in the short run

I got out for a quick run in the neighborhood today, the first such in a long time.  The weather was nice, and there was an unallocated half-hour...I really need to get back into a running routine.  My mind has been a little troubled in recent days, and the road under my (mostly)bare feet really helps.

running brief

or brief run!

The weather today flirted with 60 degrees for a bit, so I took the bait and went out for a short run after work.  It felt good to be moving again (it seems like a very long time since I ran last...100s of diaper changes ago, for sure), but I also felt a little thick and plodding.

It turned out that I only ran about 1.5 miles, but at a sub-9 minute pace.  I'm hoping the weather stays relatively mild for a few days, long enough to give me a couple more decent runs before the next blizzard hits.

on self experimentation

alternate title: reviewing 4-Hour Body.

OK, so I read the book.  It did take me longer than I thought; the book is long, and as I told a friend it's a sort of "kitchen sink" approach that is probably better suited to a blog environment than a standalone book.

This is going to be a long and winding post, so I'll offer a micro-review up here, above the fold, and talk more about the details and my plan to incorporate some of the ideas from the book in my own quest for self-improvement below the fold.

The book is a masterpiece of marketing.  The author, Timothy Ferriss (wealthy and famous from his previous book 4-Hour Workweek) leveraged a lot of "new media" and some other clever (or annoying; it's subjective) mechanisms to get the book a great deal of exposure.

The book addresses a handful of topics of interest to most people: how to lose weight (body fat); how to build muscle; how to improve your sex life (the experience itself, not necessarily the quest for partners); how to sleep better.

His contention is that there are some basic "hacks" that people can employ to get more out of what they have already, one example being that while people have to eat, we do not have to eat refined carbohydrates (anything white, per the book).

So the short review conclusion is that I got value from the reading, and can recommend portions of the book to others for reference, but I found the style lacking and most of the real content highly derivative of other well known sources from recent years.

For more, and for my personal application, click on through.

Barefoot Bible, Chapter 1, verse 1

For my barefoot running buddy, who sometimes needs a little inspiration:


In the beginning was the foot, and it was good.  In fact, there were two
and they were where Runner met the road.


And behold!  the road stretched away from Runner
and down that road lay all the wonder the exploding universe could hold.


Runner looked along the road, looked within himself, and began.
Falling forward in space: light! quick! smooth! the feet fell in rhythm


Runner flowed forward, like the water over the riverbed stone;
the road did not push back, but carried Runner forward.


And so, Runner loved the road, and the road loved Runner,
each step a caress, and the wonders of the distance drew near.

(see, poetry doesn't have to be embarrassing! or kooky!  OK OK, I promise no more poetry.  Until my son is born...and then there may some lyrical gushing that would make Creed look like Bob Dylan.)

runners

my 5F, version 1.1

These are the shoes I bought in ~ July 2009.  Just a couple of months ago I took some kitchen shears to the shoes (the wife had bought me a new pair for my birthday, so I had a safety net!).  I've put a few hundred miles on these shoes, and they are hanging in there fine.  Removing the cinch cord and notching the uppers there at my achilles has made them more comfortable, for me.  Your mileage may vary.

Check them out on the manufacturer's website, or at Amazon.

Run Like A [insert awesome reference of your own choosing]

I'm no athlete.  I wish I could say that I make up for that with other socially valuable qualities, but I'm not always sure about those either.

Don't get me wrong - I can throw a football in a tight spiral, I can hit a decent free throw percentage, and I started water skiing when I was barely old enough to walk - but I was never one of those kids that people wanted on their ball team.  One of my chief struggles was with a skill so central to sport that a relative lack of ability is a huge obstacle to enjoying sport; in a nutshell, I couldn't run.

In high school there was this program or challenge to get the Presidential Physical Fitness award, and to qualify you had to hit so many targets: some number of pull-ups, a jump rope challenge, etc.  One of the targets was to run a mile, maybe in 9 minutes?  What I remember for sure was that I completely flubbed the mile, and it was the only category that was keeping me from the award...I ultimately ran for it again and just barely made the mark.  I wasn't overweight, I was a reasonably active kid, but something just did not work for me in the running department.

Fast forward 15 or so years, and I was still no runner.  The wife and I would bike for miles, I could swim a half mile in the pool, but when I laced up the sneakers and went for a run it always felt TERRIBLE.  I don't recall why, in this context, I thought reading a book about running would be interesting, but I bought a copy of McDougall's Born to Run and absolutely fell for it.

Read it for yourself, if you like, but the thumbnail summary from me to you: people evolved to run, and to run with the equipment god gave us.  I started over, learning to run in a "minimalist"s style and I haven't looked back.

The first weeks of my adult running life I got up to a couple of miles without a walk break; a year later I ran an unofficial half marathon along Chicago's lake front.  Running is now my primary form of weight control and physical conditioning.

At this point in my life I have decided to leave evangelism behind, so I won't be knocking on anyone's door to spread the love of barefoot running, but if you want to chat about it and ask some questions, feel free to comment on this post.