Part 3 (1/2)

I didn't, though. I held on to the pain. In my second Minnesota Voyageur, I made the pain mine. I used it. All through the 50 miles of the race, I listened to it. You could have done more. You can do more. Sometimes you just do things! I ran away from the pain, but it seemed as if I were running toward it. I thought of my mom, crippled. I thought of my life, my ridiculous, petty worries. I thought of the distances I had gone, all the work I had done. I didn't even have to ask myself the question. It was a part of me now. Why?

I shot off the starting line-just me this time, no Dusty. And I swallowed that course. I had never run harder. I finished in second place again.

Somehow, I would have to run faster. But I couldn't run harder. What was the secret?

A sick old man told me part of it. He had just shuffled back from his physical therapy session and was slowly climbing back into his hospital bed. With each painful step he took, I could see his frustration, feel his anger. It was my senior year at St. Scholastica, which doubled as my first year in physical therapy school. As part of my training I was an intern at a hospital in Ashland, Wisconsin. I was supposed to be helping the old man, and we both knew I was failing.

He climbed into bed and looked at the lunch tray waiting for him: Salisbury steak drenched in something brown and congealed, instant potatoes, iridescent-looking canned peas. His expression said it might as well have been a tray of rocks. He didn't say anything, but it was as though he was shouting. That's when I heard part of the secret.

What we eat is a matter of life and death. Food is who we are.

I had listened to Hippie Dan. I had remembered my grandmother showing me how good carrots pulled fresh out of the garden tasted. I knew that cutting down on meat and sugar was better for me. But watching a frail, sick man look at his lunch with a cross between nausea and indifference made me think of something else.

The food they served at the nursing home where my mother was bedridden was processed, filled with starches and sugars. The meals my clients ate at hospitals were heavy on meat, low on vegetables. As an athlete, I was ostensibly dedicated to health. As a physical therapist, I was supposed to be helping people with their bodies, but I didn't spend a second focusing on their diet. The healthier I had eaten, the faster and stronger I had become. Was it a coincidence that sick people were being served starchy, c.r.a.ppy food? If a balanced diet could make someone faster, could a bad diet make someone sick?

The answer, I discovered, was yes. I learned that diabetes now affects nearly 10 percent of Americans, and that type 2 diabetes, once nearly unheard of in children, is on the rise, bringing with it a host of complications such as kidney failure, blindness, and amputations, not to mention increased chances of stroke and heart disease in adults. The three most common causes of death in our country-heart disease, cancer, and stroke-have all been linked to the standard Western diet, rich in animal products, refined carbohydrates, and processed food.

Another part of the secret was revealed to me when I did my second interns.h.i.+p the next spring in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I was shopping at a grocery store-possibly even getting a steak-waiting in the checkout line when I picked up a magazine to pa.s.s the time. There was an article about a doctor named Andrew Weil and one of his books, Spontaneous Healing. He said the human body possessed an enormous capacity to take care of itself as long as we took care of it by feeding it well and not putting toxins in it. Shortly after, I sought out that book and devoured it, cover to cover.

Neither my reading nor the old man's lunch marked a come-to-Jesus moment for me. But they did open my eyes to the benefits-and importance-of a plant-based diet. I didn't realize it then, but that spring marked the beginning of my lifelong commitment to learning about food, to eating better, and to living more consciously.

Cutting out processed foods and refined carbohydrates was not difficult. I had grown up eating bread my grandmother baked and fish my dad had caught. Meat and dairy were other matters. I didn't want to consume either-because of stress to my kidneys, possible loss of calcium, increased chances of prostate cancer, stroke, and heart disease, not to mention the chemicals and hormones injected into the country's food supply and the environmental degradation caused by cattle farms-but I was racing now, not just running with Dusty for kicks, so I was even more conscious that I still needed fuel to burn.

I knew I had to figure out a way to get enough protein, to marry my healthy eating with my long-distance running.

Combining vegetarian protein sources like legumes and grains every meal-until recently an article of faith among vegetarians- seemed too labor intensive. And it might have been. But I learned that our bodies pool the amino acids from the foods we eat over the course of the day. I didn't have to sit down and do the math every time I ate. As long as I ate a varied whole-foods diet with adequate caloric intake, I would get enough complete protein. Even the conservative American Dietetic a.s.sociation, the largest organization of dietary professionals in the world, has stated in no uncertain terms: ”Appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes.”

Those last two words were music to an almost-vegetarian ultrarunner's ears.

The next summer, I won the Voyageur on my third try, eating more plants and less meat. I didn't run harder. I had been right: I couldn't run harder. But I had learned something important. I could run smarter. I could eat smarter. I could live smarter. I knew I could keep going when others stopped. I knew I had good legs and good lungs. I wasn't just a runner now, I was a racer. And I was a mindful eater. How many races could I win with my newfound secret? I aimed to find out.

Landing Zone In an ideal world, all runners would land on their forefoot or midfoot when they run. In an ideal world, though, all runners would be lean, healthy, and have spent most of their lives clocking 5-minute miles.

There's no question that forefoot striking is more efficient than heel striking. It uses the elasticity of the Achilles tendon and the arch of the foot to translate the body's downward force into forward motion. Less energy is lost to the ground. It's also a given that landing on the forefoot, as barefoot runners do, prevents the heel striking that cus.h.i.+oned shoes enable, which can lead to so many joint and tendon injuries.

But it's also true that it's not a perfect world. Beginners run. Out-of-shape people run. And for them forefoot striking might increase the risk of tendonitis or other soft tissue injury. That's especially true for anyone who hasn't grown up running barefoot through rural Kenya.

Most researchers would say that a midfoot landing is the most efficient and shock-absorbing technique. But there are people who fall on both ends of the spectrum-heel strikers and those who run on the b.a.l.l.s of their feet-and they do fine.

What's important isn't what part of the foot you strike but where it strikes. It should land slightly in front of your center of ma.s.s or right underneath it. When you have a high stride rate and land with the body centered over the foot, you won't be slamming down hard, even if you connect with the heel.

”b.u.t.tery” Omega Popcorn Who says vegans can't have fun or that ultrarunners don't like to kick back? Certainly not me. I ate a lot of junk food in college, and an evening with a bowl of this popcorn takes me back to those enjoyable evenings-without the junk or guilt. All popcorn is fun and flavorful. With this version, you're getting essential fatty acids and B vitamins as well. The Udo's Oil makes it taste b.u.t.tery.

cup unpopped popcorn 23 tablespoons Flora Oil 3-6-9 Blend 1 teaspoon sea salt 34 tablespoons nutritional yeast Using an air popper, pop the popcorn into a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle the popcorn with the oil, salt, and nutritional yeast to taste, mixing thoroughly.

MAKES 4 SERVINGS.

8. Attack of the Big Birds.

ANGELES CREST 100, 1998.

Strength does not come from physical capacity.

It comes from an indomitable will.

-MAHATMA GANDHI.

Dusty was screaming at me in Spanish. It felt as if I had stepped into a familiar nightmare. I was tired and sore, trying to will myself up a mountain trail at 7,000 feet. Dusty was already there, on the ridge, and he was hurling insults my way, just as he had hurled them at me for so many years in Minnesota. But it wasn't a nightmare. And why Spanish?

My dad and I had started talking again. No big hugging, I'm-so-sorry-now-I-see-what's-important moment. We weren't those kind of people. Leah and I had gotten married at her folks' house on August 17, 1996, just west of Duluth, and my dad brought my mom from the nursing home. Dusty was there, too, wearing a black suit and a tie printed with a reproduction of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. He called it his going-to-court outfit. Dusty and my dad were both p.i.s.sed that I was getting married and there was no alcohol, so they went back to my dad's place and drank Milwaukee's Best.

Soon after that my folks divorced (I found out later it was my mom's idea to move to the home and her idea to divorce-she didn't want to be a burden). I was starting my second and final year of physical therapy training, still skiing, but just for fun and to keep in shape for running, and still eating meat four or five times a week. I was making clam chowder and grilling chicken and pork chops. I was dipping into a few of the less crazysounding recipes from The Moosewood Cookbook, but I was still an animal protein athlete.

And then another epiphany hit me. This time it came in a giant bowl of chili. It was December, a cold Wednesday night, and fifteen of us had just finished a 10-mile ski through Duluth's Lester Park. It was a regular gathering of some of the local ski crowd, usually followed by burgers and beers at a nearby pub. That night we went to a microbrewery, where the cook had a reputation for being adventurous-in Duluth it meant he might serve burgers on something other than white bread. One of the guys suggested I try the vegetarian chili, and even though I had never liked regular chili, I agreed.

I couldn't believe the taste. The chilies, the tomatoes, and the beans combined into a spicy winter ambrosia. I suppose it's possible that I was overtired or in such a good mood after a long ski that anything would have tasted good, but that vegetarian chili was about the best thing I had ever eaten. And because of the bulgur wheat, it had the texture of beef chili (see [>] for the recipe).

Meanwhile, I ran farther. I ran faster. The periods of soreness and fatigue that resulted were shorter and less severe. I was convinced it was the result of the plants I was eating and the meat I was not eating. The chili showed me I could recover faster without abusing my taste buds.

In the spring of 1997, I left for my final physical therapy interns.h.i.+p, at an orthopedic clinic in Seattle. Leah stayed in Minnesota, and to save money, I stayed at a hostel on Vashon Island. Every morning I would wake at six, drive to the ferry, then, after the 20-minute ride through Puget Sound to Seattle, ride my bike the 8 miles to the clinic.

Seattle is where I became almost completely converted into a vegetarian. Part of it was the city itself. It seemed like every grocery store I visited was filled with information about local produce or a new vegetarian restaurant around the corner. The grocery stores all sold grains and spices I had never heard of. In Duluth, ethnic cuisine meant Chinese or Mexican restaurants, usually run by Midwesterners. In Seattle, though, there was j.a.panese, Ethiopian, Indian, and just about everything else. Back in Minnesota I had hidden my brown rice before ski race meets to avoid ridicule, but in the Northwest, it was the carnivores who weren't cool.

I absorbed the culture there-the notion of leaving a small footprint, of living low on the land. My grandparents had actually lived that way, with their gardens and the way they killed the vast majority of the meat they ate. I wanted to live that way, too.