Better Body, Better Mind

The January issue of Wired's cover story, or series of stories, had some interesting bits in it. The story "The Perfect Human" about Dean Karnazes gave incredible details about what he has been able to accomplish as a long-distance runner, and includes some of his dietary and other practices. This guy ran 50 marathons in 50 days, will do 200 miles "just for fun", and races in all kinds of difficult conditions (e.g., 120 degree heat, high altitudes, and so on).

The "Run Faster" piece describes a far more "normal" person's quest to improve his one-mile run time from over 8 minutes to just six minutes -- but do so in just 4 weeks of training. And the similar "Be Smarter" describes another normal guy's quest to improve his intelligence after just 4 weeks of brain-training. Both of these articles provide ideas on self-improvement that are worth considering.