BarefootRoot

Photoblog: Bishop's Bog

2012-02-27T06:22:00.000-05:00

I think it would be really slippery with shoes

So last week I went out on my lunch break and put down about an hour and found a neat place to run that I thought I would share. It's on the south end of Portage and runs through about 3/4 of a mile of bog, both swampy soil and open water. Not sure how much fun it might be in the heat (and bugs) of summer, but it was a lot of fun in February.

Now I'm not sure the thing was made for running, and based on the signage I would say the City of Portage would rather people not run on it, so if you do give it a shot be very careful and take it nice and slow. Also, there is no "potential" for wet shoes; it's guaranteed. Good thing I don't wear them!

This area had flooded and iced over.

Dry ground but still squishy!

The decking was made of 3'x5' plastic panels with vent holes to accommodate water displacement

A nice stretch through open water at the north end

Finally, here's a video of me running on a section through open water. You may need to look closely, but you should be able to see the jets of water shooting me in the crotch from the holes in the deck.

Product Review: Bedrock Sandals Ninja Socks

2012-02-18T10:15:00.002-05:00

So as you all know, I'm a big fan of the guys over at Bedrock Sandals. The kicks I first strapped on back in September have served me well the last few months, and these have become my go-to footwear for everything except work. My big concern for the winter has been snow though, and while we haven't gotten much it's still a concern. Enter Bedrock's Ninja Sock.

A lot of people who do huaraches in the winter go to Injinjis for cold weather, but I found that I had the same problems with those that I have with Vibram Fivefingers: my feet don't play nice with toe pockets. In addition, when it comes to resisting the cold a mitten is always better than a glove, so I started looking for a "ninja-toe" style wool sock. Back in october I was sadly disappointed as even the alrighty Google couldn't help me. When Bedrock Sandals announced they'd be developing a merino wool ninja style sock it would be an understatement to say I was excited.

I grabbed up two pair when they went on sale back in early January, and have now run them through the nastiest weather a road runner can find. The verdict? I love these socks.

In cold, dry weather these socks perform like any mid weight wool athletic sock: your feet stay nice and toasty. Normally I wouldn't bother with socks in these conditions, but but when I got them I wanted to wear them a bunch so I got the whole picture. So ultimately yes, these will keep your feet very warm in cold weather and play very nice with sandals.

On snowy roads the socks start showing their worth. Taken out in 5 degree (Ferenheight) weather with about 3 inches of snow on the ground, I ran 16 miles and never once got cold feet. It was interesting to watch, as the socks wicked moisture from my feet to the surface where it froze. By the end of the run I had accumulated a lot of little ice balls stuck to the socks made entirely of foot moisture, but my feet had stayed warm and dry the entire time.

The real test was one nasty day at the end of January where we had snow, slush and sleet. The roads had about 2 inches of slush and where the wasn't slush there were actual puddles, and it was about 10 degrees out. The bad news is the socks did pick up moisture from the slush, making my feet wet and cold. The good news is when I found non-slushy bits of road (wet or snow covered pavement) it took about one minute for the socks to pull all the moisture away from my feet and I was warm and dry again. I went through this cycle about 15-20 times that day on a 12 mile run, and I'm still amazed how well they worked. If I recall correctly, my friends running in boat anchors complained about wet feet as well, but their shoes were staying wet where my socks were quickly drying out and warming up after each slushy section.

So is there a down-side to these wonders of nature? A couple, but they seem minor to me. First, they aren't exactly cheap. I paid $18 a pair, which may in fact be on par with other merino wool products (I'm haven't done the research), but I'm used to $11-12 athletic socks (on the rare occasion I buy them) so this seemed steep. That said, the socks are made in the USA (which I've been willing to pay a slight premium for) and they perform so well it's pretty easy to say that while expensive they've been worth every penny. The other small down-side is the seam in the toe notch can be uncomfortable when you stick a huaraches toe strap in there. It just seems to add more bulk to the area and it's just not as comfy. Once you get running you hardly notice it, but if you already find the toe strap uncomfortable this won't be any better.

Final verdict: these are great socks for anyone running, or doing anything else for that matter, in huaraches in cold climates. Like I said above, they are a little pricey, but from what I've seen you won't find a huaraches-friendly sock that performs this well anywhere else.

I'm a Lazy, Lazy Man...

2012-02-06T10:55:00.000-05:00

I wonder how many post titles I can come up with that involve having "..." at the end? Seems like all of them do.

Why is it that lazy people, meaning Me, commit to a bunch of stuff that should be perfectly reasonable to accomplish and then find themselves with little motivation and asking themselves why they had committed to all this stuff in the first place? For example, I have a whopping four or five non-work/family things I have committed to, this blog being one of them, and January somehow got in my head and convinced me that nobody would miss me if I just let things slide for a while (yes, I'm blaming a month and not myself. deal with it!). For crying out loud, it's only a handful of commitments and I shouldn't be allowing some punk-ass month like January convince me that I'm not the center of everyone's universe! I totally am!

Beyond (one of said commitments) has been a lot of fun this season so far, and we have a good group of people in our pace group. My only real concern is that the group is a mix of half and full marathon runners. Basically I see most of our team for about 20-30 minutes and then it's me and the other two marathoners for the next hour or so. Not that Piper and John aren't great, but I have a real hard time forging a "team identity" in my head when my team is essentially just the three of us instead of all twelve people on the roster.

My duties over at the BRS have slipped a lot as well. In my defense my lax attitude has stemmed from several failed attempts to drum up interest in organizing group runs last fall and with Michigan winter coming on I didn't see anyone getting any more enthusiastic than they already were. It was fairly easy to just forget those whole thing for a month or so and let everyone get on with their lives instead of bugging them about a run they can't make it to. All my members are great people, but we're also busy people in a state with a very spread-out membership, so it's no wonder it's been an uphill battle getting people together. I'm seriously considering trying to get people to organize some east side/west side get-togethers, as I think everyone would find that much easier than trying to meet in the middle somewhere. I can't speak for everyone, but I think most people are more inclined to go to a group run 30 minutes away than one an hour and a half away. I'll be looking to improve my visibility at BRS in the coming months and see if I can get a critical mass assembled for International Barefoot Running Day on May 6 (also the day of the Kalamazoo Marathon).

I'm also on charge of a local Easter egg hunt through Kalamazoo Area Runners and have done less than I would have liked at this point in the game. This is actually at the top of my list to get rolling on because I have no experience organizing such an event, need a little insight from the previous organizer and have grand designs on things I want to do with it. If I drag my feet much longer I won't be able to do everything I want to do.

All in all where most people get the winter blues I think January causes me to be stricken with some kind of horrible apathy and that, combined with new toys acquired over Christmas, conspires to take my eye off the ball a bit. Challenge to Self: Keep your eye on the ball and your head in the game (yeah I know, they mean the same thing) the rest of the winter.

I do have some things saved up that I'll be planting right here at BarefootRoot as well. I have had a chance to put my brand new Bedrock wool socks through their paces and will have something resembling a review in the near future. I also have some running log-type stuff I know you're all dying to read about and some other topics brought up by my fellow bloggers I want to touch on at some point. I need to strike while the iron's hot on those though or nobody will know what I'm talking about!

But does anyone really know what I'm talking about these days anyway?

A Weird Start for 2012

2012-01-10T19:27:00.000-05:00

I'm off to a weird start for 2012. My barefoot run on wet roads on New Years Eve did a number on my soles so I took a little more time off than I would normally take over the first week of January. We also had a two day snowstorm that didn't really keep me from running, but it certainly helped me make the decisions to both run a little shorter than I was supposed to and to stay inside another day. Ultimately what should have been a 25 mile week (my schedule actually calls for 29, but I'm a rebel) wound up being only 20 miles.

To top it all off, after a very good 11 mile barefoot run on a mixture of chip seal and ice on Saturday (it really was fun! I'm not lying!) I wound up getting sick that evening and was more or less stuck in bed (or on the couch) for the next two days. So here I am on Tuesday night and I haven't gotten in any running this week. I had hoped to go out tomorrow, but I haven't been feeling quite well enough, so unless I wake up feeling like a million bucks I'll probably skip it again and wait for Thursday.

Don't get me wrong; this isn't a bunch of whining. I'm actually appreciating the extra rest after a December where my mileage jumped about 100% from 40 miles to 80. The significance of that kind of mileage jump isn't lost on me, and for my own health and well-being I'm glad something made me tone it down a little bit. I have four months until the Kalamazoo Marathon and I don't want to be hurt!

The sad part is we have more unseasonably warm and dry weather right now that I am watching pass me by, and I probably won't be back out there until the snow is flying again later this week.

Racing for the finish of 2011

2012-01-01T19:19:00.000-05:00

So our mild mild weather is gone. I write this while a wicked snowstorm rages outside dashing any hopes of any barefoot runs for at least a few days while the snow gets cleaned up. The good news is I managed to meet a goal before both the end of 2011 and old man winter taking a shit on southwest Michigan.

I've been logging my miles all year through a combination of Nike+ and Google Docs, and realized about halfway through lasers that I was within 8 miles of crossing the 600 mile mark for my barefoot running. Despite temperatures in the low 30s and wet wet roads left over from a full day of rain on Friday, I went out Saturday morning determined to get in at least the 7.5 miles I needed to be able to say "yeah I'm dancing with your wife pal. You got a problem with that"? Yeah I know that doesn't make sense to most of you, but I know a few parents who will totally find that hilarious.

Anyway, we were missing our half marathon pacer this week, so I asked the group what they wanted me to do, offering the option of sticking with the 4 milers, but everyone felt comfortable heading back without me so that was cool. We stuck together real well through the first 2 miles before the shorties had to turn around, dropped off a few who were doing 4, then continued to the 2.5 mile mark where we dropped off a few more. Piper and I continued on our masochistic quest for 10 miles, which went really well considering the volume of hills in this week's course. Or maybe it wasn't the volume so much as it was that every hill we had was either a mile long or ridiculously steep. Either way the legs were pretty sore when all was said and done. That 10 miles led me to a barefoot mileage of 602.5 miles, with a total for the year up around 860 (give or take... I don't have it in front of me right now).

The wet roads did do a number on the soles of my feet though, and I've spent a day with some tender feet. Something about wet skin + abrasive asphalt surfaces = abused pads, so I have been taking it easy since. Thankfully the temptation to go out barefoot tomorrow has been utterly annihilated by the snowstorm, so I'll be out in sandals regardless. This will make for a good test of my Injinji/Bedrock combo, as it'll be a nice short run. If for some reason it doesn't pan out at least I'll know I need to go back to the Trail Gloves next time, though I am optimistic that the combo will KO the snow.

Good day and welcome to 2012. 12!

(Sorry Kenn, I had to steal that joke from you)

Miles are piling up!

2011-12-28T13:23:00.000-05:00

Well it's been a while since my last post, partly because of the holidays and partly because I've been doing a lot of reading, which incidentally has been getting in the way of my writing. Even with all that I have still gotten in a lot of running though.

Last week I managed to pick up my first, second and third glass slivers EVER, and not during the same run. On the one hand it marks something of a low point in my barefooting career (I had prided myself on not having stepped in glass before), but on the other maybe it was a bit of a wake up call, as I have been getting a little complacent when it comes to watching my step. Plus, it made me realize I need to think about my course before deciding to go bare or not. The first piece got picked up while running in the dark, with a poor flashlight, through an area where I knew there had been a car accident, so poor choices were made. I have also invested in a new headlamp so between that and, oh, I don't know, thinking a little bit, I should be able to avoid similar problems in the future.

On Christmas Eve I went out with Beyond again for a 9 miler and had a real good time. The weather was great, and it made for a great time. I went out again on Christmas, a testament to how far I've come in a year. Last year at this time I wouldn't dream of going out the day after a 9 mile run, and this year I went out for another 3.5 miles barefoot the next day.

While I have been disappointed that we have very little snow so far, the mild weather has provided plenty of barefoot-friendly running opportunities. Soon though the snow will get deeper and I'll need some kind of protection. I have been patiently waiting for the guys over at Bedrock, who supposedly are working on a merino wool sock to go with their sandals that I'm excited about. Since the snow is starting to hit, I can wait much longer so I have invested in a pair of socks go get me through until the Bedrock socks are ready. I found a pair of mid weight Injinji socks that seem like they will fit the bill. Basically I grabbed the thckest pair I could get my hands on, so we'll see how they do.

Beyond Week 1... 19 to go!

2011-12-19T06:31:00.000-05:00

This was a week of strange weather that didn't really lend itself to barefoot running. Earlier in the week it was cold and rainy, and Saturday wrapped it up by being cold and snowing. It was our first week of Beyond though, so any running was good running despite being a little bummed about e black of bare feet.

I ran both Wednesday and Thursday mornings, both in the rain, and both relatively short. My current work schedule isn't lending itself to getting in decent runs, so I have been forced to run for time instead of distance. This means I get about a half hour (until I start making myself get up earlier) to get out and back before getting ready for work. For a slow poke like myself this equates to about 2.5 miles, give or take a couple tenths of a mile. Wednesday was cold and wet, and I went out barefoot, but my feet were feeling unusually sensitive so it wasn't the most comfortable run. I think it had to do with how beat up my soles were after the trail run Sunday, but I had given them a couple days off so it really surprised me. Thursday it was raining again and up in the mid 50s, but because of my discomfort the day before and my desire to run bare for my Saturday long run I decided to strap on the Bedrocks for the run. For back to back runs I handled both pretty well, even though they are admittedly short runs.

Saturday's forecast changed several times over the course of the week, but had generally been 30s and partly sunny. Friday afternoon that changed to low 30s and 60% chance of snow. I tried to be optimistic, but when I got up I was disappointed to find a generous dusting of snow on the roads. I hadn't slept well the night before, which felt a lot like pre-race insomnia despite it being a mere training run, so I was a little tired and it took me a long time to really wake up. I ate a couple slices of oatmeal toast and a glass of OJ and headed down to the launch location.

The bit of snow on the roads had convinced me that it would be a good idea to at least bring along my Bedrocks just in case, but the drive down made me feel relatively comfortable going bare. Once I arrived and talked to a few folks though I caved in to peer pressure and erred on the side of caution and strapped on the sandals. And I was glad I did. By the time we got through the program welcome and team breakout and walked outside there was a good half inch or so of snow on the road and more coming down in typical "lake effect" fashion. Ultimately I would be pretty happy with the sandals in the snow, but with bare feet they got kind of cold because I kept collecting small bits of snow on the footbed beneath my toes which turned to ice for a few minutes before melting off, and it made for some uncomfortable sections of the course. I can't wait to get my hands on some of the merino wool socks ("ninja-toe" style, as opposed to the more common "five finger" style made by other companies) the guys over at Bedrock are working on. After running in the snow I know the sandals themselves perform really well, but that extra warmth will be a very nice thing to have.

Our group had one person call in and two new adds, so we ultimately had a team of 12. Three of us were slated for the full marathon and the rest were in for the half, so our distances were a bit different. Most of the healers were doing the low intensity program, which meant a week 1 mileage of 3 miles, while the marathoners were all doing the high intensity(one of us was slated for low, but he went the whole way with us and said he felt pretty good!), which meant we started out with an 8 mile run. The marathoners got out ahead just a little bit (i think we were riding the faster end of our pace range), and by the time we hit the 4-miler turn around point we realized all the halfers had already turned around and headed back.

I was sad to have had to call the support driver on the way out, but it was a good thing I did. We encountered one of the faster groups around the 2.5 mile mark who were walking back and they flagged me down and had me call the van. Later I would find out one of them had hurt their ankle, and they were having a hard time even walking on it, so I was really glad to have been able to help. Still sad to have someone get hurt like that in the first few miles of the very first run of the season. Hopefully she recovers quickly and can get back out there.

After the run people would complain of how slippery the roads were, but I honestly hadn't noticed. My Bedrocks combined with my mid foot landings really lend themselves well to slippery conditions and I felt like I had great traction. The stories of people "skating" across the road at the turn-arounds would take me by complete surprise and I respectfully kept my mouth shut so I didn't come off as being preachy.

Checking my pace at the end I was unsure exactly how fast we'd taken the run. We were supposed to float between 11:30 and 12:00 per mile, but Runkeeper said we were at 12:30ish. That included a couple minutes of dead stop while calling the support van, a couple minutes at about 9:00 per mile while catching back up to my group and a pause at an aid station, along with me forgetting to turn the thing off once I got back to the launch point (I must have walked around chatting with people for at least 3-4 minutes), so (at least for me) it's nearly impossible to say where we were. It felt like about 11:30 though, so I'm going with that for now. It was definitely a workout though, as I was fairly sore the next day. It was a good sore though, so I still felt pretty good about it.

This coming week should involve about 13 miles during the week with a potential 9 miler on Saturday. The weather is supposed to be real mild with very little chance of snow, which is great for getting some barefooting in but a massive bummer when it comes to the fact Christmas is Sunday. We'll see how it goes though.

Bring on Beyond!

2011-12-16T06:41:00.000-05:00

Man have I been busy! The holidays are kind of crazy due to Colleen being in retail, but on top of that I have all the usual holiday travel and an unusually busy month at work to boot! Stress! Yaaaahhhhh!!

Making some folks wonder...

So what's the best way to kill off some stress? Did you say running? Well, I was thinking weed, but since I don't have any I suppose running will have to do. So with that settled, what's the best way to get some crazy running going in December? If you said "running down to the corner to buy some weed" you're a little off-target. I'm glad you're thinking though. The correct answer is the Kalamazoo Area Runners Beyond Program!

This Saturday marks our first long run of the season, and I'm pumped to get started! It seems offering the half marathon plan has attracted a large number of people this year, as my group consists of 8 half and 3 full runners, so my partner Sarah, who is pacing the halves, has her work cut out for her. I'll be doing as much of our high intensity workouts as I can, but won't be shy about dropping to moderate (or even the light) intensity mileage if I'm just not feeling great.

To lead into my "big" 8 miler this weekend, while up at my folks place to do Christmas stuff, I headed out to finally re-tackle the shingle mill pathway in the Pigeon River State Forest. Any one who's been paying attention will remember this is the place where I stubbed (and nearly broke) my toe aback in July. This time, with some snowy patches around, I decided to start off in my Trail Gloves. I put down 2.2 miles in those things before realizing the trail wasn't that bad, and decid to give barefoot a try despite the bits of snow here and there. I would do the next 4.2 miles barefoot over webs of roots, stony washouts, and frozen mud. There were some nice sections of sand and pine needle carpeting, but even there I would occasionally step on a pine cone hiding underneath the needles or leaves. There was also a lovely snow-covered boardwalk through a cedar swamp that eventually led into a muddy area that had been chopped up by the hooves of many deer... That had frozen into jagged spears of pain and suffering. The frozen mud was so bad that not only was running impossible, but walking was as close to impossible as I've ever been. At was here I pulled my bedrocks out of my bag and finished the final half a mile of the run. They were a little slippery due to the mud that had already gotten on my feet, but otherwise they were champs on the jagged mud and the webs of roots that littered the final stretch. When I was all done I rinsed off my feet and sandals in the icy cold Pigeon River, that I had thought frigid in early October. Yeah I was dumb enough to dunk my feet, repeatedly, in an icy cold river in the middle of December.

I did throw down a couple shorties before work during the week, in the rain, so now I'm feeling pretty good about Saturday. Bring on Beyond! It's gonna be a great 20 weeks!

I did get my camera fixed, so no more blurry photos! (after this one, anyway) whee!

Time to silence my crickets

2011-12-07T05:51:00.000-05:00

So have I been as quiet as I think I have lately? Seems like I'm lucky if I get out one post a week right now, as busy as I've been. Fear not, for I have been out on the roads and there will soon be words a-plenty on this here site.

The biggest news, if it can't so be called, is that today marks my 36th year on the blue marble and I don't feel a single day over twelve. Except for the high blood pressure. And the sleep apnea. And a slower metabolism. And less hair. Ok, so I have all that going on (or not), but when I was actually twelve could I run 10-26 miles? I don't think so. Take that, young me! You suck!

Let night I went down for the blast off party for this seasons Beyond program and had a great time! I got to see all my running friends, both old and new, and catch up on what kind of bullshit we've all been up to. I even got to peer pressure one of them into joining my group! Not that I'd be all that mad if she joinedt a faster one, as I was kind of looking way ahead in terms of pace (I'll thank myself for choosing a slower pace one we start hitting 16+ miles), and that just might be too slow for her. I met the 11:00-11:30 pace leader (who is nearly in the same boat as me as far as being a solo pacer, but she doesn't even have the luxury of a half marathon pacer, which I do) and she was real nice (and pretty cute too, if I may say so without sounding too creepy), so I would understand anyone defecting to her group. It's also possible we may be combining our teams if other pacers aren't found (and if our groups aren't too big), so it was a good thing to hang out with her and my half marathon partner Sarah for a bit. We did get a little punchy towards the end of the night and decided to call our team "The Fist" for some reason. My line of thinking was that we rule with an iron fist and that one should obey the fist, so logically we should be the fist. Who knows if it'll stick though.

We did get some snow last week, forcing me into my winter plans a little earlier than I'd hoped. I haven't gotten socks for my Bedrocks yet, so I went with my Vibram Flows, which hurt my feet as usual. My Trail Gloves may have been a better choice, but I needed them for work and didn't want to get them wet. Later in the week I would do a run in the Bedrocks because of a cold/wet combination, and again and they handled superbly. The guys at Bedrock should soon be releasing a line of merino wool socks and I'm super excited! I had searched in vain for a wool "ninja toe" style sock to wear with the sandals, and those guys came out and said "we like that style too, so that's what we're making"! Did I say they were awesome? Because they totally are.

I did get a good 6.5 mile barefoot run in on Saturday though, as the weather had dried out. This time of year I'll take my barefoot runs where I can get them. Soon I'll be lucky if the weather allows for it at all. I have been finding that it's been taking about 15-20 minutes for my feet to warm up lately, which seems longer than last year. But it seems like I may have a skewed perspective on it because I was so exuberant about barefoot running last winter. I used to punish myself all time by taking my shoes off too early, and I think I gave me a false expectation of warm up times. We'll see how the rest of the season goes.

Thanksgiving Week Excitement!

2011-11-29T05:40:00.000-05:00

Hooray for turkey! This week I didn't wind up doing as much running as I'd hoped, but I did get to eat a lot of good food and somehow managed to tread water weight-wise (which we all know is a win when it comes to Thanksgiving). So despite a couple bumps in the road it was still a pretty good week.

Sunday got off on the right foot with an hour and a quarter long run which felt great. The weather was still nice and the roads were pretty clean. I went a lot faster than I usually try to go on longer runs like that and it wound up costing me as I developed a brand new sore spot on my right foot. I'm beginning to wonder if I actually have something structurally wrong with that foot as it seems like every time I figure out one pain I develop a new one. The one problem with that theory is that it seems like rolling specific areas of my calves (I seem to develop knots along the outside muscles)relieves the pain, so it might be a strength or form issue instead. I just don't know. Perhaps I need to see someone like Scott Hadley up at the Hadley Clinic to take a look at what I'm doing and maybe he'll see something I need to work on. Fortunately this new sore spot wasn't very severe and rolling did help, so I was able to run again later in the week.

I got in another 2.5 mile morning run before the holiday, mostly as an attempt at a "recovery" run at a nice slow pace. It didn't really help and seemed to aggravate the new sore spot. Fortunately working in an office there is plenty of time to stay off the feet, so I took advantage of it and literally sat on my ass all day Tuesday and Wednesday.

By Thursday I was feeling pretty good and it was a good thing because I'd signed up for the local Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot (sadly missing the awesome name of another event held by Brandon Mulnix up near Grand Rapids that he called "Our Turkey has the Trots"... Or at least I think I'm remembering that right). The event was a time prediction run and based off some recent race results I predicted 28:00. The people who tend to win these things are usually within 2 seconds (sometimes less than a second!) of their predictions so I figured I had a snowball's chance anyway. Thinking to learn from my mistakes last year (I had stood in the cold wet grass freezing my toes off) I threw on some heavy socks and headed down to the event.

The thing was at a middle school in Portage and I decided to hang out as long as I could indoors to keep my feet warm. I got to talk to some of my running friends and talk barefoot running with a couple new faces. I hung out until about 8 minutes to starting time, thinking that would be close enough to take my socks off, but apparently I should have given it a few mor minutes. The grass was again cold and wet, and within a couple minutes my feet were pretty damn cold. It would take me most of the first lap for my feet to really warm up.

I took off a lot faster than I wanted to, and it took me a long tme to catch my breath. The crowd of over 600 people (for a thanksgiving day race!) was pretty enthusiastic and it was contagious. The trail we ran consisted of plenty of grassy areas, some sandy spots, a leaf covered rail through some woods that reminded me of where I stubbed my toe back in July (This part made me nervous but I made sure to lift my feet extra high), and a lot more gravel than I remembered. The grassy areas were really cold and wet and the gravel areas were nice and uncomfortable (though through the first lap my feet were a bit on the numb side), so the best sections were the sandy spots where I could dig in my toes and plow through with impudence, as opposed to my shod counterparts who were having traction problems.

Ultimately I finished with a time of 27:48, only 12 seconds off my prediction, and I kicked myself for not slowing down a little in the chute. I tend to sprint the last few hundred feet and finish hard, and if I'd at least come in at my normal pace I may have actually placed! Oh well, what can you do.

After the race the fam and I headed up to Gaylord to have Thanksgiving with my family (Colleen's mom and dad were in Colorado with my brother and sister in law and their new son Alex). There was plenty of good food and good times befor we headed back home Friday. Colleen had been sick for a couple days now, so Saturday I spent the day taking care of her and our now-sick son, only to catch it myself on sunday. So here we are on Tuesday and I am feeling well enough to go back to work, but I haven't run since last thursday. The good news is the sore spot o my foot is pretty much gone now so once I'm feeling up to hitting the road I should be in good shape.

Making Hay While the Sun Shines

2011-11-20T17:49:00.000-05:00

Well here we are in (officially) late November. We've had a couple incidents of early-season snow and the temperatures are consistently topping out in the low to mid 40s. Barefooters in North America are all thinking about their minimalist options and looking for indoor tracks to tide them over these next few inhospitable months. While I plan on being bare as much as I can over the winter I do have a couple plans for dealing with cold, wet and snowy conditions. In the meantime I'm cramming in as many barefoot miles as I can while we're still dry and mostly above freezing!

After a couple shorties before work this week I finished it off with an hour and a quarter of November Loveliness. It was my longest run since coming back from the rest break back in October, and it felt great, though my feet were definitely feeling the workout when it was all done. I'll probably do one or two more at this length before moving it up again. I'm hoping to have a pretty good base re-established before Beyond fires up mid-December. I'm back up to about 13 miles per week, though that is weighted by the fact I have been willing to take extra days off whenever. I think I could have really done something more around 17 miles last week if I'd found the time, but the clock just wasn't on my side. That's pretty comparable to where I should be when Beyond starts, so I think I'm in good shape considering I still have about 4 weeks to continue building.

Speaking of Beyond, I am really looking forward to having a group to run with again. It's been a really lonely summer and fall!

Race Report: 2011 Jingle Bell Run for Arthritis, Portage Michigan

2011-11-14T05:36:00.000-05:00

Last winter I had signed on with our local running club, The Kalamazoo Area Runners, to captain our fundraising team for the Jingle Bell Run for Arthritis. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time, and although I still find leadership roles daunting I tried to do my best and gather as big a team as I could and raise as much money as I could (hopefully) without annoying people. I've never been very big on fundraising projects, in addition to having avoided leadership roles for much of my life, so this was a little outside my comfort zone.

The race was at 2:00 PM, which for me was a weird time that I didn't really like. Nothing gets on my nerves like having something I need to do in the afternoon. I like getting things done early so I don't have to worry about them. I arrived at the Celery Flats to a gray, overcast sky and a temperature of roughly 60 degrees. It had been very windy in the morning, but it appeared it was dying down. I met John, one of my teammates who was running in a Santa hat and beard, along with his wife in the parking lot and we walked to the starting area together. Though the main parking lot was already full, there didn't seem to be a lot of people in attendance yet. Registration was in an old refurbished grain elevator, which was nice for the volunteers, and I got signed in a stationed myself and my box of team t-shirts outside. It was warm enough to hang out without needing socks or anything, which is my usual strategy for waiting for a race to start in cold weather, and some people actually had to lose a couple layers while we waited.

I hadn't seen any pins at registration (I'm sure they were there; I wasn't really paying attention) but my packet included a pair of jingle bells that had safety pins on them, so that's what I used to attach my bib. They were intended to be pinned to shoes, but as I explained to the others later: "I got these bells for my shoe laces, but then I thought pinning them to my feet would be a little too painful". Normally I bring a shoelace with me to races, just in case I need to attach a timing tag to my ankle but I'd forgotten it today so I had to go with Plan B, which involved using my Road ID on my ankle and hoping the metal plate didnt' interfere with the mats.

As I got geared up several of my teammates arrived and we got a chance to chat before the race. A few of them had run other races the day before (at least one of them had run a marathon, I believe) so there were a few grumblings about being a little sore, but all in all everybody was feeling good and ready for a nice, flat easy course. I discovered one of my teammates was just beginning her transition to barefoot running but was having blister problems, so I shared my wisdom on the causes and potential solutions to the problem. Another teammate showed up in FiveFingers (Bikilas I believe, but I didn't look too closely), and I learned she had never really run in normal shoes. Apparently she'd taken up running to release anxiety after quitting smoking (kudos to her for that!), had tried running in a normal shoe once and experienced a lot of pain in her legs and switched over to her FiveFingers that I think she said she had for general bumming around town and the pain was gone. She never looked back and has run some half marathons in them since. We got pictures of as much of the team as we could gather for the club newsletter, even though we were missing probably half the team at that point.

All in all despite having 36 people on our team I would meet 24 of them between the meet-up before the race and the dinner we'd planned the night before. I think the other 12 were there, but they never found me for their team shirts despite my emails about where I would be hanging out before the race. Oh well. Maybe they felt they already had too many shirts. With about five minutes until start time I stashed my box of shirts with one of the volunteers and headed for the starting line where I hung out with Sarah, Laurie and Becky, three of my teammates and two of them who were signed up to be half marathon pacers for the upcoming Beyond season (Sarah is my 11:30-12:00 counterpart while Laurie is handling the 12:00+ group). Becky said while she'd done Borgess Run Camp before she was considering Beyond this winter and said she would fall somewhere in the 11:00-12:00 range if she wound up joining us. We tried to sell it as best we could so I hope she decides to sign up.

As the race started I hung with Becky for probably a half mile down Garden Lane, weaving in and out of the crowd. We talked a little here and there and caught up to my friend Frank, another of our teammates, and chatted with him for a minute before moving on. I lost Becky and Frank at roughly the same time, as I was keeping a surprisingly quick pace considering I'd just run almost six miles the day before. The course eventually turned on to Lovers Lane and the crowd began to thin a little bit. Right in this area I heard some really loud clomping sounds coming up from behind me and found it was a (roughly) ten year old boy in big heavy shoes slamming his feet down with the longest strides he could muster. I resisted the urge to ask him if that hurt his feet (it sounded like it did!) as he passed me. He wouldn't get far ahead before slowing down though, and he and I would stay close together until the two mile mark where my steady pace would take me past him and I'd never see him again.

Lovers Lane would take us up to Romence Road, where the crowd thinned even more. I would catch up to Tim, another teammate who had run a 5k the day before and said he was beginning to feel it. We ran together for a little while as the course crossed over Portage Creek, left the road and picked up on Bicentennial Trail, but after going under the bridge he said he needed to slow down and we parted ways. The trail would involve a few weird sharp turns that I didn't really enjoy (and which I'll explain later) but overall the Trail is great for barefoot running. It's smooth asphalt and the City of Portage keeps it pretty clean, so while it's a little boring and flat the surface is nice enough that it's usually pretty enjoyable.

I'd pass several people on the loop north of Romence Road, doing my best Persistence Hunter routine. One woman I passed made an attempt to power past me, her shoes clomping loudly as she dug deep to get past, but ultimately I would pass her again once we passed back under the Romence Road bridge. On the south side of the road I knew there wasn't much left to the course so I dug deep and tried to pick up the pace a little. I passed a few more people before crossing a little wooden bridge over Portage Creek, all the while chanting "no splinters, no splinters" over and over again in my head. Eventually I hit the last little S-curve before the finish line and I left it all on the course as I sprinted for the finish. On the very last, and extremely sharp, turn an older guy decided to cut to the inside of the turn which forced me to the outside with a lot more speed and I had to really lean in to the turn hard to keep the speed up. Coming around this turn at speed I could now feel my right foot twisting on the asphalt and a twinge like I'd stepped on a stone or something from the ball of my right foot. I powered in regardless and finished with a time of 25:50, which would have been a personal best (by a whopping 2 seconds!) if I hadn't learned that the course was actually 0.18 of a mile short of a 5k.

After finishing I discovered that the sharp turns, all of them left turns, had taken a toll on my right foot. Apparently while powering around the turns, especially the last one, I had been twisting my foot just a bit and with the dry conditions one of the creases on the ball of my foot had developed what was now a very small, albeit fairly painful crack. It was really uncomfortable, but I chalked it up to running 8 miles barefoot over the weekend in addition to twisting my foot a little at the sharp left turns of the course and moved on with my life. I'll be putting a little Gold Bond cream on that area to help it heal up and it should be ready to go in a couple days.

As our team finished up we would all gather for a couple more photo opportunities and talk about the race and the line for post-race food. Slowly but surely everyone would filter out and head for home (or lunch), leaving me and a handful of others to hang out for the awards. Many of my teammates had taken top spots in their age groups (I believe one had actually won women's first overall!), though my group tends to be competitive and my run had only been good enough for 11th. Our team had been both the largest (36 members) and had raised the most money ($1500), so we won a jersey and a puck autographed by the Detroit Red Wings' Jimmy Howard (their starting goaltender). We had decided a couple weeks ago that the jersey would be donated to another charity event the Kalamazoo Area Runners work with, but I really wanted the puck and made the appropriate arrangements to be able to keep it. We had a great afternoon with great people, and I'm looking forward to the next one!

Product Review: Bedrock Sandals

2011-11-09T19:27:00.001-05:00

Now I'm running with the big dogs! Ointment reviews are great and all, but what people like to see is footwear reviewed by a barefoot runner! No really, it makes sense. You're just crazy.

Fresh out of the box! er, envelope!

Back in early July I had decided to participate in a Kickstarter project for a small startup called Bedrock Sandals. I had first heard of them through some barefoot runner friends on Facebook and they looked pretty cool. I wasn't quite ready to commit though, until The Maple Grove Barefoot Guy said he had a review coming up that should hit before the Kickstarter project ended. Once his review hit the web I decided this was something I wanted a piece of, so I got in while the price was right. I went for custom sandals, so I sent in some foot tracings (it's surprising how different your feet can be from one another) and waited patiently. It took a little longer than expected, mostly due to the guys at Bedrock having some issues with the original strapping manufacturer, but they eventually found a military grade manufacturer they were confident would give them the highest quality materials and the sandals started shipping in late august. Due to a mishap where my email got booted to their spam folder (which has been happening to me a lot recently) mine came in a little later still and they arrived at my house on September 6th.

The First Month: Walking Around

So as the title of this section already pointed out, I spent the first month with my Bedrocks walking around a lot. I didn't really see them as work-appropriate, so I wore them whenever I needed to go anywhere (that required footwear) outside of work hours. I spent a lot of time making adjustments to the strapping, which wasn't the most comfortable when I first got them. In fact, they were downright painful in places. I have a feeling my troubles with the strapping stemmed from my lack of experience with sandals in general (I am not used to having a strap between my toes, in particular), but I have also developed a theory that strapping style (or lacing style, when it comes to other huaraches) is highly subjective. The first couple weeks I kept trying to strap them on the way I'd seen the guys at Bedrock do it, and I just couldn't get comfortable. Once I realized that you could set the strapping to place the buckle wherever you want, things got much better. I slid the buckle towards the inside of my foot and pulled the ankle strap a little higher up and it was like night and day: these things got really comfortable. I'm still making minor tweaks to the tightness of the straps, but I finally have them close enough that I could go out for a run in them. Naturally right about this time I needed to take a rest to ditch some nagging sore spots, so the rest of my testing got delayed. They have become my default walking around footwear though, so they have been great in that aspect since getting the strapping issues resolved.

The Second Month: Out Running!

So I spent a couple weeks on the shelf walking around in the Bedrocks and I was still digging them a lot, although I found that if I spent any real amount of time in them the straps would eventually loosen up a little and require tightening. Nothing too serious while walking around at the grocery store, but I was concerned about performance during a run. It turns out I was right to be wary.

The magic trick

I began rebuilding my mileage after the break, which was a great time to break out the Bedrocks for some short mileage running. During the first two weeks back I went out in the Bedrocks three times, and sadly their performance was extremely troubling. Generally getting the fit right before heading out the door took a couple minutes, which was a big annoyance compared to my usual footwear adjustment time: zero minutes. Once I got the fit snug but not too uncomfortable I would head out and typically need to re-tighten the straps every three minutes. The heel strap simply wouldn't stay snug and I would literally run right out of them. After a couple stops I would tighten them down really tight, which invariably was uncomfortable and I would hobble my way up to about a mile before giving up and finishing my run barefoot. I can't say how disappointed I was at this point considering how happy I was with them for bumming around town. Then one day on a total whim I decided to loop the strap back through the buckle. I have no idea why, but it seemed like the right thing to do. After adjusting the fit and looping the strap back through the buckle I went out for a run and I loved it. The straps didn't slip at all. This was the key that allowed me to really dig into the sandals. From what I understand, the guys over at Bedrock have since offered some slightly stiffer straps that don't slip as easily and might have solved my problem, but with the new strap setup I don't even think about it anymore.

So what did I think once I got the strapping issue fixed? The short answer is I like these very much and these are currently my go-to footwear for the winter (with socks, of course). The long answer, and what I imagine you're all really interested in as opposed to my rambling back story, begins with the entire strapping story we just finished. I bought these with the idea that the straps would be easier than laced huaraches and I think I was wrong on that count to a certain degree (though I haven't tried laced huaraches before), but once you get the fit right and loop the strap back through the buckle it "locks in" the fit and I haven't had to adjust them since. The location of the buckle seems to be very subjective and contributes a lot to how comfortable a fit you achieve. I've seen pictures of other runners with the buckle on the outside of their ankle, some with the buckle in front of their ankle and I personally wear mine on the inside of my ankle because that is where they were the most comfortable. Figuring just the buckle position took me a couple weeks of casual wear, not to mention adjusting the straps themselves. If you wear them a lot I imagine you could figure it out a lot faster than I did, but since I was only wearing them on weekends and occasional evenings I don't think I was able to devote a ton of time to it. I also think someone with huarache experience may have a better idea of how they would want the strapping as opposed to me, who never really wore any kind of sandal as long as I can remember.

Ground feel wasn't bad but I think The Maple Grove Barefoot Guy hit the nail on the head when he said the Bedrocks are the Trail Glove of huaraches: great on the trails and not so great on the roads. The sole was a little thicker than I would have liked for road running, but I can see where it would be great on the trails. As a frame of reference I would say they have a little less ground feel than my FiveFinger Flows, but a lot more ground feel than my Trail Gloves. I find asphalt an interesting surface to run on barefoot and the Bedrocks lose a lot, but not all, of the things that make it interesting. If I had a choice I would opt for a 4mm sole instead of the 6mm one they currently offer, but this won't stop me from using them over the winter. There isn't much to say about flexibility or weight. They are a 6mm strip of rubber with some nylon strapping so they are pretty flexible and light, although you couldn't just roll them up and jam them in your pocket or anything. Bedrocks offer pretty much what you'd expect here.

Looking a little dirty after a couple months!

So what's the final verdict? I like these a lot. Like I said earlier, these are currently my winter footwear of choice even beating out my tried and tested Trail Gloves for most of my winter running. The price is right at $45, which is $5 cheaper than the original Luna or the custom made units from Invisible Shoes (although their DIY units are even cheaper). The strapping gives the Bedrocks a nice modern look compared to their laced brethren (which I have never liked), and once adjusted I found them to be more comfortable than I originally expected. The guys over at Bedrock Sandals are extremely approachable and helpful when you need assistance with fit (though I stubbornly never took advantage of this) and their passion for their product comes through in every bit of correspondence I had with them. On top of all these other things, everything that goes into a pair originates in the USA which I really appreciated.

Cold Weather has Arrived!

2011-10-31T06:17:00.000-04:00

The last couple weeks have been interesting ones for running. Coming back from my break earlier in the month my mileage has been on the low side, but I've been getting out nearly every other day which has been great! I've been able to get out both barefoot and in my Bedrock Sandals (which I have been enjoying lately), so there as been a nice mix going.

The temperatures have dropped from the 60s when I first came back from break down to a chilly 28 degrees when I went out yesterday, prompting me to break out most of my cold weather strategies. I am already running in the same 3 layers of shirts I wore all winter last year, including my 2010 Candlestone 10k semi-compression shirt, long sleeve tech, and my trademark cotton "Orange Crush" t-shirt on the outside. The hat and gloves were dusted off and have been a welcome addition to my running wardrobe, keeping the hands and head nice and toasty. The only thing I have yet to pull out of mothballs is my pair of running pants, although as cold as my knees were yesterday I think I may bring them out pretty soon.

One thing I have noticed that I hadn't really paid attention to last fall is the difference in road-feel between warm summer pavement and cold fall/winter pavement, which might be because I didn't start running bare until October last year anyway. Does anyone else remember getting an injury in the cold that hurt way more than the same injury in warm weather or is it just me? Seems like years ago if I accidentally hit my thumb with a hammer while working in the summer it hurt, but if I did the same thing in the winter it hurt a LOT more. The rough pitted asphalt of the roads near my house are giving me a similar experience, where during the summer months I enjoyed the rough, varied texture and now those same bumps and potholes are very uncomfortable and sometimes nearly impassable barefoot. The main evidence is to compare the level of uncomfortableness (is that a word?) at 30 degrees in the morning to the same section of road later in the day when the temperatures hit 50-60 degrees. The warmer the day is the less uncomfortable the road surface.

This has presented me with a bit of a conundrum though. In December my training cycle starts for the 2012 Kalamazoo Marathon and while I plan on running bare as much as I can over the winter I am faced with the realization that running bare in the cold is an extremely challenging experience. Rough surfaces feel even rougher. Temperatures drop to the point where your feet are guaranteed to be cold at least for a few minutes while they warm up (mine took about 15 yesterday morning). Gravel and rock salt are everywhere and will tear your feet up as surely as running on sandpaper. Do I really want to cause myself that kind of discomfort? Do I really want to make the challenging experience that is a marathon training cycle even more challenging by doing it in the most uncomfortable way possible?

The "Easy Button" might be to go and find some wool toe socks and wear my Bedrocks, and that might be what I wind up doing. The thin rubber sole will insulate the soles of my feet from the cold pavement while the socks keep the elements off the top of my feet. There are some people who just wear a pair of socks, which seems like it'd do just as well, but I'm not sure I want to go that route, especially once we get snow and ice. The "Even Easier Button" might be to just bite the bullet and wear my Trail Gloves (which is what i did last winter), but those are the shoes I wear to work, so once we start getting snow they will no doubt be getting pretty wet if I decide to run in them before work. This would require finding some other shoes for work, and sadly decent shoes like that (STEM makes some shoes that seem like slam dunks for minimalist office-style shoes) aren't available locally just yet, and I really like to be able to try shoes on before buying them due to my feet being hard to fit for shoes.

Whatever I wind up doing, the cold weather is here to stay and I either need to suck it up and get used to running bare in it or I need to decide what I want to run in. There is little time before the snow flies.

Just a note about the Jingle Bell Run for Arthritis on November 13th: While I am not known for being the most enthusiastic fundraiser in the past, this is a great cause and one close to home, as my mom recently had her hip replaced due to a bad case of arthritis (the recovery from which has caused additional problems, but that is another story). I encourage anyone who is able to toss 10 bucks my way at my fundraising webpage. Thank you for your support!

On the Road Again...

2011-10-25T06:13:00.000-04:00

Man, it's been a while! Not sure why I've been so quiet lately but that needs to change. Apparently I have only 2 volume settings: loud and off. Well it's time to turn it up to 11 and start ramp up for the upcoming training season, where I'll have a bunch of running hoo-haa to write about!

It's been a couple weeks back from my self-imposed imprisonment and I'm feeling pretty good. I haven't gone for a run longer than 45 minute yet, and those tend to leave me feeling a little sore in the foot region, but those have been my "long" runs so a little soreness is OK. Rolling the peroneal muscles in my right calf has made all the difference with the specific sore spot which sidelined me, so now it's just general wear and tear that I have to deal with. Sometimes I wonder if I might actually have some kind of arthritis in the ankle region, and I may ask my doc about it next time I go in, but I'm not convinced it's anything other than "getting old syndrome". Most of the time I have been in the 20-30 minute range which has been leaving me feeling pretty good. I still have nearly 7 weeks before the training season "begins", so I can take my time and stick with runs that don't leave me wrecked.

So what kind of running have I been actually doing lately? Well it's mostly been cold and dark, what with fall being large and in charge, and we've had a lot of rain here in southwest Michigan so it's been pretty wet too. My short 20 minute runs have been OK, but they barely give my feet enough time to really warm up to counteract the cold wet pavement (they usually require 10-15 minutes to really hit their groove). I have found some help in the form of (finally) getting a grip on the fit of my Bedrock Sandals (review coming in the next couple weeks, I promise!) which have done admirably on mornings where my feet are just not enjoying the conditions. I've been lucky enough to have gotten out for a couple afternoon runs on the weekends though, enjoying warm fall days while passing by people blowing leaves out into the road.

It's a great time of year to be a runner, even if all the debris in the road makes it a little tricky to be barefoot!

Shakin' off the Rust

2011-10-12T21:21:00.000-04:00

"I'm back, baby!" - Bender B. Rodriguez

Well it's been a long couple weeks, but I'm back and ready to do some running. In all I took about two and a half weeks off, wit some daily 20 minute bike rides and a fair amount of barefoot walking in a vain attempt to keep myself in some kind of shape. Turns out round is a shape, and I more than offset the little exercise I got with an episode of "Fat Troy Eats It All", in which I basically ate horribly and often. Now that I'm feeling ready to hit the road again though, that all changes and I'm going to fight my way back to eating right.

So the "final word" (meaning my best guess at the problems given a ridiculous amount of reading and a lot of experimentation with various treatment methods) on the aches and pains were turf toe and some peroneal trigger point issues that caused the pain in the rest of my foot. Much of the soreness was eventually relieved by spending a few nights with cotton balls between my toes. It took the pressure off the inflamed tendons and finally allowed things to heal. I also discovered that the peroneal muscles in my calf were super tight and after 2 very painful weeks of rolling those muscles (they are still a little sore to roll, so I know there is still work to be done, but they are far less painful than when I started) I could feel the tension in my foot loosen up and I am finally nearly pain free.

"I like that he's getting outside, but there's something unwholesome about flying a kite at night..." - Marge Simpson

So this morning I finally had enough and went out for a short run. After all the BS I've dealt with the last couple weeks I had no intention of stressing things out again, so I planned a short 20 minute run. I kept a relatively slow pace, taking it nice and easy. It was so nice to be out beneath the stars again. It also helped there was a really bright full moon out, so it was a great morning to run. The cold, rough pavement massaged my feet and the chill October morning air felt good after spending a couple weeks riding a bike in the basement. I'll be doing a couple more of these shorties and then see how it feels to push a little further. My goal is to be pain free after and between runs, where in the past I was usually in some degree of pain.

There has been no soreness and I felt great today. A slow, steady increase in mileage is in order now as I prepare for Decembers Beyond Program. I can't wait!

There really is a review of Bedrock Sandals coming! Trust me! I just need to put a few more miles on them so I can speak intelligently!

The Real Trick is...

2011-10-06T21:14:00.000-04:00

I think I've found the secret ingredient I've been missing all this time that has been stressing out my feet. While away from running I have had time to literally slow down and pay attention to what I'm doing and in doing so I found that when I mentioned I had skipped an important step in my barefoot transition last fall I wasn't kidding: this was a HUGE mistake! Yep, the missing ingredient was barefoot walking. The most instinctive movement. The thing I have done day in and day out for nearly my entire life. Walking is the thing I need to do more of if I want to improve my running.

The last couple weeks I have spent a lot of time paying attention to how I walk barefoot and how I walk in shoes (even my minimal Merrell Trail Gloves). In shoes I tend to march around heavily with relaxed feet, confident in my shoes ability to protect my soles from any errant stones or whatever happens to be in my path. Barefoot is another thing though, both indoors and out. Indoors I tend to tip toe around the house, trying vainly to keep my fat ass from shaking the house with every step. My feet are tense as I gingerly prance around like some 100 pound ballerina (although I still sound like the 215 pound sumo i am). Likewise, outdoors I tend to overthink my steps, focusing on landing on my midfoot and trying very hard (probably much too hard) to step lightly so the random sticks and stones don't literally break my bones. Again, the end result is a tense foot being carefully placed ballerina-style. Did I mention I'm not a ballerina?

Anyway, my Eureka! moment happened while walking the kids down to the park. I settled in and thought about anything but how I was walking. Mirei was riding her bike, so I had to walk quickly, which didn't give me a lot of time for thought anyway, so that was good. About halfway to to park I realized I hadn't been paying any attention at all to how I stepped, with a gait similar to how I walk in my shoes. My feet were relaxed, I could feel my weight distributed across the entire foot instead of just the forefoot and I felt great!

"You must unlearn what you have learned..." -Yoda

I dug deep into my memory to recall my usual running gait and compared it to what I was doing during the walk and realized how big a difference it was. Sure, when I run I put my weight on my whole foot, but the way I get there isn't great: I reach out with my forefoot and use the muscles in my feet to lower my heel to the ground, which requires a lot of tension in the foot. Walking or running, I tend to tip toe around, even if I ultimately set my whole foot down), forcing my feet to land lightly. Since I've read it a few hundred times now, the key to successful barefoot running is your ability to relax your whole body, especially your feet, and I have simply not been doing it. I wanted to say "...not been doing it right" but took that out. I just plain haven't been doing it.

"Let go your conscious self, and act on instinct." - Obi-Wan Kenobi

So what did I take away from this and where am I going with it? Well, the biggest thing about it was that learning to walk around barefoot (and I still have plenty of practice to do) has shown me what a relaxed foot really feels like. By working on letting go of the metaphorical reins I will be able to walk in a smoother, easier fashion and ultimately this will translate to a smoother, easier footfall while running as well. And once I have that I believe I'll see some significant improvements as far as all my aches and pains I normally chalk up to Getting-Old-Syndrome. Ultimately it means running more comfortably and that will translate into many more years of barefoot adventures.

Ken Bob says to walk barefoot first. Jason says to walk barefoot first. Michael says to walk barefoot first. These guys aren't full of shit. Sure, I've done a lot in the last year of running, but it may have been even better if I'd taken what I'd read to heart (and these guys all know their stuff!) instead of seeing it as an optional step. If you're just starting out, get comfortable walking barefoot first! If you're a veteran but never did this step, for Pete's sake do it! You won't regret it and might even come away with improved mechanics!

Happy Birthday to... Feet?

2011-10-03T05:52:00.000-04:00

One year ago today I took my first barefoot run! It was a whopping 3 minutes long (about 1 block, maybe 300 feet or so) and I have never looked back! Since then I have run all kinds of distances up to nearly 21 miles barefoot, put over 900 miles of roads and trails behind me and these bad lads have taken me places I never thought I would go, let alone on foot!

There have been plenty of bumps in the road and LOTS of learning experiences along the way, but this has been one of the most rewarding years of my life! Here's to many more to come!

Cheers!

Have I Arrived?!

2011-10-01T08:41:00.000-04:00

The last week has been pretty interesting for me. A lot of new traffic has been coming to the site, which is extremely cool! I'm nowhere near the traffic my contemporaries receive, but I feel like the world knows I'm here now and it's pretty exciting! I've been getting a lot of folks popping up on Google+ that I don't know who I assume must be interested in my ramblings, which has been weird as I'm still not used to having "followers". I think it's the terminology though, so maybe I'll start thinking of them as "Henchmen".

The Baker's Dozen Beer Run last weekend totally rejuvenated me mentally (who'd have thought 2 hours and 18 minutes of running would be "rejuvenating", right?) and I feel like I could take on the whole Empire by myself. The unfortunate thing is I promised myself that after the Baker's Dozen I would actually stop running long enough to make sure all my various aches and pains go away! D'oh!

I'm going to take this time to do some things I never did back when I first started all this nonsense though. Most people teaching barefoot running (Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton and Jason Robillard are a couple that leap to mind right away) will suggest walking around barefoot a lot before you even think about running, and this is a step I skipped last fall. I assumed since I spent a lot of time barefoot (or in socks) around the house I didn't need to strengthen my feet as much and I could just head on out there. What I didn't consider was that walking barefoot indoors is vastly different from doing it outdoors. Indoors you have (relatively) clean, flat surfaces, sometimes with carpet, so it's easy to step a little harder or twist your feet and the floors are pretty forgiving. Outdoors though, you have many rough, uneven surfaces, frequently littered with stones and other obstacles, and you need to step lightly and avoid twisting motions. Why is this important? Well, I've found that when walking barefoot outdoors I tend to (somewhat) tip toe around, tensing my feet and putting a lot of my weight on the balls of my feet, and that's the complete opposite of what I need to be doing (relaxing!). Think of it like this: children learn to walk before they learn to run for a reason, and I skipped the whole walking step! Time to rectify that situation!

I've also been taking some time to do some more reading and indulge my video game tooth while my running break continues. I've been playing The Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness series by the guys over at Penny Arcade lately, which has been fun (for an RPG fan) but isn't' something I can play around the kids due to some foul language. I also picked up a copy of the HD remastered ICO/Shadow of the Colossus Combo Pack, which I have just started to dig into. I had gotten both on the PS2 years ago (ICO was released abotu this time of year in 2001) and they are by far my favorite games of all time. ICO still looks beautiful 10 years later and I am so glad there are still people making games like these (Team ICO's next game comes out sometime next year) as opposed to all the "First Person Shooter" crap out there.

I'm almost done with my second read-through of Ernest Cline's Ready Player One, which is also available in eBook and AudioBook formats. I simply can't say enough about this book, particularly for anyone with even the slightest geek tendencies who grew up in or around the 1980s. The only thing I will say is the book takes its time getting going, but hits its stride about a third of the way in and doesn't let up until the end. Seriously, what are you doing reading my blog? Go out and get a copy of this book and read it.

I also have a couple books lined up in the queue that I'm anxious to read. One is Miyuki Miyabe's ICO: Castle in the Mist, which I understand is a novelization of the ICO video game. I have no idea how good it is, but if it had to be approved by the guy responsible for the video game I think it should be pretty damn good (despite being a translation). The second is Tracy Hickman's Song of the Dragon. I've been a bit out of touch with the whole fantasy scene the last few years, only picking up stuff by R.A. Salvatore (who I am somewhat disillusioned with lately). I know Tracy Hickman from the old Dragonlance series (I know there are newer Dragonlance books out there, but I have an affection for the old late 80s/early 90s originals) and had read that this new independent series was supposed to be kind of a neat twist on the typical fantasy setting so I decided to check it out.

Now it's been a week since I ran the Baker's Dozen and I'm itching to get back out on the roads despite all the cool stuff I've been getting into. I'm going to do my best to be patient (and distract myself with books and games) so when I get back out there I'll be feeling great. My next actual race is November 13th, where I am captaining the Kalamazoo Area Runners team for the Jingle Bell Run for Arthritis, so as long as I'm ready by then (shouldn't be a problem) everything is A-OK. If any of my Henchmen (see, I like it already!) want to donate to the cause or join the team (assuming any of you live within a reasonable distance) you can do so at the KAR Team Page.

Race Report: The Baker's Dozen Beer Run

2011-09-25T09:48:00.000-04:00

This September 24th was the inaugural Baker's Dozen Beer Run, a half marathon fun run in Marshall, Michigan. The organizers said they wanted to incorporate their favorite Marshall businesses, Louie's Bakery and Dark Horse Brewery. The "race" started at the Bakery and the finish line was at the Brewery, so it was a very cool concept. As luck would have it, all my brethren in the Run Smiley Collective were in New York for the New York Barefoot Run and had designated this weekend as our first official "Virtual Run" so I rolled in with my "Run Smiley Participant" bib pinned to my shorts.

I had suggested the event as a low cost ($15 entry) meet-up for the Michigan Chapter of the Barefoot Runners Society, but registration closed pretty early and Colleen and I were the only ones who were able to sign up. This would prove to be a good thing, which I'll get to in a minute. I did get to see a few friends from last winter's Beyond Group (Sarah and Lori) though, and found out they would be acting as pacers for a couple of the half marathon pace groups this coming winter. Turns out Sarah is going to be my half marathon distance partner in the 11:30-12:00 group, so that was pretty cool!

Anyway, at the start I was a little sad none of my barefoot buddies were there, but I got some consolation in the form of a delicious custard filled donut from Louie's. Everyone thought I was completely nuts for eating the thing minutes before the start of the race, and maybe I was, but I'm a sucker for the things and I have a tendency to use bizarre fuel before long runs. My breakfast had been a fried egg sandwich with mayo and some chili on a slice of toast, shit on a shingle style, and everyone thought that was nuts too!

Breakfast of Champions!

The run started at 8:00AM and we positioned ourselves near the back of the group. This would keep me out of the way of the faster folks but force me to pass a lot of people early, and the streets near the starting line were fairly narrow (think single lane boulevard-style roads). About a half mile in I would meet up with Nikki, who I'd met at the Kalamazoo Marathon back in may where she had been working the Kalamazoo Area Runners tent. We had to reintroduce ourselves, as we'd both long since forgotten each others names (if we'd actually told each other at the time). Turns out we were aiming for more or less similar paces and we hung out chit-chatting for a few miles.

The course wound through the neighborhoods on the north side of Marshall before heading out into the country. As soon as we left city limits we were on chip seal roads, which was something I had assumed would happen but was determined to handle as best I could (and also why I had my bedrocks in my belt, just in case it got too rough). From mile 2 to 4 the chip seal was manageable and appeared to be relatively old. If this was the worst I had to deal with I would have no problems.

The marker for mile 3 had the "kick you in the nuts" message of "Almost Done!" I know it was supposed to be a joke, but the last thing someone with another 10 miles to run wants to see is an "Almost Done!" at mile 3. I took it for what it was though and jokingly said "What kind of jerk says that?!" and had a big laugh.

At about 3.75 miles in things got a bit ugly for me. I had been eating some Honey Stingers and dropped the package on the ground, so I took a minute to stop and take a couple pictures, and in doing so lost Nikki and the other couple people we had been pacing with. Getting back running again it dawned on me that I was about to enter some freshly chip sealed road. Yeah that sound you heard was the dramatic "dun dun duuuunnnnn"! I was terrified, but decided to give it a shot and see how bad it was. It was too early to put the sandals on (it would feel like failure) so I soldiered on wondering what Colleen would think when she reached this area. I figured something like "I bet Troy didn't like that!" or "I wonder if he put his sandals on?" I would later find out it was more like "Uh Oh, I bet he just ran through that tearing his feet to shreds." Fortunately for me it would only last about a quarter mile before we turned onto a smoother road, so I did soldier on through it knowing it would soon be over and hoping there wasn't much more of it over the rest of the course. I would be disappointed.

Fresh chip seal road! Egad!

Nikki and the group remained in my sights the whole time, despite slowing my pace somewhat over the chip seal, and when I got the chance, either on grass or once I got back on smooth road, I did my best to persistence-hunt her group and see if I could catch up without burning myself out (I had just finished mile 5 when the chip seal ended). I finally caught up shortly after the chip seal ended on what would be the first real downhill of the course (up to this point it had all been more or less flat or gently uphill). I've mentioned before that I've been working on the "No Brakes!" method of running downhills, and apparently I was on my game today. I caught up to Nikki and the group and went flying past yelling "Heads up! No brakes!" They'd never catch up with me again, but I spent the rest of the race assuming they would.

I spent the next mile cheering for the crowds and chit-chatting the people I passed. Conversations were usually short, along the lines of "How're you doing? Having fun?" and one or two chatted about barefoot running and its potential benefits. I crossed I-94 around the 6.5 mile mark and made a point to hoot and holler at the cars going by, getting a couple cars to honk and wave, which felt great! Shortly after clearing the freeway I met up with my friends Sarah and Lori again, who were actually running as part of a relay team. They gave me some cheers and said one of their team members was right behind me and they'd catch up with me later. They had 4 members, so every 5k they were handing off and Sarah would be handling their last leg at about 10 miles.

I spent the next mile or so pretty much alone and got passed by the first of the cyclists, who had started at 8:45, somewhere around mile 7. This section of the course wound through some more country neighborhoods, and there was a really big crowd at the mile 8 aid station. They were very nice and topped off my water bottle for me. There were lots of cyclists coming through by now, and the serious ones were long gone and we started seeing the casuals who were there for fun along with some people who had started out running and had stashed their bikes along the course.

It was about this point in the race I realized that I'd had a smile on my face pretty much the whole time. The crowds had been great and I think I had only passed one person who wasn't out there having a good time (some grumpy old man who didn't even respond when I said Hi! How's it going?"). I had been thanking just about everyone on the sidelines for coming out and cheering at kids who were playing in the yards i passed and was feeling great. On top of it we had expected cold and cloudy weather with a chance of rain, and the skies were cloudless and the weather was fantastic! No wonder i couldn't wipe the smile off my face!

I passed Sarah near the 10 mile mark and wandered into the final 5k of the course. The next mile would be almost as tough as the other fresh chip seal areas, testing my smile a little bit, but I got a lot of kudos from the cyclists through this area, some cheers from an aid station and another round of waves and honks from the cars on I-94 as I crossed back to the south and it kept me going strong. I would finish the section with a nice long "No Brakes!" downhill section before hitting the city limits and settling into the final mile and a half through town.

There were few runners around me at this point but still a fair number of cyclists. I spent my time chatting with the police and fire department personnel who were out doing traffic control and after a few twists and turns through some neighborhood streets I found myself hitting the final few hundred feet. I had to cross some tricky railroad tracks that made me (cynically) wonder if I would pick up some splinters this close to the finish line. The crowd at the finish line was great and there was a lot of cheering as I crossed the line at 2:18:15. I was expecting to finish around 2:36, so beating that by 18 minutes was huge!

Nikki and Sarah would finish within a few minutes of me and I spent a couple minutes cooling down and chatting with other finishers. One woman asked me if I'd run the whole thing barefoot and I said "yeah" and she followed that up with "How are your feet?" I replied with (thanks to John Yohe, from whom I stole this reply) "Great! How are yours!" with a big smile on my face. We had a big laugh and she said she was on a bike so hers were just fine. After hanging out for a few minutes I remembered Colleen had wanted me to come out and pace her to the finish, so I strapped on my sandals (my feet were a little tired at this point and I was ready to give them a rest) and started walking.

I was expecting her to be running around a 15 minute mile, so I checked the time and guesstimated about where I would meet up with her. While walking back a lady on a bike stopped me to take my picture, as her daughter runs (or had run) in FiveFingers and she wanted to show her that some one had (been foolish enough) run the race totally barefoot. I obliged and we chatted for a minute before heading our separate ways. I stopped to talk to the police officers on the way back and stopped at the last aid station to talk to the volunteers too. They must have had something to do with the course planning and gave me an interesting bit of trivia: when they finalized the course none of the freshly chip sealed roads had been treated yet. Those roads were done within the last week! Inwardly I congratulated myself on handling as much as I did, considering how fresh the treatment had been.

I met up with Colleen at about the mile 12 marker, right on time. I was impressed that she looked as good as she did. Having run a 10 miler with her a few weeks ago I expected her to be a little tired and ready to be done, but she was trucking along and still had a positive attitude so I was really glad she was doing so well. We headed back the way I came, and I talked and talked in an effort to make sure to distract her from the mile she had to go. Apparently the police had gone home in the last 10 minutes or so, because when I looked for the guys I had used to mark the turns they were gone and I led Colleen down the wrong road. This proved to be a huge mistake, as the road we had to take to get back on course led to a bunch of tents and whatnot that was setup for some other event (Hispanic Festival, I think), and Colleen thought it was the finish line. When she learned it wasn't she kind of hit the floor a little bit with a simple "I'm done."

She got going after a minute though, with some semi-gentle prodding from me about how we were only a turn or so away from the finish line. The damage had been done though and her mood wouldn't really improve until we finished. The tracks gave her some problems, as the footing wasn't great, but she crossed the line at 3:18:42 and immediately broke into tears. I totally understood, having gone through the same thing in May when I finished the Kalamazoo Marathon, so I didn't say anything and just attended to my hugging duties (because that's what everyone needs when they finish something like this the first time).

In lieu of medals, we got free pints of beer from Dark Horse, which was excellent beer! We hung out, drank beer, stretched, took pictures and chatted with other runners for a while. It was a lot of fun and our only regret was that there weren't donuts at the end because we could have really used one at that point! It was a great event with great people and I'm hoping to make it back next year!

September Blues

2011-09-21T06:30:00.000-04:00

September is that wonderful time of year where despite cooling temperatures, apple season and the turning of the leaves I find myself a bit depressed. Not sure why this is, but it seems like I go through it every year. Last year I had my first 5k and 10k races to train for, which got me through September and October pretty nicely. This year I don't really have that, as I plan on taking some time in October to make sure I am injury-free for the Beyond Group this winter, and I am kind of down on myself for the lack of control I've had over the summer with my weight. After all the gains I made last year and this past spring, even gaining back 10 pounds has felt like a complete failure (I think this is the cause of my gloomy mood).

There is hope on the horizon though! This weekend is the Baker's Dozen Beer Run in Marshall, a half marathon fun run that Colleen and I both signed up for. I'm hoping having a good run there will light a fire under me, since the last couple weeks I have had a hard time getting out the door in the mornings. This weekend is also our 7th anniversary, and as luck would have it my folks will be down and have offered to watch the kids so we can go out for a couple hours. I always feel better when Colleen and I get a chance to recharge our batteries.

So the next step appears to be to get the weight loss back on track, which is something I've been trying (and failing) to do for a few weeks now. I might need some kind of external motivation or something (last time it was that we paid ourselves for weight lost), but I need to get it back on track. Not sure how much running I'll do for the next few weeks (after the race Saturday) but I'm at least going to make sure to ride the bike or something in the meantime.

To Run or Not To Run

2011-09-12T06:28:00.000-04:00

Well, the last couple weeks have been a bit short on real running adventures. I'm still struggling with a sore foot problem that only shows up while walking. Thankfully it isn't a problem while running, but it's a double-edged sword as I have probably not been giving the foot the kind of rest it needs to fully recover from whatever ailment plagues it. I have tried wearing my old Nikes to work, and while they imitate a cast for the forefoot pretty well, they cause me a lot of pain in my arches, just in front of the heel (similar to plantar fasciitis pain), so after a few days I went back to my Merrells. I'll probably try the Nikes again next week but for now I dread digging them back out of the closet.

I did get some running in though. My weekday runs have been short and few, maybe accounting for about 12 or so miles over the last 2 weeks. I've usually been in a hurry with a limited amount of time to run, so the distances were as much as I could squeeze into 25-30 minutes while trying not to go too fast. My weekend long runs are where I've been getting most of my mileage, and because of the lack of weekday mileage they are also the runs beating me up the most.

With the Baker's Dozen Beer Run half marathon coming up, I wanted to make sure I had a few lengthy runs under my belt. Last weekend I went out for a 13 mile run, choosing a kind of 2-part loop that would take me past my house near the halfway point to refill my water bottle. I have moved over to Gatorade for hydration recently in an attempt to get something of a two-fer out of my fluids that would also include some calories and electrolytes. I also had a single pack of Honey Stingers on me, which I doled out one at a time every 10 minutes. My energy levels seemed pretty good the whole run, so it seems like it worked, but after about 10 miles the Gatorade kind of hit my stomach in a nasty way and I found myself wishing I had water instead.

The first part of the loop took me down along Stadium Drive, where the stench of Sweetwater's Donuts taunted me for about a quarter mile or so. I proceeded to climb Drake Hill and loop through the WMU industrial park, where I was led by a red tail hawk for about half the loop. It was kind of weird, as it just stayed a little bit ahead of me by landing on every other light pole, but it was nice to have some company. I tried to get a picture, but I could never get close enough for a decent shot. The industrial park was my nemesis over the winter, as the asphalt was extremely rough, but a little while ago they repaved it so now it's as smooth as a baby's butt. They must have recently striped the place, as there were tiny reflective silica (or whatever it is they use) grains all over the road that felt like they were causing tiny glass splinters every time I stepped near some. It didn't take long for me to start avoiding the striping and the areas of the bike lanes where the grains collected.

Leaving the industrial park I headed back towards the house down Parkview Avenue, which has a couple big downhill sections that I have always struggled with. I have been working on the "no brakes!" method of attacking downhills, and when I'm on my game it seems to work great. This was a good day, and I flew down the hill about as fast as I could lift my feet, doing my best Olympic hurdler impression while leaping over a dead raccoon in the bike lane (there were too many cars and I couldn't go around). I was still a bit winded from the hill when I got to the house and refilled my water bottle, but after a quick break I got it back and was on my way again.

The second part of the loop followed the Kalamazoo Marathon course through the neighborhood all the way to Bronson Boulevard, where I turned around and headed home. By the time I got back my feet were pretty tired, but it was a pretty good run for not having gone that kind of distance in a couple months. I was pretty sore later on, but not as sore as I thought i would be, so I chalked it up as a win.

The following Saturday I went back out for a 10 miler, but this time had a couple things going against me before I even left the house: I had just run the day before so my legs and feet were still a little tight, I was basically going out without my usual muscle rolling (I didn't have a lot of time) and I only had Gatorade for fuel (no Honey Stingers). I did pretty much the same route as the week before, but didn't go as far on the second loop. The run felt pretty good as I got started but I never really felt great. My head was in a kind of "meh" place, and I spent more time focusing on trying to relax my legs and feet than anything.

The downhill sections were particularly punishing too. Like I said, when I'm on my game it works well, but this was not my day: I could feel my feet slamming into the ground with every step as I flew down the hills instead of the more fluid rolling-type feel I had the week before. I got the distinct feeling I'd be paying for my insolence later. The fuel difference kicked in towards the end as well, when my legs started feeling kind of heavy. It didn't get too bad (it was "only" 10 miles instead of 13), but when I got home I felt like I had put myself through the ringer. I would spend the rest of the day with extremely sore feet and stiff ankles, the payment I owed to the hills I had dared to thumb my nose at.

The good news is the recovery went pretty well and the next day I felt relatively pain free and was even feeling good enough to strap on my new Bedrock Sandals (thin soled huaraches I bought for running) for a trip to the grocery store (I had lived in some cushy flip flops the day before). I'm pretty confident the Baker's Dozen will go well, as I have put in some decent runs at or near the mileage needed, and I'll be doing a mini taper beforehand so my feet will get some rest between now and then. After that though, I'll need to slow down considerably for a couple weeks to make sure I am in the best shape possible before December. I signed on to be a pacer for the 11:30-12:00/mile group for this winter's Beyond program, so I am super excited and want to make sure I don't go into it pre-injured!

On the Importance of Pace

2011-09-07T06:16:00.001-04:00

Rather than tell a story today I have decided to share some of the "wisdom" I have acquired over the last year. Specifically, the importance of Pace while running. Normally this isn't something I think about, but a few developments have brought it to the forefront of my mind lately. This is entirely based on my own observations, so please don't consider me an expert by any means; I just thought I would share my thoughts.

Enter into any structured training program and one of the first things you need to figure out is what pace you should be running while training. For example, if you want to finish a marathon in 5 hours your goal pace would be somewhere around 11:30/mile. Once you have that you then start working backwards into several different kinds of Paces such as Tempo, Long Easy, Recovery, and a couple others I can't remember off the top of my head. I'm not the most serious runner, so the only ones that I have really paid attention to are the Tempo and Long Easy.

Tempo Pace is usually, in my experience, about a minute per mile faster than your goal pace and you usually only go this fast while doing shorter runs or in intervals during a longer run. Intense programs may have you doing them more often than I am used to, but for someone who is a relative beginner they are typically done in small amounts. Last winter we did them on Tuesdays as an interval during one of our shorter midweek runs.

Long Easy Pace is the big one. This is the "conversational" pace you would use to finish your long weekend runs and is usually about a minute per mile slower than your goal pace. I know several folks who did every run pretty much at or just slightly faster than their Long Easy Pace and didn't worry about the Tempo and other speeds. In my mind this is the key pace, as it makes the long distance run more comfortable and therefore a little easier to accomplish. I can imagine running out of gas real fast if I tried to do 10+ miles at my 5k race pace (about 8:30-8:45/mile).

Where am I going with all this? Well, over the last 4 months or so I have developed a kind of love/hate relationship with Pace. On the one hand, I just want to run as fast as I feel like running, not paying attention to Pace. On the other hand, If left to my own devices I tend to run a little too fast and get burned out early during a run or worse: injured. Several times this summer I would be out by myself and running 10+ miles while maintaining 10 minute per mile pace (which I discovered after the fact when I checked my GPS), and wondering why I felt winded the whole time and why I got pretty sore after the run.

In the meantime I have watched my wife and one of her friends train for a fall half marathon and the one consistent complaint is their pacing. They are constantly fighting themselves to keep from going too fast, and it's burning them out long before they reach the end of their runs. About a week ago I was able to join Colleen on her run (her friend was unable to go) and try my hand at "coaching" and was amazed at just how easy it was for her to go faster than she was comfortable with, especially on hills. Once I dialed in on more or less her comfortable pace I had a pretty easy time of maintaining it by feel, and had to remind her many times to take it easier, on the hills especially, so she had some left in the tank for the last couple miles. Having a target pace made it much easier for me to manage my own pace, as opposed to the "I'm just running" approach I had been using. Our pace on that run opened my eyes to what I had been unconsciously doing all summer (running too fast, obviously), and I decided it was time to manage my pace a little better on my long runs.

So where is all this rambling leading and why should you care? Basically the nugget of wisdom in all this is that while it's nice to be able to leave the GPS at home, one of the big rookie mistakes is simply not knowing how much to slow down in order to make sure you have the energy to get to the end of a long run. Even when you know how much to slow down sometimes it's hard to actually make yourself do it. One good guideline I have heard from many people is to run at a "conversational" pace, meaning slow enough that you can have a conversation with someone without huffing and puffing for breath. This is actually a lot harder than it sounds for someone new to distance running and it takes some practice. Watch how fast everyone runs during the first couple long runs of a training program and then notice how much they slow down at about week 3 or 4. You might be surprised. A guideline I have been using lately while running alone has been the ability to breathe through my nose. If I can comfortably breathe through my nose I am going plenty slow and should have plenty of gas in the tank for the last couple miles of a run.

After running for a while and gaining some experience I think many people can find their comfortable Long Easy Pace almost instinctively. I have met several people who just go out and run and never seem to get winded and I think they just became skilled at listening to their bodies. With some practice anyone should be able to do it... Even me!

Product Review: Gold Bond Foot Cream

2011-09-05T07:06:00.000-04:00

So while my contemporaries such as Jason Robillard and Christian Peterson are out getting free shoes from everyone and their brother for reviews I have decided (some would say I had no other choice) to start with something rarely seen in the product review world: Ointment. Or is it Unguent? Hell, I don't know. Either way the first product review here at BarefootRoot will involve a topical cream.

There is a significant back story to this review, and while I think it's important I'll try not to make it take up the entire article. In a nutshell, heel fissures suck.

Ok maybe I need to expand on it a little more than that. I have been suffering with heel fissures for somewhere around 4 years now, long before I even dreamed of running, barefoot or otherwise. I have no idea why they decided to plague me with their horribleness, which makes them all the more difficult to deal with (many remedies are largely dependent on the cause). Eventually they developed to a point where my heels were dry, calloused, pitted and ultimately I got fairly deep cracks that were often very painful.

Over the years I tried several remedies with little success. I had read they may be caused my athlete's foot so I tried athlete's foot cream. No dice. I heard they were from a vitamin E and Omega 3 deficiency, so I increased both in my diet as best I could (I am allergic to fish). Nada. I tried a couple different over the counter heel creams claiming to "heal dry cracked heels!" Nothing. I even tried pumice stones and microplanes to physically grate the damn things off. Those worked as far as getting rid of the horrible white callouses, but more often than not doing this just made it easier for the cracks to reopen. I even tried using vaseline while putting plastic bags on my feet while I slept. There was a tiny bit of improvement there, but nothing I would consider satisfactory. Then the power of advertising kicked in.

I am a sucker for long-lived brands. Any brand or product that has survived a century has to do what it claims or it wouldn't still be with us. A prime example would be my attachment to Carmex, which I used back in high school for my lips (I was a trumpet player and the lips are important!) as well as later on when I spent considerable time working outdoors in the winter. The stuff is still sold in ceramic jars with metal lids for crying out loud! Anyway, the ad I saw one fateful day was for Gold Bond Therapeutic Foot Cream, which claimed to heal cracked heels (just like all the others). What it had over the other products though was a pedigree: Gold Bond has been around since 1908. If their products didn't work they would have vanished years ago, so I was willing to give it a shot.

The product itself costs somewhere around $6.50 (I can't tell for sure because Michigan just eliminated a law saying products needed to be individually priced and the tube has no price tag on it), which seems expensive at first blush, but I have used that first tube for just over 2 months now so it doesn't seem so bad anymore. I was pretty generous with how much I used, so it may even last longer if I used a proper amount!

The nice thing right off the bat is that it's non-greasy. This is a big plus in my book because if you give it a couple minutes to dry before throwing on your shoes or socks or jumping in bed you wouldn't know it was on there. It also is pretty easy to rinse off your hands, making stuff like Vaseline seem pretty nasty by comparison.

So how did it perform? I'm glad you asked! I didn't go in with very high hopes, aside from my superstition involving ancient product branding, so I was pleasantly surprised to see a fairly significant improvement during the very first week! I had been using it in the morning and at night and that was it; no microplaning, no pumice, no nothing. Just the cream. By the end of the second week most of the cracks had disappeared except for a particularly deep and persistent bugger and most of the callouses were nearly gone.

After a month of usage the cracks had completely healed and the callouses were reduced to simple rough patches of skin on my heels. I continued to use the stuff morning and night and could see slight further improvement, but I got the feeling I had reached the limits of its mystical powers. It has now been just over 2 months since I first started using it and I still have some rough dry patches on my heels, much like they were a few weeks ago, but they are pretty minor and the cream appears to keep them well under control with a single application each day.

All that's left after 2 months of usage

All in all I think this is a great product and well worth the $6.50 I spent on it. While it didn't completely eliminate my problem, it certainly took care of the worst symptoms (the cracks and callouses) extremely well. My only regret is not getting before pictures so you could see exactly how well it performed. For the first time in 4 years my heels don't look like total hell! Thank you Gold Bond!

This raises an important question for me: what the heck is causing the dry spots on my heels in the first place? I still don't know, but at least now I have a weapon to keep things under control until I figure out the last piece of the puzzle.

Race Report: Naked Foot 5k, Grand Rapids MI

2011-08-30T19:36:00.000-04:00

Photo Credit: The last 2 photos here are courtesy of Johnny and Dee Jeffery! You guys rock!

This past Sunday I attended the Merrell Naked Foot 5k in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The early returns are already in from John Yohe and Johnny Jeffery, so we obviously saved the "best" for last. The other guys had better photos though, so they get extra points for being awesome. The event appears to have been a huge success, as I am told there were nearly 250 people in attendance!

I woke up at about 4:30AM to get ready. Colleen and the kids had gotten home about 1:00AM from Grandpa and Grandma's house, so the car was still fully packed and I was glad I had given myself extra time to unload it. Once emptied, I loaded up our massive double stroller. The plan was that I would push the kids through the race since they had insisted on coming back so Mirei could run in the kids 1k fun run. At 6:00AM I got the kids out of bed, got them dressed and hit the road at about 6:40AM.

The kids were extremely sleepy, since while they had slept a bit in the car the night before, they had only been in bed for about 5 hours when I roused them. Oren fell asleep pretty quickly once we got going, but Mirei stayed awake, promising me she would be ready for her race (which she'd been talking about all week). We rolled into Riverside Park in Grand Rapids at about 7:40AM to a sparse crowd of early birds.

Most of the sponsor booths were all set up, including Merrell, The Hadley Clinic, Gazelle Sports and what I believe was either Forest Hills Foods or Harvest Health Foods (Unfortunately that booth would stay pretty busy all morning and I never really got a chance to see exactly which it was). There was also some tents where some massage therapists were setting up, but I never found out who they were nor was I able to actually take advantage of their services.

I wandered over to Scott Hadley's booth, where we chit-chatted and I got to meet Brandon Mulnix, a local ultra runner who had run 50 miles the day before with his jaw wired shut! Dude's got cahones! I made my best effort to plant myself and the kids in an open space near registration and to look conspicuous, but quickly realized I should have made a sign or something. There were a lot of people filtering in, and while I knew a few people who were coming most of the folks I wanted to meet up with were unknowns. This was a weird problem for me, as I can normally find my barefoot peeps at an event just by looking for the other 1-2 people with no shoes on, but EVERYBODY was either barefoot or in some kind of minimal shoe and the size of the crowd made it impossible to pick any faces out. I would eventually hook up with John Yohe, Johnny Jeffery and his family, Ken Jones and Eric Cooper, but the other 4+ members of the Michigan Chapter were folks I just didn't know.

This is the load I had to push!

As the crowd got bigger and bigger, we began to get ready for the kids 1k. Mirei had been complaining about the cold all morning, and still wasn't looking all that awake. I had a bad feeling she wasn't up to it but she said she would run in it. She insisted I run with her (while pushing Oren in the stroller), so we lined up in the back. The gun went off for the kids and we headed out. Mirei got off to a bad start, nearly walking through the starting gate, still complaining of the cold. As the other kids left us in their dust she actually slowed to a walk, which made me really frustrated. Colleen and I had gone to great lengths to make sure she was around to run in this race and she was totally flaking out on me. Once we got into the sunshine she perked up and finished strong, but still finished pretty much last. I was disappointed because I know how well she runs, but she just wasn't feeling it I guess and I had to let it go.

After the kids race we hung out and watched the 1 mile run, which had only a few participants (I think someone said there were 10-12 people in it). It was a nice run topped off with a triumphant finish by a heavy lady who had run with a young girl. She looked pretty happy to have finished and the crowd gave her a huge round of applause when she crossed the finish line.

Now for the main event: the 5k. Johnny's wife Dee offered to watch the kids while I ran, but Mirei decided she had to ride in the stroller. The others commented on how bumpy it would be and I could only shrug. Since I was one of only 2 strollers there and the only double stroller, I made my way to the back where I lined up next to Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton, and we chatted for a moment while the race got underway. The gate was way too small for the assembled crowd, and everyone kind of walked through the gate before taking off onto the course.

The first leg was grassy park lawn with large trees here and there. I came out faster than many of the people ahead of me, so there was a lot of dodging people and trees until we hit the first section of paved bike trail. The grass was wet and the ground was kind of squishy, making the stroller hard to push (not to mention I am terrified of running in grass because of what it could hide), so I was glad for some pavement to run on. I settled into a pretty good pace, passing several people. I was surprised to see the number of people running in traditional trainers, but quickly realized they were in a distinct minority. That realization made me feel pretty damn good.

Whoever came up with the course did a good job of finding a good variety of surfaces, as we eventually turned back off the bike path and onto the lawn once more. This stretch led down by the Grand River and took us through some squishy mud. It felt good to tromp through the stuff, but the stroller wasn't playing nice with the surface. After a little more lawn area we got back up on the bike path and crossed a timber decked bridge, so I was making sure to watch for protruding nails or anything that said "splinter" on it. The course would eventually turn off onto a road, requiring some careful negotiation of the concrete curb-stops along the edge of the road (my stroller was far too wide and I needed to slow down and lift the back wheels over the blocks).

I was keeping a pretty steady pace, moving pretty quickly considering I was pushing nearly 100 pounds of kid and stroller. I was dismayed to learn that the back half of the course would be back on the grass though. I kept hoping for some more pavement but never got any.

I did my best to hold the pace I had at the halfway point, slowly persistence-hunting the people in front of me while I barreled through the wet grass and mushy ground. The stroller was bouncing all over the place and my legs were burning. Anyone who's ever run while pushing a stroller knows that it's about twice as hard as running alone. Add grass and soft ground to the equation and it's closer to ten times more difficult than running solo. Eventually my legs would get the better off me and I would walk for about a minute. I can't remember the last time I walked in a 5k, but there I was. I wasn't feeling all that impressive, but I knew I needed some rest if I wanted to finish strong.

The course would wind around some baseball fields and around the parking lot before heading into the final stretch to the finish line. Once I had it in my sights I told the kids to hang on and went for an all-out sprint to the finish, determined to pass at least a couple more people. With the stroller catching air off every root and my legs flying beneath me the crowd cheered as the stroller and I flew across the finish line in just over 30 minutes. As hard as the run had been I was all smiles at the finish, knowing I was the only one bold enough (or stupid enough) to tackle the course with the kind of load I was pushing.

When all was said and done, there was plenty of mingling with all my barefoot friends, comparing notes on the course, finish times, and how many shoddies we saw. Many of us would head over for a clinic by Jason Robillard while the kids finally got out of the stroller to go play. Jason said he'd been working to simplify his teaching method, and his ABC's method certainly accomplished that well. It was well worth seeing.


Left to right: Me, Scott, Ken, John, Jason and Johnny. Yes, that pose is mandatory!

After the clinic we tried to gather as many of our Michigan Chapter members as we could, and managed to get myself, John, Johnny, Ken Jones, Scott and Jason into a fun group photo. Meeting Jason was a great thing for me, as he complimented me on my efforts as Michigan Chapter President. It feels real good to have one of the guys you look up to give you the thumbs-up. Afterward we all headed for our cars, and on the way got another photo-op with Ken Bob, which was also an honor. I consider him an honorary Michigan Chapter member as he grew up here. I'm not sure what kinds of questions he gets from the people he meets, but the one thing I asked him was where exactly he was from (he mentions the Traverse City area in his book) and was pleased to learn he was from Grawn, a little town I remember because my mom and dad grew up in nearby towns themselves. When I mentioned my dad was from Mesick he said "yeah, it makes Mesick too..." and went on to say "The main thing I remember is playing my only night game in pee wee baseball there and getting hit in the face by a pitch."

Left to right: Johnny, Ken Bob, Ken, John and Me

After the final photos were taken we all headed for our cars. We all had a great time and met a lot of great people we had spoken to online but had never met in person. It was definitely a great way to recharge the batteries as far as my duties as Chapter Prez. Being able to see all those guys in one place and having such a good time makes it all worthwhile.

A Slow News Week

2011-08-29T05:57:00.001-04:00

So this week was kind of slow, although the end of it turned out to be pretty memorable (which will be an article of its own very soon!). A sore foot has slowed my running down considerably (both quantity and speed), and while I think it's improving it's still not 100%. I did manage to get out a few times though, and it made me feel a little better.

Saturday the 20th I managed to get out and put down about 5.5 miles before having to get home so Colleen could go to her training group. I took it slow and easy, relying on a timer instead of a mileage to tell me when to turn around. It was a beautiful morning with plenty of stars out and a crescent moon. My route took me through my neighborhood and then out to the little commercial area at Oakland and Parkview, then east down Whites Road. There was very little traffic, which I love, and if it weren't so peaceful I would have described the silence as oppressive. Not even crickets! I finished the front half by heading down Bronson Boulevard to the south, through a nice neighborhood filled with lots of trees and large homes. I often wonder why a family would need the kind of space these houses provide, unless they have 6 kids or something, and usually decide that it's more about being a status symbol than actually having a need for that much space. Eventually I turned around and headed back the way I came. By my last half mile I was pleased to realize my feet and ankles felt like they could easily have tacked on another couple miles, but i was running out of time so I stayed on track and headed home. It was a nice run, but my right foot would get sore later on and stay pretty sore for a couple days.

Thursday I decided to go out and put in a short run before work. I had been rolling my feet, legs and hips a couple times a day (a technique learned from Scott Hadley the week before) and the soreness in my foot felt like it was improving. That morning I was bound by the 55 minutes that were available, so after all was said and done, allotting about 15 minutes for some per and post-run rolling, I set my Nike+GPS app on my phone for a 25 minute run and headed out. It was another beautiful morning, and I could tell fall was on its way. The 5AM temperatures seemed to have been dropping for a couple weeks now, but I really noticed it today. It wasn't cold, but there was a refreshing briskness to the air that felt good (I like fall, except for raking leaves). The run was nice and short, just a loop through our neighborhood, with fairly little to tell about it. It felt great to be out there though, as August has been such a low-mileage month and I've managed to put on a few unwanted pounds over the last few weeks.

Saturday the 27th I decided to go along with Colleen to her training group since the kids were up at Grandpa and Grandma's house. My plan was to do maybe 6 miles, but was open for a little longer distance. I hadn't done more that 7.8 miles in about 2 months, so I was a bit leery of going the full 10 with Colleen. We met up with her group out near Gull Lake, where I got to see a few people I'd run with over the winter. We got to catch up a little bit before the run and I found out they were going to run 18 miles that day! I hadn't come close to that kind of run since the middle of May! Good for them!

We found out Colleen was the only one present running the 10 mile course (the 3-4 different mileages had different courses for one reason or another), as her usual partner bailed (she said she had stuff to do that day) and a fair portion of her pace group was out with injuries while a couple were simply MIA. I decided I needed to stick with her for the full 10, as I didn't want her to be out in the middle of nowhere all alone. The group had a cyclist going around checking people, but with most of the runners doing 18 miles around the lake I figured he'd have his hands full without having to worry about us, who wouldn't even get near the lake after the first mile and a half.

The front half went pretty well. It took me some time, but I eventually got a good feel for Colleen's pace (I've traditionally had a hard time slowing down to her pace, but I was determined to nail it today). I did my best to keep her at a relatively constant speed because she has complained about her and her partner's tendency to subconsciously speed up during a run. I wanted her as fresh as possible for the second half so I was pretty relentless when it came to keeping her speed down. We had other runners in our sights through the entire first half, which was nice (she said she frequently can't see anyone else either in front or behind) and kept her spirits up.

Turning around, the run got a little more difficult. The big hills were starting to wear on her, and we had to stop for a moment to catch breath after climbing the first one. She has a tendency to push too hard up hills, and it was all I could do to get her to slow down so she didn't get overworked. We rolled into the our 6 mile (it was also the 4 mile) aid station and told the girl working it she could probably head back, as we were the only ones coming back that way. We set back off on a decent pace and I found it harder and harder to keep Colleen's speed down. She was anxious to get back.

This became a big problem on the last big hill (there would still be several smaller ones) as she tried to power up it with me constantly chirping in her ear to slow down. I'm not sure what was going on in her head at this point, but she just wouldn't slow down and looked like she was starting to freak out. I smelled the bonks, so when she said she needed to walk I didn't argue. I gave her my bottle of gatorade (she'd been running on honey stingers and water) hoping it would help her settle down. She'd also run into a calf cramp not too long after the 6 mile aid station, so I knew she was running on depleted nutrients. We got rolling again after a short walk, and came into the final aid station in much better spirits. I refilled my bottle with water and Colleen had a couple drinks before we headed into the home stretch.

We would take one final walk break after climbing a hill a little faster than we planned. We were both getting anxious to be back at this point and I had let my pacer duties lapse a little bit. When we finally got back to the parking lot we were feeling pretty good, though a bit tired (we were both running on about 5 hours of sleep). After some stretching we headed out for a well-deserved late breakfast at Ryksie's.

This Week in the Universe

2011-08-22T05:38:00.000-04:00

So I had planned, and written, a final wrap-up to my Upper Peninsula vacation series, but realized pretty quick that there wasn't much to tell. Basically I spent the next couple days driving home and lamenting the fact I am stuck in southwest Michigan instead of the Marquette area. There. In one sentence I pretty much summed up an entire article. I think we'll all be better off not having to read that sucker.

So instead of all that, here's what's been going on lately:

This week I got signed up for most of the racing I plan on doing this fall. I got signed up for the Naked Foot 5k this coming Sunday in Grand Rapids, where there will be some big name barefooters (Jason Robillard and Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton) as well as a bunch of the Michigan Chapter folks from the Barefoot Runners Society. The race organizers have sent out a discount code for $10 off registration as well that I'll share for anyone still on the fence about attending: NFdiscount2011

I also got signed up for the Baker's Dozen Beer Run in Marshall, which we had intended to be the Michigan Chapter meet-up in September, but being a half marathon I'm not sure how many folks will show up for it. Registration is open through August 26th and the race is only $15, so it's super cheap to get in.

The last race I signed up for was the Jingle Bell Run for Arthritis on November 13th. Back in January I decided to try and help out a bit with the Kalamazoo Area Runners and volunteered to captain the club team. For anyone wanting to dig deep and donate to my cause, you can do it here, or if you want to join the Kalamazoo Area Runners Team or donate to the team itself, you can do that here.

I do have a couple other races in October I would like to run, but haven't signed up for them yet. I'm kind of waiting to see how the next few weeks pan out as far as getting the pain in my right foot under control.

And speaking of that, I had a chance to attend a barefoot running and injury prevention clinic last week put on by Scott Hadley of The Hadley Clinic. Someone had convinced him to put one on at 6AM and I decided I needed to be there so maybe I would learn something that would help my foot. I'm fairly certain it's either something to do with tight calf muscles or something with my running form, and both of these would be addressed. There was a pretty big group for being so early in the morning, and I learned quite a bit. There were some valuable tips on barefoot running form that I think will do me some good, and after Scott taught us how to properly do it, I'm trying to be more diligent in rolling my leg muscles now in the hopes it will relieve my foot pain. It seems too early to say it worked, but I think there has been improvement since I started a couple days ago.

I do have a couple product reviews coming up in the not too distant future, which will be a relatively new thing for me. The only one I've done before was a book review I wrote for the Barefoot Runners Society, so this will be interesting. The funny thing is while my contemporaries are off reviewing the newest minimalist shoe technology or other high tech gear I will be starting with a skin care ointment. Yeah, not exactly glamorous, but somebody needed to do it. I will eventually be reviewing my Bedrock Sandals. There has been some delay in getting them, but they should be arriving soon and once I get to spend some time in them I'll be sure to write about it.

Vacation Part 6: More Marquette!

2011-08-18T06:00:00.002-04:00

This is part 6 of a series telling the story of my vacation over the first week of august. Having visited with an old friend I decide to head back out into the wilderness...

Vacation Part 1: Gaylord
Vacation Part 2: In Transit to Manistique
Vacation Part 3: Manistique
Vacation Part 4: In Transit to Marquette
Vacation Part 5: Marquette's Presque Isle, a Photoblog

Looking up from the bottom of Sugarloaf Mountain

Day 6: August 4, 2011 (continued)
After my visit with Tracy I headed for one of my all-time favorite places: Sugarloaf Mountain. When I was in college I used to go there to find barely accessible rocks (I did a fair amount of rock climbing back then) to lie on and collect my thoughts, since I wasn't emotionally the pillar of awesomeness I am today. My plan was to run barefoot up and back, or at least back, as the climb could be tricky.

Not exactly barefoot friendly here...

Back in the day there were two ways up: The Trail, complete with many many stairs, or head cross country making your own path. These days there is another way: "The Difficult Trail". Yes, I picked that one, and of course it was so littered with rocks and roots that going barefoot appeared to be a death wish. I got about 50 feet up the trail before realizing exactly how rough the trail was, and strapped on my Trail Gloves.

The shoes were custom freaking designed for this kind of terrain, so I was glad I had them despite the discomfort they were causing my still-recovering toe. I started running, but it didn't last. I made it about halfway up before realizing that the trail was effectively for Hiking Only, unless some sick bastard wants to show me otherwise. I walked the rest of the way, but considering the terrain and the climb itself I didn't mind. I reached the top and hung around for a few minutes enjoying the sights.

Looking south from the top of Sugarloaf Mountain

Looking west... I have no idea who that girl is in the corner

Looking north over the mountain

On my way back down my shoes started really irritating my toe and I couldn't wait to get them off. I didn't dare until i got to the bottom though. I hadn't worn shoes in about a week and had only worn the flip flops for about 10 minutes, so it felt really weird and I wasn't sure how I would feel once I went back to work the following Monday. At the bottom I drained what was left of my water bottle and headed back towards town.

All that remained of a once-cool waterfall

Getting back near city limits, I stopped at another trail along the Dead River. The river had broken through an earthen dam a few years back, washing out Big Bay Road, but making a pretty cool waterfall in the process. Unfortunately the dam had been rebuilt along with a brand new hydroelectric plant, so the waterfall was gone. I spoke with a local about it and was told they had flooded an area 9 feet deep and the Marquette Tourist Park was putting a beach in on the new "lake". Anyway, the trail looked promising from the parking lot and I decided to try it barefoot since my Trail Gloves had felt pretty nasty by the time I got to the bottom of Sugarloaf. There was apparently 13 miles of trail there along the river but I only did about a mile and a half. As I'd been finding, trails in the Upper Peninsula, and along the northern coast in particular, were pretty much guaranteed to be full of stones and roots (being a very rocky area, geographically) and this trail was no different. Eventually the obstacles got pretty bad and I decided to cut my losses and had back. My feet were feeling mighty tired by the time I got back to the car.

All my runs today amounted to about 7 miles (I didn't keep track of all of them) and with the hike up and down Sugarloaf I am comfortable estimating a total mileage of around 8 miles for the day. Between the trails, rocks and beach sand my dogs were barking! The old feet would be sore for much longer than I expected, but then I did give them a hell of a workout so I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised.

I topped off the day with a good swim in Lake Superior, which didn't seem as cold as usual. I could have stayed in the water another hour (the cold, clear water felt great on my feet!) but I needed to pick up dinner for the in-laws on the way home. I grabbed some pasties at a place called Muldoon's in Munising, and they were pretty damn good. It was a hearty meal, which was good because I was starving! I'd pretty much been living on two slices of pizza, a pack of Honey Stingers, a bottle of Gatorade and a peanut roll! I finished dinner with a leftover piece of apple pie my mom had left the night before, which totally hit the spot!

by the end of the day I promised myself to look into sending some resumes to the Marquette and Munising areas. I love that part of Michigan so much! It's time to think hard about living where I want to instead of living where I have to.

Vacation Part 5: Marquette's Presque Isle, a Photoblog

2011-08-16T06:49:00.001-04:00

This is part 5 of a series telling the story of my vacation over the first week of august. Here we find ourselves traversing Marquette's Presque Isle, narrowly evading doom at the hands of treacherous cliffs and rabid wildlife! Well, sort of...

Vacation Part 1: Gaylord
Vacation Part 2: In Transit to Manistique
Vacation Part 3: Manistique
Vacation Part 4: In Transit to Marquette

Day 6: August 4, 2011 (continued)

Rolling into Marquette, my first order of business was checking out a disturbing rumor: my friend Tracy had said Presque Isle Park was closed due to "A moose with the brainworm". Yeah, I thought it sounded line a bad movie plot too. Turns out the park wasn't closed but the loop road around it was closed to vehicle traffic but not foot/bicycle traffic. Tons of people were walking or biking there. There were signs posted warning of a bull moose in the park though, and that that people should avoid it at all costs. Moose? Check. Brainworm? Not that the City of Marquette was telling us about.

I began running the empty road around the "island" (it's actually a peninsula) counterclockwise from the southeasterly corner. The island is a thing of beauty, combining lush forests, rocky cliffs and the sparkling clear waters of Lake Superior into one of the most awesome pieces of nature I've ever seen. Eventually I found sound hiking trails that diverged from the paved road along the east side of the island which I followed carefully; there were many roots and stones along with a few precipitous drops to the Lake and my toe, while mostly healed, was still a bit tender and I didn't need to be tripping on anything. While I don't have a ton of experience running trails, I would hazard a guess that these hiking trails could be considered "technical". They were far tougher to run than anything I'd done down in Kalamazoo due to the roots, stones, hills and general twists and turns in the trail, so I thought it was pretty challenging but as I would be reminded later in the day there are trails far tougher than these.

Presque Isle's eastern coast looking north

Presque Isle's eastern coast, looking south

The crystal clear waters of Lake Superior sure looked refreshing!

The trail wound along the eastern and northeastern sides of the island, eventually leading back to the road along the north side. I seem to recall a couple tricky trails leading down along the northern side, but they didn't seem fit for running, so much as they were more of a hiking/climbing route, so I decided not to push my luck. I followed the road along the north and west sides of the island and began to see more people, who commented on my lack of footwear. I cheerfully said "Moose ate my shoes!" to anyone who looked at me funny. One guy asked if I had actually seen the moose and I had to tell him no, I was just kidding around.

One of the less treacherous areas of the trail

Technical areas ahead!

The trail at a point on the northeastern coast

It was about a 30 foot drop to the Lake here

The trail leading back into the woods

Northern coast, looking northwesterly

Northern coast, looking easterly

I really wanted to see the moose though, and on my way back I found my way up the cliff on the south side of the island and did some trail running across the middle of the park. It was a really neat piece of forest to run through, but unfortunately I didn't see the moose anywhere. I exited the forest on the east side of the park and followed the road back to the car, taking a slight detour to go down and soak my feet in Lake Superior and have a snack of honey stingers.

Beautiful forests of Presque Isle

Navigating the trails in search of the moose!

The southeastern coast of Presque Isle

A well deserved soak in the lake

Having finished my run at Presque Isle, I went and spent an hour bothering my friend Tracy at work. We got to catch up a lot since the last time we'd seen each other (about a year ago, just before she got married), despite somewhat keeping touch through Facebook. Apparently a lot goes on that still doesn't make it to the online social networks, and honestly I think that may be a good thing. It was great to see her, and my only regret is that I didn't have more time to hang out with her and her husband Greg. They are living the dream up there, and they're great folks who deserve every second of it. Eventually she got too busy for chit chat, and I had to get going if I wanted to do everything else I had planned, so we said our goodbyes and I headed out for some more adventure.

Race Report: Steve's Raider Stomp, Decatur, MI

2011-08-15T06:25:00.003-04:00

Having taken the week off due to sore feet, running a race may not have been the best decision in the world. However, this particular race would attract a bunch of my buddies from the Beyond marathon training group (Piper, Carolyn, Brent, Ginny, Frank and Angie) so I was willing to throw caution to the wind. It would turn out to be a great morning and I'm glad I was there.

Steve's Raider Stomp is a charity race for the local track and cross-country teams in Decatur, and is a memorial for one of their outstanding student athletes who had died in a car accident a few years back. It's run by my friend Bob Smola, who was my group pace leader during the Beyond Marathon Training Program put on by the Kalamazoo Area Runners, and I was determined to show my support. The race included a 5k walk, 5k run and a 10k run. I thought about doing the 10k but since I had taken all week off I figured I would be better off with the shorter distance. It was a pretty small event and rumor had it there were around 400 participants between all 3 races (the 5k had 104 finishers).

Heading for Decatur, I was a bit nervous about the weather because there were some nasty thunderstorms rolling through north of Paw Paw (the town so nice they named it twice!). I wasn't too worried about rain, since I enjoy running in wet conditions, but lightning is where I draw the line. Fortunately the weather would hold for us and we wouldn't see a single drop of rain.

I met up with my friends outside the high school gym where they were handling registration. Checking in was super smooth, possibly due to the smallish number of racers, and took maybe 2 minutes. I went out and visited with my friends for a few minutes while getting my number pinned on and after a quick jog to the car to drop off my race shirt I headed for the starting line with the others. We met up with Bob briefly on our way over and got in some hugs and "how ya been!" before his duties as race director took him away. It was great to see him and the others. The summer running has been lonely since the marathon back in May.

The course started on the road near the high school and headed kind of northwesterly in a nice loop on country and neighborhood roads. Most of the roads were older chip seal surfaces. I figure they were probably done in the last couple years, as they weren't as rough as a road done this year, but were rough enough that they were slightly uncomfortable. My runs on the Kal-Haven Trail, Al Sabo and the trails in Marquette last week had prepared me well for the surface though, so it didn't really slow me down. Six months ago I'm not sure I could have handled it without it affecting my performance.

The roads were completely closed off, which was nice as runners weren't crowded into a bike lane or anything. It allowed a lot of people to hug the inside of the curves, which is something I didn't really consider, and I'm sure many runners were able to shave a few seconds here and there by staying inside. I would later wish I'd done it myself, but I'll get to that in a bit. At one point I did have a car behind me, but the fire chief was ahead making sure the road was clear for runners and he stopped to chew out whoever it was that was nipping my heels with their car.

The aid stations were well manned and the drinks were nice and big. I went out of my way to thank everyone for being there, even the spectators, as I hadn't been as good about that lately as I'd like. My last two races were ones where I had concentrated on speed and I had really gotten away from my usual crowd-cheering self. It was nice to get back to that. Almost everyone I thanked also thanked me for running the race which felt good. The crowds weren't the thickest I'd seen, but they were a good crowd regardless and their positive energy kept me running a brisk pace.

I had planned to stop and take pictures, but because the field was so small I thought I had a chance to medal if I ran it hard, so I didn't stop to take any. I did stop once though at about 1.5 miles in when I saw a kid who must have been around 13 stop at the side of the road. It looked like he was spitting water out, since he still had a cup from the aid station, or maybe was getting some loogies out. Other runners just kept running past him. As I approached though it was obvious he was throwing up, and as a parent I just have this instinctive urge to help when I see a kid vomiting. I stopped and said "dude, are you ok?". He nodded and waved me on before unloading his digestive system again. I was still a bit concerned and said "is there anyone I can call for you?". He shook his head and waved me on. In the meantime about 10 people passed us and I don't think any of them even slowed down. Savages. Anyway, after waving me on the second time I gave up. "I hope you feel better" I said and headed back into the pack. I probably lost a half minute, if not more, from my finish but I didn't care. I was worried he wouldn't make it back in.

Getting back in I focused on keeping a couple young girls in my sights. I was trying to persistence-hunt them down, but my week off was keeping me a little winded and it was all I could do to keep my pace. They would stay just out of reach until the finish line.

At about 2.5 miles the race turned off the chip seal and onto a gravel road/driveway. There was a course marshall there who gave me a friendly "barefoot eh? This should get interesting!". I gave him a friendly laugh and said "yeah, we'll see!". The gravel was pretty rough, but there was a nice semi-mowed grassy strip along the road which I ran in. It made me super nervous because grass hides a lot of potential dangers for barefooters, but I bore down and kept pace, even passing some people who'd slowed down on the gravel. Eventually we crossed someones lawn and headed into some brush-hogged field and then onto a gravel two-track. There was no grassy shoulder on the two-track, so I just bore down and ran it as lightly as possible. There was a very slight hill here and I passed a few people, but they would overtake me again once we got back on chip seal.

After a few hundred feet on the chip seal we crossed a gravel approach onto Decatur high school's new track. It was that weird spongy stuff that I don't think a shoddie would take much notice of, but that reminded me of running in shoes again. There was a lot more friction and the give of the surface felt really strange. Bob was at the PA calling out names and numbers as they ran by and he gave me a big "way to go, Troy!" as I headed by before calling my name and number over the PA. I kept my brisk pace over most of the track, as I didn't have a ton left in the tank: I'd left most of it out on the course. Once I got around the bend and had a nice straight-away to the finish I kicked into sprint gear and finished as hard as I could. I managed to catch and pass not only a couple people who had passed me on the chip seal but the two girls I'd had in my sights for half the race.

I finished with a respectable 26:03, about 12 seconds off my personal best of 25:51. Later I would lament that if I'd hugged the turns tighter (I'd stayed on the outside where it was less crowded) and not stopped for that kid (although I don't think I would have actually done anything different in that situation) I may have been able to shave another minute off my time, which would have set a new best. It wouldn't have helped my standing though, as the 3 guys in my age group who beat me were all running around a 7:00 mile, and there was a 3:30 difference between me and the number 3 guy. I'd hang around the finish to get pictures of my friends finishing, which was cool. I actually got some pretty good shots!

Carolyn's last 5k finish before knee surgery!

Piper finishing strong on Decatur's new track

The kid who had been sick back at mile 1.5 would finish a couple minutes behind me, which was good. When I saw him I gave him a "way to go!" and a "glad you're feeling better!" he gave me a nod, but otherwise got a bottle of water and walked away. Wasn't the nicest kid in the world, but I was glad he made it back ok.

The race swag and food would be yet another highlight of the event. As soon as you cross the finish line there was someone there with a cold wet towel (which felt great!) and a bottle of water. The next station had popsicles and a table of cool swag. The volunteer said "take whatever you want!" and we were stunned. There were water bottles, coolers, bags, golf towels and I hunk a couple other things. I grabbed a cooler and a golf towel and headed towards the results board and food tables with my friends (who had finished the 5k anyway... Ginny, Frank and Angie were all running the 10k).

The food was awesome! There were a few varieties of muffins, which had to be some of the best I'd had in a long time. I even took one home for with my lunch and one for my wife (with the volunteer's blessing, of course). They also had fresh watermelon, apples, plums and peaches. Since Decatur is on the edge of fruit farm country, I assume the melon, peaches and plums were all fresh picked and local. Did I mention they were awesome? The plums were huge and juicy and the peaches were great as well.

My friend Piper placed 3rd in her division!

The medals were very nice, and some of us actually medalled! Piper would take 3rd in age group for the 5k while Angie and Ginny would take 1st in their respective age groups. The overall winners got some gorgeous glass trophies. They also had photographers taking pictures of the division and overall winners which were ready in about 5 minutes! I've never seen that before!

All in all this was a great event. It was small enough that you had a chance to medal as long as you gave it a good effort, and the food and swag were more superb considering the race only cost $17 to enter. The volunteers were great and everything was well done. Bob had put together quite an event and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a fun, fast race where anybody has a decent chance to bring home some hardware. My only reservation would be for other barefooters: the chip seal and gravel areas would be pretty bad if I hadn't been running on similar surfaces all summer. Some huaraches or minshoes would be recommended if you aren't used to rough surfaces.

Vacation Part 4: In Transit to Marquette

2011-08-15T06:25:00.000-04:00

This is part 4 of a series telling the story of my vacation over the first week of august. In this installment, our hero finds himself without the kids and heading for a day in Marquette, but finds a fun spot to get a run in on the way.

Vacation Part 1: Gaylord
Vacation Part 2: In Transit to Manistique
Vacation Part 3: Manistique

Day 6: August 4, 2011
I got up around 7:30AM to the calmest day we'd seen so far. The lake was like glass. I started getting myself together, having a couple slices of leftover pizza for breakfast, packing my running gear, swimming trunks, and a few odds and ends I thought might be handy for a day trip alone. I had a cup of coffee over at the in-laws where I told them I had decided to head to Marquette after all (I hadn't been sure the day before) and that I could stop somewhere for pasties on my way back that evening.

I hit the road at about 9:00AM. Heading north to Shingleton I kept my eyes peeled for places worth running in the future. There was a "rails to trails" type snowmobile trail that appeared to run from (nearly) Manistique to Munising and many oddball two-tracks and ATV trails that might be fun somewhere down the road, but I was focused on getting to Marquette, my favorite piece of heaven.

The beach at Autrain

At about 10:00AM I arrived at a place called Autrain, a little west of Munising. There is a nice beach where the Autrain River meets Lake Superior and I decided to stop and soak in the sights. "Screw it, I'm going for a run!" I changed into some of my running gear, and headed for the beach. I was getting brave, leaving my shirt behind because it was already pretty warm out (as I've said before, I have always been a little self conscious being a heavy guy), and I left my calf sleeves because I knew I would need to cross the Autrain River and I didn't want to get them wet.

As I hit the water's edge and headed east (I was aiming for another roadside park/beach about a mile away as a turn-around) I saw three 18ish-looking girls enjoying the beach. One was sitting on the beach with a dog and the other two were out in the lake, about chest deep. Suddenly I heard a bunch of whooping and hollering out in the lake and turned to see the two swimmers waving something above their heads which could only have been their swimsuits! Skinny Dippers! Yow! They must not have noticed me right away, because once I got a little closer to their friend the hooting abruptly stopped. A less-gentlemanly part of me demanded to stay and ogle, but there were two problems with that: one, I do have some self-restraint, and two, since they stopped when I approached it was safe to assume there would be nothing to see until I was safely down the beach and they could taunt their friend in peace. So I kept my eyes on the beach, gave a friendly "Good morning!" to their friend and went on my way. Maybe they would be feeling a little more exhibitionist when i came back through...

Running Smiley at the beach!

Anyway, that gave me a big smile to ride for the run and I continued down the beach and back. The only difficult part (aside from the steep cross-slope of the sand from Lake Superior's waves crashing down) was crossing the Autrain River where it dumps into Lake Superior. The sand was incredibly wet and I sank to my knee at one point, and the river itself was nearly waist deep. It was a neat adventure though (never had to wade across a river during a run before) and made the run all the more fun.

The Skinny Dippers had apparently had enough by the time I came back (damn!) and I had a short cooldown walk in the lake. The water was nice and cold, but didn't seem as icy as I remember in years past. It was so refreshing! When I got back to my car I saw the Skinny Dippers drying off and changing clothes near a truck. One looked at me for a second as I walked by and I gave her a friendly smile, but she quickly looked away and went around the other side of the truck. She must have thought I'd seen something she didn't want me to down on the beach. I hadn't, aside from the swimsuits in the air, but I found it odd that she would be bashful after skinny dipping at a public beach in the middle of the day.

Lake Superior shoreline at the turn-around

Vacation Part 3: Manistique

2011-08-12T05:57:00.000-04:00

This is part 3 of a series telling the story of my vacation over the first week of august. There is plenty of running content, but there are also general "touring northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula" content as well. Running content ahead! Watch out!

Vacation Part 1: Gaylord
Vacation Part 2: In Transit to Manistique

Day 4: August 2, 2011
After staying up way too late, the kids waking up a few times in the middle of the night, and my alarm going off at 6:30AM, I didn't get a lot of rest. I had big plans for a trail run which I had posted with the Michigan Chapter of the Barefoot Runners Society, and I had said I would be out there at 7:00AM. The trail head took some work to find, so once again I was a few minutes late, but at least I can blame the poor signage for not getting there right away. In the end it didn't matter as nobody had shown interest and nobody showed up, so everything was OK. The trail was called "Indian Lake Pathway" but I kept seeing signs for "Indian Lake Ski Trail". I wondered at the different nomenclature, but all would become clear when I finally got out of the car.

Once I found the gravel "parking area" (take that in the loosest sense), I got out of the car and the mosquitoes descended. I looked around for the actual trail and eventually found an old DNR sign board buried in the overgrown weeds and briars. It was the kind of thing that would usually have poison ivy identification postings, wildlife alerts or trail maps on it. It definitely had the trail map, which reassured me I was in the right place, but the thing looked like it hadn't been touched in at least a year. I was expecting to find something similar to Shingle Mill, with its worn dirt path, but this was simply a 10 foot wide cleared swatch through the woods overgrown with weeds.

This didn't look promising

Thinking maybe it would get better once I got in the woods, I headed in wondering if the DNR ever mowed the thing. The weeds and briars were knee deep, making running a difficult prospect, even for a shod runner. I had to climb over a few dead trees that laid across the "trail", and eventually I realized why all the signs said "...Ski Trail": This thing wasn't maintained in the summer. Barefoot the thing was a nightmare, and I think even someone in shoes would have probably thrown in the towel pretty quick. Hell, I don't think people would want to hike the damned thing, as nasty as the weeds were. I also got a strong feeling I was running through loads of poison ivy, which made me very nervous despite never having a problem with it before (I used to work as a surveyor in areas full of poison ivy and poison sumac and it never affected me). I decided to turn back after a few hundred feet and find another (actual) trail.

I recalled seeing some dirt hiking trails over at Palms Book State Park (home of Kitch-iti-kipi, The Big Spring - a very cool thing to see if you are ever in the area) last year, which was also nearby, so I headed there to check it out. Sadly the gate was down because they didn't open the park until 8:00AM and it was only 7:30AM at this point. I wasn't going to wait around a half hour for it to open, so I decided to try Plan C: The Boardwalk, which my father in law had suggested the night before. I knew it would mean flat smooth surfaces, which was disappointing as I had wanted to do some trails, but it would have to do. it was either that or dink around for a half hour waiting for the park to open.

The Boardwalk turned out to be a 1.8 mile stretch of asphalt, concrete and timber walking/running path along Lake Michigan heading east from downtown Manistique. It was flat as a pancake and a little boring, so I livened things up by using it to enter the second Run Smiley Challenge: Sidewalk Chalk. I didn't have any chalk with me, but I eventually found an area littered with weird stones that I used to write "RUN :)" next to the path. A couple people passed while I was building it, giving me weird looks (a guy with no shoes writing something in rocks), and I know there were a dozen or so other people who passed it by the time I passed it again so I know somebody had to have seen it.

Reaching the end of The Boardwalk, I had just not had enough running for one day (I was once again aiming for 8 miles more or less) so I went out and started running along US-2. Over the years I had seen many a cyclist on the highway, usually with their bikes loaded down with gear for long trips, and since I started running one of my dreams had been to run a big long empty stretch of US-2. Here was my chance. It wasn't exactly a long empty stretch, as I was on the outskirts of town, but it was still pretty cool. There were nice wide paved shoulders, which i was thankful for, and I passed a woman who was walking that said she walked that stretch of highway every day. I told her it felt like I was on a suicide mission and good for her for having the guts to be out there every day.

After about 2 miles of running against 65 mile per hour traffic (including many logging trucks), I decided to turn around. I was well shy of my 8-10 mile goal, but considering the toe wound and the fact I hadn't really run in 5 days I figured getting 7.7 miles was good enough.

The turn-around: an abandoned U.P. Welcome Center

After lunch and Oren's nap the kids and I went out to give the in-laws a break (they had watched the kids while I ran). Mirei latched onto some other kids at the park and had a good time, while I spent my time chasing Oren making sure he didn't wander into the street or onto some piece of playground equipment he couldn't get out of. Afterward we took another trip to the grocery store, this time foregoing the flip flops altogether, and once again nobody said a word. I'm lovin' it!

Day 5: August 3, 2011
Not sure where the weather came from, but I awoke to some extreme winds! The Weather Channel had claimed 77 and sunny the night before, but it turned out to be cloudy, cold and windy. We pretty much just bummed around the cottage, watching cartoons on TV and biding our time until my folks came up for a visit. The kids had a bad case of cabin fever and were driving us nuts!

The weather started breaking about the time my folks showed up. We hung out for a few hours, got some sun (finally!) and got some pizza from a local place downtown called Main Street Pizza (excellent pizza by the way, in case you are ever there). At one point my mom suggested the kids go back to Gaylord with them so I could get a day by myself! I protested a little bit, as she had just had her hip replaced in June and I wasn't sure she was ready to keep up with the kids, but she reassured me she felt like she could handle it and was ready to get back to having kids to watch (she nannies for a living). The kids were into it and my dad didn't protest, so we packed up all their stuff and sent them on their way. My only real comment to my mom was "It's your funeral".

As coincidence had it, just about the moment the kids left the sky opened up the rest of the way and the weather was gorgeous the rest of the night. I sat on the deck until sundown drinking a couple Oberons (Bell's Brewery's summer beer - a Kalamazoo staple. try it if you can get your hands on it) and reading a book. Now it actually felt like a vacation!

Vacation Part 2: In Transit to Manistique

2011-08-10T05:49:00.000-04:00

This is part 2 of a series telling the story of my vacation over the first week of august. Today we find our intrepid adventurer heading north across the Mackinac Bridge to Michigan's Upper Peninsula searching for adventure and excitement! Well, maybe just a good pasty...

Vacation Part 1: Gaylord

Day 3: August 1, 2011
This was a good day for the injured, as I spent most of it in the car driving to Manistique, on the southern side of the Upper Peninsula. I left the Band-Aids off today, thinking some fresh air might do my wound some good. Before leaving Gaylord I got to go have coffee and a bagel at Biggby's, where I went in barefoot (my shoes hurt my toe and I was having a hard time with the flip flops -not used to a half inch of foam under my feet anymore). I was pleasantly surprised to find nobody noticed, and if they did they didn't say anything. Ahhh.

Arriving in St. Ignace for lunch I made it a point to get a decent pasty (pronounced Pass-Tee; there are signs all over the U.P. pointing this out), while the kids had their usual McDonald's (their favorite, and easiest, road trip lunch). I came across a place called "A Taste of the Upper Peninsula", a tiny thing attached to a party store on US-2 next to Clyde's Drive-In (Clyde's rocks the house, by the way, but be warned: the Big C Burger will feed 3 people). There was a big sign out from saying "Homemade Pasties" which lured me in, In retrospect, just about every place selling pasties advertised them as "homemade", so I suppose the sign shouldn't have gotten my attention the way it did. Maybe I've been a flatlander too long and am starting to become susceptible to the various Northern Michigan Tourist Witchery.

The kids mugging for the camera after lunch

Anyway, what I wound up with was a great pasty wrapped in grease-soaked butcher paper served by a couple friendly older ladies. There's something about buying regional foodstuffs from local older ladies that just convinces me I have bought the genuine article. I got my fudge fix there as well, just because I knew I wanted some and since the Straits are fudge country (most other places in the U.P. get it shipped from the Straits anyway, in my experience).

Hanging out at Cut River Bridge

After lunch the kids and I decided to do some hiking at Cut River bridge on our way west. Cut River Bridge is an enormous piece of engineering built to cross a creek that is less than 10 feet wide. My dad always used to call it "The Million Dollar Bridge over the Ten Cent Creek". That pretty much sums it up. The asphalt trail down to the river eventually gave way to metal grate steps, and Mirei (my 4 year old daughter) decided it was too rough for her feet (we were all barefoot). I didn't really complain as it certainly wasn't the most comfortable surface I'd ever walked on either. We thought about finding another way down, but Oren (my 2 year old son) tripped and stubbed his toe, which started bleeding about as bad as I remembered my toe bleeding out at Shingle Mill. We retreated to the car where I cleaned it up, got him a fresh Band-Aid and hit the road.

Arriving in Manistique I realized my toe actually felt pretty good, aside from the bruise (fortunately on the tip of the toe, so it didn't affect weight bearing areas), so I figured I would try to get a run in the morning. I figured since I could easily put weight on it I could probably run as far as I wanted as long as I was careful not to kick anything (I would bump that toe many times over the next few days and I would pay dearly for it). I also decided to try my luck going barefoot in the local grocery store, as the flip flops were just killing me. I must have wandered around in there 10 minutes after taking off the flip flops and nobody said a word. Awesome. Once again, either people were being super cool about it or didn't notice.

Vacation Part 1: Gaylord

2011-08-08T06:24:00.000-04:00

This is part 1 of a series telling the story of my vacation over the first week of august. There is plenty of running content, but there are also general "touring northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula" content as well. I hope you all enjoy it!

Day 1: July 30, 2011

Got the kids up and hit the road early. It was a gorgeous day, albeit a little on the hot side. We arrived at my parents' house at about 11:30AM, which was very nice. I had planned to run the 10 mile loop at The Shingle Mill Pathway at 3:00PM, so it was nice to roll in early and get settled in.

Heading out to the Pigeon River State Forest, I hadn't realized just how far out in the boonies the trail head was, and I wound up arriving a little later than planned (good thing nobody had expressed interest in meeting me out there!). When I got there I was super excited since i hadn't run the trail since last October. I checked my gear and went over the trail map to check for places to refill my water bottle before heading out.

Sadly, the only picture I took at Shingle Mill

The trail was nice. Hard packed dirt occasionally blanketed in soft pine needles. I took a leisurely pace and felt great! The weather was close to perfect (a little hot), the trail felt awesome and I was admiring the scenery... And that's when I tripped on The Root. Golden Rule of barefoot trail running: keep your eyes on the trail!

The Root was about 300 feet from the trail head. My lazy pace had made my form lazy (apparently) and what would normally have been a painful kick to the ball of my foot turned into a nearly broken big toe! Man, did that hurt! I took a few steps to try and run it off, making sure to keep my breathing even (like i said, it hurt! A lot!). When I looked down, I saw probably the bloodiest wound I've ever had (or at least that I could remember). Without going into too much detail, The Root had taken a hunk of skin the size of a dime off the end of my toe, and it bled a lot more than I expected.

I washed it off as best I could with my water bottle and surveyed the damage. Nothing appeared to be broken (Thank God!), although it would be pretty badly bruised for a while, and the wound itself was pretty nasty looking and I had nothing to patch it with. I decided right away that it was just too bad to try and do even a few miles and I headed back to the car, where I would wash it again before trying to bind it with a bandanna to slow the bleeding. My only consolation is that it happened at literally the first root in the trail, just a few hundred feet in, and not at mile 5, in the middle of nowhere, with no cell phone coverage and few, if any, other people on the trail. This didn't bode well for the rest of my trip, as I'd planned to do a lot of running.

Day 2: July 31, 2011

Running was the furthest thing from my mind as the toe wound still hurt a lot. I invested in some spray-on Neosporin with pain reliever (it was pricey but I was glad I got it) and some fingertip Band-Aids, which hurt like hell each time I went to change them.

Mirei and my Dad lounging on the boat

The kids and I spent the day with my family (even my brother came up) on my parents' boat on Lake Charlevoix, and we had a great time despite my infirmity. I even ventured into the water, which didn't sting as much as I expected, to play with the kids.

Stormy Weather...

2011-08-01T07:20:00.000-04:00

With the temperatures hovering in the low 70's during my usual running time, I've been chomping at the bit to get some rainy runs in. Puddles have become my favorite thing recently, and I've made wet roads my bitch (pardon my french) since the unfortunate blister incident back in January, so with the warm weather came the desire to get out and get wet. I had tried to catch rain storms a few times over the last few weeks, to little success. Since my house is in a relatively heavily wooded lot, the water dripping from the trees frequently make me think it's raining and some mornings I have been all excited until I get out on the road and realize that there isn't any actual rain. One recent run had some light sprinkles for about a mile but it stopped and then it was just hot and humid out, which isn't the most pleasant running environment.

"...and I start to complain when there's no rain..." -No Rain, Blind Melon

I would finally get my wish on July 28th. I had planned on running maybe 4-6 miles that morning, and was up at 4:30AM to give myself plenty of time to get up and around and hit the road before work. The rumble of thunder could be heard as I walked downstairs and I was a little sad, as I tend to chicken out when there's lightning about (hey that rhymes!). I spent my usual 15-20 minutes checking email, the weather map (which showed plenty of rain cloud) and the local news and realized i hadn't heard any thunder since coming down. It was time.

I could hear the rain in the trees and it seemed like a good pour, so I quickly grabbed my running gear. I don't particularly like running in wet shirts, so after a short debate with myself I decided to go sans-shirt. This is something i wouldn't have even considered in years past, as a big fat guy who was sensitive about how disgusting I looked. I'm still relatively heavy, but after all the weight I dropped last year the idea of going outside, running no less, without a shirt was a semi-comfortable option. It was still slightly nerve wracking, but it was about 5:00AM and still nice and dark so that gave the extra push I needed to head out in just my shorts and calf sleeves.

Anyway, I threw my phone in an arm band to track my run (I am participating in a study ad need to know how far I am running) and headed out into the.... surprisingly NOT rainy weather? Damn. Apparently the trees fooled me again and I silently promised to chop each one down with a rusty hack saw for their treachery.

I headed out on the roads nonetheless, and while it was pretty humid it was a pleasant run. I was once again sad that the rain had apparently stopped before I got out there, but it was a nice comfortable pace so it eased the pain. After about a mile things would change.

The drips started in an area where I assumed they were just coming from the trees. I cursed the trees there too, for having the audacity to tease me so. As i ran though, I noticed it was starting to get a little misty. Getting better! After a few minutes I found myself in a gentle sprinkle, which brought my spirits up a lot, but again it felt like a tease. Then I heard it coming.

Getting up near the businesses at the junction of Parkview Avenue and Oakland Drive I heard this weird roaring sound from the trees to the west, and then it got louder and I realized it was coming from the roofs of the buildings across the street. "Here it comes!" I quietly gushed as I ran.

And then it hit. The weather went from gentle sprinkle to full-on downpour in about 5 seconds. The rain was nice and cool on my skin, which had gotten a little clammy from the heat and humidity. I felt a huge smile spread across my face as I let my cares go by and live in the feeling of the rain coming down on me. I was so glad I had decided to leave without a shirt. I could feel every drop as it hit me and it felt like a tiny cold massage. In a shirt you can tell you're getting rained on, but all you get is a wet, heavy shirt. Without the shirt I could feel so much more and it reminded me of the first time i had run without shoes: there was so much more of the world to experience by removing one of our protective layers and it was an incredibly freeing experience.

I must have looked like a compete lunatic to the cars that drove by. Here's this guy running in a rainstorm wearing only some shorts and what look like socks with the feet cut off (I remember being a non-runner and not getting the idea of calf sleeves) and he's got this crazy grin on his face. He must be off his nut!

It didn't take long before I realized a single problem with the joyous experience that was running in this storm: my arm band was certainly not waterproof, and if I ruined my phone because I was crazy enough to take it out in the rain I would be very sad (I essentially do everything on my phone). so rather than make the full out and back (from where I realized this), which would have been about 4 miles, I decided to take a more direct route back home.

It was about a mile back to the house, and while the smile never left my face I was slightly worried that I would ruin my expensive piece of technology. Cars continued to pass, their occupants no doubt wondering about my sanity (or lack thereof). By the time I got home I was soaked to the bone and looked like I had just gone for a swim instead of a run, but the smile was bigger than ever. My only regret was having to come in early.

Next time I won't bring my phone.

The 5:00AM Edition

2011-07-26T07:17:00.002-04:00

This morning on my run I found a few things I thought I would share with everyone! Things like this just reinforce the idea that early birds aren't always just about getting their workout in and over with, and that even weirdos like me who run at 5:00AM can still run smiley!

Today I found myself heading along Stadium Drive and the smell of Sweetwater's Donut Mill got me about a quarter mile before I actually reached the place. It's so nice to have the heavenly stench of fresh donuts in your nose during a run, although it was certainly tempting to step in for a donut break mid-run! I hadn't gone that route in probably two months, and I was so glad to have gone that way this morning.

A Kalamazoo Tradition, and man does it smell good!

Businesses lawn sprinklers were in full force as well and while I inwardly scolded them for not learning how to aim the nozzles to avoid wasting water (or for generally watering the sidewalk, which I don't believe requires watering), I had a great time running through the streams! Running through sprinklers, puddles and rainstorms has become one of my favorite things!

Drake Hill is one of those hills the local running community dreads (I know I did in my earlier days), but despite having not run it in almost two months, by the time I got there it was like seeing an old friend (I ran it a lot during my training). There's something awesome about being the guy who says "Oh, that hill isn't so bad. I run it all the time!" when people bring up how punishing it can be.

On my way back along Parkview Avenue I was beset by a field full of fireflies as well! I'm used to seeing them in the evening, but I'm not used to seeing them as the sun is barely starting to brighten the eastern sky. My only regret is not being able to get a decent picture of them.

The Dirty Herd Part 2: Run Through the Jungle

2011-07-24T15:29:00.002-04:00

I had such a great time running the trails at Al Sabo last week I had to do it again this week! Nothing was guaranteed when I went to bed last night, as the 6 miles I eventually got to run yesterday once the lightning stopped kind of kicked my butt! While the run itself was a blast (splashing through puddles is a joy my shod brethren will probably never experience!) a couple hours later I had developed some worrisome sore spots on my right foot. I spent a lot of time stretching and icing in an effort to be ready for the trails today.

I woke up feeling pretty good, and after some stretching I felt ready to go. I didn't plan a long run, especially after yesterday, and the loops are generally short enough to where I could break away from the group if need be if I wanted (or needed) to stop. The temperature was around 80 degrees, even at 9AM, the humidity was hovering around 95% and bugs were nearly guaranteed, so I wasn't too excited about that.

"Let's get sticky!" - Captain Mucilage, The Tick

I arrived a few minutes early and managed a little walking and jogging as a warm up. It was indeed super sticky out, and the trees and bushes along the trails appeared to have been rained on last night. The rest of the group showed up right at 9AM, for a total of 5 of us, counting myself. The group leader, Joe (who had been away at a 270 mile relay race last week) asked around to see how far we were looking to go, and ultimately everyone was on some kind of recovery run after having a long run that day before. We geared up and headed out.

Between views like this and the temp/humidity, it sure felt like a jungle!

We started out on the same loop we did last week, which was nice as I knew about where we were headed. Not sure how fast everyone normally runs, but the pace was pretty good for me, and I was actually in the front half of the group (unusual!). Eventually I dropped back to take pictures, since I hadn't gotten any last week and since the pace was such that I could easily catch up. It didn't take long for the temperatures to have us all pretty much swimming in sweat, and I was thankful I had brought my water belt and had decided to leave my Trail Gloves at home (less stuff to carry - Hooray!).

This area had a real "jungle" feel too!

After the first loop, Joe decided to throw a couple hills and more technical trail at us as we were all feeling pretty good at that point. This is where my morning got interesting. We began with a downhill that would have been nice and easy if it had been on the roads. As it was, there were plenty of roots and stones for me to navigate as well as plenty of sticks that had fallen out of the trees during the storms over the last couple weeks. The area was much more treacherous than the root/washout areas in the first loop, and I had to navigate the hazards carefully while barreling down the hill.

After the hill we spent some time on some nice dirt path before jumping back into the woods. We followed this for a couple minutes before Joe said "Ok, we're turning left! It gets a little more technical here!" We hopped off the mountain bike path and onto a hiking path along the edge of a shallow valley. There were lots of low hanging branches to dodge, and a tree had fallen down, completely cutting off the trail. I chose to go over and through on the right side, which slowed me down a little due to tangled branches and thorns, while the others went left, which simply involved ducking under and hopping over some branches. Did I ever mention I have a knack for doing things the hard way?

Eventually we came back out of the woods onto a brush-hogged clearing that looked like a power line (but for the life of me I can't remember seeing any poles!). Joe had gone through first and called out a warning about thorns near the exit. I called the same warning to those behind me (I was third in line at this point) and pushed my way through the brush, not really feeling any thorns... And then I stepped on them.

Al Sabo's forests give way to expanses of prairie

Back in my field crew days as a surveyor I remember frequently having problems with a certain kind of (for lack of a better name) bramble that usually grew as a vine-like ground cover with very thin runners, and they were covered with tiny thorns. Usually any areas scratched by the thorns would be itchy and painful for about a day, which could get pretty annoying. The cleared area was simply flooded with the stuff! If my feet could cry I'm sure they would have at this point. I groaned inwardly at the prospect of running barefoot across a field of the horrid things, but bore down and thought to myself "well, at least it'll make for an interesting part of the story..."

Joe said "Nobody stops until they get to the top!" and my attention was drawn from the nasty little brambles to a fairly steep, bramble covered, partially washed out hill. Did he say technical? I aimed for the washout as it was the only area not covered in brambles, and had to pick my way carefully up it, bouncing from side to side of a tiny ravine in the dirt. The last 2 of our group wound up walking up the hill, so when we got to the top we had a moment to take a breather. While the others caught their breath, I took the moment to inspect my feet for thorns and found a thorn about an inch long (this one didn't come from the brambles, but I don't know where I picked it up) sticking out of the bottom of my foot. Fortunately hundreds of road-miles had toughened my feet up a lot and the thorn hadn't had a chance to really work very deep into my foot. The thing made me a little gun-shy of the next area we were to run through, but I would have no further thorn issues the rest of the run.

We crossed a brush-hogged field, which was challenging only because of my new thorn-phobia (and knowing those nasty brambles could be anywhere in the area), but I found a nice grassy track to follow and stuck to it until finally meeting back up with the nice dirt path from the original loop. We hopped back on the trail and headed back to the trail head. When we got back I checked out my feet for any more thorns, and while I didn't find any problems with the soles of my feet the brambles had taken a vicious toll on my ankles, which had actually started bleeding.

The exhilaration of the run was more than enough to cover the slight discomforts though. The group came back feeling pretty good, although a little soaked by sweat, with most of our day still ahead of us. had another great time, despite the various challenges, and I'll definitely be back for more once I return from my vacation to Northern Michigan and The Upper Peninsula next week.

A Week Without Running?!

2011-07-23T05:58:00.001-04:00

Well today is the 6th day in a row without a run. Probably the longest I've gone between runs since the beginning of November last year. I think ultimately the rest has been good for me, but I have not enjoyed it. My body has gotten the kind of rest I haven't been willing to give it for 8 months or so, so maybe the universe in conspiring to force me to rest...

"I got ants in my butt, and I needs to strut!" -Bender, Futurama

After the fun of the Dirty Herd run last Sunday, basically my whole family succumbed to a terrible plague. Nothing but mucus and soiled tissues to be seen throughout the entire house. I valiantly went to work Monday and for part of Tuesday in order to get an important project out the door, but then wimped out and stayed home until Thursday. So Monday through Wednesday there was no running unless we're talking about my nose.

Thursday I felt well enough to head back to work, but decided it would e best to hold off a day to run just to make sure I was totally well again. Sadly fate conspired against me, and a project came up that would require heading in early on Friday so my "time for running" instead turned into "time for driving to work". Fortunately my project was finished on time, but that made 5 days without a run and I was starting to get twitchy.

One saving grace I've had this week, which I didn't have the energy for until Thursday, was the trusty Tai Chi video. I've been trying to relearn the 6 basic forms on it for a while (I used to know them well, but hadn't done it in a while) but had been having trouble with being able to see what was going on. Well I took this opportunity to buckle down and pay attention and I managed to learn the rest of the forms. Now I just need a lot of practice (I'm sure I'm doing many things wrong, even though I have the basic movements down) to get it committed to muscle memory. I did find that I felt really good afterwards, as the movements tend to help stretch sleepy muscles and work out he kinks in my joints and back which come from a night sleeping next to a 2 year old boy who likes to kick the shit out of me in his sleep.

So here I am, at 5:45 AM on Saturday, and I was excited to head out and get a nice long run in (Colleen wasn't feeling well enough to go to her Half-Marathon Training Group), and lo and behold: Thunderstorm. Drat. Rain I can handle, and with the heat I think I would actually welcome running in the rain, but I'm just too chicken to mess with lightning. Checking the weather map it looks like this will continue for a while today, so I may not get a run in at all. So long, day 6!

Tomorrow I hope to get back out with the Dirty Herd again though, so maybe I'll luck out and the weather will cooperate. Now that my body has had time to heal it's time to go wreck it some more! haha!

The Dirty Herd: Al Sabo Preserve

2011-07-18T06:32:00.001-04:00

Yesterday I went out and met up with The Dirty Herd for the first time. They had recently changed their meet-up time from 5PM to 9AM, which made it a lot easier for me to attend. The meeting place was the Al Sabo Preserve in Texas Township, Kalamazoo County.

I almost missed the parking area, as there are no signs. It's just east of the road into the boy Scout camp, so at least there is a landmark, but the only reason I found it at all was that I saw a runner walking across the parking lot as I drove by. The parking area was a surface of large stones, which wasn't exactly comfortable for bare feet, but it wasn't too bad. Three of us made it to the meet-up, which was a little disappointing, and the leader of the run said he was surprised because they had gotten a lot of feedback from people about the change to the 9AM meeting time. Quality counts for something though, and despite our small numbers it was a good group.

The other two had already done a bunch of running that morning, as they had planned a shorter "official" run due to the supposed interest from new faces who wound up not coming. While we waited for others to show we talked to a mountain biker who said he had just started moving to barefoot running. He was a real nice guy and he was approaching it the right way: take it easy and build mileage slowly. I asked him a couple questions, he asked me a couple questions, and I gave him a few tips before he headed off.

While talking about barefooting with the biker, the other runners (I feel awful that I am so bad with names. I'm sorry!) said they both used FiveFingers as a training tool, and one had just started running with them a week ago. They decided since I was a little slower that they would do a loop in their FiveFingers and see how it went. So this was awesome for me! One barefooter and two people in FiveFingers! For me that's a great group!

We headed out on a 2.3 mile loop (I think that was how long it was - I didn't track it with my GPS) to keep it short in case either of them had problems with their shoes. I had my Trail Gloves tucked into my belt, so I wasn't too concerned. The trail was mostly hard packed single track trail, and in places widened to old two-tracks that looked like they hadn't been driven on in a while. Some storms had gone through last week and took down some trees, so there were a few areas to dodge lots of fallen debris. There was a few technical areas with plenty of stones and roots (kind of washout areas) but they were generally short and not too difficult to get through if I backed off a bit to see where i was stepping (I was in the back of the group). There were also a handful of sandy areas, which was a nice change of pace and I was able to dig in a little with my toes, which is something I'm not used to being able to do since I run mostly on roads.

We talked a lot about shoes, barefoot running, and the difference between road running and trail running. I tried to share some tips on their transition to FiveFingers and various form adjustments that they could make to keep injury at bay. They were way more accomplished runners than I am, so I don't know how much impact I had, but they seemed genuinely interested and I think at the very least I gave them some food for thought, which is still a win in my book.

They don't call it The Dirty Herd for nothing!

After the first loop the others changed back into their normal shoes and we did one more before we all had to head off for other commitments. The second loop was a little faster than the first, and it was a little harder to keep up, but I think I did reasonably well. When we finished we hung out in the shade for a few minutes talking about running and the pitfalls of losing sight of "The Fun" during training. It was really cool to hear what they thought and that "The Fun" was just as important (and maybe more important) than finishing well for them. This totally fit with my view on running and it was great to see I wasn't alone, and that "The Fun" wasn't just for slowpokes like me.

It was a great morning and I plan to go back when I can. I might miss a couple Sundays coming up while I'm on vacation, but I plan on being there next week if my schedule allows it.

A Matter of Perspective

2011-07-16T18:47:00.001-04:00

It's a weird thing for me to identify with a lot of other runners, not only because I am in a distinct minority (being barefoot) but because since I am a mid to back of the pack runner I tend to hover near people who are running for a specific reason: to get in shape. Well, that's the reason I think most of them run. And to be honest, that was why I started running.

This is no longer the case for me though. Once I read Born to Run, as many runners (shod and barefoot) have, I realized something: running isn't something I should be suffering through. It isn't something I should be dreading, or feel I have to do to lose a couple pounds (although I admit it does help with the tonnage). It's something we were made to do, that I did a lot as a kid, and for some reason I forgot about it.

It probably goes back to gym class, if I had to guess. I have no idea if they still do this, but when I was a kid they had the Presidential Fitness program, and we had to go through this gauntlet of torture devices to prove we weren't a generation of couch potatoes. Oddly enough my generation has been (probably) a big part of the fattening of the USA, so I get the impression these tests didn't achieve the goals it was designed for. Anyway, we had this series of grueling trials like pull-ups, push-ups, sit-ups and of course, running laps around the gym. I found these things to be fairly difficult (I was more intellectually-inclined) and the fact we had no choice on participation made me actually hate/fear strenuous physical activity, and exercises in particular.

Sure, I could perform physical tasks and sometimes enjoy it, but when it came to hunkering down for a "workout" I just had no patience and little tolerance so in the end I simply avoided the whole hornet's nest.

Fast forward to high school and for some reason I decided to join the wresting team. I still have no idea what possessed me to do it, and ultimately it introduced me to something that would sour me on running in particular for a long time: stair laps.

Yeah, you did hear the ominous "dun dun duuuunnnnn" music when you read that. Or if you like to laugh at the misfortune of others maybe you heard the sad trombone or Nelson Muntz's "Haw Haw!"

Stair laps were these awful things that we had to do at the beginning (and sometimes the end) of every practice. They involved running down the hall to the gym (we practiced in the cafeteria), then up two flights of stairs, the length of the gym, down two flights of stairs, the width of the gym, wash, rinse, repeat. For something like 20 minutes. The dudes who were actually in shape, and most of them were either football players or cross country runners, handled it real well. Coming from the world of Band and Architecture Classes I fared somewhat less well. The laps were actually something that could have been extremely good for me (I realize now), but they were so torturous I decided to loathe them and running in general... for the next 18 years.

So then fast forward back to the beginning of this story where I mentioned reading Born to Run and it opened up an attitude that had been lost for decades: an actual desire to go out and run. I slowed down and worked on making my running form less painful while taking the time to observe the world around me and suddenly running was actually no longer a workout (which is something I tell everybody: if it feels like work you're working too hard)!

Since then I find myself running races cheering for the crowds who are supposed to be there cheering for us, trying to help people who look like they are struggling (usually by distracting them with endless -and mindless- chatter), cheering for volunteers (and actually volunteering for things) and generally being a more positive force for good in the world as opposed to the cynical bastard I used to be. Instead of running because I have to, I run because I want to and because I want to run in the coolest places I can get to. If I meet piles of great people along the way, all the better. :)

Rest days: Why Do They Hate Me?

2011-07-14T05:32:00.001-04:00

Lately I've been taking extra time off between runs to try to kick some lingering soreness in my right foot. I think I'm on the downside of it, as it appears to be getting better, but it's raised concerns about rest days for me. Namely, why do they hate me?

Ask pretty much anyone in the training biz and they will tell you rest days are extremely important. These are the days your body is able to get in and repair all the stuff you've strained while running (or other exercising, really). A day off between runs or the occasional 2-3 day break can really be a blessing, especially if you're battling fatigue, tight muscles, or general soreness. This is good stuff.

Where the problem lies for me is that while many runners use rest days to cross train I tend to do nothing. Absolutely nothing. So while I appreciate rest days for what they are, time for my body to repair itself, I also find myself falling into several traps that are extremely dangerous.

First, running usually makes me feel pretty good. There isn't an amount of coffee that wakes me up in the morning like a good run does. I'm sure there's a scientific explanation, but all I know is if I run in the morning I have more energy during the day and my mood is usually pretty good. On days where I wake up and just go through the motions of getting ready for work, I tend to feel lethargic and my mood suffers, often making me easily frustrated and angry. I can't explain it, but I know it happens.

Second, running supports my weight loss goals. Losing weight is a "what have you done for me lately" kind of thing. Yeah, it's great that I dropped about 55-60 pounds last year and have pretty much kept it off. You know what though? Stalled out weight loss, especially after the great success I had last year, is an extremely frustrating thing that drives many people back into the habits that let them gain all their weight to begin with. If I'm not running, I have a real hard time doing other exercises. I like that running is actually not just working out; you're traveling somewhere, even if it's just a mile or two down the road and back. Riding a stationary bike, even with some TV to watch or video games to play, drives me nuts. I've tried doing a yoga video and a tai chi video in an effort to improve balance and flexibility on my rest days, but I have a hard time following videos when the exercises frequently put me in positions I can't see what's going on. Long story short: more or less stationary exercising isn't something I enjoy. Anyway, if I'm not exercising, and on rest days I usually don't, I usually either see no weight loss or I actually gain a couple pounds, and since I regularly rest more or less every other day my weight loss has fallen into a rut where I'll lose a couple pounds on a run day, gain a couple on a rest day, wash, rinse, repeat.

Rest days are very important, but because of the problems that arise from inactivity they can be a real double-edged sword. The key, I think, is finding a physical activity for rest days I can enjoy as much as running. I have found a few things I can occasionally suffer through (stationary bike in particular), but if I ever want to improve my mood or support my weight loss on those days I need to find something I enjoy as much as running, but I haven't found it yet.

Barefoot Runners Society Group Run: July

2011-07-10T14:20:00.003-04:00

It was a gorgeous July morning today as Colleen and I made the trek up to Lansing and Hawk Island County Park for the July Group Run I had organized. My sign up sheet only had 5 people on it (including us) and one of those 5 had to cancel Friday, so I was feeling a little low. The Michigan Chapter has 122 members, and only 7 people had either signed up to come or had let me know they couldn't make it. Since it's my job to plan events that bring us together it was looking mighty FAIL.

Planning on (hopefully) a few people to show up who hadn't signed up, we had grabbed a gallon of water and a big jug of Gatorade last night for hydration and rolled into a Panera Bread in Battle Creek for bagels. After giving the poor guy behind the counter a blank stare for a minute when he asked which varieties we would like, Colleen suggested he probably knew more about what people get for groups where tastes are unknown than we did, so it was dealer's choice. I watched what kinds he grabbed and was impressed. We had everything from french toast to jalapeno to sesame seed, and it looked like a great mix.

Finding the park proved to be pretty easy. I-69 north to I-496 east, getting off the freeway at Pennsylvania (Exit 7), then south to Cavanaugh Street east to the park entrance. Piece of cake. We rolled up to the guard house and the girl gave a friendly "Good morning, 3 dollars please!" to which I replied "uh, we're non-residents". There was a slight pause and she said "Oh ok, well it's 5 dollars then". Damn, I could have saved 2 bucks!

We decided to troll through the park a little, when I realized I had never designated a specific meeting point. FAIL. The park looked really nice and there was even a race going on today. After about half the loop through the park I saw a couple guys with bare feet who looked to be holding FiveFingers, so we decided to stop and I yelled out "I see you're not wearing shoes! This the place?" We all had a good laugh about that and I lamented the fact that I hadn't specified where we would meet up and how I hope we would run into a few more brave souls.

John and Tim were the guys who had signed up though, so at least I knew I had everyone I had planned on. We wandered over to the race area, thinking to make ourselves visible in case anyone was looking for us. Turns out it was a small 5k for the local AIDS charity. We all were kind of bummed we didn't have any cash on us, as we all agreed it would have been cool to enter the race as our group run. We talked with the workers and made sure we wouldn't get in anyone's way though, so everyone was cool with it.

Once the racers took off, we decided we would follow and see how it went. Since Colleen had just had an 8 mile long run yesterday, she headed for the car for a minute to see if anyone else had showed up and to run her short recovery run. John, Tim and I took off after the racers chatting about barefooting and other stuff. We cheered for most of the racers who were on their way back and even got a few cheers back from them! Nice folks!

John and Tim running in the grass for a bit during the final lap

The loop at Hawk Island is a 1.5 mile paved trail around the lake. There were sections in the sun (it got hot fast!) as well as a nice long shady section along the west and north banks of the lake. There were a few small hills and a few areas where tree roots had buckled the pavement and on our second or third lap I managed to stub my toe on one of the humps. I hadn't stubbed a toe since last fall! Ye gods! I checked it out real fast, didn't see any blood, and the pain went away pretty quick so I didn't think anything more of it. Once we stopped for a drink though, there was blood on the toe, so I washed it off and got back on the trail.

The guys set a pretty brisk pace which I managed to keep up with without too much extra work. After 3 laps around the lake we decided to do one more, and the guys took off with about 1 mile to go. I tried to keep up but quickly fell behind. They must have been feeling good, especially since they had both said they hadn't gone more than a couple miles totally barefoot and we were at about mile 5 at that point.

After we finished, we soaked our feet in the lake, which was calm and clean. There weren't mobs of people on the beach as it was technically closed until noon, but we broke the rules and waded around for a few minutes talking about upcoming races, training programs and other stuff. Afterward we went back up to the car and polished off the remains of the Gatorade and chewed on a few bagels. We had a nice chat and headed home. It was a great morning after all!

I did learn some valuable lessons for next time though. First, make sure the sign up sheet is up when the even gets posted. This time I didn't get it up until about 2 weeks later and I wish i had posted it right away. Might have gotten a few more people that way. Second, pick a specific meeting place! If we hadn't noticed the guys had no shoes on I don't know if we'd have ever found them. Lucky! I wish i had gotten more pictures, but I was having enough fun that I totally forgot to take any except for one towards the end of the run.

All in all this was a positive experience for my first organized run. It was a small group, but quality is sometimes better than quantity. I think most of the barefooters I know would have really had a good time there, but I know life happens and sometimes stuff like this has to take a back seat. We'll rope them in next time! I would highly recommend Hawk Island County Park for anyone with kids who is in the Lansing area. There was a cool-looking splash park and plenty of play areas and nature trails (not to mention the beach!) to entertain kids for most of a day.

Upcoming Events for this blog and in Meatspace!

2011-07-06T05:59:00.000-04:00

So here's what I have coming down the pike, for those who want to be able to plan ahead:

Bedrock Sandals Review: These guys' Kickstarter campaign is about to end (10AM today!), so sadly this will come too little too late to help anyone decide if they want to be an early adopter or not. Fortunately The Maple grove Barefoot Guy wrote a nice review of the sandal a couple weeks ago that convinced me to jump on the wagon while the price was right (25% off with free shipping!). Anyway, the reward for pledging to their project was a custom pair of these bad lads, which I should be getting in late July to early August (according to the company's updates on Kickstarter). Once I have them in my clutches I'll be writing about my impressions, as I have not worn a sandal of any kind in probably 15 years, and have never tried running in one before.

Barefoot Runners Society: Michigan Chapter July Group Run: This coming Sunday (July 10) a group of us will be meeting at Hawk Island County Park in Lansing Michigan for some laps around the lake. We're meeting at 9AM and I'll be providing some bagels, fruit and drinks of some kind (probably some water and a jug of gatorade or something). We will have folks of several different paces and distances, so it should be a good mix. Anyone interested in coming down to run with us or curious about barefoot running should come on down! Naturally a recap of the day will show up here!

Vacation Log and Indian Lake Pathway Review: In August I'll be taking the kids up north for a "vacation" while Colleen is in Colorado helping my brother and sister-in-law with their new baby (Alex - born last night! yay!). While there I'll be spending some time at Indian Lake in Manistique, and I'll be having Grandpa and Grandma watch the kids once or twice while I go looking for trails to run on. Specifically the one nearby called the Indian Lake Pathway. I have found no maps of it but I know it exists, so I'll be writing a review of the trail and mapping it out for submittal to AllTrails.

and one last thing: I recently downloaded the Michigan Camping and Recreation Locator for my iphone (it's also available for android and blackberry), thinking it would include state forest trails and linear state parks (such as The Kal-Haven Trail), but it doesn't... yet. After downloading and playing with it for a bit I emailed the developers at the DNR with the suggestion that these be added. Here is their response:

Mr. Root,
Thanks for downloading the app and for sending your comments.
We are working on some enhancements for the future and trails are on the list. I just don't know when they will be added. As new data is added it should automatically appear in the app.

I will show the development team your message so they know there is customer interest in the linear parks and trails.

Hope you have a great time in the UP this summer!

Cindy Krueger
DNR Marketing and Web Development
517-373-9265
kruegerc@michigan.gov
 
MI Camping and Recreation Locator-Mobile app
www.michigan.gov/campandreclocator

Something resembling a week in review?

2011-07-04T18:11:00.004-04:00

Well, it's been roughly a week since my last entry, and i figure it's time to catch up a bit. It's been a relatively eventful week, as long as you consider a week where I did more than sleep and work eventful... haha!

After last weekend's 10 miler at the Kal-Haven Trail, I decided I needed to get in another semi-long run during the week. We had done this quite a bit during the Beyond Program, but I had kind of reduced my mid-week long runs to a max of either 6 miles or 1 hour, whichever I had time for. Plus I wasn't sure if I could get a long run in over the weekend, as I would be out of town visiting family.

I got in my usual short 4 miler Monday morning at 5AM, which during summer months appears to be the best time to go out there. Everything has had plenty of time to cool off, and since the sun isn't up it isn't even starting to warm up yet. Yeah, it's harder to see, but I'll gladly trade cooler temps, nearly no car traffic and few other runners or bikers for the inconvenience of having to stick to streetlighted areas (I don't usually carry a flashlight).

My wife went out for a track workout Tuesday night so I managed to bargain my way into beign able to go out Wednesday night for my planned long run, where I was hoping to meet up with some people from the Kalamazoo Area Runners and get the social running fix I had been needing since the end of Beyond. There were 4 other guys there when I arrived, and my first thought was: "Oh shit. These guys look kinda fast." And they were. They went out in a couple pairs, and i managed to hang with the slower pair for about 3 miles before I had to slow down. My guess is we were in the neighborhood of 8 minute miles, which is super fast for me, especially for a mid-week run. The other guys were nice enough to wait for me at the halfway point and again at the end (to make sure I hadn't died on route), so that was pretty cool of them. In the end I realized if I do it again I need to make sure someone else with a similar pace will be there to run with. Since I went for some social running and wound up doing 5 of the 8 miles alone, it kind of defeated he purpose and i might as well have gone out early in the morning when it was nice and cool instead of when it was 85 degrees out.

I did get in another 6 miles before heading north for the weekend on Saturday. I gave as much of it as I could to my wife as a "Conditions Report", as she was due at a training run at 7AM. It was a good run, and while I had felt bad for skipping Thursday and Friday, the soles of my feet thanked me by being plenty ready for Saturday. I spent the rest of the weekend with my family back in Gaylord, as my mom had gone in for hip surgery a couple weeks ago.

I was surprised at how well she looked like she was doing, considering she just had major surgery. The cause had been a mean case of arthritis, which, incidentally, is the cause supported by the Jingle Bell Run that is held in November, for which I will be captaining a team for the Kalamazoo Area Runners. It's a super coincidence, since I had signed up for it before finding out my mom was having problems with her hip!

Monday morning my folks offered to watch the kids so I could head to Boyne City for their 4th of July 10k, which I had heard about from a friend of mine from high school who lives in the area now. It was to be a nice run along Lake Charlevoix, which is a nice lake, so I was pretty excited both for the run and to see an old friend. I arrived a little early, got signed up and chatted with some people curious about me being barefoot. It was a gorgeous morning for a run, and my main hope was to beat the heat (it was projected to be high 80s!)


Pre-race at the starting line

The course was probably the flattest thing I've ever run, but it was still fun. There were plenty of aid stations and a few good pockets of enthusiastic crowds. The run out was great, and I kept a pretty brisk pace (~8:30/mile). I hadn't seen my friend Emily at the start, so I kept watching for her as I ran. I think I passed her at some point around the 2 mile mark, because when I made the turnaround at the halfway point she yelled at me about 100 feet down the road (and i remembered passing her a few minutes before). The way back was a little tough as the sun was fully risen and it was right in our eyes. I could have killed for a pair of sunglasses, and lamented the fact that we couldn't even get one measly cloud for some shade.

My pace slowed during the second half (~9:30/mile) and was punctuated by getting hit with a squirt gun from a kid at one of the aid stations. I didn't ask for it, but it still felt good so I just smiled and kept running. With about 1.25 miles remaining Emily caught up to me and we chatted briefly before she cruised past me. Can't say I was surprised, as I have seen some of her times and she usually comes in a couple minutes faster on 10k's than I do, and I had actually been surprised I was ahead of her! I did make one mad push at the end of the race when I saw the big clock say 55:00 at the finish. My previous best was 57:57 at Mackinac Island a few weeks ago, so I got pumped that I could crush that by over 2 minutes. I managed to pass a couple people in the last few hundred feet, and finished with a 55:25, a full 2:30 faster than my previous best, and 15 minutes fast than my first 10k back in October.

Milling about afterward, I did see about 5 pairs of FiveFingers and a single pair of Newtons in the crowd, so I while I was completely alone as a barefooter, at least there were a few minimalists and a "natural running" advocate in the crowd. The race was pretty nice, especially for the price (only $20!). The surface was exceptional for barefoot running, so I would recommend it to any barefooter in northern Michigan looking for a race next summer.

Kal-Haven Trail: June 25

2011-06-27T19:10:00.003-04:00


Beautiful day for a run!

Ok, so it's been since Memorial day that I've done either of two things: run longer than an hour and head out to the Kal-Haven Trail. Last time I went out there is when I tweaked my IT band and because of that I haven't really pushed hard, distance wise (I have been pushing hard speed-wise, as I've done two races since then, posting personal bets both times). I decided with the nice weather I would aim for 10 miles and see how it went.

The surface of the trail is crushed limestone, but reasonably fine compared to other trails I have run in the recent past. That's not to say it's nice and smooth, as it is still a fairly challenging surface for me. It's uncomfortable enough that I really don't want to walk on it barefoot, and I have explained it thusly: It's rough enough that it makes my feet feel like they're tough, in addition to encouraging a light step. Really it's a great surface, but I have yet to really figure it out well (which I'll explain further on).

Don't think I have anything to worry about

The way out was pretty nice, as I kept a decent pace and passed a surprisingly large number of other runners (I usually see nothing but bikers, most of them less than friendly) on their way back to the trailhead, so they must have gotten earlier starts than I did. One of the groups of bikers went by and must have assumed I was deaf or something as they got about 100 feet ahead of me before yelling to each other "hey, did you see that barefoot runner?!"

I thought it was kind of lame that they waited until they were barely ahead of me before talking about me, but it didn't take long to let it go. I have been in races where people right behind me are talking about me and for some reason didn't feel the need to include me in the conversation. A few times I have just jumped into their conversations whether they liked it or not, but it tends to be a conversation killer. Lately i have just listened with a smile on my face until they pass me or I get too far ahead of them.

Seems ripe for skeeters...

The bugs were nearly non-existent, which surprised me. There are a few low swampy areas near the trail that seem like they would be prime for skeeters, but I don't think I got bit once. Either I was going too fast or they were cutting me some slack for a change.

There weren't many runners with headphones on out there today, which I thought was great. One of the things that really bugs me is people who need to shut off the world around them in order to get some exercise outdoors. I used to be one of them when I first started, but since going barefoot I have really appreciated how quiet I run (I scared a cat out on the trail!) and how loud everyone else is. It also helps, being mostly a road runner, to hear cars coming from a distance rather than having one sneak up on me because I couldn't hear it.


Funny, I don't feel stuffy...

I turned around at the 5 mile mark, and was still feeling good, but by mile 7 I could feel the IT band starting to act up. I was surprised as it has been a non-issue for a few weeks. There must be something I change in my gait when I run on the limestone that stresses out my leg. I know I tend to ride lower and bend my knees more when I'm on the trail due to the rough surface, so maybe I'm working my thighs and knees a little more than I need to when I'm on the road. I made a mental note to make sure I rolled the heck out of my thighs when I got home.

I stopped a couple times to stretch my hamstrings and quads, which seemed to take care of it temporarily. My pace had slowed a bit, but I still felt pretty good. After a couple stretches I was pretty sure if was all about the tight quads and hamstrings, so I focused on trying to keep them loose and keeping the pace easy. The stretches got me back to the trail head, and not feeling too sore. As planned, I stopped and did some more stretches, taking more time with it than I did on the trail, while I talked to a biker who said he tries to put a little barefooting into his running workouts.

All in all it was a pretty good run. Not as comfortable as I would have liked, but I'm getting back there. Within the next couple weeks I should be able to do 10 miles without any IT band soreness (I remember similar minor problems in my first couple 6 milers after the injury). Hopefully by the fall I'll be up in the teens for my long runs. I don't really have any long races planned, but I figure if I can get some long runs feeling comfy before winter, then I will have a much easier time in Beyond this winter and a better Kalamazoo Marathon next spring.

But if a race were to materialize that I felt ready for...

Barefoot Running Workshop!

2011-06-24T17:29:00.002-04:00

So with the rash of questions about barefoot running I have gotten over the last 6 months or so, I decided to put my money where my mouth is and host a workshop/class/talk on it last night. This was a big step for me, as I usually avoid public speaking like the plague. Things went better than I expected and I learned a lot!

We had about 10 people attend, and I began rambling about everything I thought was important for a beginner to know. Everyone appeared to listen intently, which was great, and there were only couple questions, so I assume everyone was able to follow me while I talked. We got rained on a little bit, but the nearby gazebo gave us a break from the rain.

After about a half hour to forty five minutes of talking, most of us went off for a short barefoot run on the smooth asphalt of Bicentennial Trail in Portage. The reaction was very positive, with one woman saying "I felt like a kid again!" The evening was a very positive thing for me, especially since it was my first time.

Some things I learned from the experience include such hits as "make a sign-up sheet" (even if it's just a google doc) and "organize your talking points ahead of time". Doing these two things would have been a huge benefit, as I showed up not knowing how many people were coming (I only knew of one person) and found myself rambling a bit and pausing to try to figure out what to talk about next.

I would like to thank The Kalamazoo Area Runners and Gazelle Sports for letting me post the workshop on their respective event listings/calendars/newsletters. I'm not sure how many people came from either source, but I know I would have only had a single attendee if I had relied on my facebook event.

Built my own foam roller

2011-06-23T05:26:00.000-04:00

So I've been wanting a foam roller for a while now in the hopes it would help me deal with the tight calves that are the bane of my existence. Problem was, they tend to run $30-40! Expensive!

So tonight, remembering an old post at the Barefoot Runners Society, I went down to the hardware store to see if I could make my own for cheap. Turns out I can, but not quite as easily as I'd hoped.

First I got a 2' long piece of 4" diameter PVC. I got totally gouged on the short stick, as they sell 10' lengths (or thereabouts) for like $12, and I paid $6 for my short piece. PVC in hand, the trick became finding pipe insulation that would fit a 4" pipe. Turns out this doesn't exist (at home depot, anyway). After much searching for a better option, I settled for a 6' length of the biggest diameter foam insulation I could find: 3/4" pipe.

My strategy became: cut it into thirds, hope that is enough to get around the pipe, and duct tape the hell out of it to hold it in place. It worked, for the most part. There was about 1" of exposed PVC when I was finished, but it wasn't bad. Here's the final product:

I tried it out and it worked as advertised. It hurt like hell, but I felt pretty good when I was done. Colleen even tried it on her back (remember Homer's spinal cylinder?) and she said it felt pretty good. The initial impression is it was a pretty good investment for the whopping $8.50 I spent on materials.

Trail review: North Central Trail, Gaylord to Vanderbilt

2011-06-21T19:58:00.002-04:00

(This is a previous message board post I thought would be a nice way to set the tone for things around here. New material to come soon!)

This weekend i was in Gaylord visiting my folks. It was wet, cold and windy; Let's go run!

I was torn between shingle mill pathway and the north central trail, and since my mom was watching the kids by herself I decided to stay where she could reach my cell phone, which meant north central. I planned a short 6 mile run, as I had just run a marathon last weekend and technically should probably be tapering back up but, as you'll see, I'm a glutton for punishment.

My first impression wasn't great. In gaylord there are absolutely no signs of where the trailhead is. The only reason I found it easily was because I grew up there and had read a brief description a month or two ago (something about the fairgrounds). Basically I took Old 27 north through town and turned on the road just north of the fairgrounds (Fairway Street). If you get to the roundabout in front of gaylord High School you've gone too far. I found the trail heading north along the edge of the cemetary north of North Ohio Elementary School, with a large gravel parking area designated as "Soccer Complex" (and indeed when I got back there would be dozens of cars there for a couple soccer games). It might have been slightly quicker to have taken North Ohio Street north from Main Street to get here, but then you lose the landmark of the fairgrounds.
The section of the trail that is in Gaylord is asphalt surface and relatively clean. I didn't see where it went in town, but I know it went both south past the fairgrounds and east along Fairway, eventualy turning south along Old 27, so it seems there is some extra mileage to be had in town. The asphalt lasts for about 300 feet north of Fairway next to the railroad tracks (they stop at roughly the same spot) before switching over to crushed limestone.

Now, we've all read Jason's thoughts on crushed limestone where he basically says, and I'm paraphrasing here, crushed limestone is inconsistent in that it can either be fine and relatively pleasant for barefooting or very coarse and painful. The North Central is consistent in that it is a very coarse surface that I wouldn't recommend for barefooting. I've run on one other crushed limestone surface, the Kal-Haven trail between Kalamazoo and Bloomingdale. I remember it being slightly uncomfortable, but not nearly to the point where I felt the need to put shoes on. In fact, there were portions where it felt downright sandy and nice on the feet. I wasn't expecting the world of pain the North Central offered.

Here's the rankings: With chip and seal roads as a guideline, and barefootable but very uncomortable, I would say that while the Kal-Haven was like Chip and Seal's little brother, pretty annoying but fun enough that you don't mind hanging around him, the North Central is like Chip and Seal's older sister: She looks good enough to make you want to give her a squeeze, but is far too bitchy to hang around for any length of time. I made a couple attempts to barefoot this thing, and had to go back to my Trail Gloves within a few hundred feet both times. Eventually I realized the surface was not getting any finer and jsut kept the shoes on. Here's a picture of the typical surface material:

This stuff would be a great training tool, though, as the surface really begs to be used for drills involving the bent knees and distributing your weight over your entire foot (I've recently read about some drills in Ken Bob's book along these lines and it seems like he would probably find the surface perfect!). I'm a 95% road runner though, living in the city, and this stuff really hurt and made me realize I need to work on relaxing my feet and calves more (I wish I could practice on the stuff!). The bottom line is that more experienced barefooters may be able to handle this stuff (Ken Bob would probably fly across it!) but people in their first year may find it pretty challenging unless they started out running on surfaces like this.

Anyway, the trail itself is flat as a pancake and nearly straight. One example of this is a section I wish I'd gotten a picture of: about 200 feet of trail crosses a small valley, with the sides of the old railroad grade dropping steeply about 50 feet or more on either side to the valley bottom. I'm always amazed to see feats of engineering/construction like this because I know it was built by teams of people with shovels and a handful of horses. I don't even know how you would build something with this kind of geometry with today's mechanized construction methods and I've been in the business for almost 14 years!

The scenery along the trail is very nice, with plenty of farmland/pasture, a couple small bogs, and plenty of hardwood forest to run through. Even in spring it was nice as the trilliums were out in full force already:

Eventually the scenery changes a little as you get closer to Vanderbilt. It's always struck me as odd that while the Gaylord area forests are primarily composed of maples and pines, the forests around vanderbilt are primarily poplar and firs. It gives Vanderbilt something of a UP vibe, which is pretty cool and makes it have a very different feel from Gaylord.

There are a couple streets to cross as you near Vanderbilt, as opposed to the bridges and tunnels closer to Gaylord, but traffic is minimal at best being typical country roads. The trail heads right into the middle of Vanderbilt about a block from the (only) blinking traffic light. There is no apparent trailhead here either, but there is a nice little park near the fire station with a paved parking area that I figure would make a decent trailhead. There didn't appear to be any signs leading to the trail here either, which was again disappointing. The easy directions: at the blinking light (Sturgeon Valley Road) head east about 1 block to the fire station and park at the little park there. At least it's easy to find!

I wound up running back to Gaylord on Old 27, which wasn't too bad aside from the rain. There were some decent paved shoulder areas, but there were enough blind hills and curves (the super-elevated curves were hell on the ankles!) in the road to make it slightly dangerous. The fact that I don't think I've ever seen anyone running along Old 27 doesn't help, as most drivers on this road probably aren't expecting runners. The hills are long and nasty near Gaylord (I wound up walking a portion of one that must have been at least a mile long) as the shoulder goes away near Parmater Road, so you need to run in the gravel shoulder which isn't terrible, but there was a fair amount of debris. The scenery along Old 27 is nice farmland and there is a nice little park called Irontone Springs, but I realized pretty quick that I should have just taken the Norht Central back in as it was more direct (the rain and the fact that my body was tellign me I had pushed too far that day had a lot to do with this!).

I'm reaching out to the world?! Seriously?!

2011-06-20T18:43:00.000-04:00

If there is one thing running, and barefoot running in particular, has done for me over the last year it's that it has brought me out of my shell a bit. Since I began running I have met a lot of great people, all of them very different, and have stuck my neck out for various volunteer positions. This will be an interesting second half for 2011.

July brings my first run organized as the Michigan president of the Barefoot Runners Society. I am attempting to gather people from all over the state, many of whom I have never met in person, and it's something I don't think I'd have ever done.

November will bring the Jingle Bell Run, where I will be captaining the Kalamazoo Area Runners team. Not only will this put me in another position to deal with many people I don't necessarily know, but I get the double-whammy of it being a fundraising event for the Arthritis Foundation. I have never been all that enthusiastic about fundraising, even for good causes, and now I am taking some responsibility for an entire fundraising team.

Anyway, I'm not sure where this blog will take me. I imagine I'll be all over the place topic-wise for a while as I narrow it down, but I'm pretty sure it'll involve running to some extent as that's been the most fun to write about for the last few months. I hope this entertains at least a few people. I'm going to have some fun writing it and hopefully it translates to whoever happens to read it.

Cheers
Troy