Carb loading, cross training and side hustle

​Greetings from Sweden where I am about to have SEVEN days of no cell service and cross-country skiing above the Arctic Circle on the northern section of the Kungsleden or King's trail. It is a hut-to-hut trip like this one but no guides, just me, a friend, some sleds with gear and YAY for sleeping inside heated huts. 

Needless to say, you are on your own for Strength Training for Runners this week. There is no live class on Wednesday. Here is a video from the archives so you can grab your weights and spend 30 minutes with past me. 

CARB LOADING
Race season is coming up. DON'T wait until your race to try carb loading, first of all, it isn't a giant pasta dinner and done. Second, you want to test it in training. This podcast goes over carb loading mistakes so you can get smart, get ready and get pretzels! 

CROSS TRAINING
Cross training can be super helpful not only if you are injured, but if you are injury prone and need to stick with a lower mileage plan. If you think cross training could help your running, check out this article. Good strategies here for adding biking and water running. Doing the right cross training the right way could be a game changer. 

PAY FOR RACES WITH YOUR HSA
An HSA or health savings account, is a way for people with high-deductible health care to set aside pre-tax money to pay for qualified medical expenses. Usually, HSA money is used for purchasing medications and paying for uncovered medical care. Spartan, the obstacle race people announced a partnership enabling eligible athletes to use these pre-tax health dollars toward endurance event registrations across Spartan, Tough Mudder, and DEKA races. This would be cool if it caught on and all running races were eligible. Then running shoes and our sunglasses could count as medical expenses, right? 

OUTDOOR SIDE HUSTLE
Thought this was an interesting one for trail people. Cascade First Aid sells emergency equipment kits for outdoors folks (now you should be thinking, do I have a good first aid kit, YOU SHOULD!). And they are for sale. For $10,000 you can start selling first aid supplies to like-minded trail people. 

PEPTIDES
Are you starting to hear about people using peptides to fix their joints, peptides for gut health and peptides for weight management. The peptide wave is here and if you haven't heard about them yet, it is coming. Peptides are naturally occurring short chains of amino acids that make signals to the body. They’re also being manufactured and sold as supplements in the form of injections and medication, many on the gray market (uncertain origins of uncertain efficacy). Here is a link to an article that goes over some of what they are, how they can be used, the efficacy of the more popular uses like collagen peptides and tissue repair peptides that may be appealing as a runner. 

BAD RUN?
Have a bad run? It could be worse, you could have leaked the position of your naval ship.