see how heart rate varied with pace, and effort level, and if heat stress seemed to be affecting that factor.  Then later maybe it could be a factor in changing approach.

It all worked out as one might expect; a very moderate running pace corresponds to 130 to 135 bpm, and running at higher intensity and a faster pace tops out around 145 to 150.  It seems that related to pace the window spanning the two is not that far apart.  It takes me a lot of effort to run 6 minute kilometers now, even though I had trained to run some of them between 5:30 and 5:45 a year ago.  That was in Honolulu, Hawaii, where it's cooler, with some elevation change on my normal route.  There I could run the 11th and 12th consecutive kilometers at 5:45 on a warm afternoon along a flat course, and in slightly warmer local Bangkok weather now that would be hard.

running alternate intensity 10k at 30 C (86 F)

These both show a new form that I'm trying out, running an easy 5k followed without break by a higher effort, faster 5k.

There isn't all that much training theory behind that.  It combines easing into a session and sustaining some higher intensity running.  The humidity and temperature shift how that kind of thing goes; at a hotter and more humid time maintaining "low" heart rate (135) even at the moderate pace wouldn't work.  It's essentially always in the mid to upper 80s F / upper 20s C in Bangkok, unless you run at 6 AM, and since I'm not a morning person I just try to avoid the low 90s / low to mid 30s C.  I can show how that goes in another stats capture, but I'll add a little about how this workout version shown in graphs feels first.

Running at 135 bpm is fairly relaxed, if it's only 29-30 C, mid-80s F.  I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing; it's my impression that pacing depends on a base level of conditioning, which I'm not qualified to interpret.  It's probably not good or bad, instead just where you are at the time.

Running between 145 and 150 bmp isn't so stressful, but that's as far as I'd want to push it, and sustaining that general level for 5k seems like enough.  In the past I would feel a slight breakdown of my normal equilibrium, energy level, and breathing rate, right towards the end of what I had trained to easily do, and that often related to running 10k in about 1:01 to 1:02, a minute or two faster than using this approach.  That kind of minor difference stands out a lot; running a 30 minute 5k and a 32 minute pace is completely different.  That's the difference between a 6 minute km and a 6:25; it's vast.

I can switch the units, in case someone reading this runs at min / mile:  that's a 9:40 versus 10:20 mile pace (6 to 6:25 min / km).  Again whether that is fast or slow depends on someone's conditioning level.  Anyone routinely training in much cooler weather probably wouldn't tolerate the heat input part of it well, running at 85 to 90 degrees F, regardless of their normal pace.

I always thought it would be easier to train to run faster, much earlier on.  I could break 20 minute 5k race times in high school cross country, and I wasn't all that good a runner, and didn't train that much.  It turns out that running a 4 minute km / 6:26 mile isn't easy to do at age 55, without prior "training up" to that fitness level.  

I had been experimenting with running shorter intervals faster when that odd injury came up, which is probably no coincidence, so in order to avoid that experience I'll have to forego that most natural training approach to drop those times.  If I add some weight training I might become more durable, but I'm not eager to expand training range like that.  I had been walking and swimming more a year or so ago when I managed to push both intensity and volume past where it is now; maybe those really did help with recovery, muscle training, or general conditioning level.

heat impact example; running 7+ k at 31 C (88 F), in the mid-day sun

The other question I had related to the impact of running when it's hotter, when it's not in the mid 80s, but around 90 instead.  A recent outing tested that:

It really wasn't that hot; on that first run it was 30 C, 86 F, and on this second it was 31, 88 F.  The first was in the evening, after dark, and this was in mid-day sun, running between noon and 1 PM, and it really makes a difference.  Of course it does, as humidity level and breeze does (or lack of it), but I mean that you can have a completely different kind of experience, not that it's a noticeable slight change.  

47% humidity is on the dry side for here; I suppose that helped, but running in direct mid-day sunlight was a more problematic negative input.  Those temperatures I've cited are some central Bangkok measurement; I was probably experiencing a broader gap where I actually was, out on a running track / sidewalk environment.

On one running course I complete two 5k laps, with no second warm stretch, and on this route I do either 2 or 3 3.7 km segments, with a warm stretch after 1 km.  On that second heart rate dip (above, during km 6) I was walking to rest, to drop my heart rate, which had been pegged at or near 150 the whole time.  I think that tied to heat stress input, but I haven't fully sorted out other possible variables.  It's easy to write off having any rough outing as heat input, but there's probably more to it.

a track / path around the local royal palace

that running path at night, lit up for some holiday or memorial theme

what it looks like in the daytime

One might wonder, how is this informative or actionable, beyond prompting me to try out that split-pace approach?  I suppose it's not.  I could've felt that the second run described here wasn't going as well without a heart rate stat filling that part in, that I was hot.  I was averaging 6:15 km paces, just not on the two one-km splits with a stretch and walking break, so it wasn't really fast or slow, but it was taking effort to do that.  The second 5k of that earlier run was slightly faster, right on 6 minutes / km instead, at significantly lower heart rate, just below 145 average instead of close to 150.  You can feel that difference.

It's a different thing running against conditioning level versus pushing heat stress tolerance.  You feel a bit tired after an hour of medium intensity running, but that heat stress stays with you, even when only enduring 40 minutes worth of it.  I won't do hour long outings when the heat is getting to me; I could back way off a normal pace and tolerate it better (maybe; I never really try running 7 minute km pace), but it's habit to just stay in a normal pace range and call it a day early.  If I feel off I'll run 6:30 kilometers but beyond that I tend to just pack it in.

Trying out tracking heart rate was only ever about sorting out these patterns, which I had already experienced without tracking that.  I can run a 6 minute km, or 6:30, by feel, even with outdoor temperature input factoring in.  It's odd that the one is such a fast pace for me and other slow; that distribution could be broader.  I think with less heat-stress for running context, actually running when it's below 80 F / 27 C, I could train differently, and make better progress.

In Honolulu now, a daytime high of 78, breezy, with a chance of light rain.  Perfect!

the view running around Diamondhead; pretty nice

Fasting for 5 days, running, and meditation

 

I'm trying out fasting again, for the fifth time.  Twice before I fasted for 5 days, and two other times I stopped before that due to problems, probably mostly related to electrolyte balance.

A main point:  why do it?  It was always to experiment with the experience, to see if some of the associated health benefits seem to occur.  Weight loss wasn't necessarily one of those, for me.  I did gain a little weight over the last two years, up from 71 kg to 74, from around 156 pounds to 163, but that seems fine, even though I have bit of a gut.  It's claimed that fasting can improve mental clarity, and initiate autophagy, which can remove some visceral fat, some fat problematically located actually inside or around internal organs, and even potentially lower cancer risk.  Who knows; some research I checked indicates there could be something to a lot of that, but research findings don't seem to confirm most of it.  Of that list you might only notice the mental clarity; I don't think it's possible to change pants size.

To me the main benefits have been serving as a reset for diet habits and improving metabolic flexibility, my body's ability to use fat for energy.  How would I notice that, without fasting, and judging degree of suffering from switching to ketosis?  My energy level when running seems better, more continuous and consistent.  Of course if a meal runs late, or I miss one, then that doesn't seem like a problem, related to acclimation.  

My diet wasn't terrible before but the few fasting trials helped me dial it in to be closer to optimum, very low on sugar and other junk foods, based on very limited between meal snacking, and only moderate sized normal meals.  I eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, limited meat, eggs, and dairy (so I actually supplement protein a little), including diverse rice, grains, some bread, and beans.  I've switched from eating chocolate for a snack to nuts.

The main concern in trying fasting is electrolyte supplementation, which I've addressed in earlier posts.  It's tricky.  It seems like it should be simple, add some salt, potassium, and magnesium, but it's a lot more of those first two salts than you'd expect.

blue pea / butterfly tisane, picked from the garden to drink once during the fast

it's from here, beside the house

I'll write out how this went, starting writing this post on day 3.

Days 1 and 2:  in the past these were rough times, working through a lot of hunger and loss of energy, and some impact to mental clarity.  For the most part none of that happened.  Even hunger experience was very moderate; it just didn't seem like I was skipping eating most of that time.  

I think if I was hearing of that from someone else I'd be skeptical; two days of not eating was easy, no impact?  It kind of was, especially in comparison with the first three trials.  On the fourth attempt the first day was really easy, but I went out for a speed-work run, a training form relatively new to me, and I think that might have thrown off my electrolyte balance.  Or maybe it was too much for energy conversion from body fat, going beyond what I was adapted to?  Sleep disruption is a normal side effect of fasting, especially if your magnesium level runs low, and I went through that too that time, and then stopped.  

Hunger level, on that fourth trial and for these two days, was like when lunch or dinner runs an hour late; you can feel it, but it's not bad yet.  For someone accustomed to a strict eating schedule maybe an hour late would already be uncomfortable, and it wasn't even that bad.  It was strange.

Energy level and the rest seemed fine too.  I didn't worry about drinking some tisane (herb tea) on the first day to offset the gap from experiencing any food intake, but I did brew some blue pea flowers, chrysanthemum, and stevia the second day, which I drank with potassium and sodium salts added.  

This time I kept drinking a good bit of that salt water, which can be nasty, but didn't use the approach of measuring it out, which I suppose adds a bit of risk, getting it wrong again.  I've had some tea every day, the leftover of some sheng on the first day, shu pu'er on the second (easiest on your stomach, the natural call), and aged white tea today, which worked out.

The oddest part was a lack of impact.  I felt fine on the second evening so I went out to try a short run, just 2 miles, limiting the distance to avoid going through any energy level or electrolyte balance disruption, to see how I felt.  I ran the first two km at an easy 6 1/2 minute pace and set a faster cruise of 6 minutes for the third.  That felt fine, like I could keep it up, or could've pushed faster to run at 5 1/2 min / km speed if I'd wanted, but I had already pushed it too far the last trial, so didn't.  I meditated after that run, but I think I'll cover what that's all about in a separate section.

Day 3:  right away in the morning it really caught up to me, the disrupted, low energy, off feeling.  Not eating for the prior two days definitely didn't lead to an experience of increased mental clarity.  I took the cat to the vet too, running an unpleasant errand, and went via a stupid route for getting it all wrong, missing a couple of turns.  I botch driving here sometimes but not like that.  Waiting at the vet when you haven't eaten isn't much worse than when you have; it's still a bit annoying.  That's even for bringing a laptop so I could check in with work, and catch part of a meeting, before my appointment time interrupted that.

The cat has gingivitis, a mild gum infection.  She's almost 16 so I was worried she might be nearing the end, but after a shot, taking antibiotics in pill form later, and special mouthwash rinse for however long she should be ok.  She scratched the vet because I wasn't holding her legs tightly enough; maybe another focus issue.  It'll probably be my turn to see my own blood tomorrow when I try to rinse her mouth alone.

I'm not sure how the next 2 1/2 days will go.  I hadn't planned to run again right away but if I feel normal later I might try to run for 4 miles, my normal short loop, two routes around the local royal palace.  Muscle and other tissue recovery can be an issue when you don't eat but I didn't feel any soreness from that short 2 mile run.

I'm not fasting mostly for weight loss but it might be nice to lose a few pounds.  I'm up to around 165 pounds / 74 kg now, and I think the earlier fasting might have caused my body to worry about a shortage of food, to go into a winter mode.  That's probably good in the long term related to offsetting rate of aging.  There's a related long story about why I think being a vegetarian for 17 years probably slowed my metabolic rate for a long time.  That low metabolism allows me to run 20 or more miles a week (30 km) and eat relatively little food and still not lose any weight.  Being lighter would make running easier.  As far as aesthetics go it doesn't matter; I look ok, and it would be fine if I didn't.

I feel like I've not really communicated what the nagging symptom of hunger is like, what it really takes to adapt to not eating for days on end.  It becomes normal, to an extent, but you have to internally accept it rather than reject it, or it would definitely be much worse.  Maybe that leads into the part on meditation well enough, and I can put that in the middle of this day by day account.

Meditation:

Again, why do it?  I'm separated from my kids, who are back at school in Honolulu, while I take care of the cats, watch the house, and work locally here in Bangkok.  I can work remotely but someone needs to cover those two tasks, and Eye's mother--their grandmother--is there with them.  She's concerned the months she is separated from them might be some of her last, because she's getting up there in age, but it's also not easy for me to miss some.

my only form of contact with my daughter for now

So I'm making the most of it by meditating, running, and fasting, and holding a tea event here or there (one so far, planning a second).  And some job hunting, but it's hard to log a lot of hours at that activity, so I just keep plugging away at it here and there.

I've settled on meditating for 45 minutes at a time, almost every evening, missing a few sessions if a day ran long or if a run seemed to drain me too much.  It's really hard to describe results.  I might first add that I meditated some as an experiment when I was much younger, seeing interesting results from that, then again 15 years ago when I was ordained as a monk for two months, undergoing limited training at a meditation center.  

Nothing extreme changes as an outcome (usually).  It might give you a bit more mental clarity and focus; that's about it.  I've noticed that I carry tension in my body and experience the background noise in my mind slightly differently than I did early on, 2 1/2 to 3 weeks ago.  My mind seems more settled, and the tension I was holding in my upper shoulders has mostly dissipated.  My lower back tension isn't resolved, and maybe from running my legs tend to hold it too, which may settle out further within a couple more weeks.

Running is also a form of meditation, in a sense.  I have to set my mind to support that exertion level for an extended time, for around an hour for my standard run of 10 km (6+ miles).  Then I sometimes cut that short if heat exposure gets to be a bit much, often when I run at mid-day.  That heat effect feels a little like tiring from running but not exactly like that, more feeling a little off.

As far as the meditation experience itself goes following your breath is a standard practice, to help still your mind, or putting focus in one particular place within your body, maybe your lower stomach, around the diaphragm, or where the breath enters your nose.  Counting can help.  I try to let my mind quiet naturally and only use counting or other focusing techniques when that's not working, although there is always some chatter.  The experience of body tension can be uncomfortable, especially after the half an hour point.  It seems to me that's coming from mental disturbance, as much as retained tension, and that the expectation or desire to stop the meditation is causing it.  

I can settle to be much more comfortable just sitting than 3 weeks ago but I'm far from "there," if there even is such a level.  I set an alarm and it's hard to stop fleeting thoughts from wondering when it will go off, which seem partly triggered by body tension that is uncomfortable.  

Uncomfortable is all relative; maybe it's like the effort and tension from when you walk and carry groceries, and you'd like to put them down, but it's not to the point of a strain like a cramp.  I don't mean 100 yards / meters to a car; in Honolulu we had (/ have) no car so at times we would carry groceries quite far, along with using the bus at other times.  After a km or two the groceries get heavy, even though they're not really heavy, unless you think a couple of gallons of milk plus that much food is.  I could add that my wife switched us to large, sturdy re-usable bags back when that was trendy here a half-dozen years back, saving on plastic use, so it's not as if that looked exactly like someone walking down the street from a grocery store, but it's not that different.  It was odd.

What about meditation plus fasting; how has that changed things?  My patience seems just a little reduced.  If anything my mind might be a little quieter, more calm, but past the half hour point--which I don't track; I'm not watching a clock--there's more "when is this going to end?" feedback.  Physically I might be slightly more relaxed, which could support my theory that my mind's quietude and body tension level are connected.  

Maybe meditation is helping me not experience eating disruption as unpleasant, as it should normally be?  I'm not sure, and at a guess acclimation from prior fasts is more of a cause of that.  My body gets it, that this is one more normal state of being I'll go through.  The same must apply to running or carrying groceries an absurd distance, that after it normalizes one more internal negative feedback loop goes mostly quiet.  I actually like running now, which is strange, since it started as an easy way to exercise in a short period of time instead.  Even running in cross country and track in high school (long ago) I always had mixed feelings about it.

Day 3, later on:  I'm feeling it.  It would've made for a good story to have ran for three days but due to feeling off, tired, and at times very slightly dizzy I shouldn't try.  I've been drinking that nasty sodium and potassium salt water all day but tomorrow I'll measure out what I see as more optimum and parse that out across the day.  Hunger still isn't too bad; odd.  Different foods sound ok, and I feel a bit empty, but I don't spend much time thinking about that.  

Given the way I take these 5 day spans I'll eat at the end of the 5th day, not pushing on for what is really 5 1/2 that next morning, as the clock goes, so I really only have one more full day to go, then most of one.  I don't even stay strict about timing; if I end up fasting for 4 days and 22 hours because dinner timing varies that's fine.  It would be easy to add another half day, and eat the next morning, but it's nice getting the recovery done that extra day earlier, and getting back to normal the next.  

I don't "go big" and eat a lot at the end, and it's really not even possible to, without feeling sick (for me; others who fast say that they can).  Healthy and simple foods taste great at that point; I should probably try breaking the fast with homemade cheeseburgers.  Sort of healthy, I mean.

Day 4, mid-day:  I've really been feeling it all day.  I woke in the night feeling off and re-upped electrolyte intake, then slept well, but it was another rough morning.  I've not had normal energy, clarity, or focus all day.  I think it's not really electrolyte level issues; I measured out the daily salts intake this morning and took a magnesium tablet, plus multivitamin and calcium.  It seems like I'm just not accustomed to ketosis, what people sometimes call "keto flu."  Your body will adjust, but I've probably only been fully in ketosis for the past two days, using the last of what I was digesting or holding as glycogen on both Saturday and Sunday.

Hunger isn't much of an issue; I barely think of food.  That's another thing I didn't mention about meditation, that food might cross my mind, but no more so than what shows I've been watching, one more minor part of mental background noise.

I drank a mild black tea today and that was fine, no problem.  Shu pu'er is most sensible, easiest on the stomach, but just avoiding green tea, sheng pu'er, or very low oxidation level oolong is enough.

I expect that I'll feel a little better tomorrow.  I'd like to try running again this evening, to see if I can push it for forcing my body to convert fat energy.  It would be a stretch though.  I could essentially just crash for the next 12 hours or so afterwards, but I don't know what that fallout would be like.  Other somewhat scary symptoms go with the territory for fasting and electrolyte imbalance:  irregular heartbeat, dizziness, problems sleeping.  Walking for half an hour would be playing it safe but that's a tough call as a runner.  Not very many runners ever sort out if they can keep running after 4 days off food though.

Day 4, after a run:  I felt "keto flu" symptoms all day, only recovering after a nap after work.  Then I felt ok, so I went out for a run.  No matter how that went I planned to keep it short, because I just spent two days feeling quite off.  It went well, it felt normal, and slipped back into a normal 6 mile per km pace for the last 1 1/2.  I probably feel as good as I've felt over this fast now.  I experienced a little leg cramping during a stretch, a sign my electrolyte balance might not be right, so I came back and drank another cup of salt water and took a magnesium capsule (adding up to double the daily requirement; I guess that's fine).

I think if I fast again within the next month or so I could probably do those 2 mile runs daily, for being better acclimated, or even bump it up to 4 miles for a couple, at a slow pace.  Better safe than sorry this time; it's as well to not rush fasting experiences, as I've learned from a couple of failures.

Day 5, morning:  I was up in the night again, drinking more salt water at 5 or so.  I did drink shu pu'er this morning.  I feel much better than the last two days but still not normal, still disrupted.  It all makes me question if it's a good thing to even try this.  I won't know if most of the supposed benefits occur (more mental clarity, later on, autophagy, visceral fat reduction), and I don't expect to lose weight.  My diet was as good as it's likely to ever be, so that reset function doesn't apply.  I feel relatively ok today, not so tired and slightly out of it, but perhaps still not completely normal.

On the other side I think it all would normalize, if someone kept it up, I guess if they were pursuing weight loss (the main reason), or were really convinced of those benefits.  In the Reddit fasting sub people discuss applying radical rotating fasting approaches, rolling 48s or 72s, not eating half the time on either a 2 day or 3 day cycle (or 4 or 6 counting both parts).  One person recently commented they ate only 2 days a week, so with 5 days off, for an extended time.  Those people often mention body weights and loss amounts that related to more extreme circumstances.  

Even someone really wanting to lose only an extra 20 pounds of fat may use fasting.  One guy commenting in the Reddit fasting sub was at optimal body weight but was very low in muscle tissue, with a high percentage body fat, and he was asking if fasting and working out would help him.  My guess is that eating a moderated caloric input but healthy diet while working out would be better under those circumstances.

Day 5, at about the end:  towards the end it's natural to keep thinking that ending an extra hour early would be fine.  I went to the grocery store during lunch, since there's no food here, and being around food wasn't a problem.  I felt a little off earlier and drank the last of the saltwater mix I had made up and I'm fine.  Energy level and clarity have been close to normal today.

I only drank a tisane that once; I didn't miss eating enough to try to replicate it.  My throat felt odd so I drank the juice of a small lime on the last day.  Google says that I might have ingested 20 calories doing that.  There must be people out there who would see that as not really true fasting.

Related to the meditation again I keep thinking why am I really doing this.  I'm not that far in the hole related to mental clarity and focus, although my memory is slipping.  I don't think that I feel cranky but but it's not easy to maintain the same stability and sense of ease dropping out something as fundamental as eating.  My wife was yelling at me about something (over a call) and I yelled back, when normally I could just ignore it and let her have her say.  She's under a few levels of pressure too, and if it comes out in being cranky with me over something minor I should be fine with that.

Not much of a final retrospect take here, or new perspective.  It's possible that this practice could become really easy after one or two more trials, I just need to sort out if there is really any reason to keep trying it.  What if I am preventing cancer, suspending aging, improving internal organ function, and boosting my mental clarity?  Or what if every single potential health benefit isn't really happening?  I'm not even bringing up the "detox" theme, or letting my body drop off insulin resistance, which would be more of a concern if I was eating more sugar than I am.

Concerns about fasting; should people fast?

I've been thinking lately about whether I would recommend this to others or not.  I think not.  For people who feel like they need it, mostly for weight loss, or if they have a burning desire to mess around with how their body works, sure, it's fine.  For almost everyone it's just too disruptive, difficult, and unpleasant.  I kept saying that hunger wasn't much of a concern, and energy issues and loss of clarity only happened on 2 days out of 5, but that feeling of your body being empty of food never goes away.  Some people report feeling a related sort of euphoria, getting a high from it, but I seem not to.

One recurring theme in the Reddit fasting sub is communicating about fasting; many claim it's better to never bring it up, like that Fight Club rule about not talking about it.  The concern is probably over others taking it wrong, them being overly concerned, or you coming across as saying "woe is me!," when it's clearly an intentional personal choice, and definitely not a necessary one.  It absolutely has to become normal or it won't work.  

This includes impact to other daily life activities, beyond perspective and communication.  Few people could forego work or other activities for days to work through eating disruption, but I guess if someone has nothing going on laying on a couch for 5 days would work.  Even that defeats one of the main purpose though; if you drop normal activity level your metabolism will plummet, and weight loss won't occur to the same degree.

Related to other potential impact I slept like a baby, beyond getting up to drink salt water however many times, but then I tend to do that.  I might usually wake up to use a restroom and stay up for 15 minutes messing around online but my middle of the night insomnia days are behind me, since it's been a few years since kids have woke up frequently.  Storms wake my daughter, and then she wakes me up, but that's different, infrequent now.

It was cool that it seems like I could do longer runs if I try again, or probably could have this time.  Will that translate to feeling more energy on longer runs now?  I took an extra day off running after the fast because I felt soreness in my calves, maybe from disruption of normal recovery process, since I usually run a lot more than 4 miles in 5 days, often 6 miles in an outing.  But I'll run again and can check.  It would be nice if I didn't live in one of the hottest and most humid places on earth so I could check on that without disruption, the constant near heatstroke.  

I guess at a bare minimum I'll appreciate eating more again; there's nothing like fresh, plain, healthy food when you don't take eating for granted.

cheeseburgers and sweet potato, yam, and regular fries; that tasted good

the next day; chicken breasts are really easy to cook too