The 4-Hour Body_ An Uncommon Guide to Ra - Timothy Ferriss [153]
ULTRAENDURANCE I
Going from 5K to 50K in
12 Weeks—Phase I
“Beyond the very extreme of fatigue and distress, we may find amounts of ease and power we never dreamed ourselves to own; sources of strength never taxed at all because we never push through the obstruction.”
—William James
(Quote from e-mail signature of Scott Jurek, seven-time consecutive 100-mile Western States race champion)
IN THE SHADOWS OF A LARGE U.S. BRIDGE
“Drop your balls onto the bar.”
Testicles and steel are like oil and vinegar: they don’t usually mix well.
But I was being told, not asked, so balls were dropped.
Kelly Starrett, founder of San Francisco CrossFit, nodded in approval as I set myself up for the “sumo” deadlift. Kelly, nicknamed “KStarr,” was echoing the advice of powerlifting icon Dave Tate: keep your hips as close as possible to the bar on the descent, as if you were aiming to set your twins between your hands. Romantic, n’est-ce pas? This birthing-hip position requires a near side split and is about as comfortable as it sounds.
The setting, the waterfront Presidio at San Francisco Bay, was more pleasant. Red and white homes, former officers’ quarters, dotted the hills around us. Above the green expanses of Crissy Field, the sun was burning off the fog enveloping the Golden Gate Bridge. Kelly’s next client was running late, and our conversation drifted from metabolic conditioning to how Kelly defines “athletic preparedness.”
Before tackling the latter, he stopped to pose a question: “What’d you do for your RKC snatch test?”
The “snatch” is an Olympic weightlifting maneuver whereby you whip the weight from the floor to overhead in one clean motion, no pressing allowed. The snatch test was part of a Russian kettlebell certification (RKC) I had completed, and we had to complete X number of snatches (X being your weight in kilograms) with a 53-pound kettlebell. The time limit was five minutes, and we weren’t permitted to put the weight on the ground.
“I weighed 77 kilograms and did 77 reps in 3 minutes and 30 seconds,” I answered.
“Okay. Here, we do things like that as a finisher to a workout.”
I wasn’t sure exactly where the conversation was headed, but it sounded like he was calling me a big p***y.
He continued:
“I just turned 36, but I can still power clean 300, do a standing backflip, and also just ran the Quad Dipsea Ultramarathon, which is 28.4 miles with 18,500 feet of elevation change. Rather than being laid out for weeks like most runners, I was fully able to lift heavy and train hard the next week.”
Maybe he had a point with the girly-man comment. Then he dropped the bomb:
“And I never ran more than five kilometers in preparation for it.”
My brain stopped there:
“Wait … Hold on. How the hell did you train then?”
“Lots of 400-meter repeats.”
Suddenly he had my full attention.
Like many people, I’d fantasized about running a marathon before I died. Not running and walking, but running.
Not because I think it’s good for you. It’s not. Completing a grueling 26.2 miles—a goddamn marathon!—was just one of the those things in the bucket list that wouldn’t go away, along with skydiving (done), snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef (soon), and dating Natalie Portman (call me).
Sadly, jogging more than one mile made me look and feel like a drunk orangutan. I’d long ago assumed a marathon wouldn’t happen.
But 400 meters? Even I could do that.
Kelly smiled, paused to enjoy my confused look, and handed me the holy grail:
“You need to talk to Brian MacKenzie.”
Two and a Half Weeks Later
I could tell Louisville, Colorado, wasn’t going to be kind to me.
My first glass of wine was only half empty, and the 5,300 feet of elevation made it feel like my third.
The clock read 10:00 P.M., and the lobby of the Aloft Hotel was buzzing with Goth teens and ravers getting ready for the massive Caffeine Music Festival the following night. Platform shoes and colored leather circled around the bar and lounge, filling the waiting hours with Facebook and text messaging, interspersed with