April Close Out Report

April proved to be a pretty fun and entertaining month. I got to meet Barefoot Ted, Christopher McDougall, and Prof. Lieberman…I’m like a giant Born To Run groupie!

Joking aside, I learned a lot from watching and listening in these sessions. Most importantly they served to reinforce my approach to running. My slow and easy build of miles to ensure great technique and provide for actual enjoyment while running seems to be working and now I’ve met people who its’ worked for as well!

Speed’s Been Visiting
I’ve been kind of fast (for me anyways) lately…On Friday the 23rd I was out on a lunch run (a pretty hilly course) and glanced at the Garmin after mile 1 and noticed I was in the 7′s and the body was firing on all cylinders. What to do in that situation???? Make it a race! So I finished the 5k in 24:17 or 7:50/mile…felt pretty bad ass!

Above is my build of monthly cumulative miles. I’ve been sitting in this zone around 15 miles/week for a few months now and to be honest, it feels kind of right for my body at the moment. The next natural step I see is for 18 miles/week and getting at that 70 miles/month marker. We’ll see how the body feels and if we can push there in the next couple months.

Marathon Weekend: McDougall and Lieberman Session

We headed to Boston this weekend and were lucky enough to get down to Boylston Street on Saturday to see some of the marathon festivities. Oh, and there happened to by an event at City Sports where Christopher McDougall and Prof. Lieberman were leading a talk/clinic/run/FiveFingers extravaganza.

It was a ton of fun and was my first time visiting a brick and mortar City Sports location (I’m an avid online buyer from them). The session was totally laid back, consisted of brief talks by each McDougall and Lieberman, a short barefoot run in the commons, then a Q&A session and book signing.

We also headed over the events center to check out all the vendors for marathon weekend and were excited to see the FiveFingers booth and A TON of action around it.

What’s that photo of VFF Sprints I put into the picture of the booth for FiveFingers? My wife FINALLY caved and bought some at the City Sports event! She even went and logged her first mile the next morning and loved it.

The FiveFingers booth wasn’t selling the shoes, just giving people an opportunity to try them on and get addicted. I kid you not, there was A LOT of action at the booth. I got to check out the Bikila’s, sadly there weren’t any in my size so I have to hold off on the purchase.

Competitor Magazine was at the event and has a great write up here – http://running.competitor.com/2010/04/news/bearfoot-running-hits-boston_9467

Quick Linkage
I got one of these FiveFingered stickers from Justin at BirthDayShoes.com and needed to post a link to his site because it by far has the most extensive information on Vibram FiveFingers.

Check it out and be sure to sign up to his RSS feed if you like what you see. The site is updated all the frikin time and many times with FiveFingers information that you can only find there.

I Met Barefoot Ted…And Learned A Few Things!

On Saturday I woke up, threw on my running gear and headed into New York City’s Central Park to meet the man, the myth, the legend…Barefoot Ted.

The mission was simple, a barefoot clinic with about 25 other folks where we got to talk…talk…talk…ask questions…talk…run. Ted was a great guy, super easy to talk to and to gain insight from. I came to realize that to be a good author of non-fiction you have to be a good caricature artist. McDougall does just that in Born To Run. Basically he takes the eccentricities of Ted and really blows them up throughout the story to make him an even more interesting character. But don’t get me wrong…he’s an interesting character!

Much of what was discussed in this clinic were things I already knew because of my obsession with the latest and greatest data and info on the subject of barefoot and minimalist running. It was an “intro to barefoot/minimalist running” class, so it was expected that much of the stuff would be reinforcement to the arsenal of things I already know. I was able to get some great insights from things Ted talked about and also from things I witnessed as I got to run with him and watch him run. I’ll break down a few of these things that I took away from the session. Please bear with me, these are unorganized learnings and resulted from Q&A or observations I made while spending the 4 hours with Ted and the folks in the clinic.

Barefoot And Minimal Are Two Different Animals
My barefooting miles I have put on are not much…maybe 4 miles total this year. Also, I always barefoot at the end of one of my regular runs with my Vibram FiveFingers. Well this clinic was all barefoot and I quickly realized that I’ve been doing it backwards. I should start my runs barefoot and switch to FiveFingers when/if necessary. Here’s why. Even with the thin coating that the FiveFingers put between your bare feet and the surface below, they DO change things. For me I think I tend to allow my foot to still push off ever so slightly even though I try not to. Barefoot, you wouldn’t do this…it hurts…like pushing off of sand paper. Barefoot forces you to truly run 100% naturally, in my opinion. Cadence goes up even higher, stride shortens even more, and you get into that light stepping mode with your feet just kissing the ground and then being lifted up. I look forward to exploring this more and getting into the differences even deeper, but I was made very aware from this experience that the two are really quite different.

Go Forward My Friend, Not Up And Down
Ted is an amazingly smooth dude, and I’m not just talking about his bald dome. It’s his gait and the fact that all the shock absorption is being done from the hips down. His upper body and head are almost in a perfect horizontal plane as he glides forward. I took note of this immediately and have already started trying to run more like this. The best I can demonstrate what I’m talking about is with this graphic: Cadence Is King
180 steps per minute…minimum. This was mentioned more than a dozen times throughout the day. I’ve already noticed my cadence count dips when I start to get tired and now I am more actively trying to keep that up, it makes a massive difference in technique.

Also, food for thought – Ted said, “I pretend I have 2 inch little hurdles to clear with every stride”…I’m still digesting that and would like to film my gait to see if I have that low gait like he does.

We Have Our Feet As First Line Of Defense For A Reason
Anatomically the foot is spectacular. What’s more amazing is that one could argue it is the way it is because it was meant to do what we are doing with them, run long distances. Ted touched on how injuries you will get (or pains) will heal, it’s the beauty of the foot being used in proper technique that does this. The foot was structurally designed to be the first line of defense…your knees, hips, and back…not so much. Proper technique in running is essential to this paradigm.

Run Hills AND Stairs
Ted was insistent on the benefit of running hills and even more so, on running stairs. I couldn’t agree with him more on this point. Well, the hills part, I haven’t really thought of running stairs until he mentioned it and we got a chance to do it. Stairs, like hills, force your body into proper technique. Ted took it a bit further. Run the stairs as silently as you possibly can…float up them. I’m a work in progress on this one. The idea of floating up stairs is exhausting, but worth a real effort attempt.

Overall, I’d recommend Barefoot Ted’s “Introduction To Barefoot/Minimalist Running” to anyone. It was fun, it was free flowing, it was conversational, and I learned a few things from watching this guy and all his years of experience.

Here’s a few links to things regarding Ted or related to this class:
BarefootTed.com (Ted’s blog)
http://twitter.com/BarefootTed (Ted’s twitter page, this is how I found about this Central Park session)
http://groups.google.com/group/huaraches (Ted’s google group – there will be a new forum coming soon at the link below)
BornToRun.org (new forums will be launched here soon!)

Oh Yeah! And The Best Part Of Visiting New York City!
Massive effin parking tickets…