We love the weekends.

Maybe everybody does. But we sure do. Can't wait for the next one.

Month 7

Someday you will realize that "special" and "important" are all relative, and so it is with milestones and recognitions...16th birthdays (15 if you are a Mexican female...), 18th birthdays, 21st if you are a US citizen, 30th, 40th, 50th...these are all watershed years for one reason or another.  And so it must be for monthly remembrances.  6 months was a big deal!  But 7?  It's just the month after 6, and 5 before the 1 year mark...right?

Except for you parents, it's not just another month.  It's ANOTHER MONTH!  You changed some this month, and made us laugh and smile and bang our heads against the wall.

Just look at that smile!  You are a happy baby, and your mom and I thank the stars daily for that.  This pic was taken in Nashville, at a hotel, where Dad had to go work for the week...you were a champ and weathered the change in surroundings pretty well.

Back at home, we keep expecting you to crawl (and sprout some teeth, but all we get is drool there), but your version of crawling is apparently modeled on the Superman style:

When you get excited and happy, instead of putting your hands and knees to the ground to propel you forward, you lift everything up into this "flying" mode.  It's cute, but relatively unproductive.  We're not completely sure what's going on there...

In other recent developments, you apparently think it's awesome to stick out your tongue ALL THE TIME.
Maybe someday you will be featured in a poster like Einstein, but we kind of doubt it.

Not that you aren't cute, but your mother and I hope that as an adult you will know when and where to use your tongue...

Anyway, this month was super cute and a lot of fun and I don't really know what else to say about it, because in the part of my world that is not ALL ABOUT YOU things kind of sucked and made me depressed.

But there was this to brighten at least one evening:

So, month 7 is behind us and number 8 is coming up fast...and you do look nice from behind too.

I love you, Son, and I'm glad we're doing this together.

NTTATS update

I recently realized that even though No Two Things Are The Same is practically perfect in every way, there is another statement that is equally powerful and is equally necessary:

All Things Are Similar.

Taken together, these two ideas will change the way the world thinks.

still here, just thinking

selling out - minimalist shoe edition

I've been encouraged by some parties to make my blog moderately more..."commercial".  Let's try that out.

I saw a review of these sandals today and I would not mind trying them out.

I think they look pretty cool, and are described as being "as the thinnest, most minimalistic sport sandal" Teva has ever made.  I could run in them, I'm pretty sure.  Although, I imagine I would pick up some tiny rocks and/or sand occasionally.  I might also drill holes in the sole and cut off some straps after trying the shoes out as-is.  Find them here.

In the same vein, a good friend of mine has had the opportunity to try out these Merrell "Barefoot Trail Gloves" and had some reasonably positive things to say about them:

While they look more "traditional", the shoe is apparently super light and fairly minimal in the sole.  I'm probably not going to try them out at present, but I'm glad that Merrell and other companies are continuing to innovate in the "minimalist" shoe space.  Check them out here.

New BFR insights

I had a eureka moment this weekend in regards to barefoot running and the disconnect I experience (as an advocate) between me and some of my running friends.

The insight came when I started thinking about my goals for running speed, my history of injury, and how different goals might lead to different experience outcomes.  I have so far in my running career not cared much about how fast I run; I have to date cared more about putting up consistent distance numbers, and consistency in running at all.  I also [knock on wood] have yet to experience any real running-related injuries.

Several of my running friends who choose to run in traditional running shoes care a great deal about running ever quicker times; I realized this weekend that the higher incidence of injury among this same set of friends could have to do with their shoes or it could have to do with the extra stress on their bodies that is coincident with the press for speed.

I think now that this component of the overall experience of running is important and I have neglected it in past consideration...when people asked me in the past why I ran barefoot, I have talked at length about evolutionary development and about pockets of aboriginal runners world-wide who run great distances barefoot (or in minimalist foot coverings) and about stories (as covered in Born to Run) of such runners who persistence hunt (where you run after a deer or other game until it drops dead from exhaustion) - what I'm realizing now is that while many of those example runners do run fast, speed seems to be a secondary goal or motivator in their version of running.

Thoughts?