It kinda makes sense that Kelly Slater eats well and cares about what he puts in his body. After all, the 39-year-old pro surfing champion hurtles at high speeds through giant ocean swells with just his two feet and a surfboard — not exactly the sort of activity suited for a Dorito-munching dude with a beer belly.
Still, it's rare to talk to a guy with the kind of will power it takes to stick to tea and fresh-squeezed juices throughout the day. Slater, who has become an outspoken advocate of preserving the oceans and an ambassador for the healthy fast casual chain Daphne's California Greek, sticks to his principles in and out of the water. But that, as he hints during a recent email chat, doesn't necessarily mean he won't eat a fish taco.
First up, where are you right now and what are you up to?
I'm in Santa Barbara and I've just been surfing and organizing my life a bit before I spend the rest of the winter in Hawaii.
How does eating affect surfing? Do you have to carbo-load or anything like that?
Eating affects everything you do. [It's about] focus and physical strength/stamina. You have to have a balance of different things from your fruits (which I try to focus on in the morning) to your proteins and veggies, and also your carbs.
Would it be generalizing to say that surfers eat a lot of tacos?
Not really. Fish tacos are a staple for surfers, I'd say. Can't really mess that up.
Can you tell us about your food history—like how you ate growing up?
I didn't eat very well but didn't starve. Just lots of sugar and ice cream and all that. When I was around 20, I really started educating myself about the health issues and [learned about] what foods do inside your body.
You're about to turn 40. Has your metabolism changed as you've gotten a bit older? Not that I notice. I feel as good as ever and don't gain or lose much weight.
You travel a lot. Is it hard to keep to any sort of routine? How do you do it? It's hard to have a consistent routine on the road. After years of doing it you know how to pull it off based on what's readily available in all of the places we go.
What are some of your favorite spots around the world for food? Any favorite restaurants?
I love France. Paris is amazing, and NYC has everything. LA is hard to beat and Singapore has the best of all worlds and lots of Asian and spicy foods that I love. My favorite restaurant is Tantina de la Playa in Bidart, France, a Basque seafood restaurant on the beach near Spain.
We know you're involved in environmental issues with protecting the oceans. How do you feel about overfishing?
It's a huge problem, but we have a giant population. It's definitely something we need to look 5 to 10 and even 50 to 100 years out at and figure out solutions for now and long term.
Do you have any sustainable fish apps on your phone? I don't, but I'm pretty educated in which [fish] to eat and which to not order.
Any organizations you wanna shout out that people can support to help protect the oceans and reefs?
The first that comes to mind is the Plastic Pollution Coalition. I'll leave it at that for now but I've worked a bit with them over the past few years.
What are your favorite beverages (alcoholic or non)?
Lemon and honey in warm water in the morning. Fresh pressed juices during the day. Almond Milk and smoothies.
Do you cook, and if so, what's your best dish? I make a pretty good pancake.
Last question: What do you eat if you want some comfort food? Hot Chocolate and maybe some soup.
Kara Goucher of Portland, Ore., placed third in Saturday’s U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials for women in Houston, Texas, to earn a spot in the 2012 Summer Games in London.
The top three women and men advanced to the Olympic Games. Both races were held on the same day and the same course for the first time in American history.
Shalane Flanagan, Goucher’s training partner in Portland, Ore., has won in 2:25:38, followed by favorite Desiree Davila in 2:25:55 and Goucher 2:26:06. They were well under the U.S. Trials record of 2:28.
Saturday's trial was the second marathon for the 30-year-old Flanagan and first since she was the runner-up in New York in 2010. She has qualified for her third Olympics.
Davila, 28, the runner-up in Boston last year, is set to make her Olympic debut.
Goucher, 33, will compete in her second Games after running in the 5,000- and 10,000-meter races in Beijing.
Also, Jennifer Houck,27, a St. Scholastica graduate from Wright, was 47th in a field of 152 in 2:40:51; and Duluthian Katie Koski, 38, in a third U.S. Olympic Trials, was 80th in 2:45:27.
Since we’ve been on an inflammation kick the past couple weeks, I figured I’d start covering some of the areas of health and lifestyle that interact with inflammation. That doesn’t exactly narrow things down, seeing as how inflammation is involved in just about everything, but it does give me plenty of things to discuss. Today’s topic, exercise, was a little tricky, because the relationship between exercise and inflammation is anything but straightforward, seemingly fraught with inconsistencies and facts that appear to contradict one another. Exercise reduces inflammation, but it also increases it. And depending on the context, this increased inflammation due to exercise is either a good thing or a bad thing.
Sound confusing?
See for yourself. Study after study (epidemiological and clinical alike) shows that extended exercise programs generally reduce markers of inflammation (like C-reactive protein) over the long-term:
■In elderly Japanese women, a 12-week resistance training program reduced circulating levels of inflammatory markers compared to baseline; reductions in CRP were associated with increases in muscle thickness. ■American adults who engaged in frequent physical activity tended to have lower CRPs than adults who were more sedentary. ■In type 2 diabetics, (key term coming up) long-term high intensity resistance and aerobic training reduced inflammatory markers over the course of a year (independent of changes in body weight, meaning activity was the key factor). ■Endurance combined with resistance training reduced CRP in young, healthy women better than endurance training alone. ■In obese, post-menopausal women, a basic moderate cardio program lowered CRP without really affecting body weight either way over the course of a year. ■At the same time, though, several studies also show that exercise acutely spikes inflammatory markers: ■Volleyball practice elicits spikes in IL-6 in both male and female elite volleyball players. ■Acute exercise spiked CRP in cardiovascular disease patients (but a four-month exercise program lowered it). ■This table of inflammatory responses to strenuous endurance events shows some massive spikes in CRP, some up to 20-fold the baseline value. There are many more out there, but the general gist is that regular exercise tends to lower markers of systemic inflammation while acute exercise increases markers of acute inflammation. And sometimes what’s acute can become chronic. How do we make sense of this? How do we avoid making those acute spikes a chronic, constant thing?
I had originally planned on digging through the literature and assembling a handy guide explaining the specific inflammatory responses to the different types of exercise, complete with exercise prescriptions based on cytokines and C-reactive protein and all that fun stuff until I realized that such an undertaking is too massive for a blog post, impossible given the limitations of the literature, and overly complex and frankly useless for the average reader. Instead, we have this: a rambling discussion of inflammation and exercise, peppered with helpful nuggets of advice wrought from years of personal (and painful) experience.
Effective exercise is inflammatory exercise… to a point.Some degree of inflammation is necessary if you hope to get anything tangible out of a workout regimen – hypertrophy, increased stamina, increased strength, improved work capacity – because your body gets stronger via the inflammatory response to the stress and by rebuilding and refortifying its tissues to deal with future demands. An effective training session is basically an acute stressor that initiates a transitory, temporary, but powerful inflammatory response. An effective training regimen is composed, then, of lots of those acutely stressful training sessions interspersed with plenty of recovery time against a backdrop of lots of slow moving and good nutrition. You can’t escape that.
Avoid inflammatory plateaus.Track your training. Plotted on a graph, the inflammatory responses to your training should resemble a series of peaks, dips, and valleys. If you don’t let your last exercise-induced inflammatory spike recede before exercising again, you’ll only heap more on the pile. If you keep stringing together spikes in inflammation without recovering from the previous one, they start to overlap and that starts to look a lot like chronic inflammation. That gives you a plateau, a mesa of inflammation. Avoid the mesa.
(You don’t actually have to order CRP tests after every training session and create Excel spreadsheets to “plot your inflammation.” Feeling it out is perfectly fine. Review last week’s post for symptoms and see if you qualify.)
Remember that acute inflammation (good, healthy, necessary) is characterized by an inflammatory response that resolves quickly, or as soon as the offending factor is removed. This takes a day or two, maybe even three, but as long as you remove the stinger/take your hand out of the flame/kill the pathogen/put down the barbell for a couple days, you will recover and the inflammation will subside. Inflammation becomes chronic when the stress is not removed, when you keep getting stung by the same bug/putting your hand in the flame/licking the dirty spinach/doing heavy deadlifts every single day. Don’t do these things and expect differently.
Any type of exercise – besides maybe walking – has the potential to become chronic and induce a state of chronic inflammation. Doing high-intensity Crossfit WODs every single day will do it. Training for a marathon will do it. Do what you enjoy without it becoming chronic. Endurance events aren’t going to kill you, but training for them might.
The reason why I single out Chronic Cardio, marathoning, triathlons, and other ultra-endurance events (and why it’s the easiest way to overtrain and become systemically inflamed in the process) is because excelling at those activities usually requires a ridiculous amount of training time. If you want to be the best Olympic weight lifter you can be, you’ll have to train hard and train often and undergo serious stress, but you won’t be under load for more than a second or two at a time. If you want to be the best endurance athlete you can be, you’re likely going to be “under load” for hours and hours each day. There is very little give in these sports, which is why regular endurance work is so problematic for so many people.
Endurance training is problematic for another reason: you can always complete the workout even when you should be resting. If you’re having a bad training day as an Olympic lifter, you simply won’t make the lift. You can’t slog through a heavy snatch; the necessary effort precludes you even attempting it. You’ll deload or call it a day or make it a light workout, but you’re not going to “power through,” because you physically cannot. But because endurance work is lower intensity, you can slog through the days when your body is trying to tell you to rest. It won’t be pretty, and you’ll feel awful and slow and heavy, but you’ll finish – and you’ll dig yourself in even deeper.
Interestingly, folks who run ultramarathons tend to have lower resting CRPs than marathoners. This threw me for a loop at first, but after thinking some more, it makes sense. All the ultramarathoners I knew were the guys who either couldn’t hack it as marathoners or simply didn’t want to push themselves to the brink. They were generally fairly laid back, while we marathoners were the hyper-competitive types. They would just kinda mosey along at a reasonable pace, while we treated 26.2 miles almost like an extended sprint. Our pacing was GO GO GO *slurp glucose gel pack* GO GO GO. Though they covered far more ground – sometimes more than 100 km – they never dug deep, not in the same way we did. They never had to “go to the well.” My well was running dry by the time I finished my career.
Yeah, exercise is a funny subject. There isn’t really a one-size-fits-all detailed prescription, which is why when I offer my suggestions for exercise on this blog, I try to keep them very general. Rather than prescribe this many sets of these specific lifts for this many reps at this weight, I say “lift heavy things.” That could be bodyweight, sandbags, barbells, kettlebells, or the latest in HIT machine technology. Rather than tell you to jog at this heart rate for this long at this grade this many times a week, I suggest you “move frequently at a slow pace” and “run really fast once in awhile.” You could move slowly or really quickly on your feet on the street, on a trail, on a bike, in a pool, as you garden, or even in place (burpees, anyone?). Sure, I think a day or two of lifting, one session of sprinting, and as much slow movement as you can possibly stand each week are reasonable targets for the general public, but it’s honestly really wide open.
RadioShack-Nissan presented five grand tour contenders on stage at their launch last week in Luxembourg and one of their quintet of hopefuls, Chris Horner, isn’t worried about the team’s hierarchy.
The American veteran will aim to peak for both the Tour of California in May and then the Tour de France. Easier said than done, no rider has managed to pull off successful bids at both races in a single calendar year since the US race moved from February to May.
Well aware of the task at hand, Horner is a resilient character, epitomised by his desire to prolong a career when others may have chosen to retire after crashing out of last year’s Tour de France.
In this exclusive video for cyclingnews Horner talks about his recover from his crash at last year’s Tour de France that left him with serious injuries and the potential battle with Levi Leipheimer at this year’s Tour of California.
It’s hard to imagine a better way to bring in the new year than to be profiled in the current issue of Velo, the print version of Velonews.com. But there I am, posed and exposed in my alternate persona as a Super Hero.
Velo editor, Neal Rogers, does a fine job of decoding my ‘enigma’ status with an explanation of my past and present. It’s fair to say not everyone gets me but I think he does.
At Neal’s request, and as a follow-up to his article, I wrote a ‘Day in the Life’ piece for the magazine. I think of myself as less mysterious than I’m thought of. Cycling fans around the world seem to find me puzzling. I know this from the brief chats I have at coffee shops or on group rides, from the small talk before and after races, and in the emails and messages on my web site and on Facebook. I really think of myself as a normal dude just trying to find his way through life like the rest of you. But the mystery continues. To perhaps better establish my normalcy I answer the question I’m most often asked: ‘What’s a day in your life like?’
For 20 years Kelly Slater's been the focal point of pro surfing, in large part because of his dedication to maintaining his fitness level.
Tom Servais...Show me a person who has good posture, and I'll show you someone who is increasing their chances of enjoying a long, productive career, life ... and 11 world surfing titles. OK, maybe not 11, but hear me out.
For those of us who are hunched over computers all day, commuting a half hour or more to work or carrying the kids around, posture is a hidden but alarming health issue that can gradually get worse over time. For surfers and other athletes, improper posture and muscle imbalance can lead to injuries and slow recovery. It can also dramatically affect performance on a surfboard. For more than 25 years of working with ASP athletes, including Kelly Slater, Mick Fanning and Jordy Smith, I have preached the power of posture as a vital aspect in their treatment and training as world-class competitors.
Slater has incredible body awareness and when he trains his focus is on full body mobility, stability and strength. He uses a system called Foundation Training, which emphasizes improving posture and core fitness by focusing on strengthening the back of the body to balance the overused, over-stressed front side. It teaches him how to remember what proper movement feels like.
The athlete with rounded shoulders and forward-carried head posture tends to have poor body awareness and alignment, and often walks and runs with a short, choppy gait with hips and feet turned out. These are the athletes most and often prone to declining performance, slower recovery, more injuries, sickness and eventually, a shorter career. The quality of one's movement each day is literally a window to how well the body performs and recovers. Next time you see Slater at an event, notice how effortlessly he walks, paddles out and pops up on his board. This is no coincidence: it comes from how well his central nervous system is connected to his muscles.
I started working with Slater in the early '90s. He has always had extraordinary mobility, but because his sport requires right and left sides to move differently, he always has to work towards achieving optimum balance.
Top strength and conditioning specialists focus on smoothing out and connecting movement. It's somewhat counter-intuitive, but simply training to make muscles stronger is a recipe for injury. For those of us who don't have the benefit of training with a professional strength and conditioning coach, if you want to improve your overall fitness and health, learn to move your body the way it was designed ... like you did when you were a kid, and not a slave to sitting.
Slater also has such naturally keen movement awareness and innate understanding of how important good posture is to feeling and performing at his best. Poor posture and quality of regular movement patterns over time are the main reason athletes become injured; and for us regular folks and weekend warriors, it's why we have bad backs and hips, sore necks and headaches, carpal tunnel syndrome, and so on. Good movement is measured by an ability to move how the body was designed with the least amount of stress. Interestingly, nothing illustrates quality of movement like watching a great athlete do his or her thing. Why? Because they move like kids do ... with economy of motion, balance and effortless grace. Guys like Slater make it look so effortless because they maintain a relaxed balance of form and function.
Add to this the fact that Slater has a tremendous thirst for knowledge and is a serious student of the body. He can move incredibly well in some directions, and is less effective in others. There is little doubt that he is a flat-out gifted athlete and has the drive a to be a world-class competitor, but his focus on constantly improving his health through good nutrition and improving balance, movement and posture throughout his career is undoubtedly a key factor in his longevity.
Chris Horner (RadioShack-Nissan) has begun training a month earlier than usual as he prepares to make his return to competitive action following his heavy fall at the 2011 Tour de France.
The American suffered a broken nose, cracked ribs, concussion and a blood clot in the lung as a result of his crash on stage 7 of the Tour, and was forced to bring both his race and his season to a premature halt. After five months, Horner is keen to get back into action.
“Normally I wouldn’t even be riding now,” Horner told us. “Normally two hours in a day is the very most I’d have done in early December. Then I’d take the last three weeks of December off and start riding the home trainer while I’m up in Oregon for a week, and then I’d go up to San Diego the second week of January on the road, and then we’d normally have training camp near the end of January.”
This time around, however, Horner has been out on the road since the beginning of December, and made the most of RadioShack-Nissan’s recent training camp in Calpe, Spain to get in some warm-weather miles.
“This year, I started on the first of December and I’ll continue all the way through to the next training camp,” he said. “Basically my training for next year started the first of December rather than the first of January.”
Last winter, RadioShack’s American riders were not requested to cross the Atlantic for the team’s pre-Christmas training camp. The merger with Leopard Trek meant that Horner was happy to make the trek on this occasion.
“Normally I don’t believe so much in December training camps, but you’ve got to get together when it’s a new squad like this,” he said.
As in 2011, Horner will aim to perform strongly in week-long stage races throughout the early part of the new season as he builds towards the Tour de France, where he will play a vital role in Andy and Fränk Schleck’s overall challenge.
“I hope to have a good beginning to the season with the Basque Country and California of course, and then focus in on the Tour de France,” Horner said. “I would like to do more or less the same programme and maybe one or more stage race in there this year, just because it’s been so long since the crash at the Tour when I last raced.”
“It’s been a long time and I’m ready to race, so just for pure and simple pleasure and desire and to feel like a bike racer again, I’d like to do something a little early, like Paris-Nice or Tirreno. That would be ideal.”
No retirement plans
Although now 40 years of age, Horner has no plans to hang up his wheels and believes that his injury-curtailed 2011 campaign may even lengthen his career in the long-run. “I just skipped six months of bike racing, so maybe I’ve added another year to my career, maybe it adds to the freshness of my legs,” he said. “As long as the legs do it, I’ll continue. There’s no set date, it’ll just be a case of when I feel the legs are gone.”
Looking back over his career, Horner reckons that he has significantly less mileage on the clock than European-based professionals of his vintage, something which he feels goes a long way to explain his remarkable longevity. Although he began his career at Française des Jeux in 1997, Horner spent the period from 2000 to 2004 in the United States, before beginning his ‘second career’ in Europe with Saunier Duval.
“I raced back in the States from 2000 through to 2004. In 05, I came back over with Saunier Duval but I broke my leg early in the year, so I missed a lot of that,” he said. Then in 2009 I crashed and missed a bunch of that season too. So realistically the amount of years I’ve spent in Europe is pretty low compared to most guys who are 40 years old.
“When you look at Inigo Cuesta, I mean, that guy had done 14 Vueltas or 16 Vueltas. I can’t remember, but it was a huge number. You’d have to ask him personally, but maybe every year of his career he did 80 European races. I’d never do 80 European races. The most I’d normally do is 70 and since I came back in 05, I don’t think I’ve even done that many. But that could be why the legs are so good right now.”
By 1989 Dave Scott was a six-time Ironman champion and Mark Allen, defeated in his previous attempts, a feared contender. This time, though, all bets were off. From the start, Mark hung on to Dave with mind-numbing intensity.
Kelly Slater beat out John John Florence during a spectacular quarterfinal round at the 41st edition of the Billabong Pipeline Masters, but the 11-time World Surfing Champion couldn’t match Australia’s Kieren Perrow.
The match-up between Slater and Florence was viewed by some as a “passing the torch” event. Slater, who is acknowledged as the greatest surfer in the sport, isn’t sure if he’ll commit to a full season in 2012. John John Florence, on the other hand, is just 19-years-old and has a long and promising career ahead of him.
Before the event, Slater said:
“I see John John as the guy to beat in this contest. He’s got three 10′s already. He lives right here and surfs here every day. If I were to lose to him, there would be no shame in that.”
Florence almost beat Slater, too. With just 8 minutes left Slater trailed his protege by 16 points. Slater was able to hit two consecutive waves to score a 9.7 and a 7.83 to beat Florence with just 46 seconds remaining.
Slater said:
“I was just trying to hold John John off for one more year. This might have been my last chance to get a few waves against him. He’s going to dominate Pipe for the next 20 years.”
GOLF??? - "Well then," says Kelly Slater. "Now we're talking."
The world's top surfer is on the North Shore of Oahu, signing posters for the Pipeline Masters. Described breathlessly -- but rather accurately -- as the Superbowl of Surfing, Pipe is scheduled to begin on Thursday in life-threatening, jaw-dropping waves peaking at 18 feet.
Heaving swells will dump their loads on a shallow reef, turning Pipe into a gladiator's pit. With thousands of howling spectators on the sand, man-on-man heats carry the sub-plot of everyone just wanting to get out alive.
Ambulances will be on standby. Medical staff shall be in abundance.
Slater admits the prospect of rocking and rolling at Pipe fills him with a curious mix of anxiety, excitement and outright fear and so seems relieved when conversation turns to a more genteel pursuit, the good walk spoiled.
Slater is so dedicated to the noble yet confounding game of golf, and so proficient, that he has an itch to play professionally when he quits his current day job as the greatest surfer of all.
"I like golf, I love it, I work hard on it and actually I'd like to become..."
A professional? Go on, say it. You want to become a professional. The 39-year-old raises an eyebrow: can we be trusted with such privileged information?
Just say it. It is written all over his beaming face. Slater dreams about tackling the biggest names on the USPGA Tour and here is why: he's a born competitor. A self-described perfectionist. A performer.
NATURAL GIFTS
As fit as 10 fiddlers, Slater has a golf handicap of two. Reuters watched him play 18 holes at the Arnold Palmer-designed Turtle Bay course and make no mistake, he can play.
Natural gifts are at his disposal: the agility, physical strength and fitness that Craig Stadler might have benefited from. The discipline and dedication that one of his more colorful playing partners, John Daly, never quite gripped and ripped.
The last two occasions he played the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, he beat his partner, USPGA Tour regular Pat Perez.
When he partnered Simon Dyson to win The Alfred Dunhill Links Championship on The Old Course at St Andrews in 2009, it barely rated a mention. Everyone assumed the Englishman carried him. Everyone assumed wrong. The most calm figure walking down the 18th fairway was Slater.
He's played with Daly, Darren Clarke, Steve Stricker and Dustin Johnson. He's sidled up to Ernie Els on a driving range and hit balls without feeling misplaced.
Go on, admit it. You want to play at least one professional event before your time is done.
"I do think about it," he says. "Funnily enough, I just did an interview with the Golf Channel: they're doing a special for Christmas and the three golfers they followed were me, Tiger Woods and Steve Stricker.
"It's coming out Christmas Day. Point is, I'm pretty entrenched in the golf community now, even if it isn't at the competitive level yet.
"It's about the personal challenge for the moment but I would like to maybe compete in the future. There are these vague dreams in my head about it. The trouble would be the amount of time it would take to be good and confident enough.
COMPLETE TRUST
"There's a ridiculous amount of work that goes into it. I'd have to practice as much as I surfed when I was growing up. All the time I spend at the beach now, I'd have to spend on the golf course. To play those tour guys, even just one or two times, I'd have to be able to completely trust myself: trust my swing, not let any doubts get in my head. I'm not there yet.
"The Champions Tour might be my best bet but I'd have to wait till I'm 55 for that. Only the established guys get to play as soon as they turn 50. They don't want some unknown guy who's practiced for 30 years getting on and everyone is like, 'shoot, the guy we've never heard of from Oklahoma is better than anyone'.
"It would take a lot of dedication but I'm putting a lot of time into my golf. I think anyone, when they do something once, they want to become masterful at it."
Slater glides around Turtle Bay. His swing is smooth and uncomplicated. He has a baseball grip, a rarity among elite players who prefer overlapping or interlocking, but Bob Estes has forged a long career with the same ten-finger technique so it can be done.
A double-jointed back is a god-send for Slater in both surfing and golf: he has looseness and coil to spare. Text book stance. Effortless backswing. A follow-through worth photographing.
A short iron sucks back a couple of meters. The broom stick putter works well enough. He is attracted to the internal warfare that rages inside a man during a round of golf, the odd similarities of courage needed to take off on a 20-foot wave or sink a two-foot putt.
"I've played with almost all the US PGA guys except for Tiger," Slater says. "I've played with Stricker, played in a group with Darren Clarke at St Andrews, Dustin Johnson, had a couple of rounds with John Daly.
MASTER OF MIND GAMES
"First time I ever played with a pro, I was in Vegas. I went and played with a buddy called Sandy Armour. His brother is Tommy Armour III, their grandfather is one of the absolute legends of golf. Tommy was on tour.
"First hole, I was so nervous I sliced it so far right that it was crazy. Second shot, I hit it way left into deep rough. It was a par four. Third shot, I hacked it up to about 50-feet from the pin. I holed the 50-footer for par, which was pretty funny, but really it was pretty ugly and it was just the nerves of being in a different environment.
"That's what can happen when you don't completely trust yourself. But I do feel like I can hold my own. I actually beat my pro straight-up two years in a row at the Pebble Beach event so when I get it going, I can go, but that was me having a couple of great days and him having a couple of bad days. If we both had great days, he'd beat me by three or four strokes."
Slater's most immediate assignment is inside the liquid Colosseum of Pipeline. To say nothing over 18 holes could be as nerve-racking would be to overlook the essence of golf. A short putt can be as excruciating as a vertical takeoff in its own way.
As Lee Trevino said, the pressure of a ten-dollar putt when there's only five in your pocket. There are precedents for swapping sports. Grand slam tennis champion Ivan Lendl tried to make it to the 2008 US Open at Torrey Pines, but came up short in qualifying.
Australian Scott Draper, though, pulled it off, playing Davis Cup tennis and earning a start in his national golf championship. A master of mind games, patience and self-control, Slater might be better placed than most.
Michael Jordan made a lunge at professional baseball in his post-basketball years but only because his real passion, the good walk spoiled, wasn't up to scratch.
Ever played with Jordan? "No," Slater grins. "I'll wait till he gets a little better."
Having yielded to those of you who still insist on running a marathon, yesterday I offered a training strategy that gets you the best results with the least amount of damage. Today’s post is about fueling a marathon – what food to eat and when to eat it. It’s not solely about race day nutrition, because if you just focused on what to eat the day of the race, you’d be missing out on a lot (and you’d likely have problems finishing, or at the very least your performance would suffer). It’s about what to eat while training, a few days before the race, and the day of the race itself. This is the stuff I would do if I had to go back and do another marathon with my current knowledge. I might tweak things slightly if I was trying to make the Olympics, but for the average, relatively fit Primal dude or gal who wants to check this off their bucket list? This is the perfect way to fuel your efforts. And this works equally as well for those of you who think a century ride (100 miles on a bike) might be in the cards.
First, let’s examine what to do while you’re training. What do you eat? How much of it do you eat? Low-carb, high-carb?
Train Low, Race HighFor the layperson, “train low, race high” is basically a way to teach your body to do without a glut of glucose for longer periods of time. By training low on glycogen, your body grows accustomed to running on fat and conserving muscle glycogen. By training low and then racing high – with topped-off glycogen stores in your muscles – you experience a big boost in performance on race day. You’ve built up your ability to access body fat during a run, and that doesn’t go anywhere, but now you’ve suddenly got 400+ grams of muscle glycogen at your disposal. Glycogen that you’ve learned to access efficiently, rather than squander all at once. That’s huge, especially for 26.2 miles.
It’s reasonable to think that Grok often “trained low.” If low-level physical activity in a glycogen-depleted state was the norm for much of human evolution – as I think it probably was – it makes sense that its emulation in modern times would confer performance benefits. It makes sense that our bodies would conserve energy and streamline energy pathways, and that taking advantage of these physiological truths will give us enough of a racing edge without compromising our health – since we’re training “with” our physiology, rather than in direct opposition to it.
There’s been limited modern research on “train low, race high,” and it’s pretty compelling. One study found that athletes who trained twice a day on alternate days and thus had lower muscle glycogen during the second training session almost quadrupled their muscle endurance, while athletes who trained once a day on consecutive days barely doubled theirs by study’s end. Both groups of athletes performed the same amount of volume and intensity, but only one group went into every other training session with depleted glycogen – and that group saw the greatest benefits to both work capacity and energy efficiency (glycogen and fat).
During your training, keep carbs right around 150 grams per day. That may sound like a lot, especially if you’re coming from the lower end of the carb continuum, but rest assured that 150 grams of carbs is a paltry amount for most endurance athletes. At the height of my training, I was blasting through upwards of 700 grams each day. As I mentioned yesterday, increase your carbs the day before – and morning of – your interval training, because much of the benefit from intervals comes from glycogen depletion, and you gotta have glycogen in your muscles before you deplete it. But for the most part, keep carbs at a moderate (for Primal folks) to low level. Stick to approved Primal sources, of course:
And remember: you’re training. Your performance during a particular run on a particular training day might not go great, but you’re in this for the long haul. You’re in this for the race day boost. It’s not a competition. You’re not trying to beat the other guy (because there is no other guy), you’re trying to train your mitochondria and your energy utilization pathways so that when the time comes, when the event rolls around, you are fully prepared to give it your best showing. Keep it in perspective and don’t beat yourself up too much. One final thought on training: it’s always better to start your race slightly undertrained than over-trained.
Couple Days Before the RaceStart eating more carbs. This is the classic carbo-load, and no, it doesn’t have to reach Phelpsian levels of mayo-and-egg sandwiches on white bread, kilos of pasta, and flagons of cheese grits. You can easily stick to starchy roots, tubers, and fruit (and even rice) to pack those muscles full of glycogen. Maintain your protein intake and moderate your fat intake. You’re looking to maximize muscle glycogen stores.
Just eat twice the amount of carbs you’ve been eating. So, instead of one sweet potato with dinner, have one with lunch and one with dinner. Eat the whole banana instead of half the banana. Aim for about 350 grams of carbs per day. And don’t do any hard training during these last two or three taper days. Maybe some light jogging or walking.
Race DayIf you have two hours before the gun goes off, eat a light breakfast with some representation from all macronutrients. Maybe a few eggs and a banana, maybe half a yam. Nothing that sits heavy in the stomach, and make sure it’s something you can digest. If you are a coffee drinker, a cup today will help mobilize fatty acids. Don’t go zesty, don’t experiment with something new. Stick to the tried and true. If you didn’t spend the last couple of days fueling up, the most optimal race day breakfast isn’t gonna save you. Sorry to say it.
During the race, maintain your composure. Your glycogen-replete body is going to feel eminently powerful. Try not to go too fast too soon. Better to start a bit slower, get those fats into the muscle cells and then increase the pace a bit later. As for mid-race fueling, I’d forgo the usual Gatorade offerings on the course and stick to the rocket fuel found in pure glucose. Some companies sell straight glucose polymer powders (complex carbs as maltodextrin) you can mix with water to your own desired consistency and carry with you on a fuel belt. This is the one time in your life that straight glucose is your friend. The method I have recommended for 20 years is to start refueling at about an hour in to the event, taking 20 grams of glucose every 20-30 minutes. This puts enough glucose into the bloodstream to help fuel muscles without interfering with the intended fat combustion – and it “unburdens” the muscles from having to give up too much glycogen too soon. Be sure to drink enough pure water (usually offered on the course, so you don’t have to carry that) as well.
Now, if you are so inclined, you can also make your own version of a sport drink/energy gel hybrid. It may not be astoundingly delicious, but it’ll get the job done. Here’s how to do it:
1.Slightly heat some coconut water on the stove. Don’t let it get anywhere near simmering. Just let it get warm enough to melt the next three ingredients easily.
2.Add a few dashes of sea salt, preferably one with high mineral content. Sea salt provides sodium, an important electrolyte, plus trace minerals. You’re going to be burning through a lot of it during the race.
3.Add honey, preferably raw and from a local farm (remember, many store bought honey isn’t actually honey anymore).
4.Add blackstrap molasses. Blackstrap molasses comes after the third boiling of sugar cane. It contains less sugar than either white sugar, brown sugar, regular molasses, or dark molasses, but far more minerals and electrolytes. See, sugar cane is a plant with roots that stretch deep into the soil to extract nutrients (some research suggests sugar cane roots may go down as far as six meters). Very few of those nutrients make it into white or brown sugar, and regular and dark molasses contain some, but it’s blackstrap molasses which gets the bulk of the minerals. So, when you add just a couple tablespoons of blackstrap molasses to your energy drink, you’re getting more than twice the potassium than a banana, more calcium than a cup of raw spinach, and almost 100 mg of magnesium.
5.Mix it all together until everything melts and it’s a dark brown murky viscous fluid. I didn’t include specific amounts, but start with a couple tablespoons of each sweetener and the juice from one coconut (or one carton of coconut water). You’ll be cruising for the first bit of the race, thanks to your effective pre-race training and fueling, but when you really start dipping into your glycogen stores, having a banana or two and a bottle of high-potency Primal energy drink will prove useful.
Good luck. If you train and fuel smartly, you won’t really need any luck at all, but I figure it’s a nice thing to say regardless.
Once you’re done with the marathon, I’d move on to different things. Try rock climbing. Try mountain trekking. Heck, try an ultra marathon, but do it at an even easier, fat-oxidizing pace. But many of you will not. Many will get the endurance bug, and it’s a nasty one. This method of training and fueling is not a cure for the bug, but it will negate some of the worst symptoms. If you do try my training and fueling recommendations, let me know how you do. I’m especially interested in knowing how they compare to performances using other methods.
In 2011, Slater picked up his 11th ASP World Title as well as his 17th SURFER Poll No. 1 trophy. There's never been another surfer like him, and the landslide he wins SURFER Poll by each year is a testament to the dominance he's exerted over four generations of surfers. In fact, making an argument that he's the best athlete of all time doesn't take much of a leap of faith.
Leading into this post, I promised myself that I wouldn’t try to dissuade people from running marathon(s) or any long distance races. I already do that plenty in other posts, so today’s is geared toward the folks that simply are going to run a marathon or marathons, regardless of what I say. I know these people exist because I used to be one. Running a marathon can be a huge bucket-list accomplishment. With that in mind, when people write in to ask me about training for a marathon, I think about what I would do in that situation knowing what I know now. How would I train to do the least damage and get the most benefit? Truth is, if I put my mind to it, and you had elite level potential, I could most likely train some of you to win the thing outright, but that’s not what this post is about. This post is about finishing the race without embarrassing and/or hurting yourself. It’s about accomplishing something big, something special. It’s about training for a decent, respectable showing in a marathon. One (or two, or three if you must) and done.
To be an effective marathoner – or even to just finish one – you have to be an effective fat burner. It is the beta-oxidation of fat, both dietary and stored body fat, that provides much of the aerobic energy you will need to maintain reasonable pace for 26.2 miles. I mean, 26.2 miles is a whole lot of miles. When you’re driving somewhere and the sign says “26 miles” to your destination, you think “That’s kinda close, but kinda far.” Now picture that on foot. Yeah. Good luck doing that as a fully dependent sugar-burner. Fat’s the ticket, and if you have spent the requisite few weeks reprogramming your body to derive most of your energy from fat while at rest and at low level of activity (through your PB diet), you will be primed to access fat while training.
With that in mind, you’re not really training for a marathon, per se – you’re training your body to become more efficient with its energy so that you can run a marathon. You’re actually reapportioning how your body uses various types of fuel at different activity levels. Thus, training for a marathon comes down to three primary goals:
1. Achieve mitochondrial biogenesis and optimality.Increasing the number of mitochondria (biogenesis) will spread the aerobic workload – the beta oxidation of fats and some glucose/glycogen- across more cellular power plants. Improving the number and efficiency of your mitochondria will allow you to do more output (running) with less reliance on glucose and/or glycogen as a primary fuel and more reliance on fat (input). In effect, this will increase your “miles per gallon.” Only instead of filling the tank with gasoline, you’re using stored body fat.
2. Increase the amount of fat burnt relative to carbs at a given work output.Glycogen depletion is the defining point of “hitting the wall,” so you want to avoid the wall as long as you can. Remember, it’s 26.2 miles. The more fat you’re able to burn and turn into useable energy, the less glycogen you’ll go through. Muscle glycogen storage is very limited, and whether you’re a sugar-burner or a fat-burner, you’re still going to store the same amount of glycogen – it’s the rate at which you deplete it that counts. If you can access fat more efficiently and use fat for work that would normally require glycogen, you’re winning. If you can train to use fat for higher workloads, you can increase or maintain the intensity without dipping too deeply into your muscle glycogen.
3. Increase your aerobic threshold.The aerobic threshold is the maximum level of output at which you are still relying primarily on the aerobic, or oxidative, energy pathways. As long as you stay under that aerobic threshold, you can train yourself primarily using fat to generate ATP energy (and your high fat diet plays a key role here, too). Once you cross that threshold you start burning more sugar. As you get further into anaerobic territory, however, you’re burning mostly sugar – liver and muscle glycogen. Sugar burns faster (and hotter), and it doesn’t last nearly as long as fat. So if you can increase your aerobic threshold, you should be able to increase the intensity of your runs without dipping too deeply into your glycogen stores. Ideally, then, a prospective marathoner will train to increase his or her aerobic threshold (we’ll save the ANaerobic threshold discussions for another day). That way, you can save the glycogen for the finish line, when it really matters.
One way to start out is to simply keep your heart rate at or below 65% of your max on longer runs (and this might eventually become 70-75% of max as your training benefits accumulate). To determine a person’s aerobic threshold, I find the most intuitive way is to have them run “long” (6-12 miles after a few weeks of sufficient low level training) runs on back-to-back days on fewer than 150 grams carbs per day. If you can complete both runs, both days, without adding back extra carbs, you’ll know you haven’t been dipping too deeply into your glycogen stores. If so, that’s your aerobic threshold pace. Remember it.
As for a specific training prescription, here’s what I’d do every week, beginning at least 12 weeks before the event and generalized for the widest possible audience:
1. Two to three slow aerobic threshold runs.These should be easy runs performed just below or at your aerobic threshold at the type of pace you can easily maintain. If you are just starting out from little run training, these sessions can be long hikes with easy jogs thrown in. These are great opportunities to just log mileage and improve fat oxidation efficiency without too much stress, where you can actually think about stuff other than the run (hey, maybe even work through some personal issues). For improving mitochondrial efficiency and stimulating mitochondrial biogenesis, these aerobic threshold runs (and your Primal Blueprint eating strategy) will be your bread and butter – the kind of low-level training I referenced in the post on improving mitochondrial efficiency through exercise.
To really promote fat oxidation, limit your carbs or even go into these runs in a slightly fasted state. When you begin dipping into glycogen, or hitting the wall (which might come soon-ish since you’re fasted or slightly carb depleted), back off. You want to stay away from the anaerobic pathway. The length of these runs will depend on your baseline endurance, and you’ll soon be able to stay under the aerobic threshold for longer (which is the whole point!). I would add a mile each week to the longest of these runs.
2. One interval session, followed by an active recovery day.Run intervals one day a week – alternating repeat 400 m one week, 800 m the next. Walk or jog for two minutes in between. For the 400s, start with as many as you can comfortably do the first week and add one each week until you are at 12 intervals for the workout; for the 800s, work your way up to 10. On a scale of 1-20 with 20 being the most intense, keep the intensity at about a 14-16. It’s not an all-out sprint, because, well, good luck sprinting 800 meters multiple times, but this is at faster than your intended marathon race pace for sure. The next day, go for a walk or hike or go bike somewhere. Don’t go climb Half Dome or anything. Keep it pretty light.
For the intervals, you’ll definitely want to carb-load the day before. Slam the sweet potatoes and yams, about 400 carb grams worth, since you’ll purposely be blasting through your glycogen that next day.
3. One race-pace run.Here, you’re trying to emulate the race pace without going the actual distance. It’s necessarily higher intensity than your regular runs, just at or slightly above your aerobic threshold. It’s going to be tougher, too, with some glycogen depletion. Don’t expect to pull out your iPhone and check Facebook in the middle of it.
Start with at least two or three miles, or a bit more than whatever length your threshold runs are, and add a mile each week (minimum).
If you plan on doing this barefoot or in minimalist running shoes, be absolutely certain your lower body is acclimated to it. A marathon is a long way for someone whose feet, calves, knees, and hips (with all the connective tissues that go along with said joints and body parts) have only been spending cursory time exercising without protective footwear. Review my post on making the barefoot transition and confirm that your ship is in shape.
Well, that’s what I’ve got. Remember, this is just general advice for the wider public. If you were my client, I’d tailor the training to you, but you’re not. For what it’s worth, this is how I’d train myself I were crazy enough to get back into running marathons, because it’s effective, it’s low-cost, and it’s actually a fairly healthy way to go about training for one. I mean who doesn’t want rockstar mitochondria?
Any runners out there? Any marathoners? How do you train?
Next time, I’ll discuss how to fuel a marathon while staying Primal. And yes, it’s very possible.
Whew, and I didn’t even mention the phrase “Chronic Cardio” once. I’m pretty proud of myself. Thanks for reading.
Kelly Slater has been confirmed in the 27th edition of the Quiksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau. The 10-time world surfing champion was one of the invited riders and will paddle out, if a big swell hits Waimea Bay, in Hawaii, between December 1st and February 29, 2012.
The opening ceremony has already taken place and the elite surfers gave their hands to praise the gods. It’s a rare international sporting event that can have no set date, be held just eight times in a span of 27 years, and still gain strength.
But the lifeblood of the big wave Quiksilver In Memory of Eddie Aikau lies in what one man’s life represented: the best that surfing and Hawaii have to offer the world.
The story of Eddie Aikau, a Hawaiian hero who saved and inspired lives as Waimea Bay’s resident lifeguard and big wave charger, continues to touch generations. It’s a story that is told anew each December, when the opening ceremony for the event in his honor takes place on Oahu’s North Shore, as it did yesterday.
The Quiksilver In Memory of Eddie Aikau is a one-day big wave surfing event that only runs when, and if, waves at Waimea Bay reach a minimum height of 20 feet. It was last held in December of 2009.
It is a tribute to Aikau, who rode the mountainous waves of Waimea Bay in the late ’60s and early ’70s and saved lives as its first full-time lifeguard. He was lost at sea in 1978, west of the Hawaiian Islands during a voyage of the Polynesian sailing canoe, Hokule’a.
Hokule’a capsized in heavy seas, stranding her crew. Eddie insisted upon paddling for land to get help, but was never seen again.
“There will be waves,” said Hawaiian kahu (priest) Billy Mitchell, in a voice that traveled to the far reaches of the bay. “But those of you here today know that this is about much more than that.
“Eddie had a passion. He had a passion about living and loving the ocean. Whether you surf or you don’t surf, you are drawn to people like Eddie in life. People with big mana (spirit). We have to remember, and we cannot forget, someone who lived this way. Eddie never left people behind. It was his way. We need that in this life, especially now. It’s a way to surf; it’s a way to live.
“This event is Eddie’s story, and it is a ripple in the ocean to travel around the world.” The defending champion is California’s Greg Long. Past champions are Denton Miyamura (Hawaii), Keone Downing (Hawaii), Clyde Aikau (Hawaii), Noah Johnson (Hawaii), Ross Clarke-Jones (Australia), Kelly Slater (USA), and Bruce Irons (Hawaii).
"With a career as a professional triathlete spanning over a decade it's now time for a new direction and new goals. Having done triathlons and endurance sports for the better part of my life it's still something I'm very passionate about and I'm happy to stay in the endurance world but now as a coach. With a combination of theoretical knowledge from my university studies and experience from my own career my goal is to offer customized training programs with a personal touch".
Please log onto www.bjornandersson.se for more information or contact me at info@bjornandersson.se (or just click on the title link)
Bjorn Andersson
About Björn Andersson With a career as a professional spanning over ten years with several international victories as well as eight national titles, Björn Andersson is one of the most successful triathletes coming out of Sweden.
Career Highlights
•1st Wildflower triathlon •1st UK 70.3 Ironman •1st Timberman 70.3 Ironman •1st Norseman Xtreme triathlon (course record) •1st Nautica Malibu triathlon •3rd European championships Ironman 70.3 •8 time national triathlon champion •Cycling national team time trial champion
The script for the 2011 Rip Curl Pro Search San Francisco probably didn't go down the way Kelly Slater, or anyone else for that matter, pictured it. First Slater wins his 11th World Title on a perfect day at Ocean Beach. Then Slater discovers he didn't win his 11th World Title thanks to an egregious error by the ASP. Then Slater wins his 11th World Title again, this time in a subdued celebration on a cold, windy day. Then Slater is upset by 17-year-old Gabriel Medina of Brazil, who would go on to defeat Australian Joel Parkinson in the finals to win the Rip Curl Pro Search San Francisco.
Still, if you were a fan of surfing and wanted to see the world's best surfers tackle the strong currents, heavy waves and blustery conditions that often accompany Ocean Beach, chances are you weren't disappointed.
While the drama surrounding Kelly Slater's 11th World Title captured most of the attention, it was the incredible display of surfing at Ocean Beach that stole the show. Surfers like Slater, Medina, Parko, Taylor Knox and Josh Kerr humbled a lot of Ocean Beach regulars who rarely see the deep barrel rides and aerial displays that the pros did with relative ease. Without question, the thousands of spectators that assembled to watch the world's best surfers certainly didn't leave disappointed.
As for Slater, his San Francisco experience could be best described as a mixed bag. On one hand he won his 11th World Title here, and his first celebration was during an unbelievable day when Ocean Beach was offering perfect surfing conditions under clear, beautiful sunny skies with light offshore winds. The crowd went crazy and Slater had a blast later that evening drinking beer and bowling.
While it was Slater himself who discovered the ASP's mathematical error that resulted in Slater having to go back out and win another heat to make his 11th World Title official, out he went during a colder day with stronger currents and choppier waves to make sure that the chase wouldn't leave San Francisco. What did disappoint Slater a little though was losing in the quarterfinals to eventual contest winner Medina, resulting in finishing the contest tied for fifth place.
"I was totally out of sync, but got the job done earlier," said Slater shortly after his quarterfinal heat. "It's always nice to try and win the event if you're in it. I just couldn't put it together out there. I've had three fifths this year. I hate fifth places." Slater chuckled after that last comment, although given Slater's competitive drive he probably wasn't joking that much.
Slater did get a chance to talk about his experience in San Francisco. "I expected a little more fog than we had," said Slater, who has reportedly been staying in nearby Pacifica. "Basically it's about what I thought. We went and saw some of the sights, and went into the city a little bit so far. I think we're a little bit lucky with the water temp. It's a bit warmer than I think it usually is. I was surprised I didn't need booties or gloves. It was about what I thought wave wise, and it's been a good trip."
Slater is rumored to still be in the San Francisco area. Don't be surprised if you run into him in the city, or see him at Candlestick Park Sunday when the San Francisco 49ers host the New York Giants in a pivotal NFC Conference game.
Some other notes and thoughts as the Rip Curl Pro Search San Francisco has come to a close:
•One of the fascinating aspects of having an ASP World Tour contest in San Francisco was the old school feel of it. On the first day of the contest, with currents running extremely strong going north to south and no PWCs allowed, surfers like Adriano de Souza would catch waves going right, ride them as far in as they could, then run on the beach north before heading back into the water. This is what professional surfers used to do back in the '80s and '90s. Now, most ASP World Tour contests use PWCs to take surfers back to the lineup when currents become an issue. It was fun watching the surfers having to use their legs more than usual.
•Another unusual aspect of having the contest at Ocean Beach was seeing local surfers repeatedly ignore warnings from the loudspeakers by beach commentators to stay away from the contest zone. This rarely if ever occurs at other ASP World Tour events, although it was a more usual occurrence some 20 years ago. On more than one occasion, you had the best surfers in the world sitting literally in a pack of locals, all of whom were fighting for the same wave. Joel Parkinson reportedly had a local cut him off in the opening round. Kelly Slater was also among the competitors who found themselves at times surrounded by local surfers fighting for the same waves.
•Shortly after Kelly Slater's quarterfinal defeat to Medina, San Francisco 49ers starting quarterback Alex Smith and starting offensive linemen Joe Staley and Adam Snyder, a day removed from the 49ers's 19-11 victory over the Washington Redskins, stopped by Ocean Beach to watch the Rip Curl Pro Search San Francisco. Slater and Smith chatted for a short while. Slater signed autographs for Snyder, a Southern California native who has surfed since high school and owns six surfboards. The 49ers players brought their families along and looked like they were enjoying themselves.
•It was appalling watching ASP CEO Brodie Carr, who came straight to town after the ASP's World Title blunder, celebrating and having beers with ASP Tour Manager Renato Hickel shortly after the completion of the contest. Even though the majority of the surf community doesn't follow the ASP with the same passion and fervor as say a fan of the NFL does, many were clearly outraged over arguably the biggest blunder in ASP history of miscalculating the necessary points needed for the World Title. Carr did the right thing this week, resigning as CEO of the ASP. "It is my duty to accept responsibility for the recent calculation error that resulted in the premature crowning of Kelly Slater's 11th ASP World Title," said Carr. "The determination of the ASP World Title is the most important moment in professional surfing. Ultimately, the responsibility for every activity within ASP lies with me. Therefore, I have elected to resign my position as CEO." Carr wasn't the only person offering his resignation. Hickel offered to resign as well, but his resignation was declined by the ASP board. Carr's decision restores some integrity to the Association of Surfing Professionals.
•Carr's decision to resign as CEO of the ASP came after a meeting of the ASP Board of Directors in San Francisco, at Japantown's Kabuki Hotel. Carr's resignation wasn't the only issue addressed at the meeting. Acording to The Australian, the ASP board decided that starting next year, the ASP will implement drug testing to the World Tour. Details are very vague at this point, including how the tests will be administered and what drugs they will be testing for.
•It was a curious decision by the Rip Curl Pro organizers not to include Fort Point as a San Francisco location in addition to Ocean Beach, especially since a lot of their merchandise had images of Fort Point on them. During one of the lay days, a large number of pro surfers went to Fort Point to try out one of the few good point breaks north of Santa Cruz. The surfers had a great time with San Francisco's iconic left point break.
•Kalani Miller, Kelly Slater's longtime girlfriend, is a million times hotter in person, both in looks and personality. Miller, a former Roxy model who recently started a business called MIKOH Swimwear that has quickly risen in popularity, usually shows up to contests to support her boyfriend. Considering Slater's history of conquests, including Pamela Anderson, Giselle Bundchen, Bar Rafaeli, and Cameron Diaz, one could be a little surprised considering Miller prefers to be out of the limelight. Given Miller's friendly persona and beautiful looks, one can fully understand why Slater is happy settling down.
•Slater and Miller own a rescue dog named Action. When asked what breed the dog is, Miller said, "Mix. We rescued her, so we don't know the breed." Slater was introducing Action to numerous people after his quarterfinal heat, including some kids who were in the athlete area.
Sad but true, Kelly Slater's eleventh World Title will forever be remembered for the ASP's inexplicable inability to properly calculate the standings and prematurely award him the title. When the news broke on Nov. 4 the surf world reacted with collective bafflement, but to be sure, mistakes happen ... and when it comes to sports, they've happened on a much larger scale. So looking to find some context, here's a few officiating slips that might compare:
On June 2, 2010, Detroit Tiger's pitcher Armando Galarraga throws a perfect game into the bottom of the ninth, then umpire Jim Joyce botches a call that would have been the final out of the game. Galarraga still gets the win, but perfection is denied. "I got a perfect game," Galarraga would tell ESPN.com afterwards. "Maybe it's not in the book, but I'm going to show my son the CD."
There's the famous 1979 Rose Bowl in which the USC and Michigan were locked in a down-to-the-wire battle. Tied at 10 points a piece, USC's Charles White fumbled on the one-yard line, which was then recovered by Michigan. But taking place before the institution of instant replay, officials awarded USC the ball in the end zone for a touchdown. USC won the game 17-10.
Another classic is Scotty Pippen's "phantom foul" from Game Five of the 1994 NBA Eastern Conference Semifinals against the New York Knicks. With Michael Jordan off playing baseball, the weight of the Bulls was on Pippen's shoulders. In the closing seconds of the game Chicago was clinging to a narrow lead when referee Hue Hollins called Pippen for a foul against guard Hubert Davis during an unsuccessful three-point attempt. Davis would make all three shots to win the game, but shortly thereafter a photo would emerge that proved without doubt that Pippen had not committed a foul. Ultimately, the Knicks won the series in Game Seven.
In a 1990 NCAA football game Colorado was playing Missouri. On forth down, with seconds remaining, Buffalo quarterback Charles Johnson spiked the ball to stop the clock. Due to the officials not properly changing the down marker, Johnson received an "extra" down and would go in to score a touchdown and win the game. Colorado went on to win the National Championship that season, but not until years later did Coach Bill McCartney call the mistake "truly remorseful."
Of more legendary note, there's the 1927 Heavyweight Boxing Championship against Gene Tunney and Jack Dempsey. After upsetting Dempsey in their first fight, the two met again on Sept. 27, 1927, at Chicago's Soldier Field. Tunney was clearly winning the fight after six rounds, but in the seventh Dempsey lands a four-punch combo to knock Tunney down. While referee Dave Barry is moving Dempsey to his corner the timekeeper starts to count. When the ref returns to where Tunney is laying he should begin on the count of six, but instead begins counting at one. Tunney stays on the canvas until the count of nine, when he gets up and continues the fight. Instead of the standard 10 seconds, Tunney gets 15 seconds to recover. He would win the fight by an unanimous 10-round decision.
And finally, in 1972 the U.S. and U.S.S.R. met in the Olympic Basketball finals. With just a couple ticks left on the clock America's Doug Collins is fouled hard while cutting to the hoop. He makes the first free throw, which tied the game. Before shooting his second free throw the buzzer goes off, signaling the end of the game. But the Soviets protest, saying they called timeout before the final buzzer sounded and officials add three seconds to the clock. The Soviets inbound the ball and blow their opportunity, but while the American players are celebrating the Secretary General of the International Basketball Federation orders the refs to reset the clock again because they had put the ball into play before the clock had been officially reset. The Soviets win the game with a lay-up. The Americans are enraged and refuse to claim their silver medals, which still sit in a Swiss vault.
So there you have it, was the bad call that delayed Slater's eleventh World Title the worst call in sports history? Hardly. Embarrassing to be sure, but at the end of the day, the right guy won. And while the ASP may have some work to do polishing its image, as they say, no harm, no foul. Slater's still the best, and there's no denying that.
"something magical happened," Kelly Slater told the crowd in his moment of triumph, and he spoke not just for himself, but for the nearly 2,000 people who showed up at Ocean Beach on Wednesday to watch one of history's greatest athletes clinch his 11th world title on the pro surfing tour.
Slater was carried up the beach on the shoulders of two friends, having won his Round 3 heat in the Rip Curl Pro Search event to clinch at least ninth place in the event, which mathematically secures the world title. A constant refrain could be heard from longtime members of the Bay Area surf community: "I can't believe it happened here."
Ocean Beach will never be a popular destination among travel-minded surfers. With its punishing surf, shifting currents and utter unpredictability, it's not even on many locals' radar. But it came to life in all its autumnal glory Wednesday, with balmy weather, offshore winds and gorgeous, blue-green waves up to eight feet on the face.
"Look at this," said Slater, surveying the breadth of Ocean Beach to the south. "The whole beach is just going off."
Just two days before, Slater stood at the site in cold, gloomy conditions and pictured "a ghost town" when the contest began. "I literally wondered if anyone would show up," he said. "And I didn't know what to expect. I'd been hearing all these rumors about people (grumpy locals) messing with the event. But everybody's been so cool. The turnout was incredible. I've had kids coming up to me saying, 'I'm so stoked to have you at our home break.' It's a very special time."
Most special of all, perhaps, is Slater's place in sports history. It may startle you to realize this, but by significant measure - absolute dominance over a long period of time - he is the greatest athlete of all time.
Slater won his first world championship in 1992, and his 2011 title - at the age of 39 - marks a 20-year span. Only briefly, during that entire time, has anyone been considered even close to Slater in reputation and competitive performance. That was the late Andy Irons, a three-time world champion who died of heart failure a year ago Wednesday.
Irons won his three titles consecutively (2002 to '04), but in two of those years Slater was in semi-retirement and not a presence on tour. And it's safe to say that at no point in those 20 years, no matter what the circumstances, did Slater lose his global reputation as the world's best.
Who else can say that? Not Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, Muhammad Ali or Roger Federer. Most of the great ones were immersed in rivalries: Ali-Joe Frazier, Federer-Rafael Nadal, Jack Nicklaus-Arnold Palmer, Magic Johnson-Larry Bird. And even among those who had no peers - the likes of Woods, Jordan and Gretzky - the dominance wasn't sustained for 20 years.
The subject of pure athletic ability is a matter of personal taste. Most would find it distasteful to bring a surfer into any conversation that concerns hitting a baseball, carrying a football into a den of violence, or standing up to 12 rounds of prizefight punishment. The comparisons hardly seem appropriate.
On the other hand, give me any living athlete in the pantheon of his sport, and let me unveil some Slater footage: dropping into a 20-foot Pipeline wave, winning the prestigious Eddie Aikau event at Waimea Bay, taking on the almost mythically dangerous reef break at Teahupo'o, Tahiti. I'll guarantee you that person's mind will be blown. Slater may have finessed his way to glory in front of the Ocean Beach crowd, but this is a serious, relentless competitor in life-threatening conditions as extreme as any sport can provide.
Fittingly, there was high drama to Slater's Round 3 heat against Australia's Dan Ross, who had the lead until the last four minutes. At that point, Slater needed a score of 6.88 (on a scale of 10) to win the man-on-man heat. At about the 3:45 mark, he picked off an ordinary wave and tore it apart with a sequence of strong, well-timed maneuvers. "Not a great wave," someone remarked in the press area, "until Kelly made it great."
With about a minute to go, the judges' score came through: 7.60. Ross was fully capable of taking back the lead, but with the seconds counting down and the sea gone quiet, he never got the chance.
Whisked onto a podium for interviews, Slater heard many questions about his age. "To me, it's literally just a number," he said. "You see people 100 years old and you can't believe they lived that long, but to them, it's not baffling. I don't see why at 50 I can't be in better shape than I am right now. I think I'm going to be. That's what I'd like to represent. I mean, 39 is young to half the people in this world."
As he talked, everyone took a glance back at the ocean. After hours and hours of pure conditions, the wind was changing. Just a slight hint of onshore flow.
For the fanciful at heart, it was something magical, a sign that nothing could change until Slater clinched his title, the power of which would draw those contrary winds toward shore like a magnet.
Naturally, that's not what really happened. No way, right? Of course not.
Wednesday's highlights -- Before the contest, some 40 surfers paddled out and gathered in a circle to pay tribute to Andy Irons, the three-time world champion who died a year ago Wednesday. Irons, who had taken ill during a contest in Puerto Rico, died of heart failure in a Dallas hotel room en route home to his native Kauai.
-- Dusty Payne, the 22-year-old Hawaiian surfer who claimed to have seen a shark during his first-round heat Tuesday, lost his man-on-man heat to Brazil's Raoni Monteiro and was eliminated from the contest.
-- Australia's Kieren Perrow had a huge day, knocking off former world champion Mick Fanning in the morning (Round 2) and world No. 3 Adriano de Souza in the afternoon (Round 3).
-- Legendary bodysurfer Mark Cunningham, visiting from Hawaii to witness the event, walked about a mile to the south of the contest site to join Dan Malloy, Tim Reyes, Steve Dwyer, Ryan Seelbach and local mainstay Kevin Starr, among others, in an all-star morning session.
-- Kelly Slater's triumph made it feel as if the contest had ended, but in fact, the climactic rounds are at hand. There's little chance of it resuming today, with smaller surf and contrary (northwest) winds predicted, and it may be several days before the northwesterlies subside.
Best of the best To be at the top of your sport for two decades, as Kelly Slater has been for surfing, is hard to imagine. Here are some other athletes who dominated their sports, and how long they were able to sustain that dominance (years approximate in some cases):
Tiger Woods, golf: 12 years
Roger Federer, tennis: 8 years
Wayne Gretzky, hockey: 10 years
Bill Russell, NBA: 13 years
Michael Jordan, NBA: 8 years
Jerry Rice, NFL: 10 years
Edwin Moses, 400-meter hurdles: 10 years
Eddy Merckx, cycling: 12 years
Alexander Karelin, Greco-Roman wrestling heavyweight: 13 years
KAPALUA, Hawaii -- Lance Armstrong crashed and hit his head with about a mile to go in the mountain-bike ride and faded from second to 23rd in the running leg of the XTERRA World Championship, with Austria's Michael Weiss finishing strong to win the off-road triathlon Sunday.
"I just crashed, crashed as we were coming back," the 40-year-old Armstrong said. "I hit it harder than I thought because I stood there for a while taking inventory, trying to remember my name. That probably took a little out of me, obviously, took a little out of me standing there for a minute or so. I have never hit my head that hard before."
Weiss completed the mile ocean swim, 18.3-mile mountain-bike ride and 6.1-mile trail run in 2 hours, 27 minutes. South Africa's Dan Hugo was second, 33 seconds back, and Eneko Llanos of Spain was third.
Armstrong finished in 2:36:59.
The seven-time Tour de France winner, fifth in the XTERRA USA Championship in Utah last month in his first triathlon in 22 years, faded badly in the run on a day where the temperature reached 90 degrees.
"Everybody paid the price on the run, even Weiss, who can run," Armstrong said. "It's just a damn hard course, a death march."
Weiss passed Armstrong about 14 miles into the bike leg.
"I can just say it is an honor for me to race Lance," said Weiss, a 2004 Olympian in mountain biking for Austria. "I outrode him on the bike, from my point of view."
South Africa's Conrad "The Caveman" Stoltz, the South African who won his fourth title in the event last year, dropped out on the third mile of the run.
Lesley Paterson of San Diego won the women's race.
