Running with the Kenyans - a review

Adharanand Finn's new book, "Running with the Kenyans," is structurally similar to Christopher McDougall's "Born to Run." The latter is about the Tarahumara Indians; Finn's book is about the Kenyans, especially those from one particular ethnic group, the Kalenjin. Both narratives proceed towards a culminating race at the end of the book, the first Copper Canyon Ultramarathon in McDougall's and the Lewa Marathon in Finn's. Both are fascinating studies that provide insights on "natural runners" and why they are so much better than the rest of the world. A slight difference is Finn wrote from a more personal perspective. The flow of McDougall's story is more evenly gripping, whereas Finn's story began somewhat more slowly and picked up around half way through the book. The Tarahumara Indians are natural, super athletes--but largely unknown to the rest of the world, even after McDougall's book and the start of the Copper Canyon Ultramarathon series. The Kenyan runners, on the other hand, are well known via their dominance in world long distance running. How dominant? Here are some numbers from Finn's book. In 1975, the number of sub-2:20 marathons ran by Americans, Britons, and Kenyans was 34, 23, and 0, respectively. By 2005, these numbers have flipped to 22, 12, and an incredible 490 (!), respectively. Illustrative of how much better the Kenyans are, compared with the rest of the world, is a telephone conversation Finn had with a Kenyan runner. Finn was trying to locate Wilson Kipsang, who later would run the Frankfurt marathon in the second fastest time in history (2:03:42). At the time of Finn's call, Kipsang's time was still a mere 2:04. :) Finn got Kipsang's number from a friend, but, by mistake, that number was for a William Kipsang. After a few confused exchanges, Finn said oh, I thought you are Wilson Kipsang, the 2:04 marathoner, right? William Kipsang replied, no, 2:05. In that part of the world, even if you dialed a wrong number ...

So, what makes Kenyan runners so good? Here's a list from Finn: "the tough, active childhood, the barefoot running, the altitude, the diet, the role models, the simple approach to training, the running camps, the focus and dedication, the desire to succeed, to change their lives, the expectation that they can win, the mental toughness, the lack of alternatives, the abundance of trails to train on, the time spent resting, the running to school, the all-pervasive running culture, the reverence for running." So, there is no one secret ingredient that, if known, can make runners elsewhere equally good. Still, there are many lessons that can be learned to become better runners. I already have a list of changes to my own training.

Running late ... in life

In this year's family Christmas morning opening of presents, I got a number of running-related items (surprise!), which, unlike many presents at this time of the year, are guaranteed to be well-used. In one of the boxes, the store had thrown in the current issue of some running magazine, in which an article by John Bingham, "When I'm 64," caught my eyes. The title refers to the Beatles' song, which, when Bingham first heard it, had seemed so far away. Now, he is 64 and making a living "as the world's slowest professional runner," after having started running at the ripe age of 43. He makes a sort of out-of-the-box observation that, for those who start running late in life (after the prime age for long-distance running of ~30), all their personal records are still ahead. Yes! That must be one of the answers to a question I've asked myself many, many times, without--still--a definitive answer: Why do I run?

So, "instead of sincerely wasting away," there will still be many as yet untraveled roads to explore.

Attacking the Hills ...

... aka get to the top before the legs realize what you're up to.

Recently, I've been experimenting with how I do my training runs, including "attacking the hills," varying the pace during a run, and running at a faster than "normal" pace and trying to sustain it through the entire run. Nothing new in any of these; the latter is basically the tempo run. But, I just haven't regularly worked them into my runs. Anyways, what I find more intriguing are not the particulars of running techniques, but rather what seems to be some kind of breakthrough. I can't quite put my finger on it, but my running just feels different now. I feel more confident of being able to recover during a run, after a stretch of exertion (e.g., sprinting up a hill). I'm leaving much less behind when I finish a run. My recent training paces have been close to my usual 5K/10K pace, which means I should be dropping my 5K/10K times. The first test of this was Turkey Chase this past Thanksgiving; I ran that 10K about 2.5 minutes faster than my times in previous years. This faster time is still some 10 minutes slower than my 10K PR (39:36), but I now feel that traversing those 10 minutes back to my PR is definitely a realistic goal, even so many years later. :) Last weekend, I ran one of my 10-mile training routes, which had been a tough run back in July of this year, about 5 minutes faster than my previous best time. No water, no food, no stops--quite a contrast with that July run. Does all this mean that, unlike the aging curve, the adaptation curve is not actually a "curve," but rather a stair-stepped function, driven by a kind of running version of punctuated equilibria?

"Not all pain is significant."

The title is a quote from the first chapter of Scott Jurek’s book, Eat & Run. Jurek began the book with the story of his first Badwater Ultramarathon in 2005. In a later chapter, he’ll finish that story, with him winning the 135-mile race from Death Valley to Mt. Whitney, CA in a new course record—after he’d just run and won his seventh consecutive Western States 100 a short two weeks earlier. In this first chapter, Jurek used Badwater to introduce ultrarunning and the pain and everything else these runners endure over those kinds of distances. The chapter began with him lying on the side of the pavement, at Mile 70, puking away. It was 11 in the evening and still 105 July degrees. He then went on to matter-of-factly describe the various types of pain ultrarunners deal with, in vivid detail (e.g., tearing off toenails to relieve pressure from blistering), or ignore. “Not all pain is significant,” but, how does one know which is which?

Towards the end of my Paris morning run in August, after the last main sightseeing stop (Hotel des Invalides) and about a mile from my hotel, I felt something in the left heel. My immediate thought was that it was one of those occasional twinges that I would just run through, and it would eventually go away. I finished that run and had no problem walking quite a bit over the next couple tourist days. Four mornings later, after I'd returned home, I went out for an easy four mile run and immediately felt the pain in the heel. I was hobbling a bit the first few hundred meters but decided to keep going and see. Once I got warmed up, that heel felt better. Or, at least I thought so at the time. For the next two weeks, I pretty much couldn't run. Even walking was not normal. If I'd not run that morning and, instead, allowed my heel to recover from the injury in Paris, might I have been able to resume running sooner than in two weeks? How does one know when to run through pain and when to rest to allow faster recovery? I need more data points.

A running conversation ...

... aka 30-second elevator speech.

At where I work, we have an All-hands meeting semi-annually. At one of these, there was a contest for the best elevator speech to persuade some company's CEO to do X, where X could be almost anything. The following was my entry (though I didn't actually get the chance to present it). Except for the one CEO line, all dialog is by the employee.

Born to run.

[CEO: What?]

You are born to run. We all are. Our ancestors, going way back to the beginning.

They had to be, in order to survive. They ran to catch their next dinner. They ran to avoid being someone else’s next dinner.

Don’t you see? All the employees of this great company were born to run.

Even those who think “to love running” is an oxymoron.

Think what running can do for the company.

Runners are healthier ... lower health insurance costs.

Runners are more mentally alert ... higher productivity.

Runners are more compassionate ... better teamwork.

Runners are better lovers … uh, never mind.

Runners contribute to the company's bottom line.

But, runners need to shower after a run.

And this company does not provide shower facilities.

Shower facilities, with plenty of lockers: a no-brainer for increasing the bottom line.

Running with Ms.Frizzle

One of the catch-phrases of Ms. Frizzle in the TV show, Magic School Bus, is "Look for connections." (Yea, I watched a lot of that show, when my kids were at that age.) Somehow, I was reminded of this by intersections of Sakyong Mipham's book, "Running with the Mind of Meditation," and Scott Jurek's "Eat & Run," even though these intersections are not quite the same as Ms. Frizzle's connections. Still, both relate to what came to my mind, i.e., everything in this world is linked (by six degrees of separation, if you like!). Anyways, here are two examples.

Jurek had an entire chapter about growing up being told by his father that "Sometimes you just do things!" Sometimes, you just can't know; you just accept and persevere. Many years later, Jurek would wonder, during his second Spartathlon, a 245.3 km (152.4 mi) race from Athens to Sparta, whether his father had actually meant, "Try not to think about consequences, just trust in your body and yourself and the universe." Mipham also devoted a chapter on "Just do it," including a reference to Nike's slogan. Mipham focused on how does one just do it. His answer was "with gentleness."

In his book, Jurek wrote about tearing his ligaments at mile 44 of the 2001 Western States 100 and about the importance of the mind in responding to what had just happened. He described his four-step checklist for such occasions, the first step of which is to feel and acknowledge one's emotions in response to the situation, i.e., to get all those emotions out of oneself and out of the way, so one can move on. Jurek won that race with those torn ligaments. Mipham, in his chapter on "How to Deal with Pain," wrote the first step is to acknowledge the pain, and the second step is not to overact, thus separating the pain from the mind reacting to the pain. This way, one can learn from the pain, which then becomes an opportunity to grow.

Now, Jurek did read about Buddhism and Taosim, so, perhaps the intersections of his and Mipham's books, illustrated by these two examples, should not be that surprising. However, I read these two books back to back by chance; so, these intersections are still intriguing to me. I will wrap up by relating a personal experience related to these kinds of intersections, though not related to running. When I was in grad school, there was one semester when I took three courses that were scheduled one after the other: agronomy, soil mechanics, and geomorphology. During one particular day of the first week of that semester, all three professors lectured about the exact same topic (related to basic properties of soil)--but, each from his own discipline-focused lens. In quick succession, I was exposed to the same part of the natural world, but through three different views. I was wowed. ... OK, I guess you had to be there! For me, though, that day definitely was a highlight of my academic career.

Running low on iron?

Well, this is puzzling. Some weeks ago, at the beginning of a blood donation process, where they take some blood from one's finger to do the hemoglobin test, my results were just shy of the minimum level. I was disappointed to have to defer my donation--for the first time in decades of donations. 2-3 months prior, I had my annual physical just a few days after my previous blood donation, and one of the lab results indicated a possible anemia condition. My internist thought there might be a connection between the two.

Just out of curiosity, to see if anemia might be related in any way to running, I googled running and anemia, and, sure enough, there were gobs of related articles out there, including a number of academic peer-reviewed papers. From the few I have read so far, there seems to be agreement that iron deficiency and anemia are more common among endurance athletes than among the general population, and, of the endurance athletes, more common among runners. Various explanations for the higher rates among runners include iron loss through sweating, normal gastrointestinal bleeding during long runs, destruction of red blood cells from all that pounding on pavement ("footstrike hemolysis"), and iron depletion associated with tissue inflammation. The connection between endurance training and iron deficiency anemia, however, remains to be firmly established. As one author questioned, does it make sense that intense exercise, as a normal outcome, reduces the body's capacity to perform intense exercise (by accelerating iron depletion resulting in anemia). Adding to the confusion, there is also the so-called "pseudoanemia," indicated by a low hematocrit value (ratio of red cell volume to total blood volume), which manifests itself in a well-conditioned body due to an expansion of blood volume.

In a recent follow-up lab test, the new results showed the relevant numbers being higher but still lower than normal. My doctor said his money is on blood donation as the likely cause. Me? I am on the fence for now, though leaning towards running as the cause. Although donating blood as the cause of anemia does make sense, it has been several months now since my last donation, and I have no symptoms of anemia. Certainly not fatigue. I am in my last week of training for next weekend's Baltimore Marathon and had a great long run last weekend (last one before the race). Although I have been running all my life, I have not, for the most part, run at the volume that I have sustained since I began training for the 2011 Marine Corps Marathon around June of last year. I have started to take an iron supplement, but I plan to have another conversation with my doctor in a few months to see if the supplement is really needed.

Morning (sightseeing) runs

One of what I most look forward to when traveling is the morning run in, especially, a new city. It's by far the best way to get to know a new place, sometimes intimately. It's better than riding a bicycle--nothing to get in between the place and me. I see details that would be mostly missed if I were driving. It's almost always early in the morning, so I get to see and hear and smell the early stirrings of local life, from the fresh aromas of a bakery to the whirling sounds of a street sweeper truck. And, what's so very interesting is that I always find myself running more effortlessly and running longer; time seems to fade into the background.

Recently, on a visit to Lille and Paris, France, I did a couple runs with, for the first time, a camera (in a plastic bag to keep the sweat away) in my hand, which did detract a bit from the runs but compensated with photographs of sights without the tourist crowds. Here are some examples:

Lille: The narrow cobblestone street where I was standing and taking this photograph curved around to my right. From the map, I knew, as I was running around the curve, that this Cathédrale Notre-Dame de la Treille was coming up. The gradual revealing of the cathedral, the transition from the narrow street to the open square, in the serenity of the early morning, was quite something--regardless of whether one goes to church or not.

 
Lille: Créperie de la Vieille Bourse (best dinner of the trip!) at night (left) and morning (right), immediately after the street sweeper truck had passed by.



Paris: An 8-mile run that covered the Tour Eiffel, Arc de Triomphe, Avenue des Champs-Elysees, Grand Palais, Hotel des Invalides, Jardin des Tuileries, La Rive Gauche, and more. Here's a crowd-less Tour Eiffel.


Have map (and camera) - Will travel!

Running metric

It's been in the back of my mind for some time now; I've been vaguely aware of its general consistency. In most races, my finishing position percentiles have seemed to be fairly close to each other, whether relative to the entire race field, men only, or my age group. The pattern has seemed to persist, regardless of the type of race or size of field. Curiosity piqued, I went through my race results and did some quick spreadsheet work (See plot). The x-axis is my finishing positions, and the y-axis is the total number of runners, whether of the

entire field, men only, or my age group. The blue trend line, with an R-sq = 0.6577, suggests that the size of a race field (all groupings, all types of races) is a fair indicator of my finishing position. This result also suggests that the population distribution of race paces is fairly consistent, at least for the same geographical region in which most of the races took place, and reflects the consistency of my pace across races. There are some uncertainties in my statistics here. For example, I mixed the results based on the entire field, men only, and age group. Also, for some of the larger races that had fields in the 10s of thousands, I scaled the results to be less than a thousand, to fit in the plot.

In any case, what's of more interest to me are the red, dashed lines, which are the 50th to 90th percentiles. So, if my result fell on the 50th percentile, then 50% of the field crossed the finish line after I did. The blue trend line is just above the 50th percentile, which accords with my general vague sense, over the years, that I usually finish near the bottom of the top half of the field. But, as the data show, there are also some outliers that are of higher percentiles (a few near the 90th--must have been relatively slow fields!). This is interesting because I can use the location of the trend line relative to the percentiles as a metric for my running progress. I'd be interested to know what you use as metrics.

GPS watch - unfair advantage?

I've heard about the central governor theory of fatigue before, but it was coming across it in Scott Jurek's book, Eat & Run, that got me googling for more. There are tons of writings on this topic, pros and cons. As I read up more on this, I'll come back to it in future updates. For now, I'm going to just use, as a working definition of central governor, that from Wikipedia: "a proposed process in the brain that regulates exercise in regard to a neurally calculated safe exertion by the body. In particular, physical activity is controlled so that its intensity cannot threaten the body's homeostasis by causing anoxia damage to the heart." This control is experienced as fatigue. First suggested by A.V. Hill in the mid-1920s, this theory has been more recently proposed by Tim Noakes of the University of Cape Town, South Africa as the Hill/Noakes Central Governor Model. In Jurek's book, he told the story about his friend Brian Morrison, for whom he paced in the 2006 Western States 100. Morrison, who was leading the race by more than 10 minutes, going into the Placerville High School track in Auburn, CA, just 300 yards from the finish, collapsed and couldn't finish on his own. His body apparently just "shut down." There are many other similar stories in marathon races. As runners, we all are aware of the mental aspect of running. We all run races faster than we train. We all run the last stretch to the finish faster, even though we felt spent just before. And, as I recently found out, I ran faster longer on a training run, when paced by someone else.

What does all this have to do with a GPS watch? Well, if the central governor theory is correct, then knowing exactly how much distance is left, in the race or in any particular stretch (such as to the next aid station), allows a runner to calibrate and thus run closer to one's physiological potential. And, with a GPS watch, one knows exactly (almost). I found this out during my recent half marathon at Dances with Dirt - Devil's Lake, where I ran with my very basic GPS watch and found myself running faster in several "last stretches" to the aid stations. Unfair advantage?

My basic GPS watch, from Timex (one of many brands available). 

Mental pacing

Couple of weeks ago, I was at a conference in Madison, WI, and the president of the organization tried something new and organized a daily morning run. On one of the mornings, I joined the group of runners in front of the hotel where the president was staying, and we all headed down to Lake Monona, to the southeast of the city. Once we got on the trail that went around the lake, one of the runners said the pace was too slow, apologized, and ran ahead. I asked what's his training pace, and it turned out to be one and a half minute or so faster than mine. I hesitated for a moment and then decided to try and see how long I could keep up with that pace. What then happened I found quite interesting and really showed how key is the mental part of running. For the first 5-10 minutes, I was definitely breathing harder than usual, but I actually more or less kept up without too much problem. As the time passed, I kept waiting for my legs or lungs to want to quit. But, the legs just kept on going, one after the other. I was even able to get out a word every now and then, in between the heavy breathing. It wasn't until some 35-40 minutes later, after we'd gone around the southwestern end of the lake, turned around, and started to head back to the hotel, that I said to my running partner, you go ahead, I need to slow down a bit. So, basically, with the pacing from my faster colleague, I did the middle 35-40-minute part of the ~65-minute run at my tempo pace, way longer than I've ever done a tempo run; and I ran probably my fastest eight miles in training!

Ultrarunning and BSA's STOP checklist

In Scott Jurek's book, Eat & Run, he described following his four-step checklist on several occasions, particularly during his third Western States 100 (2001), when he suffered torn ligaments at mile 44. The four steps are (1) Feel and acknowledge one's emotions in response to the situation; (2) take stock and assess the situation; (3) think about what can be done to remedy or improve the situation; and (4) separate negative thoughts and emotions from reality and what needs to be done. This checklist obviously worked for him; he won the 2001 race, his third of seven consecutive Western States 100 wins.

Jurek's checklist reminds me of the Boy Scouts' STOP checklist, also a four-step measure to take when something unexpected and bad happens (e.g., getting lost on a hike). The four steps of STOP are (1) Stay put and thus more easily found by rescuers; (2) Think about what resources are available, if the situation should extend into overnight; (3) Observe the surroundings and look for shelter; and (4) Plan what can be done to conserve energy and be as comfortable as possible. Steps 2-4 of the two checklists are quite similar. Step 1 is less obviously but nevertheless also similar. Jurek is talking about getting all those natural feelings that arise in response to some unexpected situation out of oneself and away, so that one can then proceed to step 2. The Boy Scouts are taught to stay put and not worsen the situation by frantically looking for a way out. Staying put allows them to calm down, so that they too can then proceed to step 2.

The two checklists are similar, because they are, of course, just specific instances of general problem solving.

Dances with Dirt at Devil's Lake, a review

Dances with Dirt is a series of multi-trail race events (10K, half marathon, marathon, 50K, 50M). For 2012, there are four events, in Florida, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan (http://bit.ly/LYqzxn). Today's event (http://bit.ly/LRqOig) took place in Devil's Lake State Park (and Ice Age National Scientific Reserve), near Baraboo, WI. This was my first trail race (half marathon) and so much fun! I'm hooked! Comparatively, road races are rather prosaic.

I've only one complaint about today's race: It should have been wave started. Half of all the participants, about 600, ran the half marathon, and, without a wave start, the usual congestion resulted but more so. The first two miles is basically an 800-ft climb on a single track trail. So, a good part of this section of the race is more a congested hike. At one point, someone behind me yelled out that someone dropped an iPod. Another person said just pass it up! There were only a few places where the trail was just wide enough for an "on your left." After two miles, the congestion eased a bit. After the aid station at 4.2M, the trail widened into the loop part of the course, and the rest of the race was fine.

The aid stations were well run (water, Gatorade, and GU), with cheerful, helpful volunteers. The station at South Bluff, with a 300-ft drop on three sides and a view of the valley below, got to be one of the most scenic of all races (worth it to lose a minute or so to enjoy!).

Other than the elevation changes, what characterizes this course is the rugged terrain. Definitely a heads up and eyes down course! Lots of roots and rocks and forehead-level leaning trees! There were several falls and near-falls by runners who were at around my pace. The first half of the fourth mile, particularly, was basically a bouldery swath of hillslope masquerading as a trail. Based on the event Web site, I was a bit concerned about the possibility of running through water in some of the low parts of the course, as I've not run in totally soaked shoes before (running in rain, sure, but that's different). As it turned out, this year has been so dry that the wet shoes problem didn't exist. As least from running through water. My shoes were still pretty wet, from the humidity and lots of sweat.

The race organizers overall did a super job coordinating the five different races, with overlapping times and course sections. I definitely would recommend the Dances with Dirt series in general and the Devil's Lake instance in particular.

Finally, a note about shoes. I ran in my Merrell Trail Glove and intimately felt the rough terrain! There were especially a few memorable landings that "made their point." For future similar races, however, I will not switch to one of those newer, more cushioned, zero-drop shoes, because I think the greater sensitivity of minimalist shoes like the Trail Glove makes me more aware of the terrain I'm running across, reminds me to take shorter and lighter steps, and allows me to react faster when I do misstep and, thus, minimize injuries.

It's all relative

Even though I've been running since high school, my maximum distance per run, until graduate school, was about three miles. It didn't seem I could go farther. Then, one day in graduate school, I went running with a friend and followed her all the way for some six miles. I was amazed. Six miles or about an hour worth of running became my perceived limit. Even when my weekly mileage got up to 30-40, that was usually from something like 6 miles x 6 days. This limit persisted through jobs, marriage, and family (many moons). Then, last year, training for the 2011 Marine Corps Marathon (my second one ever), I followed a 20-week program that had long runs starting at around 10 miles and maxing out at 20 miles. My usual six mile run became part of my weekday short runs, and a half marathon race became not a big deal, just a medium-length weekend run. The marathon, however, remained, both physically and mentally, a race of personal challenge, even as I'm contemplating going beyond (JFK 50). I'm currently reading Scott Jurek's new book, "Eat & Run," chronicling his journey to and through ultramarathons (and plant-based diet), with fascinating accounts of his training for and running the Western States 100 (seven consecutive first place finishes), among many others. I've not finish the book yet, but, already, the marathon has also become not a big deal--at least mentally!

Tough run ...

This morning, I did the 12th workout of the PowerBar Intermediate Marathon Program (targeted at the Baltimore Marathon), a "1:30 easy run." I picked one of my 10-mile routes (actually, 9.83 according to my new GPS watch), which, since last fall, I've been running in the low 1:30's, usually with one water stop but sometimes nonstop. Today's was not one of those; today I took five water stops, and I needed--or, at least I thought I needed--every one of them. It felt different today. And, of course, I spent the rest of the day going through in my mind the whys. The obvious would be the heat (mid to upper 80s) and not yet being acclimatized. Another would be last Wednesday evening's track workout from which I might not have fully recovered. But, it's the thought of age catching up that nags. The decline in potential in long distance running is supposed to be very gradual, and I've at least a number of years to go before the potential declines to that of someone in the late teens. And, of course, depending on how one trains, the adaptation curve could be kept above the aging curve beyond the average. That nagging feeling lingered, until I took a look at the past dates that I've run this route. That's when I smiled. All the runs in the low 1:30's occurred in the fall, winter, or spring. The slower ones, including today's, were all in the summer. Ergo, it must have been the heat!

Trail Glove and Fivefingers

After I got my Vibram Fivefingers last year, I've been periodically running in them on short runs (< 3-5 mi), to get accustomed to them, particularly the calves. This past February, I got a pair of Merrell Trail Glove (replacing the well-worn Nike Free) and have been running in them since, including four races ranging from 5K to half marathon. It's been at least couple months now since my last run in the Fivefingers. This morning, I took them out for a quick run, and, to my pleasant surprise, they felt remarkably unremarkable--as if I've been running in them for the longest time. I'd thought the Trail Glove was the next step, after Nike Free but before Fivefingers, on my path towards minimal running. But, it seems the Trail Glove and Fivefingers are pretty much interchangeable, as far as the feel of the road is concerned. They do differ in their relative upper support and, of course, at the toe end.

Momentary confusion

For today's Rock 'n' Roll USA race, I decided to switch to the half marathon, rather than running the full marathon for which I'd registered, partly because my 20-week training got interrupted several times and I didn't feel quite ready. It was perfect running weather, I had a smooth run, and my time was under my target of 2 hours. Now, to switch from marathon to half marathon, one would just follow the half marathon route to the finish line, instead of continuing on with the second half. The ChronoTrack timing would record the switch. My bib, however, still indicated full marathon. As I was approaching the finish line, the announcers were excitely calling out some of the bib numbers, hometowns, and finish times. Then, one of them said to the other, in a slghtly lowered and somewhat flummoxed voice, something like oh, there's a marathon finisher, ur, have to check this ... The momentary confusion likely resulted from my half marathon time being about 4 minutes faster than the world marathon time (2:03:38) set in the September 2011 Berlin Marathon by Patrick Makau of Kenya.

A matter of 1/4 inch

Couple weeks ago, when I used Shoe Goo to try to extend the life of my Nike Free, I noticed that the difference between the two sides of the right heel was around 1/4 inch. That difference has been affecting my form, which is not good. On my morning run a few days ago, I also got to thinking what that 1/4 inch actually meant, quantitatively. Now, with my normal training pace, which is about 1-1.5 minutes slower than my 5K/10K pace, I take about 200 paces each foot for each 1/4 mile or about 800 paces per mile. That works out to be, at my current weekly mileage, about 24,000 paces per week. That's about 6,000 inches or 500 ft. of extra vertical distance that side of the foot (Achilles tendon, calf) has to stretch each week! This got to be part of the reason my calves have not been their usual selves the past couple months. I suppose I should follow that rule of thumb of not putting more than 500 miles on a pair of running shoes!

Review of Merrell Trail Glove

My new pair, Merrell Trail Glove, on the way to barefoot running.

Well, that was a rather windy, 3-shirt run this morning, especially with the new Merrell Trail Glove (TG) shoes that felt so light on the feet (!). With wind chill in the teens, the windbreaking glove shell was definitely good to have on. My first impression of the TG was its lightness and small footprint (literally), even lighter than the Nike Free (NF) and which takes up less space in the suitcase. I was a bit concerned about the TG's narrow width and wondered if I should've bought the wider version. As it turned out, the shoes' firm lateral support took care of that concern. The wide toe box felt roomy and comfortable (why are they not all made that way?). The zero drop from heel to toe made the TG feel basically like the FiveFingers (FF), but without the fingers and with a bit more cushion; both the FF and TG result in a natural forefoot strike. The extra cushion makes the TG a good transitional shoe between something like the NF and FF. The cushion also makes for warmer feet during cold weather. I'm still transitioning to the FF and run in them about once a week. I think I can switch over to the TG within a fairly short period of time, during which I'll probably alternate between the TG and the (Shoe Goo'ed) NF.

Extending the life of my Nike Free (w/ Shoe Goo), before I got the Merrell Trail Glove.