The Fine Art Of Cross Country Racing

 

 

Cross Country Racing is much like survival of the fittest. Animals in the jungle fight tooth and nail for their lives to outrun the predator. A cheetah runs after a gazelle. The gazelle has to outrun even the slowest cheetah if it wants to survive in a race. It all begins in the starting boxes.

The blood in your system circulates around your body faster than the outrageous flow of Niagara Falls. The sweat in the palm of your hands collect as your fists tighten. The blood is pumping faster and faster as the arm of the starter raises up into the air slowly and sits there like the burning afternoon sun. The POP of a gun sends you off down the chute. You are the gazelle. All of the girls behind you are the hungry, vicious cheetahs trying to catch you. You keep telling yourself to “push ahead”, “keep going” and “don’t let up”. Meter after meter. Four thousand times.

You forcibly push yourself up the hills like they’re the greatest obstacles you’ve ever encountered. The smallest and steepest hills seem to be as big as Mount Everest.  My teammates, friends and family are lined along the course ever so strategically to give me that extra push of motivation to maintain my effort and speed. As I am advancing forward to outrun all of the cheetahs surrounding me, I realize that I am only behind 25 or so girls which meant I have already outrun 180 of them. With this extra peace of mind, I push through my last 400 meters. Breathless, weak, and nauseous, I finish 29^th/205. I am the 29^th gazelle to outrun 176 vicious cheetahs.

 Surviving in a race isn’t always easy but that’s what makes it one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences I have ever encountered.

Food Inc

Food Inc is a great documentary on Netflix that I'd highly recommend anybody to watch if you're interested in health or just the food industry in general.

Food Inc. was a very powerful documentary that brought forth a lot of information about the past, present and future food industry practices and techniques. The purpose of Food Inc. was to make the consumer aware of not only what goes on behind closed doors but also aware of where the food actually comes from and our buying power as consumers.

In the opening credits, we see a typical supermarket scene that uses classic pictures of farms and fresh air. This uses appeals to tradition. The film is later contradicted with scenes from a chicken coop that practiced harsh and cruel actions on chickens. The purpose of these contradicting scenes are to shows the consumers the contrast between what is marketed vs reality and truth. The information is implied in this documentary with the intent to open the consumer’s eyes to the truth. Other harsh scenes are presented with dark, ominous music scores to set the tone and mood.

When we are introduced to Kevin’s mom, the film uses appeal to emotion. The tone of the film shifts slightly different depth of emotion. Images of Kevin flash across the screen with a narration of his story. This also uses course of action because of the laws and bills that Kevin’s mom tried to get passed. She made sure to take these issues to legislation and get more officials who had more power to change the food industry which allowed for more publicity to make it a public movement, requiring a bigger crowd of action. It was meant to support the claims of unsanitary, harsh conditions supported by the meat industry. This related back to the purpose of the film that opens the consumers’ eyes to the dangers and sketchy-ness of the origin of meat product.

The film shows how much of an impact the general public has on controlling the food industry by sharing the history of fast food. They use upbeat music and images that display the typical “American Way”. This uses populum and appeal to emotion. Once we had been set up to understand our impact on American food culture, we are taken inside of the industry again, similarly in-depth like the meat industry with dairy and produce. This is done with the rhetorical device of course of action. This showed us the recent demand for Organic dairy and produce. We are introduced to a farmer who worked at a dairy to produce organic products for Walmart, explaining that their consumers had demanded a wide variety of yogurt; so more had been produced to be put on shelves. This was done by using course of action (explaining the demand and showing the fulfillment of the demand) and claim of reality (showing the industries for what they really are and how they operate)

Food Inc used many strategies to achieve its purpose including ad populum, course of action, appeal to emotion, claim of reality and many more. The purpose of Food Inc. was achieved by showing the consumers the truth of the food industry, the source of food and buying power of the consumers.  (542)

Runner's Rut

A trend I've noticed with myself is that I get stuck in a runner's rut. I have no idea if that's even a term but if it's not then I'll coin it as my own. My own personal definition of a runner's rut is really hard to explain. It feels like no matter how hard I try, or how much effort I put into the workout, I get nothing in return. I hit a wall. Usually hitting a wall doesn't happen unless I get out too a fast in a race and try and pick myself back up towards the end.
The last few weeks during track I've felt really tired, sluggish and overworked. Even on the easiest workouts I could feel myself just hitting a wall. It's been almost 3 weeks and I'm still stuck feeling like there's no way out. I've tried different variations of running within the assigned workout to try and switch things up but even that doesn't seem to help. I've tried changing paces and running different splits a bit outside my assigned time frame.
Yesterday, at the very start of our workout, coach said something to me. He asked; "Are things just falling apart?" I said "Yeah, and they have been for a while." It's really disappointing to think about how much of a better runner I was just a short time ago during cross country. I feel like I'm on a constant decline and it's really worrying me.
I talked it over and there seems to be some hope left for me. I don't know the exact problem or the cause for that matter, but I think I can bring myself back.
Coach said something about how he tracked his progress with a heart rate monitor. He made himself stay within a range to keep his heart rate steady, running at a very slow pace. Within 2 weeks, he said he had cut off 2 minutes on each mile at recovery pace. I'm looking forward to trying it because it seems like it's worth it. I really have nothing to lose by taking it easy and trying something new.
As the saying goes, "Do what you've always done, and you'll get what you've always gotten." (372)

Mashed Cauliflower

I've seen a recipe for making mashed cauliflower that resembles mashed potatoes. I've always wanted to try it. A lot of people make it for the reason that it doesn't have as many carbs as potatoes do. I'm not really concerned about that but I think it's a good swap if you want something lighter or something higher in fiber. There are a lot of health benefits of cauliflower and not a lot of people eat it. I think it's pretty nasty when it's raw because it's just a bunch of crunchy nothingness.
Anyways, so you can use frozen or fresh cauliflower. They're both going to deliver the same health benefits. (Some say frozen vegetables don't have nearly as much nutritional value as fresh veggies do but it's actually a myth. Frozen vegetables have a greater health benefit because they are flash frozen immediately after they are picked and washed, preserving their vitamins. Fresh vegetables are transported across the country in a matter of days and sometimes more than a week causing them to lose not only their freshness but vitamins too.) Go ahead and cook the vegetable until you're able to separate it with a fork, that's how you know that it's done. Next, add it into a food processor with salt, pepper, garlic, almond milk and herbs. If you want to add butter (I'd use non-dairy butter on mine) you can add it in before you start to pulse it. Pulse it in the food processor until it resembles mashed potatoes. Then it's done!
It's a much lighter substitute to mashed potatoes that are lower in calories and high in fiber. The texture will really depend on how much almond milk you use to thicken or thin them. If you use too much, they may be runny.

Flavored Water

A widely known rule of the fitness industry is "don't drink your calories". A lot of the IIFYM "flexible dieters" follow this rule. They also are huge advocates of drinking lots and lots of water. Their reasons for this during bikini prep (for a show) is to reduce boating, water retention and to flush out toxins.
The problem is, many of them say "I hate drinking water" or "It doesn't taste good" or "It's hard to reach my water intake goal because I get bored". So I've seen a lot of people use flavored water packets to help them reach their water intake goals. Crystal Lite, powdered Gatorade, Propel, Mio, etc.
I personally don't think this is such a bad idea, but of course, just like everything else in life, it's all about moderation. A lot of the powders have hidden ingredients. First, let me back track with a short story. So I was looking in my pantry for something when I found a box of peach tea powder that you mix in with a 2 quart jug of water. I re purposed it into making my own stronger, more concentrated version of it by filling up my own regular water bottle and adjusting how much powder went into it. This got me thinking about how much I loved the Propel packets I used to mix in with water bottles.
I did my research and compared boxes to find that a majority of them have artificial sweeteners, as expected. However, not all have fake dyes and added sugar. In fact, some have added vitamins which made the ingredient label appear longer than it really is.
If you are the type of person to get addicted to things very easily, I'd recommend that you get the packets that don't have any dyes or the ingredient aspartame. If you can't help but to love the bright red and yellow colors, here's my strategy: Drink an 8 ounce glass of PLAIN water. Then "reward" yourself with a 16 ounce bottle of your flavored water, and alternate them to help ease up on the consumption of artificial ingredients.
Flavored water isn't exactly "healthy" but there are a lot worse things out there than drinking calorie free water. And at the end of the day, if it helps you reach your goals, then go for it.

School Food

Over the past few years, the department of health and nutrition has been under fire for a few different reasons. There are so many questions as to why schools aren't offering very many healthy options for school lunches.
Most kids eat at school because they may not get meals at home if they live in poverty. Because of this, it's important for schools to offer good food with a lot of nutritional value to ensure that America's kids are getting enough nutrients to grow and excel in school.
Over the past few years, there have been new set laws and guidelines for nutrition in school lunches. I know that a few of them have some loopholes. A lot of them sound like a sorry excuse for nutrition. For example, the one that gets me the most is the fact that tomato sauce on pizza is counted as a vegetable as well as French fries. If these junk foods qualify for being nutritious, I feel like that's major issue.
I do applaud Michelle Obama's work because I have noticed that there are healthier snacks and more fresh fruits and vegetables offered than in the past. I remember in middle school when dessert was offered every single day and you could even pay extra to get a second serving of cookie dough. I used to buy chocolate chunk rice Krispy treats every day. I was still stick skinny but it wasn't an excuse to get junk food at lunch.
Even though there are healthier snacks offered, I have to go back to the topic of having absolute crap food as a main dish. How is popcorn chicken, nachos, corn dogs and pizza a healthy meal that will provide kids with proper nutrition and sustained energy? They're filled with oil, grease, and fat. Food is made in factories and froze to be shipped off to schools for the lunch ladies to pop into the oven. Food isn't actually made from scratch anymore. All school food is continence food. I feel like that is part of the problem.
There have been a lot of improvements in school lunches over the past few years, but we still have a long way to go as a country. (371)

Eating Out

A lot of people wonder how my friends and I can eat decently at restaurants. Ever since my friends and I have been eating more plant based, I've noticed how easy it is to make simple changes to make it fit specific dietary needs. Now, I don't eat out very often at all. Maybe a dozen times per YEAR. I know that seems crazy when I hear my friends going out to eat at least 3 times per week.
Just today, I went to get coffee with a friend. I normally never go to starbucks but since it's Friday, I offered to buy us a special treat. Plus triple shot espressos help me make it through my 13 hour days. I usually had bought a triple shot nonfat latte made with skim milk, which wasn't a good idea because I'm lactose intolerant anyways. Today I switched it up to help fit my plant based "needs". I switched to coconut milk instead of skim. They also offer soymilk but since there are health concerns with soymilk, I opted for coconut. I couldn't really taste it at all, even with absolutely no flavoring. Starbucks charges and extra $.60 for milk substitution. I personally think somebody who's vegan or has milk allergies shouldn't have to pay extra just to get coconut or soy milk instead of regular. That seems dumb to me.
At restaurants that mainly serve meat and dairy based dishes, it can be a bit more difficult to avoid consumption of these products. A few good places to eat out with friends are places like Chipotle, Hu Hot, etc. At chipotle, I'd order a burrito bowl with beans, rice, corn and salsa. Completely plant based and a healthier option than being weighed down by a floury tortilla and mounds of meat. At Hu Hot, the same rice based dish applies. I have actually never been there but I know that they offer a wide variety of vegetables. It would be pretty easy to get a bowl of rice with string beans, peppers, etc. I personally don't worry too much about sauces and things like that. I would definitely avoid buttermilk ranches and soy based sauces but other than that, I wouldn't really worry about dairy making it's way into it. If you order sauces and dressings on the side of dishes, you can control the amount that you're having.
I do like the fact that a lot of restaurant chains do offer a lot of options these days. You couldn't get them 10 years ago, which is a nice improvement to see. (431)

Clif Bars

Since I've gone plant based this last month, I've had to find an alternative to my beloved Quest Bars...and I think I have finally found my new addiction. I've found that I really like Clif bars! I don't think in terms of the traditional protein obsessed dieter that they would be considered "macro friendly" because there are a lot of carbs and not a ton of protein. The particular one I have on hand right now is the Chocolate Brownie flavor and it has 4.5 grams of fat, 44 carbs and 9 grams of protein. I like Clif bars as desserts and sweet snacks because they have a texture that reminds me of oatmeal cookies and dessert-like bars. It gives me my sweet sugar fix in a nice sized bar that's really satisfying. I like that they are a lot cheaper than Quest Bars. Clif bars are 98 cents and Quest Bars are usually $2.29 per bar.
Clif Bars come in a ton of different flavors. Some are fruit flavored but I like more decadent flavored bars like White Chocolate Macadamia because it tastes like a giant cookie. I like to warm them up in the microwave too.
The only problem that I have with Clif bars are that they can be high in fat if you buy certain nut based flavors. I also have a little bit of concern for the soy ingredients that appear on the label. The protein in the bar is made up of soy protein isolate. There are a lot of shady things to look out for in soy. The fact that 70% of the ingredients in a Clif bar are organic helps lessen the effects of the soy. Soy can mess with the hormonal balances in your body especially if you're a male. Soy doesn't really have a good reputation but I don't think it's something to be overly concerned about.
I've already cut of 100% of all meat and dairy products in my diet and I feel that if I restrict too many more things that it won't be a very healthy way to live. (352)

The Western Diet

I know I have touched base a lot on the eating habits and patterns of modern America, but it seems like the best thing to talk about. How are we going to fix our dietary issues as country if we constantly brush them under the rug?
I want to talk about the Western Diet. It's basically the nice term for the fat filled-meat inclusive diet. According to the FDA, the average American diet doesn't even fall between the guidelines. Apparently, our "average" diets consist of 50% carb, 35% fat, and 15% protein. The FDA recommends that our macros sit at 55% carb 30% fat with 15% of our calories coming from protein. I think it's safe to assume that most of the fat calories come from oil and meat. Most of the carbs probably come from soft drinks, bread and candy. If you try and dissect a typical fast food meal in your head, what comes to mind? In my mind, it makes total sense. The bread being the refined carb, the meat being the very little protein that Americans consume and the rest of the patty being a source of fat, along with the fries. The large pepsi or whatever somebody would choose to order to wash it all down would be the 3rd source of refined carbs (French fries being the second, but that's mainly a source of fat)
Looking beyond macronutrients, have you ever looked up an ingredient list of a fast food meal? How I bet there are 65+ ingredients in your meal alone. How many of those ingredients do you think are chemicals or preservatives? Probably a lot. The modern American diet. Is careless. There is no caution or safety towards American's health status. The food industry is not out to make a healthier generation for us or our families, the food industry wants your money so much that they will do anything to keep you coming back. Oreo filled Chips Ahoy Cookies? Reese's Oreos? The Pizza Hut Cinna Sticks? The triple whopper? Obviously all marketing techniques to make something look new and exciting. And yeah, I've fallen for it before. Being a little kid I saw commercials for Kid Cuisines and Cinnimini's at Burger King. Any time my mom offered to get breakfast or pick up something for lunch, I could never decline. Hell yes 5 year old Sarah wants that Barbie toy in her happy meal, of course I want the 6 piece chicken nugget because 4 is weak and have you SEEN those new flavors if Artic Rush (formerly grew up knowing them as "Mr. Misty's"
 In the last 3 or so years, I have not taken my family up on any offers for fast food. Since deeply educating myself on topics like these, it's repulsive to even think about fast food. Even though it's been years since I've had fast food, I still crave it sometimes. Constantly being surrounded by food ads and new restaurants opening up, the temptation is real. Then I think about the Food Inc documentary and the truth behind fast food and I'm instantly repulsed.
The Western Diet is majorly flawed and I hope to see some kind of action to change the direction the diet in this country is headed. (544)

Carbohydrates....again.

In light of my last post about the food industry, and after doing extensive research, I've realized a lot about society.


 A large percentage of the population is overweight and obese, yet nobody sees the insanity of the typical American diet. It's filled with meat, dairy, fats and oils. As soon as somebody wants to make a change in their diet, the first instinct they have is to cut out carbs. Society has trained us to fear carbohydrates. It's a common misconception that carbs make you fat. I even thought that for a while, and I'm pretty sure I talked about it in a few older posts. Then I asked myself this; why would it make sense to cut out carbs when your main form of energy preferred by your body are carbs? You'll eventually starve your body of it's most valued macronutrient and yes you'll lose weight but the reason for the weight loss is loss of water weight, because we all know that water is stored in our muscles. Let's say you start a low carb diet and follow it for 6 months. Yes, you will lose weight because you are depriving yourself so far that it will make you sick enough to lose body fat. You will be in a state of ketosis. But what happens after you no longer continue the diet? All of the water weight will result in weight gain along with the increased carbohydrate intake. This will result in that person gaining all of the weight back, and maybe even then some because their body will try and make up for the deprivation they had experienced. My dad had lost a lot of weight about 10 years ago following Dr. Atkin's diet and he gained it all back. He recently just started on it again and has lost 6 pounds so far. He's addicted to fast food and junk. If the diet was so easy to follow and so sustainable, he would have kept the weight off. This is why I believe that low carb diets are bad way to lose weight or become healthier.

Bottom line: carbs are not bad, so don’t deprive yourself of what your body prefers.

(367)

Tough Competition

The best runners in the state are getting faster and faster each year, making it harder and harder to qualify for state and even regionals. No matter what event, or even race (if you're talking cross country) the competition is insanely difficult each year. Since extending the cross country race course, it's been said that it's a good thing because the girls' times are so fast, it's hardly a race. The top time in the state for a 4,000 meter course is somewhere in the low 13 minute range. Which is crazy. That's about a 5 minute mile pace...held for two and a half miles. Even in track, the 3,000 meter times are crazy fast. The best times for girls are in the upper 9's. That time is LESS than a 5 minute mile pace! In the 1500 meter race, some of the best times are 4:30 and under. A four and a half minute (almost) mile is extremely hard to pull off.
As the competition becomes tougher, I feel conflicted. Part of me sees it as a good opportunity to push myself harder, making myself think "If other girls can pull off a 4-something mile, I can at least try for a 5:45" and part of me wants to just throw my hands up and quit, because I know I'm not a natural born runner. It's tough when you're competing against so many natural born runners where everything just comes so easily for them, and I'm over here pushing myself really hard just to get a semi-decent time.
I'm choosing to work harder to try and keep myself ranked in the middle of all of the competition. I already know a mile under 5 minutes will never happen for me, because I know that my body just isn't capable of pulling it off. I am going to focus more on trying to cut off 10 seconds per race, slowly until I can reach my goals.
Hopefully since I'll be training for 5K's, it'll help translate over into next track season to help get my times down in my events. I'm hoping to continuously run all year round, and not make the mistake of taking too long of a break. I feel like it's really hurt my progress. (378)