Recently in running Category

i'm nearly through my first reading of Dan John's excellent book. I haven't read such a great book since I read Draper's, and I'm still digesting it (actually, at the moment I'm attempting vainly to digest a fish oil capsule, which I've re-begun taking since John recommends them so thoroughly, and I already knew they're good for me).

Yesterday's reading had a lot to do with goals and goal setting, and it's really gotten me thinking: although I've whinged a lot on the blog about how I just can't seem to bike and lift at my best at the same time (like everyone else, duh), I've never actually set a goal. Well, I've set goals in both areas, just not lately.

Dan John emphasizes picking realistic complexes of goals, and not fudging in any way. For example, a realistic complex of goals for me would be:

deadlift 400 lbs

continue to drink wine several times a week

fit into my size 36 shorts

eat food i enjoy

Slap a date on there and I'm done.

The thing about picking a goal, and the thing I found so compelling about Dan John's approach, is that a single goal does not exist in isolation, at least, not for a person like me who isn't willing to sacrifice everything in pursuit of a single goal. A decade ago, I had a goal to weight 185, and I reached it (for all of a week) by sacrificing drinking and eating foods I enjoyed. I'm not willing to give those up this time around, so instead of pretending that I am, those facts should be factored into my goals complex.

Once I'm set with a realistic set of goals, I can monitor my progress on all the goals at once, instead of maximizing one at the expense of the others.

This is a simple, brilliant concept. It may not have been exactly what Dan was getting at, either, but either way, it's an approach I plan to employ. I've been operating under the vague goals of "eat what i want, drink what i want, learn to power clean", but I think it's fast approaching time for a change, and the driver of that change will be a clean and precise listing of my goals for the near term.

we could be drivin
we could be far away from here

i've never liked or been good at running downhill, no matter my footwear.  the fivefingers revealed major flaws in my downhill running, teaching me that though i wasn't heel-striking anymore, i was toe-braking downhill, putting just as much stress on my knees and slowing myself down.

taking the shoes off brings in a whole new universe of teaching sensations, and i learned that toe braking isn't just bad for my knees and hips.  without the fivefingers, downhill toe-braking is likely to open a blister on my toes, or worse, depending on the pavement.

i've known for a while how to run downhill, my feet and body know what has to be done, but i wanted independent confirmation -- i wanted someone to tell me how to do it.

today i gave the technique a little practice: lean forward, cadence to ludicrous speed, and suppress the mental voice that's screaming that i'm going to fall on my face and kill myself.  the very high cadence tires me out pretty quickly, but the really hard part is overcoming the fear that i'm going to faceplant.  maybe if i'd been a skater in my youth i wouldn't have such a fear, but i wasn't, and the fear is pretty strong.

running this way seems to keep my feet landing under me or slightly behind me, eliminating the braking/shearing forces on my footballs and toes, maintaining or increasing my speed, and keeping the body happy.  it's the way it's supposed to be done, but i feel that it will take a very long time for it to become second nature.

today i ran two miles completely barefoot. not "barefoot" with my vibram fivefingers, but completely unshod.

a coworker sent me this webpage after i mentioned i ran barefoot:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/phys-ed-is-running-barefoot-better-for-you/?em

here's the short version, quoted from that article, on why i'm running unshod:

"On the one hand, no one has yet published a study on whether barefoot running is better for you -- the evidence is all anecdotal," Lieberman says. "On the other hand, no one has ever published a study showing that running shoes prevent injury."

in my case, running shoes have always been a problem. i had a pair that i liked, once, years ago, and then they were discontinued to generate more profits for the shoe company. these were top-shelf, wildly popular shoes, too, and the revision was totally different. even the fivefingers irk me on a longer run, and they encourage bad behavior.

in the 5fs, i tend to run too high on my toes, or to flap my feet on teh pavement when i attempt to correct for toe running. barefoot, right out the door i noticed i was immediately in a much better foot posture. the tenderness of my toes instructed me straight off when my landing/takeoff was sloppy. the feedback from the road was incredible - as barefoot runners will tell you is always the case.

i was very surprised how much of the road feedback is actually masked by the 5fingers. true, the 5fs are far, far superior to "traditional" running shoes - they punish heel-strike almost as much barefooting - but they mask other bad habits, like toe-running, toe-scraping, and foot flapping. not only that, but they *do* have arch support, which i find conflicts with the natural expansion of my feet over a run. i have to stop and loosen them, or suffer.

in any case, i finished my run with absolutely no pain anyhwere but my toe pads. i expected my toe pads to be torn and bloody but they were intact, just a little irritated. i will work more on my landing/takeoff to avoid scraping them, but i won't be putting shoes on again for my runs.

i find arguments like this to be specious at best:

The debate about whether barefoot running is somehow better underestimates the main player in the whole argument. "The body is quite smart and adaptable," Nigg says. In complex biomechanics studies that he's undertaken recently in his laboratory, he's found that people's leg muscles adjust, rather smoothly, to changes in their footwear. If you run barefoot and land near the front of your foot, he says, the impact moves up your leg along a different pathway than if you wear shoes. But your body can sense that difference, he says, and, as a result, different muscles fire, while other relax -- without any conscious volition on your part -- and the overall impact on the leg's various tissues remains about the same.

That's certainly fine on a treadmill but a real outdoors run involves curbs, uneven surfaces, cambered surfaces, and rocks and pine cones. in shoes, these things always twist my ankle -- i've been fortunate never to have injured my ankle seriously. barefoot, i'm paying so much attention that i never come close to such obstructions.

i don't buy the "overall impact" argument, either. in my running shoes, i impacted far more heavily than i do in the 5fs or barefoot, because my technique is vastly different. again, this is less apparent on a cushy lab treadmill, or even outdoors, since technique changes gradually.

"The body learns very quickly to compensate," he says. So, Nigg concludes, if you like your shoes, "stick with them." If you want to try running barefoot, Ross Tucker says, be judicious. "Many years of wearing shoes condition the muscle, tendons, and skeleton and a sudden shift to barefoot running" could, at least in the short term, be painful, he says. Start by running barefoot perhaps once a week, he suggests.

i used to buy this line of crap, too. but i deadlift, cycle, and climb -- i don't have any weak muscles, tendons, or skeletons. i'm not ready to run a marathon barefoot (i do have weak, soft soles) but my limiter is definitely not weak tendons.

That's what I love -- just being a barbarian, running through the woods.

- Born to Run, p149, "Jenn" speaking.

It sounds like she gets some of her inspiration from the same place as me.

As I pressed my kettlebell today, I thought of some friends of mine -- all of them, in fact, to whom i have proselytized the bells -- who scoffed at the high cost of the ugly hunks of iron, and consequently, do no weight bearing exercises at all.

i admit that it's silly to pay $200 for 24 pounds of cast iron, but once i did, the rewards i got were worth more than $200. I am fortunate to have the resources and the attitude to make possible such purchases, and the proper mental tuning to let such purchases not go to waste.

yesterday i found my barbarian self in san francisco, thinking no more and no less than the holy words: civilization - ancient and wicked.

we made it safely back to uncivilization where i could happily resume my own particular idiom, unappreciated as it remains.

yesterday, i calculated that every bad habit i indulge, i balance with two good habits. i consider this a good ratio, and it protects me from acquiring new bad habits, as i am too lazy to expand my repertoire of good habits. speaking of which, it is unclear into which column 'laziness' falls -- though I consider it a good habit.

this calculation was predicated on me being a runner, which has not been the case for the last several months, but which is now once again true. in preparation for my travel during thanksgiving, i am taking up running again, since it's easier to bring shoes than a bike onto a plane.

the running brought me back in touch with another good habit of mine: meditation. it is something i do only while running, it doesn't happen on the bike, and certainly not while climbing and drinking.

i reflected today upon my mohawk. a month or two ago i was asked a curious question by a stranger: does my mohawk represent anything symbolically, or is it just fashion?

it's never been fashion, per se. originally it was a joke, then i realized its practicality, enjoyed its airflow, and eventually liked the way it looked -- which is similar to fashion but not quite the same thing.

The esoteric interpretation of the indisuputible Law Of Fives states, clearly: go looking for meaning, and you will find it.

So during my short re-introduction to running, I went looking for meaning in my mohawk, and found it, easily.

The mohawk symbolizes my supposed devotion to the essentials of my life, the notion that -- should i deem it necessary -- i could willfully remove everything but what i need: like robert de niro in heat when the heat was around the corner. all the bad habits, most of the good, they could all be shorn away, leaving only a small portion of me, the essential me, condensed into itself and surrounded by memories of what used to be but proved, after all, to be inessential. it is a monk's haircut, representing a core of spirit surrounded by crufty amusements and time-wasting distractions.

in other (slightly variant) words, the hair in the middle represents me, and the stubbly bits all around it represent Pink Floyd's "The Wall".

Anyhow, that's the theory, and it'll only be borne out if push comes to shove, whatever that means. but it's always a comforting fantasy to think i could do it, and a reminder of the time when I actually did do it.

it was only a pitiful 2 miles, and i was going glacially slowly, and my calves do hurt a good bit -- but i got me a nice little runner's high during my run today, the first on my 5fingers!

for the span of a block, the music, the sun, the wind, and the forward momentum all came together, and i forgot all about prepping my feet for impact, and landing just right, and leaving the ground properly, and bracing the hips for impact -- i just ran. yay.

money, meet mouth.

i read this. although it is full of really bad logic and falsely drawn conclusions, it does make at least one cogent point: 30+ years of running shoe technology and we're still getting injured. 30+ years later and i still hate my fucking running shoes.

so i went for my second "barefoot" run in my fivefingers. i did my first just after i got them, many months ago. at that time, i didn't much like it -- but now, after many months of walking on them, and a couple weeks of "getting back into running" and focusing on eliminating my heel-strike, i felt pretty good.

i didn't run far, but i ran a little father than run #1 in my 5fs. my shins hurt, as they're wont to do when i don't run with superfeet. and i was slow. and i didn't go far.

but it felt good. my shins got tight but my feet didn't hurt (though the toes were getting a little burnt from the hot asphalt!!). lately i've been running much shorter distances than i was running on my last bout. so shoehorning my 5fs into my routine should not be such a big problem.

my love-hate with running is currently in "love".

i put superfeet in my runners yesterday and ran ~3mi, then ~2mi today. feels much better. i think that superfeet are a help when i weigh > 200lbs, and a hinderance when i'm under 200. that's the best i can figure.

i ran to a loop of the "ZOMG ZOMBIES ARE CHASING ME!" theme from "28 days later". it's really motivational. i sprinted the last couple of blocks to arrive at my finish before the end of the song (that is, before the undead got to me) and nearly had to smash a u-haul who didn't look. i made it by 1 second.

2 blocks from the apt, i decided to try to adjust my rear derailler, because i couldn't shift into the top 3 gears. i fumbled around with the barrels a bit, then went to test my handiwork, and promptly snapped the cable off right at the shifter. so that was the end of my ride.

the bike shop says it's a five minute fix. a trip to the bike shop will motivate me to clean my bike up and learn how to make the adjustment properly.

but i need some kind of exercise today, and i guess this really is the perfect opportunity to resume running. i'm sure my knees and shins will thank me.