New Stuff

Well the no-caffeine lark lasted about two weeks and I have to report that it actually helped long and sustained bouts of low level exercise- there were no highs but no dips either. For hiking in the heat I think no caffeine, or low caffeine is a good idea.

On the forefoot running front I took myself to Alexandria and pounded the beach at Agamy for several days. I think the conversion is complete. The feeling of freedom when running on your toes compared to the woeful plodding on your heels has made me convinced never to return to the old ways- though I did strain a calf muscle when not fully warmed up. The wise suggest toes beget Achilles injuries and heels cause knee and back pain. As long as you stretch enough and don’t go off cold at 6am I think toes are still safer.

Biking- regular forays up the myriad wadis that surround wadi digla have improved my skills and fitness for going up hills in the heat. Now it is getting into the mid 30s degrees C everyday by 11am so fitness training is as much about heat training as anything else.

This is the last instalment of my fitness program- now I aim to sustain this level until the expedition in December.

r.twigger

The fitness program has taken another whacky turn left or east or something. I have given up caffeine. Now as most fitness freaks know caffeine is one of the oldest and truest of performance enhancers. I have been using and abusing this drug for this purpose- ie. getting revved up and doing more – for fifteen years more or less. Time to stop. On the principle of altitude training I figured if I could run far and fast without a ton of coffee sloshing around inside me then I could do even better with- but then why would I? All drugs are a pain in the ass really- you end up paying yourself in their currency rather than doing what you really want to do. But quitting caffeine entails far more withdrawl symptoms than either alcohol or nicotine. Nicotine – though devilishly manipulative of the brain left very few withdrawl symptoms for me (still took 20 years to kick). Caffeineless I feel like a zombie half the time- and now it’s day 3 1/2. How long will it take.

I fell asleep in a coffeeshop after imbibing a cocoa and cheese sandwich- I can see big gains on the weight front approaching. Mainly I drink lemon and honey drinks and cocoa- which may have a drip of caffeine in it but its undetectable if it does. I alternate between feeling terrible and feeling proud of myself. Also my memory is creeping back- very weird this- despite my head feeling slow I find I can recall lots of things much better, as if the caffeine was jamming my recall system up somehow. And it is well known that nicotine aids memory and mine definitely got worse after I gave up smoking (but worth it anyday) but now its returning which is a nice bonus.

Day seven and I’m feeling pretty normal now- more relaxed, slower, not feeling like exercise. But hold on- isn’t this supposed to be a fitness program?

Why do it? I wanted to clear my system right out. I wanted to be free of ‘needing’ my caffeine hit before I did anything. I wanted to be free-er. In fact I see a pattern emerging in this fitness lark- it is a stumbling towards freedom.

I went to the beach at Ain Sukhna, the nearest Red Sea coast to Cairo to have fun and to do some barefoot beach running. Which was brilliant. Look at those people hobbling along the soft sand on their heels like they only just learnt to walk, you used to be like that, but no more…at least you hope so…instead feel good and run on your toes, small strides for soft sand longer freer ones for the hard sand near the water’s edge. At long last I have discovered what runner’s go on about ad nauseum- the feeling of utter freedom and flying as you run. Only happened to me before when running after two deer I once surprised in the woods and now doing the barefoot/forefoot experiment.

The beach at the odious Stella di Mare resort complex is great- long- about 1k from end to furthest end- with clean unstoney sand. The best fun is to be had before 11.30am as the beach is nearly empty- but even on packed Easter Day, one of the busiest of the year, I was doing there-and-back runs every hour or so- must have clocked a good 10km and the strange alchemy of sun, sand, sea and fresh air reversed the normal energy flow, I’ve found this in the mountains too, where, despite the physical exertion you are actually getting charged up by your surroundings. Hottest lunchtime temp: 38 degrees C- but I was swimming and mucking around with the kids in the water so it didn’t really feel that hot- all the runs I did with my tee shirt still wet from swimming- still got sunburnt though despite this precaution.

Oh- why is the resort odious? Too big, too used to dumb tourists, too stupid-rule bound, terrible service- the usual. But the early morning beach is brilliant.

The downside of forefoot running is tight achilles tendons. In the early morning it can be a bit of a killer. I don’t want swollen, tendonitus affected, achilles heels so I am dutifully stretching them out five times each for ten seconds each leaning lower and lower against a wall with the floot flat and toes pointing towards the wall, body and straight leg making the hypotenuese against the floor and wall. Doing this stretching at regular moments all through the day as I fear that twenty years of heel running has left my tendons pretty darn tight.

Knees feel great…so far…forefoot running is so kind to them.

Fitness wise- I can’t think of a better way to train than long beach runs in bare feet- you feel you can keep going forever!

A Startling New development in the potentially tedious field of fitness aquisition…

A strange series of coincidences has lead me into the arcane world of barefoot running.
1. I meet a runner who swears by running flats and not super padded shoes.
2. I see two runners- one running on his heels like most joggers including me and one runnning on air ie. his toes/forefeet.
3. I start running barefoot around my large sitting room and dining room- impossible to run barefoot on your heels.
4. I scour the internet and find a brotherhood of barefoot runners and runners who swear by running properly ie. not on your heels in big Nike trainers.

The problem is: I have thirty++ years of wearing shoes to overcome. If you start running on your toes/frontfoot the strain is high at first. Instead of your knees taking a beating your calves and achilles tendon tighten- because they are the new shock absorbers. But it feels so much better- more natural, more fun, more free feeling. The thinner the soles the better- I am currently running in moccasins. Things suddenly make sense- like why I always found it easier running up hill- because you automatically go onto your toes going uphill.I realise too that unless I’m pursuing the offbeat side of any kind of subject I lose interest fast.

The other key thing is making lots of fast small strides rather than loping great big ones. I think its easier to get your work rate up by increasing stride length than by increasing stride speed, so have a fast default stride at the outset.

robert twigger

This time I didn’t run in Wadi Digla, I made do with the sports field of Victoria college school. Armed with the GPS I managed my 4km doing laps of their rugby field, though it didn’t help that excessive watering had left part of it a giant puddle. The final 4km my son wanted to join in but I knew he would drop out without some incentive, so we endlessly circled passing a football back and forth between us, much rigorous exercise than merely jogging in a straight line at the same speed.

Today when I was supposed to be running 8km I went biking instead. I couldn’t face running even though I bribed myself with the thought of buying new running shoes. But the shoe shop is off route from the wadi where I train so I didn’t go. Such is the stuff of fitness training when you have convinced yourself not to push yoursefl too hard (for the excellent and convenient reason you might give up the whole program through over exertion).

So biking- and biking is what we’ll be doing in December so it was not wasted. I rode with the saddle high to save my knees but this was unsafe on loose sand. I experimented and found the best height to be about an inch lower than it should be for road riding. The return of control was amazing – I could grip the saddle with my legs when standing up which you can’t do when it is too high. And for skids and wobbles on sand you don’t want to be high and dry.

I went up a new (for me) wadi system which was a delight- even when I fell off and crashed into a large boulder cutting my palm so that blood spattered freely. Out on your own, no one knowing where you are, you don’t want to make a habit of such things I told myself.

I saw a new fox’s hole I’d never seen before and a Barbary Falcon, high up wheeling in a thermal. I am very lucky to be able to ride this place. Something I will probably forget when the next thing goes wrong as they tend to in Egypt in their own inimical way- like when I bought my bicycle and found the freewheel wouldn’t work because the person assembling it had left out a crucial spacer. But to fix it meant wrecking the freewheel and getting one the same wasn’t possible in Cairo so now I have an 18 speed not a 24 speed- which is fine.

The bike I have- front suspension cheapo Peugeot that I suspect was NOT made in France is, with flattish tyres, great for riding up the sandy dry river beds in wadis. Most of the wadi riders take the rocky singletrack along the canyon walls but for where we’re going- the Great Sand Sea of the Sahara- I need to ride all the sand I can find. I should start fat tyre training in June- that’s the plan.

More fitness- I have a chin bar across my office door- good for doing one arm hangs- they straighten out the shoulders a bit and build grip.

Robert Twigger

Biking will be the main part of my fitness program but as there will also be some big obstacles to climb- namely the highest dunes in the Libyan desert- which is what they call this part of Egypt, I’ll need to be all round fit. All round fitness- grudgingly I know no better way of achieving it than running.

I hate running, pretty much. I also injured my knee two years ago by excessive running on asphalt after a long lay off. So I have double reason to be wary of the ‘king of exercise’ as I keep reminding myself Bruce Lee called it.

As I mention elsewhere my new interest in running is sustained by technology. Namely the good old handheld fairly cheap GPS- used to be Garmin but now I’m fully converted to Magellan- a ‘mark’ button is way better than scrolling and clicking especially in the dark. So the GPS gives me accurate speed and distance measures which is all I need to take my mind off the tedium.

So, the first run was in Wadi Digla, a dry canyon about 15km long in the initial section that is very near to where I live in Cairo. I started off running quite fast interested to see what I could get my GPS speedo up to- about 20kmh for a second or two, then back to a highly sustainable 10-11kmh, darn slow by most running standards but I could manage it for 4 km out to a short wall of rock just below a cave, thats fun to climb (only one move really and you’re up) and then I headed back again- running the last 2km without a rest. A bunch of Egyptian lads drove by shouting and waving from their jeep. I used this to keep going a bit longer than before, wouldn’t do to shuffle past such dimwits like I really was ie. totally knackered.

So, next challenge: same distance- first 4km run without a halt.