Preservation, Conservation, Exploitation

There is a small continuum of possible ways to use land. On the one hand is preservation, do not disturb the land at all. On the other hand is exploitation, get every little bit of value out of the land as possible. In the middle is conservation. Using the land for productive capacities, but aiming not to deplete it and thus lose one's livelihood. In graph form:

Preservation, Conservation, Exploitation

That's the spectrum of how to use land, energy, and just about all material objects. The examples I give below the line are only that, examples. I realize that calling farming "sustainable" (in quotes) may rile some readers but it is worth noting that we aren't entirely sure the century long results of our environmental impact, specifically when it comes to agriculture in the midwest United States. Also, listing Superfund sites as anything other than pure exploitation may make others angry, but the fact is many superfund sites are successfully reclaimed to nontoxic levels.

Every person has an opinion on where we should stand on average in the world. The truth is the world is finite. It is very big, and has a lot of resources to offer, and gets bombarded with more sunlight, adding energy every day, yet it is finite. I tend toward the preservation side of conservation, but I know what materials my cellphone and laptop require, which come from open pit mines and future Superfund sites, and I recognize those are a fact of our world. Yet I worry that the impact we have on Earth right now may not be realized for decades or centuries to come, and for that reason I suggest we attempt to reduce our consumption of resources and enhance our use of more renewable resources. Land use and land management, not to mention energy use and management or resource use and management, are complicated topics. No one person has all the answers. I simply want to point out there is a spectrum of opinion and use of land, energy, and resources and with a continually growing global population more tough choices will be demanded in the future. For your own good, and the health of us all, think about this now in your own life before someone else makes the choices for you.

Long... Weekend...

The weekend wore me out. I am tired, and it was a great collection of experiences!

The point being, if you never wear yourself out what's the point of having energy to do things in the first place?

Stages of Recovery from a Competitive Running Season

I am in the heart of semi-annual recovery right now. I am experiencing thoughts and physical feelings that are worth quantifying. End of season recovery is not talked about enough. The standard advice is take 1-3 weeks off twice a year or 2-5 weeks once a year with no, or very little running, and low activity in general. So when I decided to run every day, there was scant information available, the best I could find was about Ron Hill. I would buy his biography, but at $140 for just half of it, even though I collect a few antique books, that is a little too much. As I trotted around my 16.3 miles for the week at a 9:04 minutes per mile average I spent some time thinking about season recovery and the stages that one goes through. Here are the stages of recovery from a competitive running season:

1. First, there is the physical damage from the race. This is divided into A: Total Body Damage and B: Deep Effort Damage. A: This is the few days after shorter races and perhaps a week or two after marathons and longer where all sorts of things are out of wack. The legs feel heavy and sore, maybe the back hurts, the runner is physically tired, and the energy to do other races and workouts is low. In this early early stage the person is tired when not running. B: This is when you feel recovered. Even jogging feels easy, maybe a few strides feel good too. However, any attempt to do a harder workout will end poorly. Muscle damage has occurred to the fibers only used during hard efforts which are not felt walking around or sitting. This kind of recovery could be only a week for a 5k or shorter and up to a month or two months or more for marathon or longer races. This is also the time to try and recovery from any nagging injuries that might have happened during the season, such as shin splints.
2. Second is the perspective of the season that takes some time to set in. After a long season of training and racing there will certainly be highs and lows. Regardless of how the season ends, most runners, in the vast majority of seasons, can take away both positive memories and unfortunate lessons learned to apply to the next season. In the context of any one weekend this is nearly impossible to appreciate. The joy or disappointment of having just finished a race well or poorly masks the larger picture of what you are trying to accomplish. In development, not all steps are big steps forward, but they are all steps.
3. Next is the loss of fitness. The resting heart rate goes up, a couple pounds are likely gained, and activities not normally enjoyed during serious training occur. Spontaneous activities, which normal people might do every weekend like stay up late, are enjoyed. Regardless of what one does in the off season, fitness will be lost. If a person could maintain world record fitness 52 weeks a year, he or she would so that more competitions could be run and more money made. Obviously, that is not the case. Even David Rudisha, the 800 meter world record holder who has broken the record three times, has only ever broken the record in the month of August. Even in the 100, three of the last five world records were run in August.
4. Fourth is the replenishment of nutrients. I don't know how much zinc, calcium, iron, potassium, and everything else I need every day as a function of mileage, pace, temperature, and absorption rates, but I guarantee I get it wrong a lot of days. Even though I take a multivitamin a few times a week, it is not advisable to just take a slew of pills and hope that everything is what one needs. One could overdose on iron or eat 5000 calories a day every day, neither of which is advisable. Thus, taking a break from hard training allows the body to store up the nutrients, at least iron, so that it can be withdrawn during the next season as needed. This is also the necessary time to rest the endocrine system, which is responsible for adrenaline and other hormones. Not requiring a volume of hormones during the rest period allows the body to recover and have more hormone output during hard training, when every drop of adrenaline is desired. For runners who have suffered nutrient issues in the past, like anemia, this recovery stage is especially important.
5. Finally the hunger to do better returns. In high school and college there is always another conference, state or national championship. After college there are marathons to run or times to qualify for races, or personal records to set. After sufficient reflection, most come to the realization that there is another goal out there worth training for. Once the motivation is in place, training can ramp up. This is a critical phase. I tell my college athletes that they need to rest until they are motivated to train again. If that takes six weeks without running a step, so be it. Hopefully they don't take all summer off, and lose all of their fitness gains, but that is another subject. Some people do not have the motivation to train months before the goal race despite natural talent that would allow them significant success. For these people, this article means nothing because so much time is spent not training. For those wanting to do better next season, and willing to train in the summer or over Christmas break, this article is for you. The point being, without motivation built up in the off season the hard workouts in the middle of the season will not be run well. As I always say: Stay Motivated, Stay Healthy, Train Hard.

Right now I'm in stage three and four. I had inklings of stage five Thursday which encouraged me to create this little stages process. It takes time, and it is important not to rush recovery. If that means I don't have a 20 mile week in May, so be it.

The Rest and Recovery Plan for the Next Marathon Training Cycle

First, a quick summary of my season ending race, the Drake Relays Hy-Vee Half Marathon: terrible.

Now that that's out of the way let's talk recovery. Okay, I will tell a little more, I did not rest up enough to race a good half eight days after a hard 10k, especially considering I did 14 miles moderately hard the day after the 10k and I had a 3k uphill tempo in the middle of the week. Second, I went out too hard. I have always been one who does not settle for 1% improvement when 3% improvement seems possible.

But seriously, rest and recovery and the next running and racing cycle. Here is the rest and recovery transition plan:

• I will run every day and perhaps bike ride, but my heart rate must stay below 136 (arbitrary zone 3 on my heart rate monitor) during all endurance exercising or I will immediately slow down.
• I will run less than 25 miles per week for three weeks before lifting a weekly maximum. 
• My next race is the Grandview Gallop June 8th, and at the moment I am thinking of myself more as a pace setter than an actual competitor for my friend who wants to break 19 minutes for four miles. 

That is the plan, it took me about three days to solidify that plan. I was thinking about taking a complete break from running for 10-12 days, as I have done multiple times in the past. However, I have a running streak going, and I want to break my old running streak set back in 2011. Secondly, I know from experience that a break from running just means after a day or two of taking it easy I will be on my bicycle trying to set fastest known times on Strava up hills around town, hardly rest and recovery. By mandating to myself that my heart rate stays low, I am actually resting. In other words, running with my heart rate below 136 means rest while not running simply means find another sport.

This is of course an experiment. I take inspiration from Ron Hill who started running every day in 1964 and in 1970 ran a 2:09 marathon, after winning Boston in a record 2:10, the second best marathon in the world at the time. Plus, I think with my analytical qualities basing my rest on limiting my running mileage and endurance exercise heart rate I am creating recovery that I no longer think is recovery, as my pervious breaks were, I know it is recovery. 

Additionally, I am a huge fan of recovery eating. Now, 99% of the time I say that I mean eating directly after a run, but in this instance I mean eating the foods that I don't normally eat when I am thinking about proper endurance fuel, such as burritos, wine, chicken wings, and whatever else strikes me as being an unusual food for me. I feel all food has something to offer, at all times of the year, but in the course of a yearly training plan, I don't know that I get enough of every vitamin and mineral that might be contained in a guacamole bacon cheeseburger. The problem is that it is surrounded by so many other calories that it is not even a weekly occurrence for me. I do not think I have ever struggled with a nutrition deficiency, and I do take a multivitamin and liquid iron, but eating a variety of food not in my normal diet during a yearly rest period hopefully stores up minerals that I can use during the hard hard training to come in August and September. 

How Does One Measure Patience?

I was complaining to some friends and coworkers last week about something that I always neglected to do, I don't remember what it was, maybe it was get an oil change or clean my van or check my email or something. I explained that I rarely have the patience to sit around and wait for whatever it was to get done. My friends laughed at me! They went on to explain that I sit at a desk nine hours a day and then go running for an hour and a half and that is far more patience than most people can admit to having.

After that I did what I always do, think about it for a few hours. I came to the conclusion that I have no idea. Without some way to compare patience or mental activity or time versus rewards across disciplines there seems to be no great way to measure patience. If anyone has any comments or thoughts I would be interested to hear them.

Furthermore, is there a good level of patience? Is it important to have some patience, but not so much that you never progress?

Environmentally Friendly Metal Processing

Metal processing, forming, shaping, heat treating, and other processes that take a chunk of rock and make them into your car frame, lawn chair, nail, bolt, watch, computer frame, refrigerator, and others are not exactly environmentally friendly. This is something I struggle with. When I wrote It's All About Energy in January it was in part my response to the energy demands to create a product.

While my manufacturing experience is limited, what I have seen, and what you can see on YouTube or the History Channel are not exactly energy friendly processing. Watch the forging process in action in Asia. The problem is that things need to be heated up to very hot temperatures. In the case of steels this is 800-1100 Celsius or 1500 to 2000 Fahrenheit.  Keep in mind that heavy things and larger things take more energy to heat up. So the main problem in my mind is heating this stuff up.

Some processes, like carburizing, can be heated electrically in a vacuum and thus save the trouble of heating up lots of air or burning hydrocarbons. Heating processes that take place at one atmosphere (open to the air) are more energy intensive because of the air that has to be heated up. Additionally, heat is often created by burning oil. So there is an exhaust component as well that leaves all sorts of carbon dioxide and other chemicals to be cleaned up.

Induction heating holds a whole lot of promise. It requires a whole bunch of energy, but compared to burning things can be more environmentally friendly. Now energy that we typically use to run our electronics comes from power plants that are burning things. Fortunately, this is not always the case. Wind energy, solar energy, tidal energy, wave energy, hydroelectricity, and hopefully fusion someday present the possibility of nearly zero emission electricity. Since all of those energy releasing systems first need to be produced and manufactured there will always be some emissions that occur in the product lifestyle. The hope being that we can have emissions for all aspects of our life that are less than the Earth's ability to use those emissions through photosynthesis and other processes.

Successful Innovative Company of the week: volume 19

The successful innovative company of the week is: Jetboil

what they do right: Jetboil came on the camping and mountaineering stove scene in 2001 with their namesake signature stove. This stove changed the possibilities of what a stove could do. It is more effiecient than any stove was before. It locks in place so it is easy to hang in steep situations. It has neoprene on the outside so you can grab it with barehands when there is boiling water inside. It is made of aluminum and is very light. The actual stove and a fuel canister pack inside the mated pot. It just works better than any stove that came before it. This was a game changer.

I was talking with an aquaintance who is a professional mountain guide and he said that on a training trip about two years ago he started to cook supper and he was the only person that didn't have a jetboil so he went out and bought one the first chance he had. When professional mountain guides are all using it you know it works.

Since their first product they have expanded to include pans and larger pots and detached fuel canisters. Their product line includes everything for cooking. They also have a coffee press attachment and I have to say a nice cup of coffee in the morning is so nice sometimes.

What they could improve: Simply put a few years after Jetboil came on the scene MSR responded with the Reactor. The Reactor is amazing and I would easily take it over the Jetboil. It boils water faster, it has a bigger pot, and is less prone to wind which are all significant factors when using the stove to mainly melt snow high on a mountain (which is what I like to do). The Reactor does not have the twist lock connection that the Jetboil has and thus I have never seen anybody hang one, which is necessary when you are using a portaledge (which I also like to do).

I would also be interested to see what Jetboil could do in the liquid fuel stove realm. Currently all of their stoves use propane/butane canisters. Offering a stove that used white gas and/or kerosene would expand their appeal.

It's All About Energy

Wether watching Star Wars or Back to the Future 2 or any other futuristic movie or television show it's all about energy. Listening to talk about hydrogen fuel cells, global warming, and new wind farms it's all about energy.

I shall explain, and take up a good chuck of your time. First, I'm going to start with how we get energy. Now it more or less all comes from the Sun. Solar power converts the photons (light particles) from the sun into energy through use of layers of photovoltaic material that becomes electrically charged when in the presence of light. Second there is wind energy. Wind is created by the sun heating up sections of the earth more and creating convection currents which is basically warm air and cool air moving in different directions and because of gravity the air doesn't float away into space and thus moves horizontally when it collides with air of a different temperature. Hydroelectric power from from water that is pulled by gravity closer to the center of the earth. Much of that water is carried to higher elevations by rain and slow. Some of it also comes from ground water. How does ground water move uphill you ask? Well, there are probably several mechanisms but the one that sticks out in my mind is the capillary action from trees and plants and the soil itself. Things move from areas of high concentration to areas of low concentration. So the water collects at a low spot but just above that spot imagine that the ground is bone dry and there is a tree slightly uphill. Because the ground is packed so close together a wet piece of dirt beside a dry piece of dirt will create a gradient and some of the water will move to the dry piece of dirt. Now imagine the same concept but a hill side miles long. Too big of a jump you say it doesn't scale up?

Luke: "It's too big."

Yoda: "Size matters not."

How about ethanol and vegetables and other plants? Well they grow by photosynthesis which is another way of saying they use the light energy (the sun) to grow. So biofuel and ethanol and other fuels like that are basically produced from the sun. Although they have to be refined which takes a large amount of energy as well.

How about oil? Oil is thought to be created by organic material (plants and animals) that have been compressed under great pressure to form polymer chains we call oil. That means that we can create oil in a lab (ever heard of synthetic oil?) by replicating the conditions thought to produce oil in nature.

Then there is fission and fusion power. Fission is traditional nuclear reactor design and the atomic bombs they dropped on Japan. It consists of really heavy elements getting split into two smaller elements and when that occurs a lot of energy is released. Fusion is basically the bombs that are way bigger and not used in any nuclear power reactor. If we can solve fusion power and put it in a reactor that will give up so much energy. It consists of Hydrogen that is combined to form Helium and released energy when that reaction occurs. However it is so hot it will melt anything we have yet created to hold it in. This is the reaction that we think makes the sun shine.

Secondly there is another problem, besides producing a ton of energy. Containing that energy in a small place. Currently we have a bit of a problem with energy density. It's not exactly a problem because we have never known different but it limits us from flying cars, traveling to Mars in a week, and other science fiction fantasies. While lithium batteries seem so amazing with so much power imagine a battery so powerful the size of your cell phone that you put it in your car and don't have to fuel up ever again.

Now that example is a leap from where we are now but the world energy consumption is increasing. From about 5 terawatts in 1965 to 13 terawatts in 2006. Think about the energy usage in your house. Fifty years ago who had more than one television set? Twenty years ago who used the computer and internet as much as we use it today? I see no way that our energy usage can honestly be reduced. As people begin to acquire huge screens and touch capable screens and have more of them the power required is just going to go up. As the world food supply becomes incapable of handling the world population will we start farming underground or in buildings with artificial lights?

As the world progresses to easily renewable energy sources like solar and wind anther problem is how to store lots of energy for times when the sun does not shine and the wind does not blow? This goes back to energy density and also the efficiency of storing and then extracting that energy.

I feel that in the future energy is going to be a very big issue. Someone who controls energy can have clean water, electricity, heat or air conditioning, computers, internet access, transportation, food, and other communication. Basically the more energy we have the more we can do. Of course the converse of that is the more we want to do the more energy we need.

The future is going to be interesting.