Nathaniel Swanberg
Trail running, ultramarathons & tracking life
Nate is a software developer and distance runner from Boulder, CO. For most of us, running a marathon would be a big accomplishment. But for Nate, it was just the beginning.
He broke a Gyroscope record in August 2015, completing a run equivalent to burning 77 donuts worth of calories. When we first saw his post on Twitter, we thought he was reporting a bug with the calculation, and reached out to see what happened. Turns out he did it the old fashioned way—a 120 mile ultramarathon.
We wanted to learn more about the man who earned himself this huge pile of donuts, how he tracks it, and what motivates him to do something most of us would consider impossible.
Gyroscope: Burning 77 donuts of calories seems almost unbelievable. We thought the max would be like 10 or maybe 20. How did you do it?
Nate: That came from a race I did in the Cascades in Canada called Fat Dog 120, which was a 120-mile ultramarathon that I ran with some friends. I was able to record the whole thing on my GPS watch (with the help of a battery pack), and I uploaded it to Strava.
I’d seen Gyroscope’s donut card, and wondered how many donuts 40 hours of running would get me. Turns out it was 77!
The race was a sampling of British Columbia weather and terrain.
The first day started warm, then turned into the first rain they’d had in months, with the storm doing its best to make up for lost time. It arrived while I was midway up one of mountains in a burned zone. In addition to hearing thunder every few minutes, we were treated to the occasional sound of a falling tree crashing into the underbrush. After about an hour the storm turned to periodic rain for the next day.
I spent the rest of the race running with my friends Brad and Jared. The race was about what you’d expect — a lot of walking, hiking, running, eating, and drinking, along with the occasional beautiful view that I had to tell myself to remember so that I could savor it later. We finished at about 2 am, not able to do much more than sleep.
Gyroscope: Congratulations on finishing that race! How did you first start using Gyroscope?
Nate: I heard about the first version of the site, aprilzero.com, on Hacker News, and signed up as soon as it was open to the public. I’d been keeping a list of all of the things I’d like to track, with the idea of setting up something on my own. And while Gyroscope didn’t cover everything on my list, it covered enough and looked so nice that I didn’t think twice about it.
One of my favorite parts of the site is the location history — I’ve used it a few times to check the name of a restaurant I’ve been to or relive a trip I’ve taken.
Gyroscope: Do you consider yourself an athlete? How did you first get into running?
Nate: Trail running is a hobby for me. I got into running in junior high after I joined cross country, but I always had mixed feelings about running.
I got it into my head to run around the lake in my town, a 12-mile or so run, and did it, but considered that a personal feat and not something to be regularly endured. I had more fun riding and racing my road and mountain bikes than I did shuffling along on my feet.
Sometime during junior high I read a short article about a 100-mile-long running race along the north shore of Lake Superior, and I thought about how satisfying it would be to try that, but put it in the back of my mind for years.
During college I ran a few miles here and there for fun, and after college I picked up bike racing again, only running during the winter to stay in shape.
It wasn’t until I moved to Boulder, a cycling mecca, that I found and fell in love with trail running.
A few things fell together: my wife had started trail running and wanted to see the pros race, so we ended up in Leadville to watch Scott Jurek finish the Leadville 100. A couple of friends had done “streak running”, where they’d run three miles every day. We’d been going on a couple of different weeknight runs, where we became friends with some runners. And finally, one of those friends told me about a series of free fat-ass runs.
So I registered for the four that were left in the season, started running every day, did my first 20-mile trail run three weeks later, and in the fourth week I ran that first 50K I described above.
Gyroscope: What hardware and software are you using to track yourself?
Nate: I use RescueTime for screen time, Moves app for locations, and a Basis Peak watch for steps, heart rate, temperature, and galvanic skin response. When I run I also use a Suunto Ambit 3 with a heart rate strap. I upload runs to Strava.
When I track my weight, it’s with a plain old scale, and type the results into HealthKit. I’ve also just started using MyFitnessPal to track my diet. Mostly I’m using it as a reminder to eat better.
I use a key logging app called SelfSpy to see how much (or little) working I’m doing compared to browsing, and I keep an eye on spending with Mint.com. I’ve tried a few others that I gradually stopped using, like Wakatime (more detailed metrics on time spent in a code editor) and Moment, an app that tracked how much I’m using my iPhone.
Gyroscope: Which stats do you regularly check about yourself? Has that made its way into your daily routines?
Nate: I mostly look at these things weekly or monthly to watch for trends. The only daily metric I’d been tracking was, for a time, heart-rate variability, using an app called Elite HRV. The idea is that it can measure the time in milliseconds between beats, and that, surprisingly, a very consistent heart rate is a sign of overtraining.
Gyroscope: You posted some really cool runs on your Instagram. Can you share some of your favorites? Are there any memorable stories behind them?
Nate: The ones that stick out tend to be the ones where I pushed some boundary or another. The first [marathon, or 50K] I ran was a huge milestone for me.
I’d been seriously running for only four weeks and had never run a marathon.
It was a “fat-ass run” (basically a loosely organized winter group run) in a park a little south of me that had both kinds of running: uphill and downhill.
The run was organized by my friend “Sherpa” John LaCroix, who prides himself on throwing an extra hill or two into his events.
Within the first 30 minutes I was given some advice that’s been surprisingly useful: “never quit uphill”.
So if you’re thinking of quitting the race, and you’re going uphill, at least wait until you’re at the top or going back down. Odds are, you’ll be feeling much better and want to push on.
I was given some advice that’s been surprisingly useful: “never quit uphill”.
I spent most of the run walking with Carolyn, an engineer who had recently started running 50Ks, and was considering a 50-mile race. Carolyn got a picture of me at what we measured as the 26.2-mile mark for my first “marathon” and later we finished the second and final lap just over nine hours after we’d started. That gave me the confidence, though by no means the certainty, that I’d be able to do some of the longer races my friends were doing.
Gyroscope: Do you have any goals for the upcoming race season?
The race that I want to have on my calendar, Hardrock (a 100 mile endurance run), has a lottery. If I get into that race, my goal would be to use whatever spare time I have to get myself into shape so that I can have some fun out there. Even compared to the other 100-mile races I’ve done, it’s hard.
If I don’t get in, I’ll check out other qualifiers like the Bighorn 100 or give Fat Dog another try (hopefully with around four less hours of donuts). No matter how the lottery turns out, I’m working towards another ultra this season.
Gyroscope: Good luck. We look forward to seeing how many donuts you get this time!
To catch the next chapter of Nate’s story, you can follow him on Twitter. You can get the Gyroscope app for free from the App Store and set up Strava to track your workouts and see how many donuts (or pizza) you earn!
