Month: March 2019

Evolutionary biologists weigh in on the eternal training dilemma of how to allocate time and energy to three different disciplines

Like Trinidadian guppies, triathletes face unavoidable trade-offs. In the former case, as a classic 1983 study demonstrated, it’s between growth and reproduction: some guppy populations spend most of their limited energy getting big as quickly as possible to avoid getting eaten, while others spend their energy making babies. In the latter case, the choices are swim, bike, or run.

These sorts of trade-offs are exhaustively studied by evolutionary biologists, as part of a framework called “life history theory” that seeks to understand how organisms parcel out their energy at different stages of development. But as a pair of evolutionary biologists argue in a forthcoming paper in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, the same sort of analysis can be applied to human athletes seeking to optimize their race time. Ryan Calsbeek of Dartmouth College and Vincent Careau of the University of Ottawa culled 149,000 finishing times from 86 Ironman triathlons between 2013 and 2016, and dove into the data to see if triathletes ration their energy supplies like guppies.

The basic trade-off you’d expect to see in triathlon results is that a particularly good performance in one discipline will come at the cost of a sub-par performance in the one or both of the other two. This could show up in several different ways. In a series of performances by one particular athlete, unusually fast splits in, say, the swim would be accompanied by slower-than-normal bike or run splits—a simple question of pacing. There might also be genetic trade-offs, where triathletes who record good swim times have characteristics like broad shoulders and short legs that work against them on the bike and run. And training decisions matter too: given a finite amount of time and energy, a disproportionate amount of training time dedicated to one discipline will come at the expense of performance in the other two.

What’s particularly interesting about triathlon results is that they span a vast range of performance levels, from sub-nine-hour pros to age-groupers just dipping under the 17-hour cut-off. That’s important, because there’s a debate in evolutionary biology about whether these sorts of trade-offs are truly unavoidable. Some experiments (such as this one on a species of waterflea) seem to show that there are situations where you can devote more energy to reproduction without paying a corresponding cost anywhere else. This is a problem, because if you push the logic far enough it suggests that evolution should have produced some “Darwinian demons,” who immediately after birth have an infinite number of offspring and then live forever.

One of the proposed explanations for why we sometimes don’t observe the trade-offs we expect is called the “big houses, big cars” scenario. You might naively assume that someone who spends a ton of money on a very fancy car won’t have enough money left over to have a very fancy house, and vice versa. In reality, of course, we know that some people simply have more resources than others, so they can afford to have both a big house and a big car. The analogous situation in biology is that some waterfleas are genetically endowed with the ability to acquire more resources, so they can spend more freely without penalty.

If the “big houses, big cars” scenario is at work in triathlon, you’d expect to find that trade-offs are more obvious in slower triathletes and less obvious, or perhaps even non-existent, in faster triathletes. And that is, in fact, what the researchers found.

Here, for example, are the correlation coefficients between bike and run splits as a function of overall finishing time. Women are shown with red dots, men with blue triangles.

For the slowest athletes (on the far right of the graph), the correlation coefficients are strongly negative, meaning that faster-than-average bikers are very likely to have slower-than-average run splits and vice versa. As the overall finishing time gets faster, the correlation gets less and less negative, meaning the trade-offs are less pronounced. By the time you get to the sub-nine men, the correlations are actually slightly positive, meaning that an athlete with a faster-than-average bike split is also likely to have a faster-than-average run split. These are the athletes who, quite literally, can afford big houses and big cars.

That pattern, which emerges from comparing different triathletes with each other, may reflect differences in innate talent or training levels. If you instead compare multiple races from a single individual, those factors remain roughly constant, so the resulting patterns are more likely to reflect in-race decisions about pacing. When the researchers tried this approach, a similar pattern emerged. For slower athletes, recording a faster-than-usual bike time was associated with slower-than-usual run time, and vice versa. For faster athletes, that pattern more or less disappeared: a good day on the bike didn’t necessarily foretell a good or bad day on the run. Here’s how that looked:

Similar though slightly weaker correlation patterns were observed between swimming and running. Interestingly, the evidence for trade-offs more or less disappeared when comparing swim-bike correlations.

The details of this analysis (and I should note that I’m just scratching the surface of the paper here) are probably mostly of interest to evolutionary biologists. But Calsbeek and Careau do extract a takeaway for triathletes: generalist athletes dominate Ironman triathlon, but “allocation-based tradeoffs” prevent most triathletes from being generalists. In other words, if you’re contemplating your weakest discipline and thinking “If I just do X, Y, and Z, I’ll be able to bring it up to par,” the trade-off data suggests that you’ll pay for those improvements with reduced performance in one of the other disciplines. There simply aren’t enough hours in the non-pro’s day to add here without subtracting there.

There are some escape clauses from this somewhat depressing conclusion—for example, the researchers note that a good bicycle (another form of “resource allocation,” I guess) can provide aerodynamic and mechanical advantages that don’t have to be repaid elsewhere. That’s probably one of the reasons why the observed trade-offs were much weaker for cycling than running. But the unvarnished truth is that for mere mortals with normal jobs, it’s pretty much impossible to reach the start line of an Ironman with optimal preparation for all three disciplines. Which, when you get right down to it, is kind of the point.

---

My new book, Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance, with a foreword by Malcolm Gladwell, is now available. For more, join me on Twitter and Facebook, and sign up for the Sweat Science email newsletter.

With a few changes to your pantry, you can make quick, cleanup-free meals on the road

My mother thinks I’m a food snob. Though she’s lived around the world, she was born and bred in the Midwest, and her cooking reflects that straightforward, no-nonsense approach. She can whip a pound of ground beef and a few odd veggies into a feast in under 30 minutes. By the time she’s finished eating and cleaned up, I’m usually still fastidiously julienning the carrots, digging through the fridge for Thai basil (because standard won’t do), and weighing the pros and cons of rice vinegar versus mirin.

But living in Artemis, our Airstream, has changed all that. Don’t get me wrong—compared to tent camping, we have a Top Chef–worthy kitchen with a three-burner gas stove, an oven large enough for full-size baking sheets, and a five-cubic-foot refrigerator. Still, when you are constrained to 12 square inches of counter space, gourmet cooking is hard. In the name of time and water efficiency, we have resorted to many kitchen shortcuts. As much as I hate to say it, these purchases have made our evenings calmer and resulted in more time to idle at the table and under the stars. Also, my mother will be proud.

Bagged Prewashed Lettuce

In the same way that I know meat doesn’t come in neat blocks from a shrink-wrapped package, I have always resisted bagged greens. But we eat salad every night, and properly washing a dirty head of lettuce could burn through 5 percent of our water for two weeks. So we’ve resigned ourselves to bags—at least in the trailer. Pro tip: Skip the stuff in plastic boxes. They take up way too much space in a tiny fridge.

Grated Cheese and Sliced Bread

Our miniature camping grater gets the job done but takes ages and often produces bloody knuckles. Buying grated cheese saves time and dirty dishes. As for bread, I used to bake at an artisan shop and believed you shouldn’t be able to buy loaves presliced any more than an apple or a filet. But cutting bread spreads crumbs on the floor, which we already sweep three times a day.

Paper Kitchen Products

I have an aversion to single-use paper products like a Pro Tour racer has an aversion to a Huffy. But on the road, where we sometimes go two weeks between laundry, paper towels are a godsend. They soak up grease, wipe spills, clean pots, and save water. If we used tea towels to clean the kitchen, we’d have to get a second hamper. Similarly, we wash our plates every night, except when we have company, which means lots of dishes and lots of water. In that case, paper plates aren’t so bad.

Frozen Veggies

My aversion to freezer vegetables was probably even greater than my aversion to bagged lettuce until I realized that in the off-season (the majority of time we’re eating this stuff anyway), frozen peas, asparagus, and strawberries are probably more nutritious than their fresh counterparts. Also, frozen veggies keep longer and don’t generate scraps from cleaning and chopping.

Canned Wine

You know what takes up a lot of space in a tiny fridge? A bottle of wine. And I think canned wines are like screw-top bottles a decade ago: They seem inferior, but really our aversion is just cultural. I’m no sommelier, but we’ve had a bunch of wines that taste pretty good to our palate (Underwood!). Don’t just take it from me.

Premade Foods

I was raised in a family where every meal is made from scratch, but having some prepacked options makes mealtime easier, especially if you’re up a forest road and haven’t been able to resupply for a while. And there are healthy options: Maya Kaimal Curries served over a meat or veggie, Annie’s Shells mac and cheese with broccoli and fresh tomatoes, or any of the Good-to-Go entrées. These aren’t fancy, but they’re quick, nourishing, and tasty.

Freeze-Dried Fruit

Though conventional wisdom says you need just an apple a day, we like to eat bananas, mangos, apples, kiwis, raspberries, blueberries, and tons of other fruits. But that’s a lot of bulk when you head out for two weeks. Even if you could store it, half would go bad before you got to the bottom of the bin. We discovered freeze-dried fruit at Trader Joe’s and haven’t been vitamin C deficient since. There’s a veritable cornucopia of flavors (strawberries…mmm!), and the bags weigh next to nothing (one to two ounces) while packing a week’s worth of fruit.

Vacuum Sealer

This will sound counterintuitive because of my fixation over storage space, but I love our FoodSaver GameSaver Outdoorsman. We originally bought it for packaging elk and deer for winter, and it’s a godsend. But we also use it to make our own boil-in-a-bag meals. When we cook stews, curries, or rice dishes (or pretty much anything), we make double batches, vacuum-pack the leftovers, and freeze it. Presto! Dinner a week later. It’s also great for cleanup-free overnight backpacking trips.

Food Wraps

Dirty dishes mean wasted water, which is our biggest bane since water is a precious commodity and the most limiting factor in how long we can stay in the woods. Rather than stuff leftovers in Tupperware, which will need washing, or worse, Ziplocs, which will just get tossed, we’ve come to love these beeswax-infused organic cotton wraps called Bee’s Wraps. They keep pretty much anything fresh and need just a quick wipe before you can use them again. One sheet last months.

Sous Vide

This gourmet gadget cooks whatever you want in a perfect-temperature water bath, but honestly it’s a boon for easy food prep and cleanup. In the past, we’ve had trouble cooking the perfect steak on the road; now all it takes is preseasoning the meat, stuffing it in a Ziploc (or sealing it with the FoodSaver), and tossing it into a pot of hot water. (A quick sear on the grill is nice for color and carbon.) From pork to chicken, salmon to eggs, you can throw it in, set the thermometer, and come home to the perfect meal every time. There are all kinds of DIY setups for turning a cooler into a safe cooker at camp. Best of all, when you’re done, there’s zero cleanup, and you can recycle the water for making coffee or washing your face.

They’re dorky, antisocial, and dangerous. So should we outlaw them?

It’s a delightful afternoon on the local shared path. Runners are running, bicyclists are bicycling, shirtless bros are gliding preternaturally by on remote-controlled electric longboards. Then, as if with a sonic boom, a rider swoops in and explodes this idyll. With Lycra-clad trunk splayed out over the aerobars and twin water bottles protruding from beneath the saddle like a pair of butt rockets, this profoundly intrusive rider cuts off a child on a balance bike, sends a pod of power walkers scattering, and, like, totally harshes the mellow of the bro on the longboard before disappearing into the crowd like a pickpocket in a triathlon singlet.

When it comes to going fast on a bike, there’s a time and a place. Those with an unerring ability to miscalculate both always seem to have one thing in common: Aerobars. Oh sure, aerobars have their place in competitive cycling events, but using them to full effect in crowded public recreational spaces at peak times is like showing up at the symphony in one of those beer helmets—and then pushing your way through the audience to get to your seat because you got there late. They can also be dangerous. Yes, a cyclist killing a pedestrian on any type of bicycle is an aberration, but the last person who managed to do so in New York City was riding in Central Park on a bike equipped with aerobars.

So is it time to ban them?

Well, if you’re a competitive cyclist who participates in events that require aerobars, then of course your answer will be, “Over my dead, skinsuited body!” After all, for every doofus hammering into the park at full speed while there’s a charity walk going on, there’s doubtless a responsible rider who’s simply tooling around on the TT bike in order to tweak her position for a future sanctioned event. And what’s wrong with that? Certainly it’s not fair that the responsible cyclist should have to pay for the sins of the hopelessly deluded, and it feels like a fundamental failure of democracy if a few energy gel-slurping pathletes were to become the reason we can’t have nice, aerodynamic things.

At the same time, why do we need aerobars anywhere? Yes, sure, we need them to go as fast as possible in certain sporting events, but why? Not to be the eleventy billionth person to reference that old “Spinal Tap” bit, but instead of having aerobars be the fastest bars you can use, why not make aerobars illegal and make drop bars be the fastest instead? There’s already plenty of precedent for this: the UCI banned “funny bikes” with dumb tiny front wheels at the dawn of the 21st century, and most cyclists are familiar with the concept of the “Cannibal time trial,” a race against the clock in which the riders compete on non-aero equipment just like Eddy “The Cannibal” Merckx and his contemporaries. Plus, if it’s the wind-cheating sensibility you’re after, today’s carbon aero road bikes have all the fairings and teardrop shapes you can possibly want, even without the aerodynamic bars.  

Anyway, if you’re interested in pushing a human-powered machine as fast as it will possibly go, why not bypass the aerobars altogether, seal yourself inside of one of those giant fully-faired suppositories, and make an assault on the land-speed record at the Bonneville Salt Flats?

Oh sure, I know what you’re thinking: If you take some toolbag’s aerobars away that doesn’t mean they’re going to ride like less of a toolbag. Sure, but at least they’ll be a slightly safer toolbag; they’ll be a little more upright and their hands will be better positioned for leverage and control. Plus, people complain about cyclists enough as it is, and there’s something about the body language of aerobars that is profoundly antisocial. For years, I’ve studied human responses to cyclists by observing the way they react to me when I stop at red lights. (Yes, I sometimes stop at red lights.) On a fully upright bicycle they hardly notice me, but on a road bike that puts me in a somewhat aggressive position they look nervous, because it creates the impression I’m not going to stop. Aerobars take this even further, and riders who use them look like they’re either charging at you with a pair of spears or else preparing to plunge them into their own abdomens in an act of ritual suicide.

But hey, I realize we can’t take people’s aerobars away without giving them something back, which is why I fully support a nationwide aerobar buyback event. When riders turn in their aerobars, they will receive free aerodynamic counseling, including a full bike fitting and plenty of wind tunnel time. Given how many people I see using aerobars along with chunky sneakers, reflectors, loose-fitting clothing, and countless other sources of friction, I’m totally confident that virtually every rider who surrenders their aerobars will see a significant net gain in their drag coefficient. (Or is that a net loss in their drag coefficient? Whatever, you know what I mean, whatever the good one is.)

Really, I only have one reservation about calling for an aerobar ban, and it’s this: It would probably be really, really easy to make it happen. Sure, we still haven’t banned bump stocks, but we’re not talking about something that’s truly lethal here. Rather, we’re talking about something having to do with bicycles. Given this, you can be sure millions of Americans will rally behind outlawing aerobars, which, now that I think about it, is actually pretty scary.

Forget I said anything.

There are a lot of obscure ingredients in Gu gels. Here’s what they actually do for you.

If you’re a dedicated athlete, you’re probably familiar with getting your nutrients in goo form. Gels like Gu’s Roctane offer a blend of carbohydrates and electrolytes that can fuel hours of hard work without tearing up your stomach. But those of us who aren’t dietitians or food chemists might be confused by the lengthy ingredient list. In its product description, Gu claims many of these components boost our performance in obscure ways, like maintaining “heart contractility” or increasing an “intramuscular buffer.” What exactly are these ingredients, and do they live up to their stated purposes? We consulted Monique Ryan, a dietitian and author of Sports Nutrition for Endurance Athletes, to help break down what all those ingredients really mean and what they can do for our bodies.

The Carbohydrates: Maltodextrin and Fructose

Maltodextrin is a carbohydrate produced from a plant source, often corn. It’s composed of chains of glucose molecules, and when you eat it, the chains readily break apart and are absorbed as glucose by the small intestine.

Fructose is a common sugar, also typically refined from corn, and an additional source of carbohydrates. Fructose is absorbed more slowly than glucose, because the liver needs to process fructose before it can be used for energy. Fruits and vegetables naturally contain both fructose and glucose.

When you’re consuming glucose alone, your body maxes out on absorption at about 60 grams per hour, Ryan says. But mixing glucose and fructose lets you double down on carbs, because they each use different pathways in the gut. A glucose-to-fructose ratio of about two to one is ideal: “The mix really allows you to go above the 60 grams per hour, and that’s really important for endurance athletes,” Ryan says.

The Electrolytes: Sodium, Calcium, and Potassium Citrates

When you sweat, you lose electrolytes, the salts crucial to electrical signaling in the body. The major electrolytes are sodium, calcium, and potassium, and they’re critical to rehydration. When you slurp down a gel, sodium and glucose enter your cells together. When this salt and sugar combo concentrates in the cell, water then flows in as well. This process depends on the presence of water in the body, so it’s important to chase a gel with a beverage. Ryan adds that water helps the body digest concentrated carbohydrates more efficiently, which helps maintain a steady flow of energy and fend off gastrointestinal distress mid-workout.

Branched-Chain Amino Acids: Leucine, Valine, and Isoleucine

These three amino acids—compounds that form proteins and perform other important roles in the body—make up one third of the essential nine amino acids that our bodies don’t produce naturally. (A “complete protein” food contains all nine). The branched-chain molecules are used in muscle metabolism, which is why performance fuels zero in on these to provide just enough nutrients to offset muscle breakdown without upsetting the stomach. But experts are still skeptical about whether ingesting these amino acids before or during exercise substantially helps muscle repair. Eating protein after exercise, it seems, is still your best bet for recovery. Still, Ryan says, she sometimes recommends some protein to Ironman athletes when they are cycling—as opposed to running or swimming, when the stomach is more easily upset—to stymie hunger.

Taurine

Taurine is an amino acid that serves as a neurotransmitter and assists various bodily processes. It was first isolated from ox bile in 1827, but these days it’s synthetic. Since our livers can produce it, taurine is considered a “semi-essential” amino acid—it isn’t critical that we get it from our diets. Still, plenty of energy drinks and performance foods list it as an ingredient.

In one recent review of ten studies published in Sports Medicine, a supplement of one to six grams of taurine was correlated with improved endurance performance; this benefit is linked to many physiological processes, such as increasing energy efficiency in muscle cells. However, the doses in this research—up to six grams a day—are higher than what you’ll find in a single Gu; all the aminos combined in one packet total 1.425 grams. Mark Waldron, lead author of the review and an exercise scientist at St. Mary’s University in London, says the lower doses found in gels and sports drinks likely aren’t enough to enhance performance.

Beta-alanine

This nonessential amino acid has the potential to “directly improve sports performance,” according to the International Olympic Committee. Beta-alanine helps the body create carnosine, a compound that combats lactic acid buildup in muscle, slowing the onset of fatigue. The International Society of Sports Nutrition, in a review of multiple studies, concluded that taking four to six grams daily for two to four weeks can provide this benefit. However, Gu contains less than the amount known to be performance enhancing.

Green Tea Leaf Extract

This ingredient is a source of caffeine, which also is known to improve performance. Gu has less than you need to be concerned about, but at very high doses, such as those found in some supplements, this extract might cause liver injury.

Medium-Chain Triglycerides

These medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs) are the same as those touted by “biohacking” entrepreneur Dave Asprey, of Bulletproof coffee fame. MCTs, usually processed from coconut or palm kernel oils, are a type of fat. The body burns these shorter-chain chemicals faster for energy than their longer-chain siblings, which make up the majority of dietary fats. This had led some researchers to think that MCTs can benefit exercise performance, but the link is still unclear, and according to the International Society of Sports Nutrition, there’s “little or no evidence to support efficacy” of MCTs.

The Verdict

For long, grueling workouts, energy gels can certainly offer a boost. Ryan says she thinks of them as a “side dish.” Still, the benefits of some of the ingredients are unclear.

It’s possible to get a lot of the key nutrients in Gu from whole foods. And some ingredients, like electrolytes, might not be useful unless you’re sweating for three hours or more. But for sports that are harsher on the stomach, like running, a gooey fuel is often easier to keep down than other options. “It’s about tolerance and digestion,” Ryan says. “You have to know what works for you and have a plan that balances out properly. It depends on your sport.”

We did whatever the hell we wanted

Here’s one thing we always say about weddings: “It’s the biggest day of your life.” 

Here’s one thing we almost never say about weddings: “You can do whatever the hell you want.” 

Hilary and I have been together six and a half years, and when we started talking about getting married, we talked about all the things people usually do: this tradition, that tradition. Listing off things, one of us would eventually say, “I don’t know if I want to do that.” Then the other person would say, “We don’t have to do that.” Eventually: “There are no rules.” We’d ask each other what the point of the whole thing was, and although we never wrote down a theme, or thesis, or mission statement, I would say that we wanted to make something that was half-party, half-creative expression, that communicated how much we loved our lives, each other, and our friends and family. Something that came from us, not from the past or from tradition.

My friend Justin Roth, shortly after his own wedding in 2012, wrote something on his now-gone blog that’s always stuck with me. I’d long paraphrased what he wrote as, “A wedding should, above all else, be true”—but it turns out his actual words were, “If I were to pick a word to describe my ideal wedding, it would be ‘honest.’”

I think we just wanted to create a wedding that was true, or honest, like Justin wrote. Not an extravagant ceremony and reception that pretended we both come from crazy wealthy families, or a ceremony where someone else told us what to say or do, but something that was true to us. We didn’t want to have a wedding simply happen to us; we wanted to make a wedding. 

We managed to pick the last fall weekend of good weather in Estes Park, Colorado, sunny but a little chilly in the afternoon. We wrote our own vows but called them The Declarations of Interdependence in the program, had one of our best friends officiate, had readings from Mary Oliver and Kurt Vonnegut, and ended the ceremony with The Lifting of the Bride, because every time I have lifted Hilary off the ground in the past six and a half years, she has burst into laughter.

Hilary started her Declarations of Interdependence with a story from a Grand Canyon raft trip, and I started mine with a story from our first time rock climbing together. We mentioned heavy backpacks, numb toes, windburn, cold hands, and alpine starts, in front of a group of friends and family, a majority of whom we had shared some of those things with in the mountains.

Weddings have meant a lot of things in the few thousand years that we’ve been doing them, and like everything else, I think that meaning is evolving. You don’t have to be married to live together or to have a family at this point, and you don’t have to have a ceremony to be lawfully married. I think a wedding is a party celebrating a relationship, and that’s a wonderful thing. You get all your friends and family together, say deeply heartfelt things about why your favorite person in the world is your favorite person in the world, make promises to that person to be the best version of yourself possible and to do everything you can to help them be happy for a very long time, and then everyone eats cake. If the marriage itself lives up to the joy and aspirations of the wedding, you’re in pretty good shape, I think.

Everyone has different reasons for getting married or not getting married. In the past few years, we’ve seen a few friends and acquaintances die too soon, often in the mountains. While we were standing at a young friend’s memorial a year ago, Hilary felt the urgency to have a wedding, to get everyone together and celebrate a good thing while we all could. Which is as good a reason as any, I think. I struggle with telling people what I feel when I’m with them, and stepping back and acknowledging when things make me happy. Getting married to my favorite person with a few dozen of my favorite people was a macro effort to do just that, for me: to say how I feel and tell someone why they make me happy. 

The very brief selection I asked my brother to read during the ceremony was a paragraph from Kurt Vonnegut’s A Man Without a Country, and it went: 

I had a good uncle, my late Uncle Alex. He was my father’s kid brother, a childless graduate of Harvard who was an honest life-insurance salesman in Indianapolis. He was well-read and wise. And his principal complaint about other human beings was that they so seldom noticed it when they were happy. So when we were drinking lemonade under an apple tree in the summer, say, and talking lazily about this and that, almost buzzing like honeybees, Uncle Alex would suddenly interrupt the agreeable blather to exclaim, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.” 

So, I do the same now, and so do my kids and grandkids. And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.” 

Plus: one private island bungalow worth the splurge

Give us a cabin with a wood-burning fireplace, a cozy chair to read a book, some good coffee, and maybe an evening nip of whiskey, and we’re happy. Give us hiking and biking trails, backcountry ski runs, old-growth forests, or loaner canoes and kayaks—plus no cell service or internet, so we can truly get away—and we may never leave.  

The Sky and Timber Loft Cabin

Cheshire, Oregon

Jason Williams, a bike mechanic, and his partner, Shasta Brewer, a freelance designer, spent three years restoring their log home on a five-acre property just 15 minutes outside Eugene, Oregon. Then they tackled their Sky and Timber guesthouse cabin, up the hill, which is where you’ll stay. It has a high-beam ceiling of exposed logs, a record player, and a stovetop espresso maker, plus thoughtful extras like birding books, binoculars, and board games. There’s no Wi-Fi and limited cell coverage. Instead, guests explore forest trails before lounging around the outdoor fire pit or the living room’s cast-iron wood stove. $108

Fariss Farms

Allisonia, Virginia

In the Blue Ridge Mountains, you’ll find Fariss Farms and Iron Heart Winery, a 990-acre property and vineyard that’s part of the state’s booming wine scene. Choose from three cabins, one of which dates back to 1882 and each of which were recently renovated with newly timbered and reclaimed logs. A trail leads from your front porch to a swimming hole on Little Reed Island Creek, or bring a canoe to paddle New River and a bike to cycle the 57-mile New River Trail, which follows an abandoned railroad. From $155

Starfire Cabin

Sandpoint, Idaho

George and Kristina Orton spent three years milling trees from their own property to build the 800-square-foot Starfire Cabin. It sleeps up to four in a bedroom and an upper loft, and comes stocked with firewood. Kayaking on Lake Pend Oreille, skiing at Schweitzer Mountain, and exploring the waterfront town of Sandpoint are all options a short drive away, but the log cabin feels remote, with limited cell-phone service, no Wi-Fi, and stargazing through a skylight. Kristina occasionally shows up with homemade pies and cookies. $150 

Sherman Log House

Ludlow, Vermont

Located five miles from Okemo Mountain Resort, the Sherman Log House, from vacation rental company Vacasa, has walls of shiplap planks, hardwood floors, and three bedrooms with enough room for up to ten people. You’ll play board games in front of a wood-burning fireplace and enjoy views of the snow-covered Green Mountains from the large jetted bathtub. When you’re not skiing at Okemo, which is on the Epic Pass as of this winter, head to the nearby Crowley Cheese Factory for a tasting tour, or spend some time in the charming village of Ludlow (population 811), 30 miles away. $143

The Hunt Hill Log Cabins

Sarona, Wisconsin

The Hunt Hill Audubon Society rents out two cabins that overlook 600 acres of old-growth forest, bogs, and four glacial lakes in a protected nature reserve. The cabins are rustic, but you’ll have access to 13 miles of trails and a canoe to spot ospreys and otters from the water. Built in 1917, the Frances Andrews Cabin sleeps up to six and sports views of Big Devil and Upper and Lower Twin Lakes. The Log Cabin, constructed in 1930, has a stone fireplace and a loft and bedroom that sleep up to four. It’s open all year. $120

The Lodge on Little St. Simons Island

Little St. Simons Island, Georgia 

This privately owned island is only accessible by boat, has seven miles of secluded coastline, and accommodates a maximum of just 32 guests. Book a room in the lodge or one of the five hunting-camp-inspired bungalows and your stay includes boat transfers, meals, and guided outings with local naturalists.Fall and winter bring cooler temperatures and fewer bugs and people, making it an ideal time to visit. If that still sounds too crowded, you can rent out the entire island. From $575, all-inclusive      

Hot take! Making cars more dangerous will make our roads safer.

We live in a safety-obsessed culture, something that becomes immediately apparent when you take your seat behind the wheel of a modern automobile. Seatbelts, airbags, ABS, back-up cameras, lane-departure warning systems, automatic emergency braking… Today’s cars are way smarter than the horses that once pulled them.

Despite all this safety technology, road deaths are at a 10-year high, and cars (or, more accurately, their drivers) kill over 40,000 people per year. One reason for this is that we’re increasingly distracted by our phones—indeed, if you think about it, hitting a 10-year high about 10 years after the first iPhone came out sounds about right. Another reason for all the carnage is that, despite all these safety gew-gaws, the SUV is basically designed to kill people. See, because we’re so in love with oversized cars, the auto industry keeps churning out death machines. However, instead of selling them to the military along with tanks and fighter jets, they’re leasing them to us for $399 per month with $3,900 due at signing.

Alas, while we may be safety-obsessed, we’re also common-sense-challenged. That’s why instead of confronting our giant-car addiction, we’re trying to put more high-tech safety crap on cyclists and pedestrians instead. We also keep trying to delude ourselves into believing that all this killing is suddenly going to disappear thanks to the self-driving car. Sure, autonomous cars are unlikely to take over the roads anytime soon, but they’re already perhaps the greatest excuse for doing fuck-all that the world has ever seen. In the meantime, we just keep texting away and trusting that our bloated vehicles will protect us.

Fortunately, there’s another way to make our roads safer, and it doesn’t involve placing all our faith in an egomaniac with questionable management skills. (I’m referring to this one, not this one, though if we adopt this plan the current administration will get to tear down a bunch of onerous safety regulations, which is what it loves to do anyway.) It also doesn’t require some sort of futuristic technology that doesn’t exist yet. In fact, it doesn’t require any new technology at all. Best of all, the price of your next car will almost certainly come down dramatically.

All we’ve got to do is rip out all these damn features and creature comforts and Make the Automobile Dangerous Again.

The key here is reminding people that operating a motor vehicle actually requires a certain amount of concentration and skill, and the way to do that is to pare these machines down to the bare essentials. Think about it: When are you more engaged? When you’re on a bicycle, descending a mountain road on a contact patch the width of your thumb, with nothing between you and the tarmac but a thin layer of Lycra? Or when you’re in a 4,000-pound climate-controlled, sound-deadened, suspension-dampened Honda Pilot that’s essentially a 280-horsepower simulacrum of your living room sofa?

Yes, flensing the bloated SUV like the whale carcass it is could very well be the key to safer roadways. The first feature we should remove is the automatic transmission. This would have the immediate effect of taking who knows how many millions of drivers off the road, thanks to the fact that most Americans now regard manual transmissions with the same bewilderment as they do rotary phones. (And the drivers who do know how to use a stick shift are probably more interested in driving and therefore better at it.) No doubt we’d also see a tremendous decrease in the number of senior citizens driving their cars into storefronts, since with a manual transmission you’ve got to make a concerted effort to put your car into reverse.

Those still determined to drive would eventually learn how to operate a manual transmission and purchase new cars—only next they’d find new cars no longer come standard with backup cameras. Or automatic emergency braking systems. Or Bluetooth connectivity. Or entertainment systems. Or even airbags or seatbelts. Nope, now you’ve got nothing to watch but the road. Oh sure, you can still look at your actual phone, but maybe now you’ll think twice about hitting something, as doing so would mean a guaranteed one-way trip through your windshield.

Even after the complete de-Naderization of the automobile, many people still won’t think twice about driving—that is until there’s no more climate control. Hot outside? Well, guess what? Now it’s hot in the car too! No more sitting in an idling car for 45 minutes on a 90-degree day, futzing with your phone while you pump more carbon emissions into the atmosphere. And maybe freezing your ass off in winter will help remind you that you’re not actually invincible in your SUV. Maybe that snotsicle hanging from your nose will help you remember that when it gets cold outside, the road gets icy. Maybe you’ll even start taking those blizzard warnings seriously instead of spending the night on the expressway because you thought your all-wheel drive was more powerful than nature.

Without all those extras to protect them in a crash, it’s only a matter of time before drivers start to realize that SUVs were a stupid idea. Cars will get smaller and so will their engines. If all goes well, by 2030, we’ll all be driving 1960s roadsters with better reliability—and due to the lack of safety features, drivers will instead be pressured to wear motoring helmets. With any luck, eventually those helmets will become mandatory, because nothing discourages people like helmet laws. In the end, driving will finally be the exclusive domain of a handful of enthusiasts, and tomorrow’s motorist will be no different than those people you see riding around on Can-Am Spyders today.

As for commuting, running errands, and generally getting things done, the vast majority of people will opt for a safe, efficient machine that makes sense. You know, like a bicycle.

A friendly reminder that a 2:10 marathon is actually still pretty hard

Last month brought sobering news for U.S. running fans: following surgery on his left Achilles, Galen Rupp said that there was “no chance” he’d be racing a marathon next spring. Barring some sort of divine intervention, this effectively means that there’s also no chance that we’ll see an American man win next year’s Boston Marathon. Love him or hate him, Rupp is currently without equal among American marathoners and the only one capable of competing with the best in the world. Anyone questioning that supremacy need only glance at the qualifying list for the 2020 Olympic Trials, which records the fastest U.S. marathon performances since September 1, 2017. Rupp tops the list thanks the 2:06:07 that he ran in Prague last May. Meanwhile, Tim Ritchie’s 2:11:55, set at last year’s California International Marathon, is a distant second. That’s not a talent gap—that’s a chasm.

Meanwhile, as you might have heard, the American women have talent in abundance. There have been several articles making the case that, thanks to stars like Shalane Flanagan, Amy Cragg, Jordan Hasay, Des Linden, and Molly Huddle, U.S. women’s distance running is deeper than it’s ever been. Flanagan, Linden, and Huddle all took part in last weekend’s New York City Marathon, a race which, for some, illustrated the current disparity between elite men and women’s running in this country. 

“The recent American women’s performance stands in contrast to the men’s,” the Times’s Lindsay Crouse wrote after Sunday’s race. “Since 2014, no American man besides Galen Rupp has run a marathon under 2 hours 10 minutes—effectively equivalent to the sub-2:30 mark for women. This year in New York alone, four American women broke 2:30. No American men finished in the top five; the American women placed two there,” Crouse added.

In fairness, both the men’s and women’s races in New York saw four Americans place in the top ten. But, as LetsRun.com noted, that stat doesn’t mean too much when roughly half of the elite fields consist of U.S. runners. Most American races are going to be disproportionately stacked with local athletes, so finishing times are perhaps a more useful metric to assess the competitiveness of our top runners. If we use the 2:10 mark as a barometer, what does that tell us about the state of professional men’s marathoning in this country?

I’m not the first person to pose this question. Writing for Runner’s World, Sarah Lorge Butler recently published an article titled: “Where Are All the Sub-2:10 U.S. Marathoners?”

In her piece, Butler points out that most of the fastest American marathoners tend to race in the United States, largely because marquee events like the New York City and Boston Marathons offer appearance fees for U.S. athletes. Since New York and Boston are un-paced and have challenging courses, those races don’t necessarily yield fast times. 

But while there’s certainly some truth to that, it’s not clear why the same wouldn’t hold for American women, who are outperforming their male counterparts. In 2017, no American man cracked the top 100 of the fastest marathon times for the year, while five American women did.

When I emailed David Monti, the editor and publisher of the running industry news and results service Race Results Weekly, to ask why American women are faring better than the men, he noted two important factors. For one, the marathon is still a relatively “new” event on the women’s professional circuit: it was only added as an Olympic event in 1984. Partially because of this, even in the last decade much has been learned about how women should train for the marathon. As with women-specific exercise science in general, there’s a lot of catching up to do. 

Per Monti, “Women are handling mileage loads and doing workouts coaches wouldn't dare give them 10 years ago.” More so than the men, American women are perhaps still establishing what they are capable of over 26.2 miles. Then there’s the competition. Without taking anything away from the achievements of Flanagan, Linden, and co., Monti points out that the “sheer number of men trying to be competitive in the marathon globally is still far greater than the number of women,” and so it’s more difficult for U.S. men to be competitive. 
 
Of course, as Eliud Kipchoge’s recent marathon world record performance of 2:01:39 should illustrate, the bar is set pretty high right now. Only 17 American men have ever run a 2:10 marathon or faster, and only nine since 2000. 

That’s not a knock against U.S. men, but more of a reminder that we’ve never had sub-2:10 guys in droves. I hate to shatter any illusions, but sub-2:10 has always been towards the upper limit of what’s been attainable for American men. (For what it’s worth, last month Cam Levins became the first Canadian to break 2:10 when he set a national record in his debut marathon.) On a global level, the mark has just become far less impressive over the last two decades, as the top East African runners have taken the marathon world record into the stratosphere. While Khalid Khannouchi’s American marathon record (2:05:38) dates back to 2002, 48 of the 50 fastest marathons ever run have happened over the last ten years. And every single one of them was run by someone from Kenya or Ethiopia.

So maybe it’s less that the American men are in a slump, and more that the top Kenyans are unfathomably good. Not exactly a blazingly astute insight, but it bears stating when we seem to be suddenly scratching our heads about why the U.S. isn’t producing off-the-charts times in the marathon; the same could just as easily be said about U.S. performances in the half marathon, or 10K. (Perhaps we could learn something from Japan, a running-obsessed nation which, in anticipation of the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, has recently produced a slew of sub 2:10 athletes thanks to a corporate sponsorship system. Just a thought.)   

To be sure, American men aren’t the only ones with a lot ground to make up on their Kenyan “rivals.” Anyone who watched Mary Keitany blast a 66:58 for her second half split in New York on Sunday knows that, when they’re performing at the top of their game, the best Kenyan runners are still untouchable. 

“I don’t have the physical capability to have an answer for that,” Flanagan said during post-race press conference in response to Keitany’s audacious second half. And Flanagan had a terrific race. Although she didn’t defend her title, Flanagan was once again on the podium last Sunday, fighting her way to third place and top American honors. 

On the men’s side, the top American was 2016 Olympian Jared Ward, who finished in 6th. Afterwards, Ward took to Instagram and pushed back against the notion that American men are currently not bringing it in the marathon. 

“Skeptics claim we have Rupp and then no one else. I disagree. While Rupp is on a different level, we have guys closer than the clock has said,” Ward wrote before touting the talents of fellow NYC runners like Shadrack Biwott (who finished 9th) and Scott Fauble (7th). 

“The race for the Olympic team will be a competitive race with and against friends. I don't know who will be on that team, but when we send 3 guys to Tokyo they are going to be good,” Ward added.

Time will tell. In the meantime, Ward has every reason to be optimistic. After all, his second half split on Sunday was only one second slower than Keitany’s. 

These former ski resorts are great places to backcountry ski and snowboard

Colorado is littered with more than 100 abandoned ski resorts whose doors have closed and chairlifts quieted. But they aren’t dead yet. Backcountry ski enthusiasts who value nostalgia as much as low-risk terrain have given them a second life. In fact, while you’ll still want avalanche gear and training, their often low-angled terrain and runs still clear of trees and other obstacles can be a great introduction to the backcountry. Here are a few of my favorites for experiencing some of Colorado’s ski history and snagging some untouched powder at the same time.

Geneva Basin Ski Area: Georgetown

I first explored the 1,250 vertical feet of this ski basin on a scorching late-spring day and almost bonked during the arduous eight-mile uphill slog. Once owned by former state governor Roy Romer and closed in 1984, Geneva sits near the summit of 11,670-foot Guanella Pass, just 90 minutes west of downtown Denver, near Georgetown. Expect a veritable playground with easier green runs to looker’s left and black diamonds to the right, with only a few errant saplings to hinder your descent. An abandoned ski patrol hut still stands at the top, complete with an original trail map hanging on the wall, but beware of another holdover. A construction worker died building the resort’s Duck Creek Double lift; since then, former employees and numerous skiers have reported sightings of the Ghost of Geneva Basin.

Hidden Valley Ski Area: Rocky Mountain National Park

Born in a time when the Park Service encouraged developed recreation within Rocky Mountain National Park, Hidden Valley was closed in 1991 when that mindset changed. Today, backcountry skiers descend the 1,200 acres of now-abandoned terrain. Thanks to its 2,000-foot vertical drop, there’s something here for all skill levels. When I first skied Hidden Valley in college, I humped my alpine skis on my back, snowshoes on my feet, and stuck to the forgiving low-angle snow on the lower mountain, but fit, expert skiers can find excellent lines with epic alpine views of the entire park above Trail Ridge Road.

Berthoud Pass Ski Area: Berthoud Pass

Sitting smack on the Continental Divide outside Winter Park at a lung-busting 12,000 feet, Berthoud Pass Ski Area was a Colorado staple until its closure in 2001. These days, you can’t drive over the pass without seeing a handful of cars sitting on the east side of the road, their passengers gearing up for a powder day. The steep terrain means Berthoud isn’t for beginners, but it can be for the lazy. Rather than skin back to the top, I often thumb a ride to the summit from a passing vehicle at one of the many switchbacks in the road.

Pikes Peak Ski Area: Colorado Springs

Windblown snow and sparse conditions combined with a lack of money led to Pikes Peak Ski Area’s demise in 1984, but the low-risk, low-angle runs endure as a personal favorite for days when the avalanche danger is simply too high to consider skiing anywhere else. You can scope your options from the Pikes Peak Highway, but looker’s left will give you steeper runs. The snow on this particular section of the mountain stays soft long after storms, so running laps is a no-brainer for mellow days on your planks. But be careful. There's still avalanche danger, and a few skiers have died after losing control in the steeper chutes when conditions were icy.

Mesa Creek Ski Area: Grand Mesa

Tucked on the northern edge of the Grand Mesa mountain range in western Colorado, Mesa Creek Ski Area—or Old P, as locals called it—closed in 1966 after the new Powderhorn Ski Resort moved in down the hill. I love Old P because the whole family can come. Kids attack the former base area by the dozens, dragging sleds behind them, while adults with gumption skin upwards of a thousand feet of vertical to find perfectly spaced trees, miles of untracked powder, and utter solitude. My advice: Cross the bridge over Mesa Creek and stay to looker’s right. You’ll find a lot of skiable terrain, and you may even find that a moose has already broken the trail for you.

The race is a celebration of the amateur athlete

Unless something extremely unexpected happens next Sunday in Honolulu, last weekend’s California International Marathon in Sacramento will go down as the race with the deepest field of any U.S. marathon in 2018. As I’ve written previously, CIM has evolved into a destination for American elite and sub-elite level runners who want to crank out a fast 26.2-miler before the winter lull. On top of the favorable weather conditions and downhill, point-to-point course, the last two iterations had the additional boon of doubling as the USATF National Marathon Championships. In other words, a lot of very good runners rolled up in Northern California and crushed it.

How much crushing went down? Exceeding even last year’s extraordinary results, Sunday’s race saw 99 women and 53 men run qualifying times for the 2020 Olympic Trials in Atlanta (the “B” standard is 2:45:00 for women and 2:19:00 for men). What’s more, 265 women ran under three hours, while 164 men cracked the 2:30 barrier. Those are impressive stats, and not only by U.S. standards. (The prestigious Fukuoka Marathon also took place over the weekend and only 94 runners ran sub 2:30. This is notable because, though the field size is relatively small, you need to run 2:35 or faster to qualify.) 

Despite the abundance of quick times, the biggest guns in American marathoning were conspicuously absent on Sunday; CIM generally doesn’t attract pro running A-listers. There was no Shalane Flanagan, Amy Cragg, Jared Ward, or Galen Rupp. Instead, the early leaders at CIM included runners like 2:13 man Malcolm Richards, a 36-year-old elementary school teacher from San Francisco, and Emma Bates, a 28-year-old unsponsored marathon debutante. While Richards would fade and finish in 26th place, Bates never gave up her lead and ended up crossing the line in 2:28:19 to crown herself national champion. On the men’s side, Brogan Austin, a former NCAA standout from Iowa, threw down a late-race surge to win in 2:12:39. I’ve been writing about this sport for years and had to Google Austin’s name. 

“Who were all those runners in the street?” a headline from the Sacramento Bee story on the marathon asked. My thoughts exactly.  

Watching the USATF broadcast of CIM, I was struck by how, rather than a pro race, the event felt more like a mass celebration for the competitive amateur—the “regional class” athlete who might eviscerate the competition at her local Turkey Trot, but wouldn’t allow herself to dream about actually making an Olympic team. The feeling was exacerbated by the fact that the few runners I recognized while watching the race online were not elites, but people from my local running club as well as members of the insular world of “running media.” Ten minutes into the broadcast, I spotted Mario Fraioli, author of the popular running newsletter The Morning Shakeout, whom the USATF announcer unforgivably referred as a “good little writer.” Fraioli, who is also a good little runner, ran a personal best of 2:27:33. He finished in 129th place. 

As is the case with other second-tier marathons like Grandma’s in Duluth, Minnesota, CIM is a race that occupies that elusive sweet spot between the marquee event that draws world class-level titans, and the small-scale local race where a 2:30 performance will occasionally carry the day. Among other things, this means that at CIM the spotlight often falls on those who don’t normally get it.  

To be sure, professionals were also in attendance in Sacramento; it was a national championship after all. Until the final mile, it seemed certain that Matt Llano, who is sponsored by HOKA, would solo run his way to victory and take home $20,000 in USATF prize money. Northern Arizona Elite's Stephanie Bruce, who came in second in the women’s race, is also a full-time pro whose marathon resume includes a top-ten finish at New York City.

But finishing roughly a minute behind Bruce in third place was Sam Roecker, who works as a full-time nurse and moonlights as a model/brand ambassador for the apparel company Tracksmith. In improving her personal best in the marathon by roughly eight minutes to finish in 2:30:25, Roecker produced what was arguably the surprise of the day. Like Sarah Seller’s unexpected runner-up finish at this year’s Boston Marathon, it was a very professional performance by a non-professional athlete. In an age where many of our sports stars have become as elusive as Hollywood idols, the success of the unknown amateur feels especially gratifying.

I realize that comparison might sound a little spurious. After all, being too famous generally isn’t something that pro runners need to worry about. (I imagine an alternate reality in which Galen Rupp is smuggled out the side entrance of his hotel to avoid the legions of randy groupies in the street.) However, more than any Marathon Major, Sunday’s California International Marathon was a reminder that most of those who devote endless hours to excel in this sport do it anonymously—all in the hope of achieving an obscure benchmark that, for saner souls at least, means absolutely nothing.