One of the things they don’t walk about much in NFL is playing through the pain. You get beat up but you just keep playing. Thi is how my Super Bowl went. Despite a painful stomach ache from about half time, I managed to consume 2,300 kcals of the buffet I prepared. Including a slice of the 4,500 kcal cheesecake I made.
Oh, and Tom Brady really id the greatest. Not that anyone doubted.
Relentless Forward Progress: A Guide to Running Ultramarathons is a book Bryon Powell.
I have read so many books on ultras recently, I am not going to say too much about them for fear I am confusing different books. But everything about this book was very good. On balance, I prefer it to Hal Koerner’s Field Guidem which is also a good read. But the advice in Powell’s book feels a little more practical, comprehensive and accessible.
Hal Koerner’s Field Guide to Ultrarunning: Training for an Ultramarathon, from 50K to 100 Miles and Beyond is a book by Hal Koerner (pretty obviously). Koerner is an ultrarunner who has won many of the famous American ultras including Western States, Javelina Jundred and Hardrock.
It is a solid book with plenty of advice. I would recommend it to anyone getting into ultra running.
I read this book in about 20 minutes. I’m not against shorts books as long as they deliver value, but to me, this read like a rambling monologue with very little structure and I did not learn much about ultra running.
I’m now an IRONMAN Certified Coach. I am already a certified coach with British Triathlon, but it is reassuring to know that my coaching skills also extend to looking after long format athletes and that I am not just winging it based on my personal experience completing full distance and 70.3 races.
I might write up a proper review of the IRONMAN U programme later but in the final assessment, your skills get put to the test when you have to design a detailed training plan for a fictional athlete looking to complete their first full distance event. It was tougher than expected but the work apparently paid off as I achieved 98%.
Last weekend, I completed my restorative yoga teacher training. If there is one thing I have learnt about my body, it is that I need a lot of props to build the ground up to me 
. Luckily, there is no limit to the support you can use if you are creative enough.
Last month, I completed the Alps to Ocean virtual ultra, which is a 290 km run across New Zealand. It is always a pleasure to receive one of the medals because The Conqueror put so much effort into theirs.
The Humanist Chaplaincy network has relaunched its digital platform and, for the first time, has brought its training course into digital as well. The new Humanist Chaplaincy Level 1 provides an introduction to the foundations of philosophy, theory and practice as a non-religious chaplain. Find out more on their website.
Online Mindfulness School has launched its first yoga teacher training. It’s an introductory level course rather than a 200-hour course, but would be excellent prep for the latter.
Muscle Myths: 50 Health & Fitness Mistakes You Don’t Know You’re Making is a book by Michael Matthews. I don’t think it’s the cyclist. It’s a pretty good book. There are academic references and most of the stuff agreed with what I have been taught in an academic setting, which is a more legit version of confirmation bias.
Below, I’ll discuss some of my key takeaways. The book’s claims are in quote marks with my commentary next to it.
“Free weights work better than machines.” Machines isolate muscles which can be useful if you need to train specific muscles, but if you just want to generally get stronger, free weights are my goto as well.
“Aim for 1-6 reps with at least 3-minute rest between sets.” If you want to get strong use heavy weights and low reps. If you want to get big muscles you might want to do things differently. Or maybe get over your ego ;).
“You don’t need strong abs, just a body get percentage under 12%.” If I ever get my body fat down to 12% I will be excited to find out if this is true.
“Training in a fasted state (2-3 hours of not eating) will accelerate fat burning but also muscle breakdown.” Yes! Someone finally talked about this. If you don’t have any glycogen left, you break down muscle and not fat. So, you need to pick whether you want to gain both or lose both.
“BCAA supplements will suppress muscle breakdown and green tea extract at 600-900 mg per day can help, too.” Interesting. I would like to burn fat and maintain muscle. But I don’t know enough about these supplements to comment.
“You need phases of bulking and cutting because you cannot do both.” As discussed above.
“Low rep heavy weights increase your metabolic rate, too.” If true, another reason to lift heavy.
“High-intensity cardio can burn fat but we don’t know why. Possibly by raising the metabolic rate.” Yep, it’s a mystery. When you do HIIT, you burn glycogen and the body cannot convert fat into glycogen because they are totally different. So, how does it burn the fat? We don’t know. But it seems to, so HIIT can be an alternative to long slow runs in the fat-burning zone.
“Cardio and strength training should be separate.” Controersial. Matthews recommends strength then cardio, but British Triathlon say it should be cardio then strength.
“Size of meal is not important so you can eat large or small, and eat breakfast or not. Calories are what matters.” Alas, one single 5,000 kcal meal isn’t going to be the secret path to skinny. Nor is a small meal every 30 minutes.
“Not drinking water with meals is nonsense.” Of course it is! Who said this? You should drink water with meals because it will make you feel satiated quicker.
I like this list because it is pretty similar to the list I use in my Nudge Nutrition course and it is always comforting to know you haven’t just made stuff up.
I like this list, too. Caffeine and creatine are widely recognised as effective.
