Are You Living It?

I was feeling VERY sorry for myself this morning after a night of being harassed by my hip, my 4-year old, and my head…resulting in little to no quality sleep. As much as I love the balls i’m juggling, there are a lot of them. And I can’t get quality workouts in to clear my head without it being clouded right back up with hip pain (ok - I could swim my butt off, but - no offense to the swimmers out there - it just doesn’t do the same job for me as good bikes and runs).

I don’t care if I never run another race the rest of my life.

That was the thought that struck me running tonight. Crickets chirped in the fields surrounding me, the meadows glowing in the sunset. I was FLYING down the dirt road of Appleton Farms, floating along almost effortlessly (I’d learn later from gmaps that I’d done the 4.1 miles at an 8:00 pace - without even trying) except for my calves which were screaming uncle by that point, 3.5 miles into a 4 mile run.

Please, Chris Isaak (we all need to warm up
This is the life, my MacDonald
I like you so much better when you’re naked, Ida Maria
Panic Switch, Silversun pickups
Sound of Madness, Shinedown
Bleed It Out, Linkin Park
Let it Rock, Kevin Rudolf
Wrong, Depeche Mode
Sober, Pink
Dammit, Blink 182
I Don’t Care, Apoclyptica
No You Girls, Franz Ferdinand
Decode, Paramour
Tamacun, Rodrigo y Gabriela
Flannigan’s Ball, Dropkicks
Heartless, the Fray

See…what you THINK will be a heel strike, becomes a forefoot strike when you are the greatest distance runner of all time

Heel striking in shoes (foot lands in front of the body…although at 5 minute miles what looks like a heel strike often ends up being a forefoot strike under the body because they are moving so fast)

Barefoot Running (forefoot strike beneath the body)

I’ve gotten a bunch of questions regarding the barefoot running thing and how it relates to evolution running and chi running, etc. so I thought I’d answer them all in one post.

Everytime I visit Chris Bagg’s blog (which is grammatically without parallel and shames me for my lack of wit and intellect) I laugh at his banner so I thought I’d share it in case you’d never visited:

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This barefoot running thing is addictive, and that’s not necessarily a good thing. One bee sting, a puncture wound, and tarr-covered feet later, and my calves feel like ground beef…after all of a few miles tonight. I’m trying to mix between grass and track or trail, because the harder surfaces definitely force your form to improve more than the grass, but the grass is better for strengthening all the stablizers. I threw in some strides on the track and it feels amazing…like flying. Until, that is, you haul yourself out of the ice bath and find your soleus is grounding you. I can’t seem to get more than 3 miles without my calves giving out, and I figure my achilles can’t be far behind so I shut it down.

With her permission, I’ve pasted Donna’s race report below. Enjoy…

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“So I will try to keep this short but in all essence ironman is whole new beast and you really need to respect the distance and to respect everything about what it entails to get to the race start, it was an amazing experience from the race venue,the fans, the people I met there, the volunteers, what an amazing race.

I’m still away so I can’t load any of the photo’s from yesterday in Lake Placid with Donna (which are AWESOME), but all that matters is today…Donna Furse is an Ironman.

I don’t know all the details but I do know that she crashed her bike and STILL ran 26.2 miles and finished the race in 13 hours. I could not have run 1 mile after my crash a couple weeks ago…ironman or no. That woman could not amaze me more, even after all this time.

I always figured, since I was a scientist myself and I never believed in needing to haul any body parts to the afterlife, that I’d probably donate my body to science someday (with the exception of whatever usable organs that went to someone who could put them to immediate life-giving use). Turns out I’ll be doing it a little sooner than I planned.

I’m donating my body to YOU, my friends, and your collective running science.