Marathon!

Hey guys. Just wanted to point out that I'm training for a marathon. I'm writing about it in my newspaper and updating my blog for the paper daily. The first article ran today and got a huge response.

You can read about my experience at: http://running-raw.blogspot.com/

Scroll down to the bottom for the original article from the paper.

Running Through It

Sarah's post about running got me thinking.

I started running in college too. It sounds corny, but it was almost magical when I first discovered running.

I can remember it almost perfectly. I had spent a Saturday morning and afternoon mountain climbing, and I came back to my dorm with this intense energy, and a bit of mental turmoil over an unrelated topic.



I was wearing some old pair of shorts and a pair of some nearly soleless skater-like sneakers. I walked out of my dorm into the cool September night.

I can remember the smell of fall in the air, and the way the night seemed to crackle with energy like it does but rarely.

I walked along the outskirts of the college, not quite sure why I was driven to do so, until I got to a well-lit field where the soccer team was facing off against some opponent.

I just remember seeing this one player sprinting across the field at unbelievable speeds, his legs a blur, his arms swinging.

I hadn't really run anywhere in my life, I suddenly realized. I had done laps, I had run the bases in baseball, but when was the last time I had really just run? In my mind it almost seemed like I was prohibited from running in some strange way. I didn't have a reason to run. I realized that I was somewhat jealous of that soccer player sprinting away.

Suddenly, before I knew what I was doing, I was off running into the night. I flew over the sidewalks, my lungs pumping air, my blood surging, and suddenly there was a laugh on my lips.

I chuckled to myself as I weaved through the dark, because, I suddenly though, it is quite good to be alive.

Eventually my body started to complain over the new strain, and I slowed to a plodding jog. Miles went by before I found myself back at my dorm, sweating, breathing hard, but feeling intensely satisfied.

I run from today forward, I thought to myself. Now all I need is a pair of running shoes.

---

I'm continuing my work on my website. I just put up a page on Crohn's Disease.

I've added some ads to my site. It's my goal to make some income from my writing, and I hope that people won't be turned off by the ads. A lot of people have told me that my site really helps, and that they're inspired by it, so I hope it can be a quid pro quo situation.

I enjoy helping people, and I hope they will benefit, but it would be nice if my hours of slaving away produced some income.

I'm hoping for the best.

-Andrew

I decided to tackle acne, my arch nemesis, and made a page about it today. Here it is.

The Website and Raw Fats

If been devoting much of my free time to my website, Raw-Food-Health. If anyone is interested, check out a few of my newer pages and let me know what you think. If you just stumbled upon them, would you be inspired to change?

1) Escape Disease
2) Loose Weight

Besides that, I've been doing a ton of biking. I went five hours and over a bunch of hills Saturday. I felt exhausted at the end, but in a completely pleasant way. I woke up the next morning without any sore muscles, surprisingly. I have more stamina on the bike than I would have expected.

I'm slowly dropping my weight towards 9 percent body fat. I'm currently about 11. I'd like to build up some muscle to replace the lost fat, and so I've been doing a lot of handstand push ups, one handed push ups, etc. Weights at the gym would work better, but I can't say I've ever really enjoyed lifting weights like I enjoy running or biking.

Hope everyone is doing well.

-Andrew

Bananas and the future.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, but I absolutely love bananas. They're cheap, nutritionally they cover a lot of ground, and they're high in calories while being low in fat.

They also taste amazing. Now that it's summer, there's little that I enjoy more than some nice, cool, banana milk. (6 bananas, 2-3 ice cubes, water, blended). Throw in some blackberries or some blueberries and you've got an entirely different experience. What more can you ask for in your food?

Anyway, I've moved into the new apartment, and everything is great, but I've been busy getting everything set up these past couple of weeks. I never imaged that hanging shades could be so time consuming.

Though I can get wireless internet for free in the apartment, the signal isn't that steady. I'm going to have to go out and buy a cable internet service.

I've been going through some visualization exercises lately, and assessing what I'm doing with my time.

I started a new raw food website, www.raw-food-health.net , a few months back, though I've been a bit too busy to add to it too frequently. I looked at the stats today, though, and my hits are rising every month despite my relative neglect.

One of the things that my exercises have pointed out is that I really want to make this site a success, for me and for others. People should have access to clear, concise, raw food information on the web, and I intend to do my best to deliver it to them so that more people can cure themselves of their diseases and find true health and happiness.

I can be an agent of positive change.

Now it's just a matter finding the time and having at it. But first, I need the internet.

I took a four hour bike ride Sunday in the rain. It was delightful. I was soaked, but I was having a great time. My legs got a bit tired towards the end, but nothing too bad.

I think I'd like to get a bit more ambitious with my riding. I've been wondering about the feasibility of a ride to Boston. I'm thinking that I could probably do it in a day if I started early and planned to arrive by evening. It's a good excuse to visit my brother, anyway.

I'm going to have to ask some advice from some raw foodist riders that I've met online, and then get into a bit better shape.

Have a good day!

New Apartment, New Fruit Situation

I'm moving to an apartment in the city where my newspaper is located this weekend. I'll eliminate my 30-40 minute daily commute, the rent is reasonable, there's free wireless internet, I'll have a free pass to a local gym, and my view is fantastic. My commute is a five minute leisurely stroll to the office, and there's even a small theater that puts on plays on the corner that caught my eye.

These are all fantastic things to be excited about. I love the idea of being able to stroll to the library to look for books, and if the downtown is a bit..distressed, well it's the downtown that I cover, so it makes sense for me to be there.

But it made me stop and think about how my mind now works differently as a fruitarian than it did previously.

The Entry:

I started moving in some furniture today and my parents came along because my father's station wagon can hold a lot.

Opening the door, my mother went straight to the stove and microwave. "Oooo, these are nice," she said. "Do you have pots for this stove?"

My mother is quite aware that I haven't cooked anything for quite some time, so I'm not sure what she was thinking.

"Yep," I said, noncommittally, wondering to myself if there was a way to unplug the suckers to reduce phantom power draw. (Did I mention I was a tree hugger?)

Going further in I discovered my utility closet, and stepping inside I noticed how hot it was from the equipment.

"What a waste of space," my mom said. "Too bad they had to ruin this closet with all this stuff."

"This is a perfect!" I muttered.

This closet is exactly what I need to accelerate fruit ripening, I thought. Whoever put all this hot stuff in such closed confines was brilliant.

Then I started thinking about my lack of a basement.


Lackadaisical Musings

When you're a fruit eating monster like myself, you need to develop technique to stay well fed. Primitive man could hunt, and I.... can ripen.

You never want to be caught in a situation of having green, or even just yellow starchy bananas, or perhaps some peaches that are hard as rocks. I had a (relatively) warm ripening area in my old abode, but also a cold, walled off portion of the basement that I could use for my fruit.

My long term stuff like dates went in there, as did several "slow" ripening boxes of bananas. I could pull them out to the hot side when my hot side stash was getting low, but if I had gotten some good ripe fruit that needed to be eaten immediately, like some fantastic peaches, then I could leave them there and they would barely get riper.

Ripening is like ballet, or some sort of perverse battle between sweet sweet sugar (good) and overripe alchoholic goo (bad). But the sugar always goes to the dark side eventually. Sad really.

A banana that went to the dark side:



But I digress.

So I found myself in my new apartment with no cold storage area. I suppose there's the fridge, but I think it's going to be too cold for my needs.

Not sure what I'll do honestly, but I'll persevere, fruit eating monster that I am.

Happy smoothies, folks.

On the Trail

I haven't seriously ridden my bike since I in high school, but I acquired a nice used mountain bike earlier this year and after fixing it up, I decided that I was going to start putting it to good use.

I was inspired after really enjoying a mountain biking trek on an island off St. Thomas on my recent vacation. With this view, who wouldn't be inspired to ride more?




I figure that riding once or twice a week will make a nice augmentation for my daily running regime.

The best part of riding a bike now is that I'm missing 55 pounds, and I seem to have incredible amounts of energy, so I have to look for good ways to burn it off and earn my banana smoothies.

I heard about an abandoned rail corridor that snakes through the woods in my town and decided to go for a ride this morning. The area is actually quite beautiful, and the path, even though it's dirt and occasionally overgrown or flooded, runs by a lake and other areas that made it a worthwhile trip.

After awhile the path gets too overgrown so I got off and kept to some side streets, ending up in the downtown area of the next town over about eight miles away.

By that time my butt was pretty sore (my buns haven't been in the saddle for so long that I suppose I shouldn't be surprised ) and my and my thighs were getting tired.

I laid down in a small park, ate some celery and drank some water (a combo that works far better than any sports drink you'll come across for restoring electrolyte balance) and just rested until I felt up for the return home.

I can't believe how the the little breather refreshed me, and while by butt was still sore on the bumps, I had more than enough energy to make it the eight miles back.

And when you have a huge watermelon awaiting your triumphant return, there's a bit of a hurry to get back.

I'd be curious to know how a SAD diet beginning biker would have felt on the trip back, and I'm thinking that they wouldn't have held up as well.

Anyway, here's to a really sore butt in the morning.