You don’t need amazing trails to have an amazing day with little ones

When you have a little one, day hikes involving more than an hour in the car won’t be as appealing as they once were. In fact, “adventure” takes on a whole new meaning with a child, especially as you hit toddlerdom—there’s always the risk that your toddler will sit down at the trailhead and refuse to budge even an inch.

Since I had Mason, I’ve discovered tons of adventures right in my backyard that I never would have sought out before. It opened up a whole new outdoors for my family, even though we’re also lucky to live in Portland, Oregon, near amazing natural spaces, something that not all families have access to. Here are a few of our favorite ways to get out without going far.

Look for Hidden Urban Wilderness Areas

Did you know there are seven U.S. Fish and Wildlife refuges located in urban areas across the country? Wildlife refuges take it one step further than a city park and tend to have an incredible diversity of birds, reptiles, and native plant life. They’re well maintained, but you still feel like you’re deep in the woods. Even in Delaware, where freeways look like cobwebs laced across the landscape, the Russell W. Peterson Wildlife Refuge boasts 212 acres of protected land. Here, bald eagles soar just off the well-trafficked I-95 linking Baltimore and Philadelphia.

Go for a Paddle

Pre-baby, we would take leisurely multiday raft trips throughout Oregon, Idaho, and Utah. While we’ve managed to get in a few overnighters with Mason, we’ve mostly kept up our water adventures by stand-up paddleboarding and packrafting around town. My favorite Alpaka raft adventure happened a few summers ago: On a Sunday afternoon, we inflated our two boats on the shore of the Willamette River in downtown Portland. Then we paddled through the middle of the city while cars rushed above and past us on the I-5. The whole journey was unhurried and took a few hours. Mason was in awe of traveling under the bridges we normally drive over. Back at the beach, we rolled up the rafts and walked through downtown to our car. Look for bodies of water in your city, and find out how and where you can access them with your child to view things from a different perspective.

Take Public Transportation Adventures

In Portland, we have the 4T Trail. I took this self-guided trail, tram, trolley, train, and walking adventure with a small group of parents when Mason was about two years old. The hike and transportation basically has you circumnavigating the entire downtown, with a 2.5-mile climb up through Forest Park (soft or frame carrier required). It was a totally new way to see the city that I never considered pre-baby. Most cities have public transportation that can land you in a park or other green space, and there’s no downside to leaving the car at home and introducing your child to public transportation early.

See What’s Growing Around You

Community gardens are an incredible place to experience nature, no matter how big or small. One of my favorite urban hikes in Portland over the past few years has been walking from the award-winning, all-abilities Harper’s Playground to a little alley garden a few blocks away that Mason and I nicknamed “the secret garden.” I never saw anyone working in it, but it always seemed to be growing tasty vegetables and had a bit of a wild feel, like fairies or gnomes worked there at night. The garden was no more than 4,000 square feet, but we could spend hours playing there. In one corner was a cool shelter made from car bench seats and a metal sculpture, and someone had left a little loose gravel with a handful of dump trucks and toy cars to play with. It was a perfect stop on summer evening strolls when bedtime wasn’t happening.

Seek Out Natural Play

Nature play areas are popping up all over the country right now and are the current building trend on trails and in city parks. These human-made play areas don’t have the usual brightly colored plastic play structures, but instead mimic nature with stacks of logs, tree stumps to climb, ropes to swing from, and sand pits with hand-cranked water wheels to make waterfalls and massive mud puddles. Last summer, while on the Hike It Baby book launch tour with Subaru, Mason and I visited just such a park in Ann Arbor, Michigan, called the Matthaei Botanical Garden. There, we met the Hike It Baby branch of Ann Arbor, and the kids spent two hours hauling logs from one spot to another to build a full-on kid fort log cabin. You could tell they weren’t missing the traditional swing set one bit.

Clean It Up

Do a trail cleanup with your little one on your back. A few years ago, a group of Hike It Baby moms got together to pull ivy with the Forest Park Conservancy. Adding a baby to the mix actually made the day more fun, and we loved the reactions we got from people hiking past us who were in awe of our mama crew working away. My guess is that some of them ditched their excuses and signed up to do trail maintenance after seeing us sweating away with children in tow.

Change Up Your Plans en Route

If you aren’t going to make it to that national forest on the docket because potty training has gotten in the way, look at what’s happening in the city around you. While traveling through Salt Lake City, Utah, we discovered an amazing 75-acre park called Wheeler Historic Farm right down the street from our hotel. We were road weary and needed a day off from driving, so we skipped heading to Park City and spent all day exploring Wheeler. There was a farm with goats, horses, cows, sheep, chickens, and more, as well as a network of trails through the park, playgrounds, and plenty of shade structures. You never know what you’ll find if you just look beyond the outdoors you usually visit.

Make Your Own Fun

Here are some of my favorite ways to add an extra layer of fun to an outing.

1. Costumes are always a big win. Keep a bag of capes and masks handy in your truck to pull out and give your adventure a superhero slant.
2. Draw up a little map for things you are going to find together in the park (a certain tree, rock, bridge, water fountain) and seek those things out.
3. Toys on the trail can make a small park seem much larger if kids stop to play midway through a walk.
4. Look for big muddy puddles in alleys and you won’t even need to go for a hike to enjoy hours of outside adventure.
5. Find leaves, sticks, and rocks in your neighborhood and take them home to make pictures of your outdoor journey.

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Backpacks today look nothing like the metal and canvas contraptions of the 1970s. Removable internal supports made of plastic have replaced external frames, and ripstop nylon now reigns supreme. No doubt, packs are pounds lighter and significantly more comfortable thanks to these innovations. But classic designs are classic for a reason: they work.

That’s the logic behind Kelty’s new Zyp and Zyro, a line of modernized external-frame packs on shelves this month that combine the weight savings and user-friendliness of 21st-century materials with a compact steel skeleton. The Zyro comes in 58- and 68-liter versions—54 and 64 liters for women—and is more backpacking oriented, while the Zyp comes in 28, 38, and 48 liters and is designed for fast and light pursuits.

Both packs grew out of a quest to find a way to prevent sweat buildup along the back panels in hot weather. Plenty of brands utilize taut mesh backings to push their packs away from your skin and provide an air channel through which sweat can evaporate and escape, but Kelty’s designers wanted something better. Ultimately, inspiration came from the external-frame packs that the company launched in 1952 at its outset. The metal bars naturally held the pack body at length.

The Zyp and Zyro sport a refined version of that age-old design. A lightweight steel skeleton adds structure around the perimeter of the pack, with parallel mesh-and-nylon rails strung top to bottom. A padded upper-back panel and hipbelt rest on these rails. Air passes between the metal frame and the rails so your midback can breathe, free of fabric and foam. (The Zyro skips the rails, and places the hip and back panels right on the metal frame.) Quick-release buckles allow you to raise or lower the upper back support for easy torso-length adjustment without having to take off the pack.

I’ve used the 38-liter Zyp fully loaded—albeit in winter, with temperatures too cold to induce serious back sweat—and found it light and incredibly comfortable despite the water, camera, and food I was carrying. The cavernous main compartment opens via a basic cinchtop and a vertical side zipper. A large brain pocket, two stretchy mesh pockets, and a water-bottle pocket on each side offer ample exterior storage. (The Zyro, which comes in bigger sizes, has additional bells and whistles like a curved top-zipper opening, a bottom sleeping-bag compartment, and a removable lid.)

At Outside, we spend a lot of time highlighting the newest, most innovative gear, as well as write the occasional ode to some of our favorite, unchanged classics. Rarely do we get to do both at once. And in our opinion, the return of the external-frame pack is worth getting excited about.

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When news began circulating on Saturday, February 9, that gravity-defying Spaniard Kilian Jornet had posted a new 24-hour uphill-skiing record—23,864 meters—I had to do some quick math. I knew the figure was impressive but not quite how impressive until my imperial-system brain put it into feet: 78,274. That’s more than two and a half trips up Everest from sea level. In 24 hours. Or, as was the case, 51 blazing laps on lighted slopes at the Tusten ski area in Molde, Norway.

Jornet is the mountain-running and ski-mountaineering superstar who, among other things, has set fastest known times up some of the world’s tallest peaks including Denali and the Matterhorn, dominated World Cup skimo racing, and won grueling ultramarathons like the Hardrock 100 and the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB). In fact he’s already ascended the real Everest twice, though it took him a week. I stopped being surprised by Jornet’s feats of mountain athleticism after writing a profile of him in 2018, but that hasn’t diminished my admiration.

The 24-hour uphill record is an obscure milestone that stood unassailed for a decade, since Austrian Ekkhard Dorschlag notched 60,000 feet in 2009. In March 2018, American Mike Foote nipped that mark with a 61,200-foot effort at Montana’s Whitefish Mountain Resort. Foote’s effort was surpassed in May by Norwegian Lars Erik, who skinned a total of 68,697 feet; that same month, fellow Norwegian Malene Blikken Haukoy set a women’s record of 50,656 feet.

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As Jornet himself has pointed out, he doesn’t consider his accomplishment a record but rather a test to “see how his body will perform.” (Um, pretty good?) Technically, records need to be conducted following the same rules regarding location and specifics like gear, support, etc. Still, informally, the endurance community tends to treat them as records, much like FKTs, so long as they can be reasonably verified. (Jornet posted this effort on Strava.) Similar 24-hour endurance tests aren’t uncommon in cycling and mountain running (in Italy, one such contest allows runners to take a lift down between laps), but the personal challenge may be what matters most. “How many push-ups can I do in a minute? How long can I hold my breath? How far can I ski in a day?” says Foote. “In the end, it’s all arbitrary and contrived, but it gets people to ask, What am I capable of?”

On Friday morning, Jornet ate a modest breakfast of two small cinnamon rolls before he and his partner, Emelie Forsberg, drove to the ski area, not far from their home in Norway. They met a small support crew, including a few friends and members of the local Romsdal Randonee Ski Club. Jornet blasted off at 10:05 A.M. He was kitted out in ultralight skimo race gear, including Salomon’s Minim ski with Pierre Gignoux Ultimate Bindings, and Gignoux race boots, rotating through four pairs of skins.

Jornet lapped the same circuit at the ski area for the duration of the event, a mostly groomed run that climbs 1,804 feet over 2.7 miles. (During the night he shortened the loop slightly to 1,404 vertical feet and 2.2 miles.) The weather was mostly clear and cool, with temperatures hovering in the low thirties. Jornet, who is known for how little he eats during long endurance events, maintained a steady intake of around 250 calories an hour, consisting largely of sports gels (40 total) but also including a couple slices of pizza, some mashed potatoes, “a portion of a cheese sandwich,” and water mixed with blueberry syrup. He peed four times but didn’t poop once. (Time saver!)

In an email, Jornet told me that he felt great for almost the entire 24 hours, though he got sleepy during the night. He’d prepared a playlist on Spotify—some Hendrix, AC/DC, Kings of Leon, and others—to get him through the dark hours but didn’t turn it on. “I was focused on small goals, so never had that long period of boringness,” he wrote, “and I was accompanied [by other skiers] all night.”

By just after 10 A.M. on Saturday morning, Jornet had sustained an overall pace of 978.8 meters (3,211.3 feet) per hour. A numbers nerd, he points out that if you subtract transitions and downhills this comes to a startling 1,065 meters (3,493 feet) per hour. I thought about how this compared with my PR at my local hill, where I recently managed to ascend 1,700 feet in about 35 minutes. Once. And it almost killed me.

Jornet is skipping the World Cup skimo racing season this year to stick closer to home. He and Forsberg are expecting their first child in March, and Jornet says he’ll focus on less travel for the relatively short World Cup events in lieu of a few longer races, like Italy’s Mezzalama. That is, “If the baby allows,” he says. A whole new kind of endurance challenge awaits. I’ll be surprised if it slows him down.

A new study finds that having “elite” levels of aerobic fitness increases longevity relative to merely “high” levels.

Here are two facts that may or may not be connected. At conference in 2012, researchers presented preliminary data from an analysis of 50,000 patients at the Cooper Clinic in Texas, suggesting that running more than 20 miles per week is as bad for your long-term health as not running at all. And in 2013, participation in running races in the United States peaked at around 19 million before starting a steady decline that has continued to this day.

The question of whether too much aerobic exercise is bad for your heart was hotly debated for several years after that 2012 study. The Cooper Clinic data, when it was finally published in a peer-reviewed journal more than two years later, had been reanalyzed so that the supposed dangers of too much running disappeared. But by then the idea was firmly implanted in the public mind: marathons are dangerous. (I wrote in depth on this dispute, and how the evidence has shifted, in this 2016 feature.) The topic no longer pops up in the headlines as regularly as it did a few years ago, but it’s still lurking in people’s minds.

That’s why I think it’s worth saying a few words about a newly published study that draws some conclusions I once would have considered too painfully obvious to write about. It’s a massive analysis of the survival rates of 122,000 patients who received maximal treadmill testing at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio between 1991 and 2014, published in JAMA Network Open. The question it asks is simple: do people with higher VO2max—higher aerobic fitness, in others words—live longer?

VO2max refers to the maximum rate at which you can suck oxygen into your lungs, transfer it to your bloodstream, and deliver it to your working muscles. A high value means your heart, lungs, and circulatory system are working well (and probably means you can run or cycle or swim pretty fast too). The most accurate way to measure it is with an exercise test, usually on a treadmill, to the point of exhaustion, while wearing a mask that measures the gases in the air you breathe in and out.

The links between higher aerobic fitness and life expectancy are well-known. In fact, back in 2016 the American Heart Association issued a scientific statement arguing that VO2max should be considered a “vital sign” and measured (or at least estimated) regularly by your doctor. It’s a better predictor of mortality than risk factors like smoking and high blood pressure. But most of the data backing these statements comes from relatively average people, not endurance athletes. What if the dangers of being really, really superfit are being overlooked?

A 2015 study of 37,000 people in Detroit took a preliminary look at this question. Their data showed the usual relationship, with greater VO2max associated with longer survival. They looked specifically at the fittest people in their cohort, and found no hint that the benefits were leveling off. Even a VO2max of 16 METs was better than 15 METs; and while they didn’t have enough subjects at higher fitness to get a statistically significant result, an “exploratory analysis” suggested that values higher than 16 METs were even better. (The MET unit, or “metabolic equivalent of task,” is a multiple of your basal metabolic rate. If your peak value is 16 METs, that means you’re burning 16 times as much energy at the end of your treadmill test as you would if you were just lying quietly on the sofa. As a rough estimate, each MET is roughly 3.5 ml of oxygen per minute per kilogram of body weight, meaning that 16 METs is a VO2max of 56 ml/kg/min.)

The new study, with a much larger cohort, reaches similar conclusions. With an average follow-up period of 8.4 years and a total of 13,637 deaths, greater fitness conferred greater probability of survival right to the very top of the spectrum. Those with “elite” fitness, defined as above the 97.7th percentile relative to their age and sex, were only 20 percent as likely to die during the study as those with low fitness—impressive, but no surprise. But even those with high fitness, in the top quartile, were 29 percent more likely to die during the study compared to the elite group.

In fact, a supplementary analysis found that those results persist even if you define elite as the top 1 percent. Being really fit, which in this study required values comparable to those seen in studies of endurance athletes, was a health advantage rather than a disadvantage.

So how do you reconcile these results with the other studies (for an overview of those studies, see here) that seem to find dangers in too much exercise? The VO2max studies measure fitness objectively, which avoids the problems of self-reported questionnaires about exercise habits. But VO2max isn’t just a result of your exercise habits; it also reflects your genetics. Some people have relatively high fitness even if they don’t exercise much; others only achieve modest levels of fitness despite doing lots of exercise. That means studies of fitness and of exercise habits aren’t measuring the same thing.

I don’t know exactly how to reconcile those two sets of data. I’m inclined to trust the objective VO2max data, but that’s probably at least in part because I like the conclusions. In the end, the link between too much exercise and negative effects on your health is as tenuous as the link I drew at the top of this article, between scare stories about extreme exercise and declining participation in endurance sports like running. Whatever the reason for that decline, it’s bad news for the health of Americans, because in today’s world, too little exercise is way riskier than too much—if such a thing really exists.

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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.

Sunday’s race will be a treat for running fans

Others will disagree, but I’ve always considered the Chicago Marathon to be the neglected middle child in the Marathon Major family. The race usually falls on the first Sunday in October, which places it between Berlin’s annual world record attempt and the celebrity-heavy spectacle of the world’s largest marathon in New York City. Despite its stacked fields and fast, PR-friendly course, Chicago doesn’t always get the attention it deserves. Here's why this year’s race, happening on Sunday, is a must-watch event. 

1. Galen Rupp vs. Mo Farah 

Barring a last-minute scratch from either athlete, the headliner going into this weekend is the looming showdown between Mo Farah and Chicago's defending champ Galen Rupp. The two men were teammates as members of the Oregon Project from 2011 until last year, when Farah left coach Alberto Salazar’s training group and relocated back to England. As training partners, Farah and Rupp went 1-2 in the 10,000-meters in the 2012 Olympics and amassed a slew of impressive performances on the track. However, it would be a misnomer to call them “rivals.” Farah, whose four Olympic gold medals put him in the running for track's GOAT title, has a lifetime 21-1 record in head-to-head matchups against Rupp. (And the only time Rupp finished ahead of Farah was in an indoor mile in 2012, where Farah took a fall on the first lap.) 

Fortunately for the American, the marathon represents Rupp’s best shot to take down his former teammate. The length of the race could neutralize the devastating kick that was the Farah’s greatest asset as a track racer, and with three marathon wins and an Olympic bronze to his name, Rupp has already proven his aptitude over 26.2 miles. Farah, meanwhile, though 35 and three years older than Rupp, is relatively new to the distance. Chicago will be only his third marathon after two London finishes that were very good, but underwhelming compared to his impossibly successful track career (8th in 2014 and 3rd in 2018).

Rupp has yet to prove that he can beat Farah, while Farah has yet to prove that he can win a marathon. One of those two things could change on Sunday.

2. Gwen Jorgensen’s “Real” Debut

Unfortunately for fans of U.S. women’s running, two big names have dropped out of Chicago in the last few days: Jordan Hasay and Amy Hastings Cragg are no longer on the race’s elite field lists. With Hasay and Cragg out, the spotlight now falls on Gwen Jorgensen, the reigning Olympic gold medalist in the triathlon, who only last year announced that she’d be shifting her focus to the marathon. 

Technically, Chicago won’t be Jorgensen’s debut. A few months after her Olympic triumph in Rio, Jorgensen ran the New York City Marathon on a lark and finished in 2:41:01. But this Sunday’s race will be the first marathon for which Jorgensen has put in a proper, focused training cycle and will provide a more accurate idea of what she is capable of. Not that Jorgensen has any doubts about her potential: her stated ambition is to match her triathlon gold with an Olympic marathon win in 2020. Considering how difficult it is going to be just to make the U.S. Olympic team, this is a lofty goal, to say the least.

3. The Pacers Are Back

For many years, the Chicago Marathon enlisted pacers to increase the likelihood of fast finishing times. In 1999, rabbits even helped Khalid Khannouchi set a then world record of 2:05:42 in Chicago. That was the last time the men’s mark was set on U.S. soil. 

For the past three editions of the Chicago Marathon, race director Carey Pinkowski has forgone the use of pacers in the hope of creating a more exciting “chemistry of competition” and prioritizing tactical running over fast times.  

The experiment has now ended. This year’s Chicago Marathon will once again pay a handful of elite-level athletes to inject tempo from the gun. While certain purists might be disheartened about this, the presence of pacers does significantly increase the chances that we might see Rupp break the American record on Sunday. (The current American record of 2:05:38 is also held by Khannouchi, who was born in Morocco, but became a U.S. citizen in 2000. When he set it in London in 2002, Khannouchi’s current American record was also a world record at the time. Confused yet?) In May, Rupp won the Prague Marathon in a massive personal best of 2:06:07. Considering that the field in Prague was rather thin compared to what Rupp will be facing in Chicago, it seems likely that Khannouchi’s American record could be in jeopardy. (Of course, one could argue that after Eliud Kipchoge “broke the marathon” last month by destroying the world record and running 2:01:38, the comparably modest U.S. record has suddenly become a lot less interesting, but that’s a discussion for another day.) 

4. Joanie's Going for the Record

Speaking of records, Joan Benoit Samuelson will be among the crowd favorites at this year’s Chicago Marathon. Samuelson, who won the inaugural women’s Olympic Marathon in Los Angeles in 1984, is 61 years old and has her sights on the 60-64 age group world record of 3:01:30. Since televised marathon broadcasts are typically abysmal, it’s unlikely that Samuelson will be given more than a cameo appearance on NBC Sports, but there will be no shortage of love from fans along the course. After all, Chicago is where she set her American record (2:21:21) in 1985. 

5. The International Field Is Stellar

Our American bias shouldn’t obscure the fact that the Chicago Marathon is once again awash in international talent. Make no mistake: in every Marathon Major, it’s still an upset if an American runner ends up winning. Sunday’s race is no exception; three women (Florence Kiplagat, Birhane Dibaba, and Roza Dereje) have sub-2:20 marathon PRs. So far, Deena Kastor is the only American woman to have done the same. Similarly, on the men’s side, there are four runners (Mosinet Geremew, Birhanu Legese, Dickson Chumba, and Abel Kirui) who have PRs that are faster than the U.S. record. And that list doesn’t even include the favorite to win: Kenyan Geoffrey Kirui, who left Galen Rupp in the dust to take the 2017 Boston Marathon. 

In a sense, the recent rise of American women’s distance running and Rupp’s impressive showing in the marathon may be skewing our perspective on where the U.S. ultimately stands in the international distance running hierarchy. Nonetheless, the Boston (Des Linden), New York (Shalane Flanagan), and Chicago Marathons (Galen Rupp) all currently have American runners as a defending champs. So let’s enjoy it while it lasts.

Research on a pro cycling team suggests that subjective training metrics can match high-tech ones

The fundamental question about training, from which all other debates and decisions emanate, is this: How hard was that workout you just finished? There are many ways of answering that question, using heart-rate monitors, power meters, GPS watches, oxygen-measuring facemasks, and gut feelings. One way or another, you have to have a sense of how hard you’re working, so that you can make decisions about how to distribute your training efforts each week, how to gradually increase your training load from month to month, and how to recover before races.

So which metric, if any, is best?

That’s the question tackled in a new study in the International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, drawing on a database of four years of meticulous training and racing data from 21 professional cyclists with Germany-based Team Sunweb. The cyclists in the study won 45 World Tour races during the four-year period, including 29 Grand Tour stages, and two of them finished in the top ten of a Grand Tour. This is a seriously elite cohort. The analysis was done by Teun van Erp, Team Sunweb’s chief scientist, along with Carl Foster of the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse and Jos de Koning of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. (I wrote about a related analysis comparing Team Sunweb’s men and women back in August.)

The overall dataset consisted of 11,655 training sessions, time trials, and road races, all with power output recorded by a power meter. Of those sessions, about 7,500 also had heart-rate data recorded, and 5,500 also included a subjective rating of perceived exertion (RPE) on a scale of 6 (no exertion) to 20 (maximal exertion). This allowed the researchers to calculate four different measures of training load for each session, and compare them to each other to see how consistent they were.

There are two basic kinds of training load: external and internal. External training load is a totally objective measure of how much work you did: run 10K at 7:00 per mile, lift 100 pounds ten times, or whatever. Internal training load represents how hard you, as an individual, had to work to complete the session. That might be represented by your average heart rate during the workout, or simply by your subjective assessment of the effort you put in and how tired you are. Both types of metric are important, but it’s the internal load—the actual level of physiological stress your body experiences during a training sessions—that determines how you’ll respond and whether you’ll get fitter or overtrained.

The study uses two measures of external load, both based on the power meter data. One is simply the total mechanical energy (in kilojoules) exerted by the rider, as calculated from the power output throughout the ride. If two people do a ride together, they’ll have roughly similar total energy consumption if you ignore minor differences in weight, aerodynamics, and other factors—even though the ride may be way easier for one rider compared to the other.

The other measure of external load takes fitness differences into account by normalizing the power output relative to your “functional threshold power,” which loosely corresponds to the power you can sustain for a one-hour race. This approach, developed by Andrew Coggan, gives you a number called the Training Stress Score (TSS) that quantifies how hard a given session is for you personally. This is still a measure of external load, because it doesn’t care whether you’re fatigued or didn’t get a good night’s sleep or whatever, but it’s personalized to your abilities.

For internal load, one of the measures is based on heart-rate data. You get a score called LuTRIMP (short for Lucia’s Training Impulse) based on the number of minutes you spend in each of three heart-rate zones, with the higher zones counting for more points than the lower zones. For example, every minute spent in the highest zone is equivalent to three minutes spent in the lowest zone, reflecting the fact that your body is working much harder when your heart rate is high. Unlike the external load measures, your LuTRIMP values will show that your body is working harder at a given pace when you’re, say, under the weather.

The other internal load measure is even simpler. Shortly after the workout is over, you answer the question “How hard was your day?” on a scale from 6 to 20, then multiply that number by the duration of the session in minutes. This is called the session RPE, or sRPE, and it’s free and never runs out of batteries.

The main figure in the paper looks very complicated but is actually really simple. You take all the available training sessions, pick two of the training load variables, and plot them against each other. How do subjective sRPE values compare to objective TSS values? If there’s good agreement, all the values on the graph should fall along a straight line, with the lowest sRPE values corresponding to the lowest TSS values, and the highest values proportionally higher. Then you do the same for all the other possible pairs of training metrics, and you plot the results separately for training sessions, road races, and time trials.

That’s a ton of data, but all of the 18 graphs look something like this:

In this one, which shows representative data from one rider, sRPE is one the vertical axis and TSS is on the horizontal axis. You can see the data falls along a pretty good straight line—in fact, the correlation coefficient is 0.97, which is what statisticians would call “almost perfect.” Virtually all the pairs of metrics have correlations that are almost perfect or, at worst, very large. In other words, if you’re measuring RPE and doing it well, this suggests that you’re getting as much information about your training effort as you’d get with a power meter and a bunch of sophisticated analysis. As the researchers conclude in the paper: “any method of monitoring [training load], which is consistently applied and discussed between coach and athlete, may be more or less equivalent in net value.”

I’ll admit that I like that message—the idea that our internal computers are as sensitively tuned to the subtleties of effort as any external gadget can be. I think it’s important not to completely outsource your pacing decisions to technology, and to have a finely tuned sense of how hard you’re working (as distinct from how fast you’re going). But it’s also important not to flip too far to the other side and discount the importance of external data, for a few different reasons.

One methodological point is that this training and racing data ranges from easy half-hour spins to longer rides lasting five or more hours. Any reasonable training metric that incorporates the duration of the ride is going to have an easy time determining which of those two options is harder, so it’s not surprising that all the metrics have high correlations with each other. A tougher test would be to see how good a given metric is at distinguishing two rides with similar durations but slightly different speeds. I suspect sRPE would still be pretty good, but perhaps not “almost perfect.”

It’s also worth noting that correlations between metrics were tighter for workouts than they were for races. In race situations, you may have bad weather and imperfect hydration and fueling, because it’s harder to control the environment than it is in training. This changes your internal load relative to a given external load. The road racing data, much of it taken from Grand Tours, may also reflect accumulated fatigue from weeks of racing, which again will boost internal load relative to external load. This is not a bug in the system, the researchers point out—it’s actually a feature. In fact, if you had perfect correlation between internal and external metrics, that would mean you’d lost all the extra personalized value you’re supposed to get by measuring internal load.

In other words, it’s not about which metric is better. Instead, it’s the relationship between internal and external metrics that tells you whether you’re getting fitter or overly fatigued. In training, it’s meaningless to know that your internal load is going up or down if you don’t also know whether you’re going faster or slower. In racing, it’s useless or even counterproductive to know what power output you “should” be able to maintain if you don’t also consider how you’re feeling that day. So the message here isn’t that you should ditch your power meter. It’s that you should also trust how you feel—and track it. Those subjective numbers, which it may seem like you’re pulling arbitrarily out of a hat, are trying to tell you something meaningful.

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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.

It’s easy to overlook the thing that straps a timepiece to your wrist, but you do so at your peril

For all the wizardry watch companies put into their timepieces—exotic case materials, unique functions, innovative movements—the real magic is often in the bands. Wristwatches began replacing pocket watches during the first World War, when pilots and infantryman found advantages in being able to read the time with a quick glance. Ever since then, bands have evolved. Leather straps, metal bracelets, and fabric bands have all been used to hold watches securely, comfortably, and attractively. Some straps were born out of specific needs, like fitting over a diving suit or protecting the wrist from burns. But today, with the wristwatch largely a stylish accessory, straps have become a way to set a watch apart.

While the aftermarket strap business is booming, watch companies have upped their game, and some of the highest-quality straps and bands come on watches right from the factory. Here are five of the best.

Seiko Prospex Automatic Diver SRPC44 ($525)

As a scuba diver descends below the surface, water pressure compresses her neoprene wetsuit sleeve, which can cause a tight watch strap to become loose on the wrist. In 1975, Seiko introduced a simple but effective solution for this problem: a rubber strap with accordion-like ripples that can be pulled tight on the surface but then take up the slack as the water pressure increases. Other brands followed Seiko’s lead, but the Japanese brand still makes the best rubber straps and they’ve become a bit of a calling card for the company’s dive watches. The strap on the Prospex Automatic Diver is the latest version, made from a rubber and silicone blend that is supple yet durable—and ready to go deep.

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Tudor Black Bay 58 ($3,250)

In the 1970s, French military divers improvised straps for their issued Tudor watches by using excess elastic webbing from reserve parachute packs and crudely sewing it together. Tudor has improved on the concept, using jacquard fabric woven in the same factory that makes robes for the Vatican while keeping the telltale central stripe of those old parachute straps. The result is a soft one-piece strap that’s treads the line between tactical and luxurious.

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Mido Multifort Escape Horween – leather ($1,090)

Chicago’s Horween tannery produces perhaps the world’s best known leather, which has a reputation for a lustrous finish and excellent durability (NFL footballs are made from the stuff). Mido offers a limited edition of its Multifort Escape with two interchangeable Horween leather straps, one a smooth brown version that sets off nicely against the watch’s gunmetal finish, and the other, a rugged black strap with the same pebbled texture as the old pigskin.

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Omega Seamaster Ploprof ($9,700)

A big, bold watch needs a big, bold strap, and Omega’s Seamaster Ploprof, short for Plongeur Professionel (“professional diver” en français) is perhaps the biggest and boldest of them all. Originally developed for commercial divers, the Ploprof can be worn with a strap made from what looks like a knight’s chain mail, a woven metal that Omega calls sharkproof mesh. This band is finished off with a folding clasp that ratchets out to a full 26 millimeters of adjustability for fitting over a diving suit. If you run into sharks…  well, at least your wrist will be safe.

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Victorinox INOX Mechanical ($795)

And now for something completely different. Yes, Victorinox Swiss Army has created a wooden watch strap, which is actually a thin flexible veneer of sustainably sourced wood cross-hatched to match the hobnail pattern of the watch’s dial. There’s no telling how well the strap will hold up long term but it’s sure to be a conversation starter, if not a bit of kindling in a pinch.

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The Bean Boot ranks among the all-time most iconic pieces of outdoor footwear. Leon Leonwood Bean created the leather and rubber boots in 1911 to fix the problem of cold, wet feet on hunting trips in the Maine woods. A year later, the Maine Hunting shoe went on sale under the new company name, L.L.Bean.

Over the past century, hiking boots and winter boots have changed a lot, with the advent of compression-molded foam midsoles, synthetic uppers, and grippy rubber treads. But the Bean Boot has remained virtually the same as when it first hit shelves a century ago. 

Now, for the first time ever, L.L.Bean has let another brand into the design room to collaborate on a special-edition spinoff of the original duck boot. The company of choice: Flowfold, a small Maine-based maker of sailcloth wallets and backpacks. The new Flowfold L.L.Bean Collab Boot ($140) looks much like the Bean Boots we all know and love—it's got the same ankle-high silhouette, slight heel, and rubber outsole—with an upper made from Flowfold’s waterproof sailcloth. The result is lighter, airier, and more weatherproof than the original, but with the same durability and style. 

Gear collaborations are a dime a dozen these days, with brands partnering on everything from sandals to fly rods. But I think this one stands out above the rest. I love seeing a heritage brand like L.L.Bean working with an upstart like Flowfold to add new tech to a classic shoe.  

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Every year, more than a million people visit Muir Woods, one of the most popular attractions in the San Francisco Bay Area and the country, to walk among the giant redwoods and experience a unique slice of forest still containing the ancient trees.

Until last June, few people knew that even taller and older redwoods soared just 2.5 hours north of San Francisco, off the coast of Sonoma County, on land owned by a family who rarely let peoplein on their secret stash of exceptional trees.

“The property always had a sense of legend, an aura around it, because no one had seen it—not even in 2018,” said Sam Hodder, CEO of the Save the Redwoods League, a 100-year-old nonprofit that works to protect California’s redwood and sequoias.

News of the forest came out last summer when the league announced it had acquired the land from its owners, the Richardson family, after nearly a decade of trust building and quiet negotiations. Now named the Harold Richardson Redwoods Reserve, the forest is set to open to the public in 2021. Researchers have discovered that it’s one-third larger than Muir Woods, with trees much taller and older, including the McApin Tree—at 1,640 years old, it’s the oldest-known redwood south of Mendocino County and has a trunk diameter as wide as a two-lane street. That’s compared to the oldest tree (roughly 1,200 years) in Muir Woods.

For years, rumors about the trees existed among conservationists, but virtually no one knew exactly what the property contained. “On my first day on the job, volunteer leaders took me aside to tell me about the prize of all conservation projects,” Hodder said. “But because [the family was] so private and took so much pride in the land, we never expected it to happen.”

The 730 acres of old growth that make up this new reserve had been part of the Richardson Ranch: 8,000 acres that operated as a vineyard, cattle ranch, and regional timber business. The timber mill, still in operation today, sits just a mile down the road from the ranch.

The land has been in the Richardson family since the 1870s, when Harold Richardson’s grandfather, Herbert Archer “H.A.” Richardson, acquired it after moving west from New Hampshire. At one point, the elder Richardson owned 50,000 acres of forestland in western Sonoma County, including the entire town of Stewarts Point and eight miles of coastline, and employed more than 100 men. During this time, California was coated with redwoods and sequoias—it’s estimated the trees made up more than 2.2 million acres of land from southern Oregon to Big Sur. Today, they account for only about 113,000 acres in the state.

The Richardsons maintained the trees during a time when the vast majority were being cut down and overharvested by other timber mills. Since logging began in the 1850s, 95 percent of old-growth coast redwoods have been cut down. Of the 1.6 million acres of redwood forest left, only 7 percent are old growth.

Harold inherited the land in the 1960s and maintained his ancestor’s efforts toward conservation, taking just enough timber to make a living. He left the old-growth trees alone—chopping only those that were dead or dying, said Dan Falk, one of Harold Richardson’s great-nephews who inherited the land. “Harold thought of himself as a timberman and logger, but he also was a proud steward of the land and a conservationist at heart,” Falk said. “He made sure to harvest only the amount of trees he needed to get by. He constantly taught us about about stewardship, hard work, living simply, and not being greedy.”

Talks started between the Richardsons and Save the Redwoods about ten years ago when the family began to consider ways they could continue their timber business and maintain their land in the future. The deal was finalized after Harold passed away in 2016, at the age of 96, and the inheritance tax proved too expensive for the new owners to keep up with. His obituary read that he is “survived by his Old Growth Redwood forest” and then listed his relatives.

In the end, Save the Redwoods paid the family $9.6 million, raised largely through donations, in addition to giving them back 870 acres of coastal land near Stewarts Point that the league had acquired in 2010 from a separate member of the Richardson family. On that property, the league negotiated three easements that will conserve it in perpetuity—with those, the timber business can continue to operate, but with certain restrictions. In addition to the land the family got back, the Richardsons will continue to own and operate their business on the 8,000 acres of surrounding forest.

While the final outcome was a bit complex, Save the Redwoods believed the innovative solution was a win-win—the family could avoid paying taxes they couldn’t afford while continuing their business, and the league could manage the largest batch of unprotected old growth left in the world.

“It was a true trust-building exercise,” Hodder said. “Harold wasn’t particularly comfortable with government regulation or conservation. But as we went through, he became more comfortable with the transaction and eventually blessed it.”

Harold was known to have an aversion to outside intervention—he saw it as his job to be the steward of the land and took it seriously, said Stephanie Martin, senior project manager and wildlife biologist at North Coast Resource Management, which is contracting with Save the Redwoods to study and survey the reserve.

“Harold was kind of a conservation cowboy. He was known to just come out here and drop a match and let the fire resolve itself for the health of the trees,” Martin said, noting that while this tactic would be pretty much unheard of today, it was a smart move in those days, as Harold knew that fire is a natural and healthy part of how redwood forests survive and grow.

Martin is heading up the surveying of the land and its wildlife to better understand where to lay trails when the park opens to the public in two to three years. The property could also be critical for researching how climate change affects redwoods, because these trees are growing farther from the coast than most other redwoods.

“They’ve been able to figure out how to survive in the warmer, drier environment with less of a fog layer, so these may be the redwoods of the future,” Martin said.

Save the Redwoods will manage the park rather than turn it over to a state or federal system. When the reserve opens to the public, it will be the largest redwood park in Sonoma County. The league wants to emphasize educating visitors about forest ecology and the land’s cultural importance to the Kashia Band Native American tribe.

Blueprints are still in early stages, but the group plans to include several walking trails and wildlife-viewing overlooks, all designed to be as undisruptive as possible to the ecosystem.

Given recent concerns about overtourism and the toll it can take on natural landscapes, Save the Redwoods is envisioning more of a light-touch approach with this redwood reserve. National parks and other popular outdoor attractions have started to make changes to help mitigate damage that too many visitors can make. In January, for example, Muir Woods began requiring that visitors obtain secure time entry tickets to cap the number of tourists, which has risen by 30 percent over the past decade.

“While any diffusing of some of the pressures of Muir Woods is a good thing, I don’t see the reserve as being a heavily trafficked place,” Hodder said. “It will be more of a local and regional park for people to enjoy.”

In the end, it was a difficult but necessary decision for the Richardson family to give up their long-cherished land, said Falk, who looks back fondly on his childhood spent playing, fishing, and camping in his private, majestic natural playground. He said he finds comfort in the fact that the land will be preserved for generations to come.

“I remember that when I’d go out there with Harold as a kid, he wouldn’t say more than two or three words,” Falk added. “He’d just tell us to quit talking and listen to the woods—to hear the sounds of nothing and everything and be part of the land.”

Expert Essentials

All the Gear You Need to Start Indoor Rock Climbing

Build your go-to kit with these recommendations from five professional climbers

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Sep 27, 2018

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Sep 27, 2018

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Build your go-to kit with these recommendations from five professional climbers

Before you start cragging outside, you probably want to perfect your climbing skills at the gym. Thankfully, getting started is easier (and cheaper) than you might think. Below, five professional climbers share their favorite gear for beginners looking to get off the ground.

Evolv Defy Rock Climbing Shoes ($89) and MobilityWod Supernova 2.0 Massage Ball ($40)

Kai Lightner, Professional Climber

For the gym, Evolv-sponsored climber and national championship winner Kai Lightner recommends the unisex Defy shoes, because they’re comfortable (as far as climbing shoes go), have an easy hook-and-loop strap system, and sport a vegan-friendly synthetic upper. “For beginners who are buying their first pair of shoes, it’s important to try on many different styles and sizes to find the best fit—one that is comfortable and snug without being too tight,” Lightner says. These reasonably priced all-arounders feature an antimicrobial liner to keep the funk at bay.

Lightner also carries this massage ball to relieve kinks and muscle tension after climbing. “Foam rollers are great at home but bulky for travel,” he says. “This massage ball accomplishes the same goal in a more travel-friendly size.”

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8bPlus Kelly Chalk Bag ($30) and Chalk Cartel Climbing Chalk ($16 for 8.82 Ounces)

Ben Hanna, Professional Climber, World Cup Competitor

Ben Hanna brightens things up with his furry monster chalk bag from 8bPlus. “They’re a good way to keep climbing fun and lighthearted,” he says. Besides its crazy looks, this chalk bag has a wide five-inch opening for quick and easy hand access, a brush holder on either side, and a carabiner and waist belt for versatile attachment. The best part? Each monster has its own name and backstory to go with its personality. “I am a fan of Kelly, cuz pink,” Hanna says.

Hanna fills Kelly with climbing chalk from Chalk Cartel, an up-and-coming company based in New Mexico. “They’re local, and I think they have the best chalk on the market,” he says. Chalk Cartel sells its high-quality magnesium carbonate by the quarter or kilo in eco-friendly packaging at a reasonable price.

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Petzl GriGri+ Belay Device ($150)

Michaela Kiersch, Professional Climber, Youth Climbing Coach

As the first woman to send Necessary Evil (5.14c), Michaela Kiersch knows the importance of a good belay. “The GriGri+ is an absolute must,” she says. “This belay device offers top-of-the-line safety features, including an anti-panic handle to prevent rapid and uncontrolled lowering.” This third-generation GriGri is good for beginners, with lead and top rope belay modes for easy handling and an extended rope diameter range of 8.5 to 11 millimeters. “Another great feature is the stainless-steel wear plate, which gives the device a longer lifespan,” Kiersch says.

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Camp Energy Harness ($50) and Addaday Nonagon Foam Roller ($35)

Ben Rueck, Professional Climber

Ben Rueck’s list of accomplishments includes climbing the first ascent of Pure Pressure (5.14a), but the Camp-sponsored athlete often sees new climbers get ahead of themselves by buying the most expensive gear right away, which can be overkill for the gym. “I recommend starting out with a simple, clean, and comfortable harness like Camp’s Energy,” he says. The fully featured harness has thermoformed padding, adjustable leg loops, four gear loops, and a haul loop—at a price that won’t break the bank. It’s lightweight and versatile and serves as an “easy transition harness to the outdoors,” Rueck says.

To stay loose and accelerate his recovery process, Rueck rolls out with the Nonagon after training and gym sessions. The 13-inch-long roller has an EVA foam core and nine sides with a textured surface to hit the sore spots. “I enjoy rolling out for about ten to 15 minutes, mostly focusing on legs, back, and shoulders to create mobility,” Rueck says.

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Rhino Skin Solutions Repair Cream ($9) and Rhino Split Stick ($3.75)

Nina Williams, Professional Climber

Pulling on plastic quickly wears down your hands, especially for newer climbers who haven’t built up callouses. But Nina Williams, the first female to send Ambrosia, has a solution. “Rhino Skin Repair Cream is great for stinging, post-gym-sesh hands, because you can put it on right after climbing once you’ve washed the chalk off your hands,” she says. Unlike wax-based hand balms, Repair Cream is a nongreasy lotion that absorbs quickly after application, so you won’t leave streaks on everything you touch. “It sinks into your skin instead of hanging out on the surface,” Williams says. “Feels great, smells great.”

Williams also keeps a Split Stick on hand for quick spot-treatment to flappers, splits, and problem creases. “My hands are naturally super dry and crack easily,” she says, “but Rhino Skin fixes it the fastest.”

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