Four years before I was born, in the summer of 1984, my parents hiked to the fire lookout on Yellowstone鈥檚 10,210-foot Mount Washburn and wrote their names in the lime-green federal supply service logbook stored inside. They were newly engaged. She was a 22-year-old nursing student from rural Minnesota who鈥檇 left behind the cornfields for a summer job folding sheets and working reception at the park鈥檚 Canyon Lodge; he was a 24-year-old ski patroller who spent off-seasons pumping gas at the Yellowstone Park Service Station (YPSS) at Canyon Village. Taking advantage of the long daylight of the Wyoming summer, they dashed out of work and hiked the six-mile trail from Chittenden Road, reaching the two-story, panoramic lookout with just enough time to get back to the car before dark.

8/14/84

Amy Peltier, Litchfield MN

Note to Steve Brown鈥擨鈥檒l meet you here Aug 25, 2018

I love you! 鈥擜my

Steve Brown, Sandpoint, Idaho (also Canyon YPSS) Wow what a surprise to meet my fianc茅 on this obscure mountain outpost. Thanks for showing up, Amy. P.S. Try not to eat so many flowers on the way down.

My dad doesn鈥檛 remember the flower joke. My mom doesn鈥檛 remember why she picked 2018. August 25 was the day summer park employees celebrated 鈥淐hristmas,鈥� with extravagant holiday decorations and gifts鈥攁 way to wind down the season together. This explains the many Merry Christmas messages written in the same register ten days later, including another from my mom after she鈥檇 hiked up the mountain again with two of her summer friends.

8/24/84 Never thought I鈥檇 come up here with 2 easterners. Love ya Foz and Sheila. See you up here next year, Christmas Eve.

Amy Peltier

Litchfield, Minnesota

Canyon Employee0

My parents met at the employee bar in the basement of Canyon Lodge. She was with friends, and he bought her a beer. It was only a matter of weeks before my dad called his sister to tell her he鈥檇 met the woman he was going to marry. His grandmother helped him buy a ring.

Over the two summers they worked in the park, my parents went adventuring. They drove my dad鈥檚 1970 green Chevy truck down a nearly impassable road deep into the Beartooths and hiked to Grasshopper Glacier鈥攏amed for the thousands of extinct insects found frozen in its ice. They paddled a Huck Finn鈥搒tyle log raft around an alpine lake in the Wind River Range. Sometimes they just walked the loop of boardwalks around the park鈥檚 Norris Geyser basin after work, or along the rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River to the Artist Point overlook. After my mom went back to school in Minnesota, they wrote hundreds of letters. When she graduated, my dad took the bus out to marry her.

I know what they wrote on Washburn because after a lightning strike burned one of Yellowstone鈥檚 historic fire lookouts to the ground, my mom texted our family鈥檚 group thread, frantic that the summit books might have burned, too. And so I went to look for them. I started thinking about how my family, and so many like ours, had left little fragments of themselves in notebooks and ammo cans on top of mountains. The spontaneous messages drafted in a surge of summit exhilaration, or love or loneliness, or in memory of someone who wasn鈥檛 there. Or simply in wonder at the supplicatory beauty of this blue-green earth.

The post Why Do We Leave Notes on Top of Mountains? It鈥檚 Personal. appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

If Courtney Dauwalter could travel back in time, this is what she would do: She鈥檇 join a wagon train crossing the American continent, Oregon Trail-style, for a week, maybe more, just to see if she could swing it. It would be hard, and also pretty smelly, but Dauwalter wonders what type of person she鈥檇 be if she deliberately decided to take that journey. Would she stop in the plains and build a farm? Could she make it to the Rocky Mountains? How much suffering could she take, and how daunted might she be by the terrain ahead of her?

鈥淚f you get to Denver and this huge mountain range is coming out of the earth, are you the type of person who stops and thinks, 鈥楾his is good鈥�?鈥� she wonders. 鈥淥r are you the person who鈥檚 like, 鈥榃hat鈥檚 on the other side?鈥欌�夆��

Dauwalter is probably the best female trail runner in the world鈥攁 once-in-a-generation athlete. She鈥檚 hard to miss at the sport鈥檚 most famous races, and not just because of the nineties-style basketball shorts she prefers. (Her explanation: she just likes them.) It鈥檚 because she鈥檚 often running among the leading men in the sport, smiling beneath her mirrored sunglasses. The 38-year-old is five foot seven and lean, with smile lines and hair streaked with highlights from abundant time spent in high-altitude sun.

Dauwalter shared her historical daydream with me while sipping a pink sparkling water at her house in Leadville, Colorado, after a four-hour morning training run. Her cross-country wagon musings get at why she鈥檚 the best female trail runner ever to live: Dauwalter is curious. She鈥檚 curious about pain, about limits, about possibility. This quality is fundamental to what makes her so good.

Over the past seven years, Dauwalter has won almost everything she鈥檚 entered. In 2016, she set a course record at the Javelina Jundred鈥攁n exposed, looped route through the Sonoran Desert of Arizona. That same year she won the Run Rabbit Run 100-miler in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, by a margin of 75 minutes, despite experiencing temporary blindness for the last 12 miles (she could only see a foggy sliver of her own feet). Because of ultrarunning鈥檚 huge distances, it鈥檚 not unheard of to beat the competition by so much, but it doesn鈥檛 happen with the frequency that Dauwalter manages.

In 2018, she won the extremely competitive Western States 100 in California; it was her first time on the course. A year later, she set a new course record while winning the prestigious Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB), besting the second-place finisher by just under an hour. In 2022, she set the fastest known time on the 166.9-mile Collegiate Loop Trail in her backyard in Colorado, and she won (and set a new course record at) the Hardrock 100, a grueling high-altitude loop through the state鈥檚 San Juan Mountains.

Dauwalter is also one of the few runners of her caliber to seriously dabble in the really long distance races. In 2017, she won the Moab 240鈥攜es, that鈥檚 240 miles鈥攊n two days, nine hours, and fifty-five minutes, ten hours ahead of the second-place finisher. She ran even farther at Big鈥檚 Backyard Ultra in 2020, a quirky test of wills where athletes complete a 4.167-mile course every hour on the hour until only one runner is left. Dauwalter set a women鈥檚 course record of just over 283 miles.

Given everything she鈥檚 accomplished, it鈥檚 hard to believe that this summer was her most successful yet. At the end of June, she returned to Western States, where she smashed the women鈥檚 course record by more than an hour and finished sixth overall. When she passed , who finished ninth, he remembers how calm and collected she looked, running all alone. 鈥淢y pacer looked back at me and said, 鈥楯eff, I can鈥檛 even keep up with her right now,鈥欌�夆�� he says. Less than three weeks later, she won Hardrock again, taking fourth place overall and setting a new women鈥檚 course record. The race changes direction on the looped course each year, and she now holds both the clockwise and counterclockwise records.

In the interest of testing herself one more time, in late August she traveled to France to run the UTMB again. She won that race too, becoming the first person in history to win all three races in a single summer. 鈥淪he鈥檚 one of those humans who defy even the concept of an outlier,鈥� says Clare Gallagher, a former Western States winner who has raced against Dauwalter in the past. 鈥淚 look at her summer and I have no words. It鈥檚 truly hard to conceptualize.鈥�

Dauwalter led UTMB from the start, and she finished more than an hour ahead of the woman in second place. As she descended the final stretch of trail, she was followed by a barrage of cameras and a handful of people who looked like they just wanted a bit of her magic to rub off on them. As crowds roared on either side of the finish line in Chamonix, she looked back at the spectators and clapped in their direction, never raising her hands above her head or pumping her fists in the air. After hugging her parents and her husband, 39-year-old Kevin Schmidt, she jogged back in the direction she鈥檇 just come to high-five hundreds of fans.

The post How Did Courtney Dauwalter Get So Damn Fast? appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

The is a perfect piece of granite, rising from the Yosemite Valley floor like the point of a crown and forming the spillway of Bridalveil Fall. Climbers know it as one of America鈥檚 most continuously overhanging cliffs, and the way it leans gives an impression that is both gentle and imposing.

For Mason Earle, the tower has deeper significance. This is where he was climbing on the day when, as he puts it, he died.

On May 11, 2018, around 5 P.M., the golden hour of a Yosemite spring evening, Earle and his climbing partner Nik Berry were finishing a productive session together. Earle had sent the crux pitch on a route they鈥檇 chosen, called Wet Lycra Nightmare. He was exhausted, but it was the settled-in kind of fatigue that comes from working hard.

They rappelled off the cliff and were starting the walk back to their vehicles when Earle suddenly felt an excruciating pain in his neck, along with the overwhelming sensation that his whole system was crashing. 鈥淏y the time I reached my van, the only thing I could think was, Something isn鈥檛 right,鈥� he recalls. 鈥淚 remember thinking, This isn鈥檛 something that鈥檚 going to go away.鈥�

Earle, 29 at the time, was considered one of the best crack climbers in the sport. Sponsored by Eddie Bauer, he鈥檇 put up bold first ascents in places like Venezuela and Canada鈥檚 Northwest Territories, and he鈥檇 completed one of the , a 5.14 overhanging finger route called Cobra Crack in Squamish, British Columbia. He鈥檇 also appeared with Berry and Alex Honnold in Sender Films鈥� 2016 production Showdown at Horseshoe Hell, a in which Earle and Berry comically portray a pair of scrappy underdogs.

Earle treated climbing like a job, but he also found time for other interests. He played guitar, banjo, and lute. He built things, including a decorative steel fire pit and other functional art. Before his mysterious episode in Yosemite, he was planning to get married to his great love, Ally Coconis. They鈥檇 met at the national park in their early twenties. She was working for its wildlife-management program鈥攁 summer job linked to the career she was considering in wildlife science鈥攚hile he was living out of his Volvo and climbing. 鈥淚t was a romantic and carefree beginning,鈥� she says. 鈥淲e were very young and living our best lives.鈥�

In September 2017, they bought a house together in Salt Lake City, where she worked at the while he made regular trips to Moab. Earle was nearly always doing something, even on rest days. He鈥檇 work on their house or on art projects. He loved riding bikes and kept a fleet of strange rigs he鈥檇 built or modified鈥攊ncluding his pride and joy, a bike with a lightweight, propane-powered engine on the back that shot flames. They had good friends and were part of a tight-knit community. There was a lot of lightness in their existence.

But there was something hanging over 2018. Earle had been getting sick a lot that spring. Little colds here and there, then a case of the mumps. He didn鈥檛 know it at the time, but that day on the Leaning Tower would be his last as a climber.

The post How Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Grounded a World-Class Climber appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

Maps don鈥檛 always tell the truth. Maybe you already knew this. Maybe, like me, you鈥檝e ended up in the sort of road-to-nowhere predicament that only a willfully oblivious reliance on Google Maps can achieve. The left turn onto a dirt road that is supposedly a shortcut in reality leads the wrong way into the middle of nowhere on a quarter tank of gas.

We place so much blind faith in maps鈥攚e assume that the size of a town, shape of a continent, or length of a trail is true and fixed. But maps are created from data, and data is collected by humans. If we get the data wrong鈥攕ay, the or the precise bend of a river鈥攖hen our map will be inaccurate.

Maps lie in many other ways, too: with symbols, through generalizations, because of scale, by omission. Italian physicist Carlo Rovelli mused in his 2019 book, , about how a map鈥檚 point of view inherently warps reality. Consider, he writes, 鈥渢hose maps in mountain villages showing routes that can be walked with a red dot next to which is written: You are Here. A strange phrase: how can a map know where we are? We might be looking at it from afar, through binoculars. Instead, it should say 鈥業, a map, am here鈥� with an arrow next to the red dot.鈥�

Maps lie from the get-go when they transfer three-dimensional space onto a flat plane. This process, called projection, inevitably warps that space by pressing it into two dimensions鈥攍ike an orange peel spread onto a table. We owe some of our enduringly skewed perspective of Earth to a man named , who in the 16th century created one of the more familiar renderings of a flattened globe. Mercator鈥檚 map shows a giant Greenland and the Western world at its center. To Mercator鈥檚 credit, his map was created for the purposes of navigation, and it does this well鈥攂ut it sucks for visual accuracy.

It鈥檚 not just about clarity鈥攎aps can also be manipulated to reinforce power dynamics. For instance, , which have never been consistent or accurate, don鈥檛 come close to representing the convoluted history and politics of the region. By reducing the complexity of a given place, these maps control鈥攁nd censor鈥攖he political narrative. A map of California real estate listings will advertise schools and walk scores but omit the proximity to in an effort to conceal the health risks of buying in that area. The practice of manipulates electoral districts to favor one party over another, which is how you wind up with such strange contortions and thin, snaking appendages on legislative maps.

But more often than not, maps lie to make things easier to understand. Cartography is both an art and a science. It鈥檚 an attempt to make things both clearer and more beautiful. , a retired geography and environment professor at Syracuse University and the preeminent scholar of cartographic deception, , 鈥淭here鈥檚 no escape from the cartographic paradox: to present a useful and truthful picture, an accurate map must tell white lies.鈥�

Every map is drawn based on a hierarchy of information: it includes the most relevant details and subtracts the rest based on what the map is ultimately intended for. You could call this lying by omission. Take, for instance, the New York MTA subway map. The is the result of a showdown in the late 1970s between an Italian modernist designer named Massimo Vignelli and a cartographer named John Tauranac. centered on conflicting priorities. was geometric and beautiful: it pared the whole system down to a series of lines on a grid and omitted street names and other spatial features. Tauranac, who was serving as head of the MTA鈥檚 map committee, wanted landmarks and fewer conceptual right angles. The debate, which was described in the recent documentary , as 鈥渢he most controversial of the New York design scene, ever,鈥� on a small stage at the Cooper Union in April 1978. Tauranac won: accuracy over elegant simplicity. It鈥檚 the map that is still in use today: a simplified version of the system but with parks, rivers, and other spatial reference points.

A map presents only one of many possible stories. Even Tauranac鈥檚 subway map doesn鈥檛 show us, for instance, the population density of Rattus norvegicus seen scurrying across the tracks with leftover slices of pizza or the crowdedness of each car. Neither of these information layers are necessary for navigation, even if they are part of the human experience of taking the subway. On the other hand, something like crime statistics or train delays might influence your decision-making in the same way that real-time weather information on a trail-mapping app could affect your route.

Static maps don鈥檛 update in real time like this and must sacrifice a holistic representation of place for the sake of clarity. But digital mapping apps now can include multiple layers of information. They allow users to add, eliminate, and organize the relationship between layers of information. A hunting app like OnX can help you better understand the movement of an animal through a given landscape. Others let you in a location or on the way to the crag. Even the MTA recently launched a of a live subway map (based on Vignelli鈥檚 original design) that allows you to add a layer for COVID-19 vaccination clinics.

Used effectively, digital maps can illuminate things like how roads might affect elk migration patterns or which cultural, spiritual, and historic sites could be destroyed by uranium mining. Still, these layers can鈥檛 show us everything at once, and too much information on a dynamic map will be confusing. A map of Bears Ears National Monument, digital or otherwise, can鈥檛 precisely show all of the area鈥檚 Indigenous place names, boundary changes over time, species distribution, Native American spiritual grounds, and roads and campsites at once without some comprehension being lost. Not to mention the fact that you鈥檙e limited to the frame of whatever device you鈥檙e using. It鈥檚 hard to look at even a small part of the world on an iPhone screen. In his paragraph-long short story 鈥淥n Exactitude in Science,鈥� Argentine writer writes of an empire that finally achieves a perfectly accurate map; to do so, they draw one that is the size of the place itself.

We are mostly passive map readers, and many of the stories they tell us go unchallenged. As we navigate the world, we should ask ourselves: who made this map and how, with what sources and what authority? What鈥檚 been modified? What鈥檚 been left out? To a landlocked elementary schooler, the color of the ocean is the innocuous powder blue of a laminated classroom wall map. The ocean, of course, is not always blue and almost never that specific blue鈥攁 light color chosen according to design principles of hierarchy to better make the continents stand out. But we base so much of our geographic imagination, our understanding of Earth, on these visual cues. I still half-expect the ground to change color when I cross state lines.

Want to learn more about using a map in the wilderness? Check out our online course on , where 国产吃瓜黑料+ members get full access to our library of more than 50 courses on adventure, sports, health, and nutrition.

The post Your Map Is Lying to You appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

It鈥檚 been nearly a month since we last heard anything about the mysterious monolith in Lockhart Basin, Utah. To recap:听it was discovered听on November 23 while wildlife biologists were conducting a survey of bighorn sheep, soon attracted a flurry of tourists, and听听four days later. It was听 by four self-described adventurers and members of the Moab slackline and BASE-jumping scene: Andy Lewis, Sylvan Christensen, Homer Manson, and an anonymous companion.听

But the monolith is back, mostly intact听and now in the custody of the Bureau of Land Management after a torrent of death threats, a federal investigation, and the launch of a nonprofit. Yet听the question still remains: Who put it there to begin with?

First, the investigation.听

After the monolith鈥檚 removal, the U.S. District Attorney鈥檚 office in Utah opened an investigation looking into who took the piece听and who put it there in the first place. Christensen had already posted a video to TikTok claiming responsibility for the theft, so answering the first question was easy. But holding on to the monolith while the second half of the investigation was underway would be considered an obstruction of justice. 鈥淭he idea is, because someone abandoned art and knew a location, and for whatever reason that caused environmental damage, they have to investigate who put that in there,鈥� Lewis (who is also known by his nickname,听Sketchy Andy)听迟辞濒诲 国产吃瓜黑料 on a video call. 鈥淪o听they need to look at it and see if they can find clues.鈥� Following a cooperating agreement and the involvement of attorneys, it was determined that the men would return the monolith to the BLM at an established date and time听and听would not be prosecuted or investigated further.

This is standard procedure for the BLM. Essentially, anything that happens on BLM land is the business of the BLM, even an investigation into property that wasn鈥檛 the agency鈥檚 to begin with. And it听doesn鈥檛 want to set a precedent that people can just go out onto public lands and take things away. This raises a greater philosophical question of听who art belongs to, as well as听how the BLM will treat attempted art on public lands in the future.听

BLM officials wouldn鈥檛 comment on any specific details of the investigation. 鈥淲e understand the public has a strong interest in the status and outcome of any investigations into the installation and removal of the illegally installed structure known as the 鈥榤onolith,鈥欌�� a BLM spokesperson wrote in an email. 鈥淲e will notify the public when we have information to share.鈥�

According to the four slackliners, the decision to steal it was an obvious one. 鈥淭here were a lot of conversations surrounding the monolith, like who put it in there,鈥� said听Lewis. 鈥淭he whole thing just unfortunately cascaded. It鈥檚 because it鈥檚, like, a symbol, right?鈥澨�

A symbol of what is unclear. A symbol that this has been a tough year and we all needed something else to focus on? A symbol that we should stop and consider our impact on public lands? A symbol that no one upstages Sketchy Andy in his own backyard?听

But the cascade Lewis mentioned isn鈥檛 an understatement. In the days following the monolith鈥檚听, thousands of people poured into Moab, a small town on the edge of the desert听already buckling under the weight of tourism. Copycat monoliths showed up in听,, and, only to disappear soon after. On Christensen鈥檚听Instagram feed, shortly after the monolith鈥檚 removal,听, 鈥淲e removed the Utah Monolith because there are clear precedents for how we share and standardize the use of our public lands 鈥� the mystery was the infatuation and we want to use this time to unite people behind the real issue here鈥攚e are losing our public lands鈥攖hings like this don鈥檛 help.鈥澨�

Lewis referred to the removal of听the monument as a 鈥渃haotic-neutral鈥� judgement听call he and his friends made.听鈥淚t obviously can鈥檛 stay there,鈥� said Lewis,听describing their thought process.听鈥淚t just can鈥檛, because it became a destination. We obviously don鈥檛 want to take it鈥攊t鈥檚 not ours. And we don鈥檛 want to destroy it, because it is art. Our decision as a crew was that the chaotic-neutral decision was to remove it as fully intact as possible.鈥澨�

They also said that they started hearing rumors of other plans to steal it. 鈥淲e heard from other people who were like, 鈥極h good job, we were right behind you,鈥欌�� said Manson, who was born in Moab. 鈥淲e literally passed them, and they were the next people coming to take it down.鈥� Still, in their haste, the group lost the top of the monolith, which was already loose from numerous visitors attempting to pry it off. 鈥淲e want whoever has the missing piece to return it,鈥� said Lewis, who stored the monolith in pieces at a friend鈥檚 house and in another undisclosed location听until he was forced to return it to the BLM.

On Sunday, Lewis posted a of the monolith, gleaming in the sunlight of what looks to be a backyard, followed with a lengthy post about the reasons they removed it听and the ways in which a monolith is different from the slacklines, climbing bolts, and space nets that he and his friends regularly erect in the desert. (Among other things, the crew has been accused of taking a hypocritical stance on human impacts to the desert.)听鈥淓verything has its place,鈥� the post read. 鈥淭his is what conservation is about. It was a tragedy to remove the Utah Monolith鈥攁s it was beautiful; and we do apologize.鈥澨�

The backlash surrounding听the monolith鈥檚 removal has been relentless. The men received death threats and calls to the businesses where they each worked. 鈥淚 had a guy call me and just breathe into the phone,鈥� said Lewis. 鈥淧eople saying they were going to hunt us down,听they were going to end us.鈥澨�

Still, the men stood by their convictions, citing Leave No Trace principles. 鈥淎ndy put it good earlier,鈥� said Christensen. 鈥淲e鈥檙e all basically adventurists and public-land users in this area and through that have gained a knowledge of the misuse and the ignorance and some of the problems that we鈥檙e facing.鈥澨�

Which brings us to the nonprofit. 鈥淚 think we decided on a name,鈥� said Christensen. 鈥淭he Desert Canyon Collective.鈥� Their goal now, and their hope for the future as a result of the monolith craziness, is to create awareness around ethical recreation on public lands, as well as to help other area nonprofits already dedicated to听the听issue. They also said听they鈥檒l be conducting their own cleanups of desert trash, which Christensen and Manson described as anything from downed听airplanes and abandoned cars to broken glass along the river. 鈥淸These are] places we use regularly,鈥� said Manson.听

And what about the monolith? The investigation into its origins is still ongoing, and thus far, no one has legitimately come forward to claim it. (Though some are to on the cultural phenomenon.)听But once that concludes, the men who stole it hope that the whole experience will generate a conversation around designated places for art on public lands听and, more broadly, around shared use and good behavior in these places. Christensen referred to a gentlemen鈥檚 agreement to place it in Salt Lake City at the University of Utah鈥檚 Red Butte Garden. 鈥淲e took it out because we wanted to have the voice and the power to gift people the perspective that they need,鈥� said Lewis. Christensen nodded听and added, 鈥淲e didn鈥檛 destroy the art. We kind of changed its direction and made it a bigger thing that surrounds environmental awareness and ethical land recreation.鈥澨�

The post The Saga of the Monolith Isn’t Over Yet appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

At this point, it鈥檚 old news: thriving on a meatless diet can be done. Ultra-颅endurance athletes like Scott Jurek and have 颅forsaken animal protein with tremendous results.听 wants to help the rest of us do the same. 鈥淥ur aim is to create simple, filling meals to fuel workouts and life,鈥� says vegan health coach Stepfanie 颅Romine, who cowrote the book with ultramarathoner Matt Frazier. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a combination of Matt鈥檚 favorites and recipes I cook with my husband, who often bikes 200 miles a week and needs 3,500 calories a day.鈥� Hitting numbers like that without calorie-dense meat is one听of the challenges they hoped听to address. 听

The result is an uncomplicated guide to fueling a team of cyclists or a family of four. Dishes range from quick pre- and post-workout smoothies to slow-cooked meals, and the book includes guides to broad topics like oil-free cooking and vegan protein. Romine鈥檚 favorite recipe is听the Calorie Bomb Cookies听(24 of them deliver 颅nearly 6,000 calories), which she developed in 2012 for her husband when he biked the .

Ca颅lorie Bomb 颅Cookies

Ingredients (Makes 24 cookies)

• 4 cups rolled oats
• 1陆 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 陆 teaspoon salt
• 3 ripe bananas
• 1 cup raw cane sugar
• 1/3 cup coconut oil
• 录 cup plus 2 tablespoons water
• 2 tablespoons chia seeds听
• 2 teaspoons vanilla听extract
• 1 cup dark chocolate chips
• 1 cup raw walnut pieces
• 陆 cup raw sunflowerseeds
• 陆 cup shredded coconut (optional)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Pulse 2 cups of the oats in a food processor until finely ground, then transfer to a large bowl. Combine with the flour, baking powder, salt, and remaining oats. Blend the bananas, sugar, oil, water, chia seeds, and vanilla until smooth. Add to the oat mixture and stir until combined. Add the chocolate chips, walnuts, sunflower seeds, and coconut. With wet hands, form 录 cup of dough into a ball for each cookie听and flatten to about one inch thick. Bake cookies for 30 minutes or until golden brown. Store in an airtight container and wrap in parchment paper for on-the-go eating.听

The post How Athletes Can Get the Most from a Vegan Diet appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

For decades, outdoor brands gave little attention to women鈥檚 products. That鈥檚 changing fast. We asked a field of expert female athletes to nominate the best new performance tools in a range of sports鈥攕tarting with running.

The XX Factor Issue

Our special issue highlights the athletes, activists, and icons who have shaped the outside world.

Read all the stories

Janji Women鈥檚 Ombre Longsleeve听Base Layer ($54)

With a pattern inspired by the Masai, this base layer conjures the spirit of the world鈥檚 most celebrated marathoners. The soft polyester-rayon weave is comfortable next to skin.

Stance Painted Low Socks ($15)

When the last thing you want to do is train, crazy-bright socks can make all the difference鈥攅specially when they鈥檙e anatomically designed and made of a wicking polyester-nylon blend.

Sunday Afternoons Northwest Trucker Hat ($28)

With a just-right brim鈥攚ide enough for adequate sun coverage, thin but never floppy鈥攁nd vented mesh back, this lid fits the bill as a runner鈥檚 best friend.听

Rabbit Hopper Shorts ($52)听

I love the attention to detail in Rabbit鈥檚 well-curated apparel line. The slim-fitting Hoppers are perfect for hot days when you want as little fabric on skin as possible.听

Cotopaxi Veloz听Hydration Belt ($35)

This svelte accessory has pockets for the included soft flask, a phone, and your keys. A compartment for the strap allows for belt tightening without that escaped-dog-on-a-leash look.

Brooks Sure Shot Racer Sports Bra ($38)

Only one in a hundred sports bras ever makes it past the first date. This lower颅impact model is my match for life. The supportive bottom band and compression holds everything in place on long days.

Suunto听Spartan Ultra All Black Titanium Watch ($799)

Plenty of fitness wear颅ables boast GPS these days, but the Spartan Ultra stands out for its built-in barometer and water resistance down to 300 feet. The watch syncs with the Suunto Moves颅count app, allowing you to see how much you鈥檝e climbed or how many miles you鈥檝e run, and the included chest-strap heart-rate monitor lets you dial in your training.

Saucony Type A8 Shoes ($100)

The A8 was made to go fast on roads, but I also dig it for mellower trails. It鈥檚 a light and responsive shoe that鈥檚 served me well on every颅thing from short bursts to 50Ks.

The North Face Flight Series Warp Capris听($120)

Strategically engineered ventilation zones make these capris ideal for runs that start cold but warm up as soon as you鈥檙e rolling. I like them just as much for the flattering fit.听

Salomon S-Lab Hybrid Jacket ($250)

The S-Lab Hybrid excels in rough weather, achieving the tricky balance of keeping the elements out and letting sweaty, damp air escape. The body-mapped fit leaves no extra fabric to distract or chafe鈥攚hether I鈥檓 going long or sprinting an uphill mile.

The Expert: Crushing long颅 distance trail races is 国产吃瓜黑料 correspondent听Meaghen听Brown鈥檚 favorite pastime.

The post The Best Women鈥檚 Running Gear appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

Among the world鈥檚 most celebrated long-distance footraces, the is known for being particularly brutal.

The 106-mile course through the French, Swiss, and Italian Alps climbs more than 33,000 feet as it loops around its namesake peak. The weather can be savage鈥攈eavy rain, frigid nights, hot and humid days. In August 2013, Rory Bosio took off from the start line without grand expectations, having never won a major event. She trailed well behind the leaders for the first six hours. But as the race stretched into the evening and most competitors slowed, 颅Bosio held her pace. When the lanky, brown-haired American runner in pink shoes and a blue running skirt crossed the finish line in 22 hours听37 minutes, she鈥檇 Bosio took seventh place overall, becoming the first woman to crack the top ten at the event and beating dozens of elite pro men.

The XX Factor Issue

Our special issue highlights the athletes, activists, and icons who have shaped the outside world.

Read More

It wasn鈥檛 the first time a woman broke through at a major endurance competition. In the early aughts, . Back then her victories were considered anomalous, especially since the next fastest women were more than seven hours behind her. 颅Bosio鈥檚 Mont Blanc race, however, is just one of a recent string of noteworthy female performances. A year earlier, obstacle racer Amelia Boone took second overall at the World鈥檚 Toughest Mudder, a 24-hour championship race during which she covered 90 miles. She finished a full ten miles ahead of the third-place finisher, also a woman.

Last summer, Lael Wilcox became the first woman to win the Trans Am, a 4,300-mile unsupported cycling sufferfest from Oregon to Virginia. She completed the route in just over 18 days after passing Greek rider Steffen Streich in the middle of the final night. (When she caught him, Streich proposed that they ride together to the finish. Her response: 鈥淣o way, it鈥檚 a race.鈥�) In in ultramarathons across the country, with 42-year-old race in Texas.

To be clear, female victories in mixed-gender events remain rare. In the marathon, top women 颅finishers are about 15 minutes slower than the top men. But the growing number of standout performances by women in ultra-distance events has athletes, coaches, and researchers believing that 颅women may still be far from achieving their full 颅potential as athletes. The sentiment is buoyed by the simple fact that women have been compet颅ing in 颅endurance sports in large numbers for a 颅rel颅atively short amount of time. The first woman wasn鈥檛 allowed in the Boston Marathon until 1971, seventy-four years after the event was born. Scientific understanding of women athletes is also sorely lacking. Until Bill Clinton signed the , which required most federally funded research to include them, women were excluded from the majority of studies of exercise and biomedicine. Even now there are only a handful of researchers focusing on female athletic performance.

The consensus among scientists is that men have several key over women that make their edge at the elite level insurmountable in all but a few highly specialized sports. But they also concede that we鈥檙e only beginning to understand what women endurance athletes are capable of. A growing pattern of race results suggests that the longer and more arduous the event, the better the chances women have of beating men.

In 1992, UCLA exercise physiologists like the marathon. Twenty years after the enactment of , which barred the exclusion of women from educational programs or activities at schools receiving federal funding, female participation in sports was booming and records were being constantly broken. According to Whipp and Ward, that they were on a clear trajectory to surpass them.

The researchers were wrong, and the study was criticized as overly simplistic鈥斅璼tatistical modeling taken to an extreme. But the work called attention to the phenomenal advances of female athletes over the previous two decades. Most of the progress was the . Fewer than 300,000 girls played high school sports before 1972; . In 1972, ; in 2016, more than 12,000 women finished.

Performance improvements have been equally dramatic. n time听of 2:15:25, set at the 2003 London听Marathon, is 30 minutes faster than the women鈥檚 record from the mid-1970s. (The men鈥檚 time dropped by only five minutes over the same 颅period.) 颅Women triathletes cut two and a half hours from the fastest 颅female time in 1980, while men have shortened theirs by an hour and a听half. In professional tennis, the top-ranked women now routinely hit 颅faster serves during matches than some of the men do. The top three 颅women golfers on the LPGA tour outdrive听lower-ranked pro men.

Across many sports, though, the closing of the gender gap has largely stalled out, with the in cycling, swimming, speed skating, rowing, kayaking, and the marathon. . Over the past decade, the rising popularity of especially punishing mixed-gender contests like 100-mile-plus runs, cross-country-cycling events, and grueling obstacle courses have given women the opportunity to compete directly alongside men, with intriguing results. According to Ultrarunning magazine, between 2000 and 2016, the number of ultramarathon finishers jumped from about 13,000 to more than 88,000, with women increasing from less than a quarter of finishers to more than a third. At the infamous , a woman has been among the top ten at eight of the past nine events, with two women breaking the top ten in both 2015 and 2016. Women have also begun to crack the top 20 at the prestigious , with 听and doing the same the year before.

Researchers, meanwhile, suggest that women are going to con颅tinue to improve at a much faster rate than men. According to Sandra Hunter, a professor of exercise science at Milwaukee鈥檚 Marquette University who has spent the past 20 years with an emphasis on athletes, the difference in current participation rates accounts for roughly 34 percent of the gap between men鈥檚 and women鈥檚 race times.

Female athletes are well aware of this kind of data. 鈥淲omen鈥檚 fields are growing fast, and records are falling,鈥� says Rebecca Rusch, 43, a seven-time world-champion mountain biker who has com颅peted against men in endurance events for 25 years. 鈥淲hich just means we haven鈥檛 got anywhere close to maxing out our genetic 颅capabilities yet.鈥�

In endurance sports, five phys颅iological factors play a big role in determining athletic 颅potential. Men have definitive advantages in three of them鈥攈eart size, lean muscle mass, and VO2 max (the body鈥檚 ability to 颅deliver oxygen to muscles). But then there are those other two, central drive and movement economy. The former is the rate at which the听nervous system sends signals to muscles and is critical to maintaining an 颅intense effort over time. The latter is how efficiently the body moves, which is dictated by coordination and joint stability. Both central drive and movement economy can be improved through training, and along with a host of smaller variables, they may have an equalizing effect on male and female athletic potential, especially in endurance sports.

A 2012 study by researchers at England鈥檚 Canterbury Christ Church University found that improvements in propelling effi颅ciency of swimmers can account for sizable differences in performance
between athletes who have a similar VO2 max. Earlier work has shown that athletes with lower VO2-max scores can perform at the same speed and intensity of their more genetically gifted rivals in a range of activities by developing superior movement economy.

鈥淧roper form counts way more than many athletes realize,鈥� says Mayo Clinic physiologist Michael Joyner, a renowned expert on health and human performance. 鈥淒epending on the sport, you can often overcome having a smaller engine if you鈥檙e a better driver.鈥�

, where small inefficiencies add up over thousands of strokes. So it鈥檚 not surprising that, as Swiss sports scientist Beat Knechtle has pointed out in several published papers, worldwide: the , off Southern California, and New York鈥檚 . (Men are faster in the third, across the English Channel.) Similarly, there鈥檚 no difference between the genders in sport climbing, a discipline that requires precise movements. In 2012, 11-year-old Ashima Shiraishi became the youngest person, male or female, to complete a 5.14c route.

鈥淲hile men are stronger, technical climbing involves a lot more than pure strength,鈥� says 24-year-old Sasha DiGiulian, the 2011 颅female sport-climbing world champion. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of technique and endurance. Women can outperform or at least match men.鈥�

Another significant factor is , an exercise-induced reduction in performance. In a review of 颅existing studies published last year in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, Hunter wrote that the available data, though limited, indicates that women are more resistant to muscle 颅fatigue than men during long efforts. In 2004, Hunter conducted a study that measured the fatigability of subjects completing an isometric arm contraction. Women were able to perform a task until failure 颅almost three times longer than men, 23.5 minutes 颅versus 8.5. Hunter says this is due 颅largely to two factors. The first is the 颅difference in muscle properties between the 颅sexes鈥攚omen have a greater number of fatigue-颅resistant fibers, which are utilized during sustained low-颅intensity exercise, while men have faster-颅contracting fibers, which are better for powerful short movements. The second factor is blood flow: men have larger muscles that demand more blood, so their hearts have to work harder.

鈥淲omen have smaller muscles, but their muscles don鈥檛 tire as quickly,鈥� says Hunter. If a man and a woman put the same amount of effort into a long, slow physical task鈥攐ne that mostly involves muscle endurance or is more skill based鈥攖he woman will take longer to fatigue, she adds. Other research indicates that women are faster to recover from physical exertion than men, regardless of the intensity of the effort.

Female endurance athletes also have a metabolic edge, by , when performing moderate-颅intensity aerobic exercise. This is a distinct advantage in longer events, because fat is a slower-burning fuel than carbohydrates. While men must consume calories hourly, if not more frequently鈥攁n action that itself requires more energy than simply metabolizing available fat鈥斅瓀omen can keep trucking along.

Then there鈥檚 the mental game. Here women come out ahead in the key art of race pacing, a trainable skill that men seem to have a harder time refining. According to Danish statistician Jens Jakob Ander颅sen鈥檚 massive marathon study, over the course of a race than males. 鈥淢en may be more likely to adopt a 鈥榬isky鈥� pace where an individual begins the race with a fast early pace (relative to their ability), and this increases their likelihood of slowing later,鈥� Anderson wrote in his analysis. Put another way, the boys blow up.

Rebecca Rusch has seen this play out many times on endurance-颅biking courses. 鈥淎ll these guys will go out hot, and hours later I catch them,鈥� she says. 鈥淭hey always ask, 鈥榃hy do you start so slowly?鈥� And I answer, 鈥榃hy do you finish so slowly?鈥� 鈥�

While women do appear to have some biological advantages in endurance, those advantages remain poorly understood because of a lack of research. Right now it鈥檚 about what we don鈥檛 know. How do differences between the sexes translate across a range of sports and conditions? There are lots of hypotheses but no conclusions.

Within endurance-sports communities, athletes readily swap baseless theories. Among the most common鈥攗sually put forth by men鈥攊s the idea that the demands of childbirth program 颅women to tolerate the agony of ultra-distance events. There is no research to support this. To date, studies of pain tolerance have asked par颅ticipants to rate pain levels in surveys. Across the board, men claim that they experience less pain than women. Scientists have speculated that the responses may not be meaningful, however, since not to express how much something hurts.

Similarly, while , researchers are still trying to under颅stand this dynamic. Studies have shown that hormonal fluctuations can alter metabolism, meaning that women need to fuel differently at different times in their cycle. Other work indicates that there might be an optimal window for competing. In one study, South African scientists found that almost . 颅According to exercise physiologist Stacy Sims, the . That advice undercuts a long-standing practice among some elite athletes of taking drugs before a competition to prevent their period from starting, either to avoid the hassle or because they 颅believe menstruation makes them weaker. Sims says that a lack of understanding has hindered both women鈥檚 performance and scientific studies. In her 2016 book, Roar, the first endurance-training manual written for women, she notes that researchers often don鈥檛 acknowledge how sharp hormonal fluctuations can influence performance data. 鈥淚鈥檓 so tired of seeing women blame themselves for results that were based entirely on their cycles,鈥� she says.

What is certain: every day more and more girls and women will play sports. They will continue to close the performance gap with men. And in those crazy-long races when, many hours in, everything hurts and the guys who went out way too fast are bonking, and the others are stopping every 30 minutes to suck down an energy gel, women will breeze past them on their way to the finish line.

That鈥檚 Rory Bosio鈥檚 plan, anyway. 鈥淲hen I placed in the top ten overall at Mont Blanc, I wasn鈥檛 thinking about my place or winning the race,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 honestly just wanted to finish. It helped me run with a lightness and focus that was all my own. That might be the difference between men and women鈥攖he ability to tune out the noise and just race.鈥�

Meaghen听Brown has beaten hundreds of men since she started racing ultras in 2012.

The post The Longer the Race, the Stronger We Get appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

There鈥檚 no shame in coveting six-pack abs. But on its own, a washboard won鈥檛 help you lunge for difficult holds on your next climbing project or efficiently power up a steep hill on Nordic skis.

This is because core strength refers to more than just the abdominals. The core includes all the muscles between your arms and legs鈥攅ssentially everything in your torso. Having a strong core means being able to execute motions鈥攕ay, lifting a bag of dog food鈥攎ore efficiently by taking stress off your arms and legs. And it鈥檚 nearly impossible to build the sort of complex, interconnected core strength useful in real-world situations simply by hammering crunches while watching Stranger Things. You need supplemental strength training.

Rob Shaul, founder of the in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, learned this the hard way. After a summer spent trail running and doing body-weight circuits, the personal strength and conditioning coach figured he was pretty strong. But when Shaul added weights back into his training, he found it difficult to lift anything heavy. He was strong in isolation but lacked the ability to make his core, arms, and legs work together.

This revelation led Shaul to buck his existing core training theory鈥攁 variation of planks, bridges, and back extensions鈥攆or a new one, something he calls 鈥渃hassis integrity.鈥� 鈥淢y experience last summer caused me to question three things about core training,鈥� Shaul says. 鈥淲hy are we doing so many ground equipment鈥揵ased core exercises when in reality we use our core while standing? Why aren鈥檛 we training extension and rotation movement patterns since real life is dominated by these movements? And how can we train both strength and endurance beyond the standard round-and-rep format?鈥�

Chassis integrity incorporates four foundational movements commonly employed in real life: anti-rotation, rotation, total body, and extension. Each is designed to work a specific group of muscles that will translate to on-mountain movements. By working these motions into his training programs for skiers, climbers, ultrarunners, and even kayakers, Shaul鈥檚 primary goal is to develop sport-specific routines that will translate to functional strength beyond the gym.

Below is a brief rundown of the philosophy behind each movement. Mountain Tactical Institute鈥檚 for specific exercises that fall into one of these four categories鈥攎ost of which you can do at home with little more than a sandbag and some kettlebells.

Anti-rotation

Anti-rotation refers to a twisting force that one must fight or stabilize against. Real-world examples include picking up something heavy using one hand, , or getting one of your ski poles caught in a tree while you鈥檙e still moving downhill. Specific exercise: .

Rotation

This involves moving a load across your body in a rotational manner. Unlike anti-rotation, you aren鈥檛 trying to stabilize against a force, but rather actively moving the load. A real-world example could be picking up a heavy pack and swinging it onto your back. Specific exercise: .

Extension

Extension refers to any movement or exercise that involves lower-back work鈥攅ither dynamic movements, where you鈥檙e bending or twisting from the hip, or isometric movements, which refers to exercises that work the back without moving joints, such as a plank. A real-world example would be digging out a tent after a snowstorm. Specific exercises: (dynamic) or (isometric).

Total Body

Surprise: total body refers to any activity that uses more than one of the four movements. Real-world examples range from picking up an injured climbing partner to lifting a heavy tote full of gear from the ground onto the roof rack of an SUV. Specific exercise: .

The post The New Rules of Core Fitness appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

Earlier this month, Nike unveiled its Breaking2 project,听a moonshot-style collaboration of athletes, scientists, and designers with the goal of trying to break the two-hour marathon barrier next year. In their announcement, the company was light on details in terms of how they planned to pull this history-making run off, but claimed that they will 鈥渄ebut a system of groundbreaking innovation that has the potential to elevate every runner.鈥�

Last month, however, the Oregon-based company filed a for a running shoe that features a in the听sole. Theoretically, it would improve a runner's energy return. Though Nike could not be reached for comment, that this is partly how they plan to break the two-hour barrier.听

Though significant running records like the four-minute mile or the ten-second 100m make history, the process of actually breaking them is largely mundane. Subtle variations in course profiles, weather, the specific athletes, and the shoes they鈥檙e wearing all play a crucial if fractional role in the story that ends up making headlines. It鈥檚 for this reason that many shoe manufacturers are working so diligently to produce the world鈥檚 fastest shoe.听

But of course any new racing shoe technology鈥攁nd particularly one with such an ambitious end goal鈥攚ill face heavy scrutiny, no matter how small a benefit it ends up giving runners. 鈥淯p to now, any shoe technology that made a potentially large impact on running performance has been banned,鈥� says Steve Magness, who writes about the sport on his website . 鈥淓ven the highly touted Adidas Boost technology only gives about a one percent improvement in running economy, which translates to only fractions of a percentage improvement in actual performance. If Nike or any company develops technology that has a drastic impact on performance, it鈥檚 likely to be illegal or at the very least, skirting the bounds of the rules.鈥�

According to Rule 143 of the IAAF Competition Rules, shoes “must not be constructed so as to give an athlete any unfair additional assistance, including by the incorporation of any technology which will give the wearer any unfair advantage.” The IAAF approves all shoes used for competition.听

Puma鈥檚 Sacramento brush spike is a good example of a shoe which gave its runner an unfair advantage. In the early '60s, after the proliferation of soft听tartan tracks, runners began using spiked shoes, and in 1968 Puma built a spike with 68 needles on the sole based on the idea that it would grip better than the traditional six-nail version. Runners sporting the new brush spike immediately started breaking records. The shoe was subsequently banned by the IAAF prior to the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, the records were negated, and a rule was created that banned running shoes with more than six spikes.听

Athletic Propulsion Labs (APL)鈥攁 specialty shoe company founded by Ryan and Adam Goldston鈥攖ried something similar in 2015 with the release of a spring loaded running shoe, the Windchill, which reportedly rebounded more quickly than traditional shoes and shaved seconds off the wearer鈥檚 times. The Windchill was never banned, likely because it was never used to win a major competition, but APL鈥檚 spring-loaded basketball shoe, dubbed the Concept, was banned by the NBA for providing 鈥渦ndue competitive advantage.鈥澨�

Michael Joyner, a physician, researcher, and one of the world鈥檚 leading experts on human performance and exercise physiology, also speculates that a spring-loaded shoe would probably be banned in competition. But the tricky thing in Nike鈥檚 case is that their Breaking2 project is not a formal competition鈥攊t is not under the purview of a governing body. Should Nike鈥檚 runners break the two-hour marathon record sporting the company's new spring plate-loaded shoe, there will be controversy, but there will be no authority to step in and deem the run illegal.

However, Magnuss, for his part, is doubtful that any shoe technology will actually make that big of a difference when it comes to breaking two hours in the marathon. 鈥淚t will be a small contributing factor,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hree minutes in a marathon at that level will take much more than shoes. At this point in time, it will take a downhill course, lots of pacers, and an inhuman performance. In other words, a lot of artificial advantages that circumvent the rules of the sport.鈥�

The post Is Nike Trying to Break the Two-Hour Marathon With a Spring-Loaded Shoe? appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.