Digest 11.4.20
Our bi-weekly collection of interesting articles, on-goings and tools for healing, expansion and connection.
Tools
Maurten Caf 100
Maurten have made headway in recent years to be the leader when it comes to racing nutrition and fuel. Adding to their offering, they have released the Gel 100 Caf 100 and Drink Mix 320 Caf 100 products that utilize caffeine to ramp up your fuel. I used to use products like this when I was training for a marathon, but haven’t needed much of a lightweight travel booster in recent years, until now. As I start to build the miles on foot and on two wheels, I’ve decided to try out Maurten’s products and put them to the test. On first use, I was pleasantly surprised at how easy the gel was to consume. The gel has a unique but easy to swallow texture and almost no taste, while providing 100 mg of caffeine, about 1.5 espressos apparently | Link
Nutrition
You Probably Need More Vitamin D
I’ve been diving more into nutrition lately for myself including doing a full blood panel and DNA test with AMI in Santa Barbara. Through this process, speaking to the doctors there and having listened to professionals like Ben Greenfield and Joe DiStefano, I’ve come to realize that almost everyone is Vitamin D deficient. My tests proved it. As someone who lives in Los Angeles and gets some sunshine and lives a healthy lifestyle I didn’t think this would be an issue for me, but I was wrong. For more information I would read this article from Bulletproof, listen to Joe’s podcast and thinking about getting some tests done yourself to get an objective look at what’s going on underneath the hood | Link
Listen
Joe Rogan Experience with Kanye West
A nearly three hour conversation between two polarizing characters with a lot of influence. While it’s a bit more of a one-way conversation as Kanye takes the majority of the airtime, I think this is a really important episode to listen to. I’ve been a big fan of Kanye for over 10 years now but recently it’s been challenging to stand by his actions. That said, this episode warmed my heart to hear the work he’s done, the positive impact religion has had on his direction and the overall vision he has for the world. While a presidential campaign run on regenerative farming and lack of capitalism feels unlikely, it is exactly what we need. If you have judgements on Kanye’s career or personality, I challenge you to listen to this podcast with as much objectivity as you can and see what you think | Link
Tools
Altra Olympus 4
There are countless options for trail running shoes these days, but there are still very few that have a wider toe box and Zero drop, which optimize foot health and natural balance. While I personally still run in Nike, Salomon and other shoes from time to time, the latest trail shoe from Altra, the Olympus 4, is one of the best I’ve come across. It’s light weight, has plenty of protection and traction, works great in the mountains or dirt paths and comes in a variety of strong colorways, which is also a bit rare in this market | Link
Movement
The Maffetone Method
I first heard of Dr. Phil Maffetone in Christopher McDougal’s book, Natural Born Heroes: Mastering the Lost Secrets of Strength and Endurance, in which he explores different ways of optimizing endurance running. It sounded extremely simple to implement as long as you had a heart rate monitor, but also quite challenging. It came up again for me as I read through Rich Roll’s book, Finding Ultra. As he dove into his ultra training, his coach put him on this HRV training program which generally speaking is where you do your training at 150 beats per minute or under. This can make running along at a very slow pace to start, but over months on consistent runs of varying lengths, you’ll begin running faster while keeping your heart rate low. That’s the basic description of the method and as I begin to think about getting back to endurance pursuits myself I think it might be time to really dig into this tried and proven method | Link
Tags: Digest, Movement, Tools, Mindfulness, Nutrition