The Duncan Ridge Trail Race 30K is Approaching...

This Saturday is the Duncan Ridge Trail Race (30K for me, 50k for the loco). Honestly I am less nervous about this race than any race I have done. These longer runs are great for me because I don't have to stress like the 5k races, which are essentially sprints.

My quads are gonna be sore after this one!(out and back)

Instead, I can relax and enjoy the run. Hopefully I don't hit a time when I feel bad and I actually enjoy it. I hope to run it between 4.5 to 5 hours. I know that sounds slow, but this trail has some hills!

So this Saturday when you are out on your long run think about me dragging my butt up a mountain while eating peanut butter and jelly and whining about my leg chafing.

New Study at Penn State looking for data

Penn State is performing a study on BF/Min running. It appears to be targeting runners wanting to transition. Here is the link and the survey info to see if you qualify.

Study Website: www.pennstatebarefoot.com
Screening Survey: https://webapp.hmc.psu.edu/webuq (Username: barefoot, Password: barefoot)



Carpe diem

My Adventures at the Pinhoti 100 Mile Race

When my friend Angela asked me, "Hey, Natureboy Willy is running a 100 miler and needs a pacer. I can't do it, would you be interested?" I sparked up and said "yes".

I have read about many ultras but have never been a part of one. With 3 days until the ultra I checked with my calendar and loved ones. Neither told me to do anything so I made plans to drive to Heflin, Alabama. Granted, when I first heard about the race I thought it was closer, but 2.5ish hours isn't too bad of a drive anyway.

When I arrived at the hotel I was greeted by Willy "Natureboy" Syndram. He shook my hand as I went around the room and talked to the rest of the crew, Josh and Leigh. Apparently I had already met Josh earlier in my life(10+ years ago). They had already set me up an air mattress in the hotel, which was much better than the anticipated floor.

We discussed pacing and crew work. It was the usual stuff. I got the sense that it was going to be a very flexible race, meaning we weren't going to go crazy trying to get everything perfect, but we would anticipate Willy's needs as the race progressed. This is probably the better route for such a long race where anything can go.

4AM rolled around quick. We hopped out of bed, got ourselves ready(as ready as a pace crew needs to be) and headed out.

The start point was a cluster of cars and runners. Imagine accidentally driving down the forest road and finding this festival of runners.

Willy kind of walked around, warmed up, and did his thing.I took some pictures

Natureboy

The Starting Line

After the race started we moved along to the different aid stations. The first was 6 miles away. Karl Meltzer passed by, then a few minutes later the rest of the runners came through. Willy did great and covered it in a little over an hour and was in 4th or 5th place.

The next aid station was near a train track about 6 more miles down. It was so cold there for some reason. I was trying to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The mayor of the town was there talking with some people. He stopped talking, looked at me, and started laughing. "Your so darn cold that you about near tore your sandwich in half!" We laughed and went back to waiting on the runners. Meanwhile a train passed by.

"Oh good a train passed by. There probably won't be anymore for a while." Karl passed through and a few minutes later the rest of the runners started to show up. A few passed by and then we heard it. The train....

A runners came out of the woods, stopped at the aid station, and was yelled at, "There's a train coming! Go!" The runner took off and just made it past the train.

Mmm... An ultra feast! Every aid station was like this. I was impressed.

Willy wasn't so lucky. Since we were on the other side of the track we were able to give him food and tend to him.  Tough luck, but 4 minutes isn't really going to make a big difference in such a long race.

Finally the train passed and Willy was on his way. We got into a pattern of anticipating what Willy needed and getting everything ready for him.

 After a 20+ mile stretch, ending in the Bald Rock trail parking lot(the highest point in Alabama), Willy came in. He was really sick and had just thrown up. Apparently one of his gels was old and really messed with his stomach. We gave him some Motrin and food and sent him along his way. This was past the 41 mile mark, so Josh was able to pace with him for the next 3 miles.

The scenery was very beautiful

At that point I was ready to run. I had my clothes on and was sporting my KSO Trek Sports. I was so happy that my stretch to pace was coming up and took full advantage of the Bald Rock bathrooms(Pooping in the woods is something I am not so comfortable with yet...)

Willy came out of the woods at the next aid station. Leigh asked me if i thought that was him, and I agreed it looked like him, but we didn't see Josh. In a slight panic we checked the radio but Josh was not calling.

A minute later Josh came out of the woods. Awesome! Willy must be feeling good!

Willy plopped down on the chair and did not look his finest. We fed him some mashed potatoes and chicken broth. Hopefully the sodium will get him going again.

Willy and I started our trek into the woods! 10 miles to pace and I have never paced in my life. In fact, all I know about pacing is what I have read in Jason's blog.

Willy was keeping a great pace despite his problems. I could tell he wasn't feeling good and  was very quiet for most of the run. I know as a pacer I am supposed to keep him company, but I know that if I am feeling like crap I don't want people bugging me.

I was trying to keep an eye on him. His stride was pretty consistent, but he was tripping a lot. I didn't put much thought into it since he was approaching 50 miles.

I asked him, "Is there anything you want?" and he replied, "There are a lot of things I want, but I can't get any of them now." Darn, he is feeling toasted. His head was hurting him really bad. Dehydration wasn't a problem since he was drinking, but he was probably lacking some nutrition. I encouraged him to drink more since he didn't want to eat and kept putting it off when I suggested it to him.

I knew an aid station was around mile 5 or 6. Expecting but never seeing it, we progressed down the trial. As we approached the top of a little bend Willy laid down with his arms out in a very relaxed position. I thought, "Is he taking a break?" I rand back and asked,

Me: "You okay man?"
Willy: No answer.
Me: "Shi.. Willy wake up!"
Willy: "No answer."
Me: "**** **** **** Willy wake up *grabs leg and shakes it*"

His eyes opened like he had just woken up from a nightmare.

Me: "Here, drink some water."
Willy: No answer.

As he came in and out I was able to get some water into him. I scrambed through my bag and pulled out the radio Josh and Leigh gave me. I tried to use it and realized I had no idea what I was doing. "What am I doing wasting my time on this radio? Just  use a phone!"

Luckily I had reception and was able to dig through my text messages from Angela and find Josh's phone number. I explained to him the issue. Looking at Willy I though, "There's no way I can carry him. He is going to have to get up..." That is when I thought I heard voices. I yelled, "HEY!" Nothing... Then a second later, "You need help?" "Yea!"

5 or 6 people came down to help. I asked if they were hikers or aid station workers. They said, "We are from the aid station. It's right around the corner!" I told him he was out. A man came behind Willy and started rubbing his shoulders. By rubbing I mean almost ripping the muscles out. The man was yelling in his ear, "Hey we are here to help you! What is your name?" Willy, with a discomforted look on his face replied, "What do you want!?!"

The man asked his name and age, which Willy replied correctly in a weak voice. The man said, "You couldn't have passed out at a better spot." We walked Willy to the aid station, got him some oranges and chicken broth. I really appreciate those volunteers help and everything they did.

Willy got back on his feet. He seemed much better and there were only three more miles until the next aid station, where Josh and Leigh were(the last was out in the middle of the woods and was not open to everybody).  Those last 3 miles were spent mostly walking at a fast pace. I could tell Willy is a hiker. He kept a killer walking pace even when feeling crappy.

By this point my achilles was killing me. I have bruises from a month ago from the Merrell Sonic Gloves. If I had to run again I would need to switch into my Sanuks.

Finally we started to hear music. I believe it was 3 Doors Down. We tried to run out of there but ended up going back to walking.

Willy plopped down in the chair and looked horrible. He was cold and his head was still torn up, so we took him into the warm van to sit down. He fell asleep. After about 15 minutes he felt the same. We asked him if he wanted to go on and he didn't give us a straightforward answer. Josh said, "Well from the way you are looking I can't see you going on. Do you think you can finish this race?" Willy chuckled and replied, "I can maybe do the next section(A 5 mile dirt road section), but I am scared to death to do the 17 mile section after that." With that answer Josh made a good decision and told the official that he was dropping out.

Just like that, at mile 55, the race was over for Willy. Am I disappointed? Heck no! He kept telling me that he was sorry about passing out. I kind of expected it to happen sooner or later, so it didn't really bother me. He made the right choice dropping out. He can learn from the misfortunes of this race and do better next time.

All-in-all I had a great time! It was an adventure I will never forget and I am so happy that I got to run on the trail(it is a really great trail and pretty barefoot friendly).

The Duncan Ridge Trail Run - Training Run #2

Yesterday I did a training run for the Duncan Ridge Trail Run 30k/50k. The run was much better than the last because we went out more prepared, both mentally and with gear.


I started off the day eating a large breakfast, something I didn't do for the last training run. I packed two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a bag of candy corn, as well as my usual CamelBak full of water.

This preparation helped me out a lot. We ended up running 15.8 miles on these trails. I ate during mile 3, 8, and 12. This stopped me from hitting a bottom and feeling like crap. Staying full, for me, is really half the battle if not more.

The other plan we had was to stick together(Angela, Paul, and I), run the flats and downhills, and walk the uphills. This kept us feeling good for the whole run!

Anyway, I took some pictures and a video(sorry the audio didn't come out too good on it). I'm really looking forward to this race!

This is where we kind of started

We sure do have some beautiful mountains.

Initiating the "walk" of the "walk/run". It's sometimes hard to remember to run again.

And the video. I have to remember to hold my camera the other way next time...

Sometimes Less is More

More recently I have been running less and less. Have I lost interest? Am I injured? Nope, in fact, it is because I am interested and not injured. Let me explain.

I have an 18-mile trail race coming up on November 19th. Right now I know that I can cover that distance... if I'm not injured.

So what I have been doing is trying to run 3 miles every Tuesday and Thursday, and throw in a longish run on the weekend depending on how I feel. The 3 mile runs are run at whatever speed I feel. I do encourage myself to run them a little faster though.

The long runs are slow. The perfect average pace for me on them is somewhere between 10:30 to 11:00 minutes per mile.

"If you undertrain, you may not finish, but if you overtrain, you may not start." - Stan Jenson

Is this safe? How am I supposed to run 18 miles if I haven't trained for it? My marathon-running-junkie friend Mitch printed me out this article in which the coach encouraged his athlete to do more short runs and less-frequent long runs. The result? A PR in a marathon and no injuries.

This minimalist(in thought and running) training program seems to be working well for me and I am going to stick to it until the race.

Chi Running Presentations at REI = Unsatisfactory Use of Barefoot Running

This is a rant. Blogs about my life will be coming back shortly :)

A few weeks ago my mom sent me an email about a presentation at REI named "Barefoot Running Presentation". Great, I thought! I saw that it was promoting Chi Running. Awesome as well! I thought it would be a great time for me to learn about Chi Running since I had already seen Barefoot Ken Bob's presentation and Nicholas Rominav's Presentation on Pose.

After sitting through one hour of traffic I finally arrived to the presentation. I was about 10 minutes late. I asked around the store and found out that the presentation was held in the back, where they keep all the shoes. Ironic I thought, but proceeded on.

When I walked in the instructor was doing Q/A. People were firing away questions and she was answering them. I questioned this structure, since I was expecting more of a presentation.  Unfortunately her answers were not very informative and were mostly examples. These examples were displayed one time and didn't really explain Chi method at all. Meanwhile everybody in the room is sitting in a chair, with their shoes on.

One activity she made us do was stand up and align our hips. I though this would lead to running, but after being instructed to briefly push on my neighbor to see the stability of the bones, we all sat down again.

She mentioned minimalist shoes and encouraged people to transition to barefoot running a few ways, one of which included scaling down the padding on the shoes to minimalist or barefoot. I strongly disagree with this because I feel it encourages bad form.

Oddly the instructor said multiple times throughout the presentation, "... but we are not going for a run today." She also kept mentioning her other workshops.

Soon enough the presentation was over and she passed out papers encouraging people to come to her Chi Running class. This class cost $130! Great, I just sat though a one hour commercial. Three hours of my life wasted.

To sum it all up the presentation was mostly the audience fishing around for answers. Very little was presented in a non-answer form. The demonstations were poor and didn't really help much to understand Chi Running. More importantly barefoot running was not the main subject of the presentation.

So was this the instructors fault or REI? REI could have named the presentation something different. It should have been called, "Chi Running - An Introduction" or something of the sort. The fact that the group didn't run or even take off their shoes irritates me to no end.

Barefoot Ken Bob, you are still my favorite presenter. You taught more by instructing, letting the students experiment, and running with us then I could learn anywhere else.

Woah, I Need To Update This Thing! OH MY GOD I"M RUNNING IN SHOES I AM BLASPHEMOUS!

I haven't written a blog in a long time. But I have not been lazy. I have been doing 10+ mile runs every weekend, along with some shorter runs throughout the week thrown in and some P90X. I am pretty satisfied with my "run whenever you want to and just do stuff" schedule.


I signed up for the Duncan Ridge 30 kilometer trail run. I have never ran a trail race before and am a little intimidated by it. I have been  running the local trail around the lake and found to to be pretty challenging. It is a very steep and rocky loop that is perfect training for "the toughest trail run in the Southeast.


Why not run the rocky course around the corner? I know from past experience that my bare feet do not hold up well there. All of my past experiences there have been bad and I dreaded running there. After getting slightly intoxicated, researching some longer distance runs, and signing up for the Duncan Ridge I knew I needed to get some trail miles in.


 Feeling reasonable I set out in my Vibram Five Fingers. I know I have down-talked minimalist footwear before, but I agree with Jason Robillard that it has its place. This is especially true if you are trying to accomplish a goal in a short period of time, like the one I am. See, I could spend a few years getting used to the rocky trail, or I could slip on some minimalist shoes and run. I still am feeling the rock(oh trust me I am), but I am taking some of the "sensation" out of it. Also, I am glad to report I am able to run significantly further and faster on trails with minimalist shoes on. I'll explain why...

 Caballo Blanco, Micah True, from Born To Run mentioned on Facebook that he had recently ran with shoes on and was able to keep better form than barefoot. This was because of the terrain he was on. See, running barefoot has its place, most definitely. But sometimes a little sensitivity reduction is nice. This is because you don't have to hop around and worry about stepping on every single rock. Instead, you can keep your form and watch out for the larger stones. After running barefoot for a year I can comfortably say that running in Vibram Five Fingers, at least on this trail, is beneficial to me and allows me to run with good form and only a few mistakes along the way(occasionally I heel-strike when hopping over something, but for the most part I am still spot on my normal form).

So moral of the story? Shoes as tools? I guess Robillard was right. Just don't expect me to want to run in shoes all the time or wear shoes in general.