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The (many!) benefits of moderate alcohol consumption

Toasts for food and fun

Whenever I have friends over for dinner, I deliberately serve a lot of wine while they are waiting.  Whether it’s a casual supper club or a Thanksgiving feast, this strategy works very well. After a glass or two of wine, what food doesn’t taste better? A little wine goes a long way in ensuring my guests leave happy, full and satisfied (and the compliments about my wonderful meal never hurt either).

There are other traditions which are enhanced by wine and/or beer.

- Drinks with my girl friends – whether it’s a glass of wine, a pint of beer or a Jackie-O Martini, as was the case last week with Lisa and Terri

- A beer at the end of a day of skiing, or after the kids’ ski lessons, a ritual we established this January at Bogus Basin

- To celebrate the completion of a long run, as was the case with me and Rob when I talked him into running a marathon

- Or to celebrate an 8-mile run, as the Dana Farber runners used to do on Thursday evenings (and still do, from what I’m told)

Heck, my running group in Boise is eloquently named Team Dirty Martini. My girl friends in Seattle were known as the Wining Women. Is there a theme here?

The $24,000,000 question is: are we drinking too much? After all, we profess to be the health & fitness advocates, so should we be rewarding ourselves for work-well-done with alcohol?

Do drinking and good health go together?

You may have heard about a research report that came out this week, carried out by Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, headed by Dr. Lu Wang. The study, conducted among women over 39, revealed that participants who consumed alcohol in moderation were less likely to become overweight. The inverse association between alcohol intake and risk of becoming overweight or obese was noted for all four types of alcoholic beverages, though red wine seemed to show the strongest link to lower weight gain. I am summarizing a myriad of findings, but this the high-level takeaway.

This study was reported across a variety media outlets, but here are two articles, in case you want to read more about it.

• MSNBC reports that drinking wine may be good for women’s waistlines. Drinking a light to moderate wine amount of red vino may keep the pounds off.
• The Washington Post reports that women who drink more gain less weight.

So this got me thinking. Are there any other postitive affects of drinking a glass of wine or beer? I was actually surprised by what I found.

• The New York Times reports that a Glass of Wine with Dinner Aids Digestion.
• The Jacksonville Wine Guide advocates your other half drinking 2 a day. Specifically, they claim that Italian women who drink 2 glasses of wine each day have better sex than those who don’t drink at all.
• The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition recently reported that moderate consumption of alcohol may be beneficial to the bones of post menopausal women.
• Last but not least, Dr. David Hanson of the State University of New York suggested that moderate drinkers tend to have better health and live longer than those who are either abstainers or heavy drinkers. In addition to having fewer heart attacks and strokes, moderate consumers of alcoholic beverages (beer, wine or distilled spirits or liquor) are generally less likely to suffer hypertension or high blood pressure, peripheral artery disease, Alzheimer’s disease and the common cold.

Now we all know that moderation is the foundation of developing good habits. Furthermore, if I wrote another blog post about the bad effects of drinking too much, I could also find a plethora of information, I am sure. But if I can keep my weight down, strengthen my bones, improve my sex life and  reduce my chance of having a heart attack, I see no obvious reason to abstain.

Toasts for life

Do you integrate wine (or beer) in your workouts. Or work? Here’s a take on how drinking and yoga collide. A journal of a drinker with a running problem. And someone who needed some wine to get the words flowing.

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Why and How to Integrate Speed Training Into Marathon Training

I’m 46 years old, training for my 12th marathon, the 2010 Boston Marathon, to be held on April 19,  following a 16-week training schedule. Since I spend a lot of time nursing my back, hip and foot aches and pains, I’m not sure how many more  of these races I have left in me. But, I’ll give it my best shot, and if I qualify for Boston again, I’m sure I’ll trudge through another cold winter. Follow me as I put one foot in front of the other.

Today’s post is inspired by a question I just got from one of my friends via email:

Can you help me with the strategy behind sprints and running?  I’m trying to figure out the best way to do them…I have really just come out with my own technique.  What have you read about this and the most effective strategy?  I just don’t like sprints so this is definitely new territory for me.

When I think of speed work, three things come to mind. The first (pictured below) can be described in one word – misery.

The second can be described in five words: still dreadful but TV helps.

Especially when I can attempt to get my mind off my misery, thanks to….

But seriously, speed work has helped me, as much as I absolutely hate it. I started integrating speed work when I did the Coolrunner training program (from Runner’s World) last year. In a nutshell, it recommends one day/week of mile intervals (at a pace which is tied to your overall marathon goal) followed by a week of tempo running. Tempo runs are like mile intervals only a hair slower with no break in between the miles. Both of them suck.

Speed workouts build fast twitch muscles, so over time, you run faster (at least you should!). For me, I was running so much more slowly after having a child and entering my forties, I needed to try something new. And even though I am running fewer miles/week than I did when I was 32, my marathon times are just as good as they were then. I am convinced it’s because of my dedication to those dreaded aforementioned workouts.

But don’t take my word for it. I asked some other runners about speed training, and I got some incredibly useful and practical advice.

First, I asked John Kachurick his opinion about the importance of integrating speed workouts into marathon training, and he some wonderful advice to impart. His suggestions are meant to make these runs less monotonous and injury-free.

“I always thought that doing speedwork was essential only if I was looking to run a fast marathon. It took until the fourth marathon that I ran to find out that speedwork provided much more value besides that. I decided to add just a small amount of speedwork into my training plans at first by doing 100-200 meter sprints once a week for 35 minutes or so, and the results from that little bit of effort were almost immediate. I found that it made my legs stronger, increased my running efficiency and made me run stronger on my other training runs throughout the week. This ultimately helped me run a better marathon and finish stronger than I ever did before I started doing speedwork. Since then i’ve never completed a marathon training plan without it. I’ve found several different ways to add speedwork to my marathon training to keep it from getting boring. I found that it doesn’t have to always be at a track and as its own formal workout and can be just adding short sprints to any run during the week. Sometimes I add a 30 second sprint to every mile or run the last mile of a run at an increased pace. Regardless of how I do speedwork, the results have transformed me into a better marathon runner.

One thing that I did find once I added speedwork was that I needed to find a way to stay injury free while still getting the value out of the workout. I decided to change the way I did speedwork by not focusing on a specific target time if I was doing 400m or 800m laps or sprints of any kind. Instead, I now focus on just pushing the pace and then challenging myself to go as fast as I feel I can handle, regardless of the actual time it takes to run it. This helped me to not get injured by pushing myself at a pace that was just too fast for me which unfortunately side-lined me for two weeks during a training plan once before.

It took awhile for me to understand what the benefits are of including speedwork in my training and that its not just for running a fast marathon, it really helped to make me a stronger overall runner.

Next I asked Dena, a NC native who is currently training for the Boston marathon, having qualified with a 3:44 race in Chicago. Given that she knocked 30 minutes off her Personal Best by integrating speed work (via treadmill), I think her advice is also insightful:

“First, let me be clear: I LOATHE speedwork. There is not a fast-twitch muscle fiber to be found in either of my legs, I’m convinced. But I 100% believe that the speed work, combined with the tempo and faster than usual long runs, contributed to the 31 minute improvement.

I felt a lot of guilt when I first started using the treadmill for speed work. I try to keep the incline on 2%, which I’ve read simulates outdoor running, but I know it’s not the same. However, I’ve moved past my guilt. Better to do speedwork on the treadmill than to blow it off or cut the workouts in half. So long as I do tempo and long runs outside, I don’t see that the treadmill speed work has hurt me.

I started doing intervals on the treadmill for several reasons:

• I’m bad at holding a steady pace on the track. And trying to look at my watch and calculate what my quarter or half lap times should be when running a 1200 repeat at a 5:22 pace is quite simply beyond me, math wise.
• When I started the Furman Training, we were in the middle of some intense NC humidity. I just couldn’t maintain the required intensity levels out in the heat.
• I don’t like doing speed work alone on the track. There was no one in my training group running the same pace as me, so I felt very isolated on the track, even when surrounded by other runners.

Now, while I still don’t enjoy speed work, I feel I can manage it. I slip in my ear buds and let Lady Gaga carry me through some 800 repeats.

My workouts follow the Furman plan, which you can see online. This week, for example, I did a 12 minute warm-up and then 3 x (2 x 1200) at an 8.7 pace on the treadmill. There’s a 2 minute rest interval between 1200’s, and a 4 minute rest interval between sets. Then a 1 mile cooldown. (This is for the 3:40 marathon training plan.) I usually walk half of the rest interval and then do a slow jog the second half.

My favorite, if there is such a thing, intervals, are 400 repeats. I can suffer anything for a minute and twenty seconds. My least favorite are the mile repeats.”

Lastly, I asked Rick Bergeson, someone who has broken the allusive 4 minute mile barrier (in his college days when running for University of Oregon). He also happens to be my running partner’s brother (so no wonder she can qualify for Boston 6 times/year – it’s in her blood). Here’s what he had to say:

“It’s important to integrate speedwork into marathon training because if you do nothing but run “long and slow” you’ll be good at nothing but running “long and slow.”  In other words, you need to train your legs for running at a faster pace than race pace so that your race pace becomes easier and faster.

Example:  If your marathon race pace is 10:00 per mile, it would be good to do 8 X 800 with 2 minutes rest at a faster pace i.e. 8 minute pace or 4 minutes per 800.  Do this once per week.  Once your legs and body become accustomed to 8 min/ mile pace, all of a sudden your 10 min/mile pace feels easy, and your race pace starts to come down to say 9:40 pace or even faster.”

I hope you enjoyed their advice as I much as I did. If you have more suggestions or stories, I’d love to hear them via your comments. Maybe if we join together, we can all figure out a way to make the dreaded speed workouts more bearable.

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How to Renovate a Bathroom – Friday Fun

Friday is my day to talk about fun. So you may be asking: What the heck could possibly be fun about renovating a bathroom? Despite the time it takes and work that is required, I actually enjoy a little messy manual labor and find it both therapeutic and rewarding. So here’s a little how-to background, in case you decide to take on the challenge yourself.

Lots of folks in their twenties rent apartments or condos. Not only does it take some time to save up for a down payment, it’s a lot more fun to travel, party and hang out with friends than work on a yard or fix up a house.

Fast forward to our thirties, when apparently it is assumed we should settle down, buy homes and become more responsible. We spend money on our future as opposed to supporting our local bars. At least that’s the theory.

And that’s pretty much how it played out in my life, sort of (I got married and bought our first house in my late thirties, so I guess I was a little behind schedule). And since I like old homes, as does Rob, inevitably we find ourselves immersed in never-ending house projects, without the big budget to outsource the work. As a result, over the years, we have figured out how to do a lot of fix-ups ourselves, saving a lot of money in the process. Oddly enough, Rob and I work quite collaboratively in these situations, despite my lack of patience for jobs that drag on and on.

Just this past month…or two….or three, we renovated our downstairs half bath. And since most of our friends were both surprised and impressed that we knew what to do, I thought I’d share how we went about our labor of love.

Determine your budget. It’s almost inevitable you’ll go over budget, so budget for that as well.
Figure out what you want the end product to look like. For our little bathroom, I actually knew how I wanted it to look (after walking into a bathroom for two years with angel wallpaper and a brown toilet, among other lovely design elements, it’s easy to do a lot of dreaming while sitting on the toilet). If you can’t come up with your own vision, ask one of your friends who is really good at this stuff what they would do. Alternatively, you can buy magazines and get a feel for you like. If all else fails and the vision just isn’t happening, then hire an interior designer and pay him or her for ideas. My ultimate goal is to be true to the home’s heritage while catering to my tastes my family’s.
Determine what, if anything, you want to outsource. Then get estimates and get them to ink the job in their schedule. (Be sure to buffer the schedule because they’ll be late). We outsourced our plumbing and asked our (awesome!) plumber for his ideas/estimate before we ever started. We also decided to hire a drywaller. Sure, we could have done this work ourselves, but by the time we would have bought the necessary supplies, we might have ended up paying as much, without the same quality as someone who does it for a living. You might be able to avoid this step altogether if your walls are in good shape and all that’s needed  is a touch up and some sanding. But we had some moldy drywall and big holes, so we had to replace a good bit of sheet rock.
Make the big decisions so that your vision stays within the confines of the budget. What furniture/cabinetry/appliances do you need? Select those first. Then determine color, floor, and lighting. For our bathroom, we went through the decision making process in this order:

• The cabinetry, including a vessel sink (which was the only part of our project that went over our original budget). Took us a while but finally found what we wanted at Impact Imports.
• Next was the tile. Flooring in general can have huge price variation. Tile actually tends to be more expensive, especially in comparison to laminate, but we wanted tile because we were ripping out wood floors. We had to do so because of the cabinetry we removed.
• Then the lighting. Note we weren’t doing any major lighting changes. If you plan to rip out ceilings or tear our huge lighting strips, you might want to think about this earlier in the process and speak to an electrician.
• Then the toilet (what fun).
• Then paint color (usually the only thing Rob and I argue about).
• I actually picked a facet AFTER everything else was completed. But I wish I had done so at this point in the renovation process. Most facets need to be special ordered, unless you find one at Home Depot or Lowe’s. I actually bought mine at overstock.com and was quite happy, despite the fact it pushed our finish date a week.

Figure out how to complete the steps of the project. As part of this step, you may need to watch some do-it-yourself videos, buy a how-to book or take a class as your local Home Depot. There is a wealth of resources online.
Demolish. I actually think this part is fun, but I’ll also admit needed Rob’s help with some of the heavier tasks. As hard as I tried, I had trouble getting some of the old tile off the walls. And pulling the cabinetry out. Note this is an excellent way to vent frustrations.
Bring in the outsourced help as needed. After we demolished, we had the plumber cut off our water supply and the drywall expert work his magic. Rob removed the toilet himself (glad he did it and not me).
Next it was time to complete the floor. First, we installed hardibacker, a stable, water resistant cement-like board.  (Rob did this part as the sheets were big and heavy and needed to be cut by a saw. He still won’t let me near a saw in the event I might chop my hand off). Next I tiled. Though it’s slow and messy, I think it’s a lot of fun and very creative. You start by applying thinset mortar, which is an adhesive for the tiles. After the thinset is dry, you grout the tile then seal it.

You’ll more than likely need something to cut your tiles, such as a tile cutter or wet saw (again, I avoid saws and find the cutter to work fine). My recommendation before you start doing any of this stuff is to plan beforehand. Lay out the tiles and see how they’ll fit. Measure tiles you need to cut. And start tiling where there is greatest visibility, usually the entrance to the room. Here’s how it looked in the end.

Cut and apply the wooden floor molding. Fortunately, our friend Ryan came over with his table miter saw and a nail gun and he saved the day! Equipment can be everything with many of these home projects, but you don’t necessarily have to buy everything. Borrow tools from a friend or rent them to save money.
Install the appliances and get that plumber back over to set up the pipe system. We are simply too paranoid to try to do this ourselves. In my opinion, this is money well spent.
Then it’s time for the easy stuff like installing the mirror and toilet paper holder. And I am being sarcastic. I can’t figure out how to install the holder, so the toilet paper is still lying by the floor (I don’t think instructions were written for women).

Though it may not sound like fun, it is. Try your hand at a little home renovation, and you might surprise yourself.

And I love the new potty, the most used appliance in the house.

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Food Inc and Unfamiliar Facts About Food

Have you even seen a movie that keeps you thinking for days on end? Or one that actually modifies your behavior in some way (hopefully for the better)? I saw one this weekend that fits the bill – Food Inc. Sure, the movie had its flaws; but it uncovered some truths about food that were previously unbeknownst to me. And truths I think many people could benefit from hearing.

I don’t intend to regurgitate the film; rather, I’d recommend you rent it (after all, it’s nominated for an Oscar). But here are a few points that keep whirling around in my mind.

1)      Food is big business. Without bashing corporate America as a whole (something an entrepreneur would never think of doing!), the movie asserts that the food industry is controlled by a powerful few, with deep pockets to lobby their cause. Though the movie calls out Tyson, Perdue and Monsanto, in particular, I’m sure there are others who largely control how our food is produced. Many former execs at these companies are now in powerful positions at the FDA and USDA, so consumer interests may not always be #1 on the list (remind you of our healthcare debate or even our banking collapse?). By the looks of the chicken farm they showed in the movie, in which they were grown faster and larger than by natural means, I’m not so sure what I’m putting in my system.

2)      Government is contributing to the problem. No, I’m not pointing fingers at Obama or even Bush or Clinton. Subsidies actually started back in the 1930s during the Roosevelt days. However, when crops such as corn are heavily subsidized by the government, farmers are able to produce and sell it at a very low cost. The result? We end up with enough corn to feed all kind of creatures, literally! Not only do humans end up eating more of it, but so do cows, chickens and pigs. The movie suggests that fish are being taught to eat corn.

3)      Sugar, sugar everywhere! A startling statistic: Nearly one quarter of the food in an average grocery store is made with corn derivates. And here’s some products you might not even realize contain corn: peanut butter, bread, yogurt, nuts, ketchup, beer, wine, infant formula, deli meats (and even batteries, though I doubt you’re eating too many of these). Today, thousands of foods contain High Fructose Corn Syrup, an ingredient known to have not-so-healthy side affects. And at a time when children and adults are adopting more sedentary lifestyles, we are consuming foods high in sugar and low on nutrients. No wonder there’s an obesity problem.

4)      It’s cheaper to eat bad food. Not only is it cost prohibitive for many families to afford organic, whole or natural foods, but for low income families, it’s not in the cards at all. In fact, many people are forced to purchase fast food and/or processed foods laden with HFCS as the alterative – because these foods are much less expensive. The government subsidies make their way downstream to people’s pocketbooks. This is especially disillusioning since we know that minorities and low income families are already predisposed to chronic conditions like obesity, especially children.

5)      We fix problems without looking at the root cause. Check out this video from Food Inc., showing how ammonia was used to kill E. coli in hamburger filler. While this makes the beef safe to eat, it’s not preventing the true culprit of the problem.  Besides that, who wants dabs a little ammonia on top of their burger, alongside ketchup and mayo? According to the movie, as well as an article by Kathy Freston, there is E. coli salmonella and other deadly bacteria in our food system because of the increased numbers of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).  In fact, factory farms produce 99% of the meat, dairy, and eggs we eat. The problem with this scenario is the accumulation of massive amounts of fecal matter, all concentrated in a small amount of space (the movie actually showed pigs and cows knee deep in manure). According to the interview Freston conducted, dairy cow and pig factories often dump millions of gallons of putrefying waste into massive open-air cesspits, which can leak and contaminate water used to irrigate our crops.

6)      Consumers have a voice. The movie cited an example where Wal-Mart is now selling its own brand of hormone- free milk because this is what customers wanted. I’m not a huge Wal*Mart fan, but perhaps their foray into organics will make healthy products more affordable for low income families (hopefully not at a cost that will put farmers out of business). Food Inc has a blog which suggest ways consumers can take part in positive change. And though I’m still a meat eater, I’m going to try to eat a little less of it (and a little more tofu), thanks in part to this informative post.

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Up

I’m 46 years old, training for my 12th marathon, the 2010 Boston Marathon, to be held on April 19,  following a 16-week training schedule. Since I spend a lot of time nursing my back, hip and foot aches and pains, I’m not sure how many more  of these races I have left in me. But, I’ll give it my best shot, and if I qualify for Boston again, I’m sure I’ll trudge through another cold winter. Follow me as I put one foot in front of the other.Some of you may recognize this blog title from an Oscar nominated movie.

Others, like myself, may use the term to describe their 20-mile training runs. Well, at least that’s what my “leisurely jaunt” on Friday felt like from miles 10-14. Only I could add, “With a Gust” to my training run title.

I took off late Friday afternoon so I could get my first (of three) 20-miler run on the books and enjoy my weekend. Even though a storm was blowing in and the trees were swaying back and forth (a bad sign, by the way), I knew Saturday was predicted to have rain and I didn’t want to postpone the inevitable until Sunday. Not to mention, I had a massage appointment scheduled for Saturday morning, and I wanted to feel as if I’d earned my pleasure.

Off I went

I started out running a good 8 miles with the wind at my back. Doesn’t everyone feel like an Olympian with a strong tailwind pushing them along their course? Plus, I got to run most of the first segment of the run with Jodi, and our conversation helped steamroll me ahead. Bear in mind, however, that after 7 miles, I looked down at my watch and exclaimed, “Oh my gosh. I have only run 7 miles and I feel like I’ve been out here all afternoon. I still have 13 more miles to go.” (Jodi offered, by the way, to pick me up in the adjacent town over if I wanted to run the entire 20 with the tailwind. I politely declined because I would have felt like a wimp).

Time for the hills

After I left Jodi, around mile 8, I started heading East and towards the hills.

I find that it’s important to integrate hills in my training. I think it’s a mental thing, but I’d like to help the torture helps me on race day. Plus, I like variety in terrain. Since the Heartbreak Hills in the Boston Marathon start around mile 16, almost 2/3 of the way through the run, I try to mimic the race terrain as best I can when I train.

So I turned up this road where one finds the trail head of one of our favorites, called Big Bertha. (It’s deceiving because the hill has a blind top. This one’ll kill you!).

Today,  however, I passed on Big Bertha and stayed on the street. Looking up the road, it didn’t seem too bad. I thought to myself, “How hard can it be?” (Did I mention the head wind?)

The paved road turned into a dirt road and continued to climb up.

Should I mention the wind again? Gusts of up to 40 mph were hitting me in the face when I was running up. The bad news is that the wind was so loud, I didn’t hear the car than almost ran over me when I was running around this curb.

At one point, I stopped and walked, got some water, and psyched myself up (excuse the pun).

It was nice to see some horses. After all, a girl can get lonely on a 20 mile run.

At last I got to pavement. “Ah,” I thought to myself, “I must be near the top.” Then I saw that road sign with a twisting arrow pointing…..you guessed it….up.

Even though the last part of the climb was brutal, I knew I was at the pinnacle. I was back in familiar running territory.

I love the view of going down (even if the wind was still blowing me around).

Until you get to the bottom and see another torturous climb – up!

Once I re-entered civilization and ran back down into the city, I knew I was home free.

The almost end

I was at mile 17 , my legs ached and I was tired, but I knew I could knock out 3 more and be sitting in my living room with a beer in my hand soon. (And I FINALLY got to turn away from the head wind).

I find that turning the music really loud for the last 2 miles and singing out loud helps to drown out the pain. Of course passersby probably think I’m nuts; but hell, they’re already been to happy hour and mine is about to start. And it’s not just going to be happy hour.

It’s going to be happy weekend, because my first 20 mile training run is complete.

How did others fare on their long runs?

Check out their advice, habits and experiences:

Here’s a story of a working dad’s 22 miler that went a bit faster than mine, even with snow, dehydration, hip pain and a dog chase.

Here’s a mother-of-three’s take on running 20 – a LOT faster than I’ll even think about running.

Dena mutters to herself when running twenty miles solo (and while thinking of a new title for a book on running marathons).

And here’s someone who sings like I do (who is also trying out new food and beverage that you might find interesting).

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