Inspirational Poster

I think of this poster whenever I have a long run. It's amazing how stupid(er) I get after 15 miles or so.

From RW Daily.

Seizing the Fish

There's a Latin expression that I try to live by: carpe diem, which roughly translates to "seize the fish" (the literal translation is "seize the carp", but I prefer Sydenham's more poetic "fish").

"He must know Latin--look at his sandals!"

In this spirit, one of my (fiscal) new year's resolutions is to be more adventurous, especially in my running. I'm naturally a conservative person and this shows in my choice of long runs, almost all of which have been looped courses close to home. Well, no more. I'm signed up for a 50k in September and want to run a 50 miler in December, and if I'm going to transform myself into a real ultrarunner by then I need to start doing more ill-advised, masochistic things in my free time. Since as an aspiring ultrarunner 95% of my free time is dedicated to running, it follows that I need to start including more ill-advised, masochistic runs in my free time. 


Enter next weekend's 24 miler: 

My path will follow the white dots, starting at the North Rim in the distance. 

This is the tourist's-eye view of the run. The picture that pops into my head when I think about the run is this one:

From left to right (north to south), that's 5761 feet down, 4380 feet back up in (hopefully) one morning. In the summer. 


I keep telling myself that it's only 24 miles, which is a distance I've run... twice in my life... on flat roads. 

Not pictured: a hill

Ill-advised? Probably. 
Masochistic? Hoooo, yeah. 
Am I going to make it? Tune in next week to find out.

My Favorite Barefoot Running Videos

I'm sure many of you are familiar with these videos made by the hilarious Steven Sashen (founder of Invisible Shoes), but in case some of you are wasting your life without watching them, here are the funniest barefoot-related videos you will ever see.

Runners You Should Know: Abebe Bikila, Part 2

This post is an addendum to my last post about Abebe Bikila. In the course of researching that post I came across a lot of information that was fascinating (to me, at least) but only peripherally related to the story, so I decided to put it here. Enjoy.

• Ethiopians use a patronymic naming convention in which the first name is a given name and the last name is the name of the person's father. So Abebe was named Abebe [son of] Bikila, his father was named Bikila [son of] Demissie, and his father's name would have been Demissie [son of] [his father's name]. 

• The Emperor whose Imperial Guard Abebe joined was Haile Selassie I, the last Emperor of Ethiopia. Selassie was the last in a dynasty that traced its line at least back to the 13th century, and according to legend, back to King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba over 225 generations. 

• Haile Selassie I is revered by the Rastafari movement as the reincarnate Jesus Christ. He took the name Haile Selassie when he became Emperor; his previous name was Ras Tafari Makonnen, which is where the Rastafari movement gets its name. Although he visited Jamaica in 1966 (receiving a predictably warm reception by thousands of Rastafari waiting in a cloud of marijuana smoke), he never publicly confirmed or denied his status as their messiah. 

• When Abebe was chosen for the Rome Olympics, he and his teammate Abebe Wakjira were taken to meet the Emperor, who asked (in front of them) "How can such thin people win?"  (Abebe was 5'10'' and 126 pounds).

• Abebe and Wakjira were each issued two suits and $150 in pocket money. When they got to Rome they went shopping and bought T-shirts and shoes (but not running shoes). 

• There were political overtones to Abebe's victory in Rome. Italy under Mussolini had invaded Ethiopia in 1935, causing the Emperor to go into exile in England for several years. Italian troops were only expelled from Ethiopia in 1943, just 17 years before the Rome Olympics. Abebe took the lead in the race as he passed the 4th-century obelisk of Axum which had been taken from Ethiopia to Rome during the Italian occupation.

• In 2010 (50 years after the Rome Olympics), Ethiopian runner Siraj Gena won the Rome Marathon. Before crossing the finish line Siraj took his shoes off and ran the last 300 meters barefoot in honor of Abebe. 

• After the Rome Olympics, Abebe's coach decided that he should start wearing shoes. Abebe eventually succumbed to the pressure from his coach and raced in shoes at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. 

• The Vibram FiveFinger Bikila (Vibram's first running-specific shoe) was named for Abebe. 

• After the Tokyo Olympics Abebe was given a white VW Beetle. In 1969 he was in an accident which left him a paraplegic for the rest of his life. After the crash he began competing in paraplegic archery competitions. He died of complications from the accident in 1973 at the age of 41. Abebe had this to say about his life: "Men of success meet with tragedy. It was the will of God that I won the Olympics, and it was the will of God that I met with my accident. I accepted those victories as I accept this tragedy. I have to accept both circumstances as facts of life and live happily."

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Read my other posts about Runners You Should Know

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Runners You Should Know: Abebe Bikila

So you read my post on Zola Budd, but you thought "sure, it's possible to run short distances barefoot on a track or cross-country course, but you still need shoes for long distances on hard surfaces." Well congratulations--you've just won the 100% wrong award.

Don't let it go to your head

My proof is a man named Abebe Bikila. Abebe was born in 1932 in Jato, a village in central Ethiopia so small that it doesn't show up on Google Maps (and therefore, technically doesn't exist). He spent his childhood herding sheep and playing gena (a type of field hockey where the goals are several miles apart) and sleeping in a mud hut called a tukul.

When Abebe was around the age of 20 he joined the Emperor's Imperial Bodyguard.

To be honest I just googled "imperial bodyguard"; I don't know if Abebe is in this picture or not

At this point in his life, running was primarily a means of transportation. A Swedish military consultant noticed that Abebe was in the habit of running from Sululta to Addis Ababa every day, a hilly round trip of about 25 miles. After finally starting his competitive running career in his mid twenties, Abebe made Ethiopia's team for the 1960 Rome Olympics. 

In recent years Kenyan and Ethiopian distance runners have become so dominant that when a marathon is run nowadays most people simply assume that the winner will be some guy from eastern Africa, to the point that it has become a cliche.

Best nine seconds of silence ever

However, prior to 1960 no black African had won any Olympic medal in the marathon. As is still the case today, Ethiopia was an extraordinarily poor country, but unlike today there hadn't yet been an influx of modern coaching and corporate sponsorship from the west, so when Abebe arrived in Rome his sponsorship consisted of one pair of Adidas shoes (Adidas was the shoe sponsor for the Olympics that year). Abebe and the other Ethiopian (Abebe Wakjira) had always run barefoot but there was a concern that competing barefoot would reflect badly on the country, so the two decided to give the shoes a try before the race. The result wasn't pleasant--they both developed blisters after only 10 kilometers. Years later Wakjira recalled that having decided to race barefoot the two of them hid in the tent before the race because people were laughing at them. 

Some things never change

The race didn't make people stop talking about Abebe's feet, but it did make them stop laughing. No one knew Abebe's name when the race began, but as the course wound its way through the cobblestoned streets of Rome and he continued to keep pace with the leaders, people started to take notice. 

"Yes, this is very exciting, but have you seen my ship?"

A cameraman in a chase car was struck by him "running so lightly that his feet scarcely seem to touch the ground." As the finish line approached and Abebe took the lead, the journalists in the press box began to panic since none of them knew anything about this man who was about to win the gold medal. Abebe finished in 2:15:16, a world record, but observers were shocked by how fresh he seemed, as if he could have kept running for miles farther.

Having won Olympic gold in dramatic fashion and been suddenly thrust into the limelight from complete obscurity, Abebe may have seemed primed for a humiliating meltdown, but he returned to Ethiopia and quietly kept running, preparing for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. By the time he arrived in Tokyo he was once again the underdog, owing to the fact that, one, his record had been beaten several times, and two, he had had an emergency appendectomy only a few weeks before and hadn't been able to run for the better part of a month. In fact, most people didn't expect him to start the race, let alone win it.

However, once the race began Abebe was back to his old self. Two hours and twelve minutes later, he had set another world record and become the first person to ever win two Olympic marathons. He apparently didn't have to work too hard doing it, either, because instead of collapsing with fatigue like the second and third place finishers, he immediately started doing calisthenics. 

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Read more about Abebe Bikila in Part 2 of my post

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Order my children's book about barefoot running: What Should I Put on My Feet to Go Run?

Adventure Report - Grand Canyon

Like many Arizonans, my wife Emily is not from the state originally. She grew up in Mississippi, and until two years ago was your average amiable-but-indoorsy, fried chicken and butter-eating southerner. (Well, above average, but I digress). However, again like many Arizonans, since moving out west she has undergone a remarkable metamorphosis into a dyed-in-the-(Smart)wool, outdoorsy, whole foods vegan, all-my-clothes-are-technical-fabric marathoner/triathlete southwesterner. Well, almost. There was one element missing from her transformation into a true Arizonan, and that was the fact that she had never been to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. This week we fixed that.

Friday
I had Friday off and a 15 mile run planned, but on a whim we called Phantom Ranch (a small dorm at the bottom of the canyon) to see if they had any last-minute cancellations (in the warm months they book months in advance). To our surprise, they did--that night and the next. We booked the beds, threw everything in the car as fast as we could and took off on the four hour drive to the south rim. After parking at the visitor center, we threw all the food in the pack and hustled to catch a bus to the South Kaibab trailhead.

Once off the bus, we started down the trail about 3:45pm. Although summer weather in the canyon is famous for being blisteringly hot (and the South Kaibab is famous for having no shade), we lucked out; the day was cool and overcast, with occasional showers that only hit us near the end of the hike.

It's hard to overstate how beautiful the canyon is, and the South Kaibab has most of the best views. Before long we were also getting great views of the river as well. (Click on any of the images for a larger version).

The Colorado River is in the center; the cottonwood trees off to the right are along the Bright Angel Creek 

By 6:30 we were crossing the river on the "black" bridge, an old suspension bridge built in the 1920s.

Its history is pretty amazing. The huge cables were too big to bring down by mule so groups of men had to carry them down the switchbacks together.

"Hang on--Joe has to go to the bathroom again"

Fifteen minutes later we were checking in at Phantom Ranch. By this point we were tired, it was getting kind of dark, and rain was falling off and on, so we didn't take any more pictures, but here is one of a mule deer from the next day:

They were everywhere. In other news, bushes are delicious. 

We were too cheap to reserve dinner at Phantom Ranch ($25 per person for stew is a bit much for us), so once we dropped off our stuff at the dorms we took our sack dinner to the river and ate with our feet in the water while the sun set. It was idyllic. Also, red pepper hummus with sugar snap peas is the best post-hike food ever.

We walked back to the dorms (there are separate dorms for men and women) in the dark and settled in for bed. We had decided to go part of the way up the north rim the next day so I set my phone alarm for 5am and went to sleep. Emily did the same until she was awoken by a family who showed up at the dorms around midnight; apparently they had underestimated the time it would take them to get down by... a lot... and had ended up hiking the last few miles in the dark.

Saturday
It seemed like I had only been asleep for a couple of hours when my alarm went off. I dragged myself out of bed and started getting ready for my run. Our plan was to leave separately, with me going for my regularly scheduled 15 miler and meeting Emily at Ribbon Falls (about halfway up the North Kaibab) for lunch. I was dressed and about ready to head out the door when I looked out the window. It was pitch black outside. Odd. I thought sunrise was supposed to be around 5:15; shouldn't it be light by now? I dug my watch out of my backpack. 2:10am. Son of a hamster! Somehow the time on my phone had gotten changed. I reset it for 5am--again--and tried to fall back asleep.

I did--briefly. It turns out there is a 4:30 wake-up call whether you want one or not. Now very much awake, I headed out on my run. The lower half of the North Kaibab is the most runnable section of the Grand Canyon trail system. It follows the Bright Angel Creek through a small box canyon for three miles before the canyon widens out a bit.

That's the south rim of the canyon in the distance

In contrast to the punishing grade of most of the trail in the canyon, in this section the trail only climbs as fast as a quick-moving stream. I ran the seven or so miles to Cottonwood Campground, refilled my bottles, and headed back down to Ribbon Falls, which is at the end of a short side trail off the North Kaibab. As luck would have it, we got there about the same time--which wasn't lunch time, but life isn't perfect.

...though it's hard to believe it when you're at a place like this.

We both agreed that Ribbon Falls was one of the most idyllic places we have ever seen. "Fern Gully" was how Emily described it. The photos don't do justice to the place. They also don't show you how thick the moss was, how clear the water was, or how cool and refreshing the air felt. 

There was a trail that took us up behind the waterfall, and this is where we decided to eat.

After we left the falls we headed back to Phantom Ranch. After soaking our feet in the Bright Angel Creek, we ate our lunch at the canteen and played Scrabble.

The look of a man who would rather run another 15 miles than play a whole game of Scrabble.

Everyone always talks about getting lemonade at the canteen, so we got some too. It's pretty good.

One of the unique things about the Grand Canyon is it's the only place in the U.S. where mail is carried by mule. All of postcards sold at Phantom Ranch have this stamp:

After the Scrabble game finally ended (Emily won), we went to a couple of ranger talks (it's been 20 years since a confirmed snake bite in the canyon, but 7 people are bitten by squirrels every day), had dinner by the river again, and hit the sack. 

Sunday
Another 4:30 wake-up call. By this point in the trip we were both exhausted but there was only one way out (actually two, but faking a snakebite to get a helicopter ride out seemed a bit extreme). On the way past the mule corral there was a mule deer nonchalantly having breakfast with the mules.

I swear--there's a deer in the photo.  It's just to the left of Sasquatch (and Elvis). 

By sunrise we were crossing the "silver" bridge over the river.

If you look closely there's a crescent moon and Venus

As we were crossing, something suddenly dawned on me--the river had changed color overnight. This is the color the river was Saturday evening:

Perfectly clear, but looks emerald green

And this is the color of the river Sunday morning:

I found myself craving Yoo-hoo all of a sudden

Incidentally, this is the bridge the mules don't like crossing.

Soon we were across and headed up the Bright Angel Trail.

You can see both bridges over the river--silver is closer, black is farther away

It's longer than the S. Kaibab, but it has a lot of water sources (the S. Kaibab has no water at all) and so seemed the smart choice for what promised to be a warm day.

...especially since the sun was rising on the canyon quickly.

The trail follows Pipe Creek for several miles until you get to Indian Gardens, which I consider the prettiest of all the campgrounds in the canyon.

It was actually a location used for farming by Native Americans over several millennia. We stopped under a rock overhang for a snack...

...and then continued on our way.

The group of trees in the valley is Indian Gardens

Unfortunately, the bulk of the climbing occurs once you pass Indian Gardens. There is a long section near the end called Jacob's Ladder which is both steep and very sunny.

Jacob's Ladder is after this, but we had stopped taking pictures by then. 

One bright spot of this section was encountering a very puzzled looking big horn sheep.

"Did I leave the stove on...?"

Eventually we made it to the top and had lunch at the Bright Angel restaurant (in the hotel of the same name). It's a great place that's been around since the Harvey girl days. Then it was four hours back to Show Low through yet more rain.

And that was our relaxing weekend.

Quote of the Day

"Learning what you're made of is always time well spent."

     ~Anonymous

Introduction to Huaraches

Tarahumara huaraches--notice the tire tread.

So you've read Born to Run and decided to start living like a Tarahumara. You've started eating chia seeds and running hundreds of miles a week in brightly colored clothing, but something is missing. What's next? Maybe it's time for you to try huaraches, the traditional running sandal of the Tarahumara.  

What's a huarache? 

A quick note on terminology: the word "huarache" is a Mexican Spanish word that simply means "sandal," so it's not the most precise term. Within the running community the meaning is pretty clear, but you should be aware that to most other people the word refers to this:

Somewhere out there is a very confused Born to Run reader running around in a pair of these. 

The traditional Tarahumara huarache is a sandal made out old tire rubber and leather. The sole is cut to the shape of the foot and three holes are cut: one between the toes and one on each side of the heel. A single long leather thong is knotted at the end and threaded through the toe and ankle holes. 

Why should I try them?

As Barefoot Ted McDonald puts it,

"You can usually trust indigenous design when it comes to active footwear. These sandals and others similar have been around for 1000s of years, and I know why. They have no frills, just exactly what you need and not a bit more. Elegant design."

(Ted wrote this a few months after his first trip to the Copper Canyons, well before he started selling sandals).

As he often is, Ted was right. Contrary to popular belief, the professional runner is not an invention of twentieth-century sporting events.  For millennia, people from across the globe (from the Incas to the Iroquois to the Ancient Greeks) worked as foot messengers, frequently running hundreds of miles at a time. 

Apparently over-striding isn't a modern invention either

These were professional ultrarunners who knew what they were doing, and they virtually all ran in moccasins or sandals. Unfortunately for us, the art of making traditional running moccasins seems to be lost today.  However, the good news is that (1) traditional sandal making is still alive with the Tarahumara, (2) people smart enough to recognize a good thing have preserved the knowledge for the rest of us, and (3) huaraches are cheap and easy to reproduce.  (Even if we knew everything there is to know about Iroquois running moccasins, reproducing a pair out of deer skin would probably be a bit ambitious for me). 

So, we have a time-tested footwear with a pedigree that goes back to Pheidippides and is both cheap and easy to reproduce. What more could you ask for?

But...

Even knowing all this, I had my reservations at first about trying huaraches, and it was two years between when I first started running in minimalist shoes (and read Born to Run) and when I made my first pair. There were a couple of reasons for my reticence, and they are likely shared by most of you reading this. For one thing, I knew that I would stand out like a sore thumb in them. Make no mistake, if you run in huaraches you will be "that guy in the gladiator sandals." 

"Boo!  His footwear is anachronistic and we can see his toes!"

Also, as much as I enjoyed Born to Run, I didn't want people to think I was some over-the-top groupie. I mean, I enjoyed The Matrix when it came out but I didn't start wearing floor-length leather jackets or pince-nez sunglasses. (I really should have realized this before, but I am way too concerned with the way people look at me--a bad quality for anyone, but especially for a minimalist runner). A more practical problem is that huaraches aren't available in stores, so if you want to try them out you have to either order a pair online or make a pair yourself. 

Well, I should have stopped whining and gotten a pair right away, because huaraches are by far the best distance running footwear I have ever tried. Once I tried them it's been hard to run in anything else.

Huaraches FAQs

It's pronounced "HUR-a-kees," right?
I'm going to pretend you didn't just ask that. Repeat after me: "wah-RAH-chays" (preferably with a Spanish "R").

Doesn't the knot under your toes drive you nuts?
Actually, not at all. It is noticeable when your sandals are brand new, but once you've run just a mile or two the knot flattens and isn't noticeable at all after that.

Doesn't the lace between your toes drive you nuts?
Generally, no, but it can be an issue. I have gotten fairly bad blisters a few times, but every time was during a long run when I hadn't run much recently. As long as I build mileage gradually it doesn't give me any problems.

Do you have problems with blisters? 
See above. As long as I give my feet some time to adjust to the sandals, I get fewer blisters than in other footwear. Recently I went for a 15 mile trail run in the rain and although my feet were wet the entire time I didn't get a single blister (I can't imagine being able to say that if I had been wearing shoes). Oddly enough, wearing Injinji socks, which I have tried a few times to ward off possible blisters, seems to cause blisters for me under the ball of my foot. I can't explain why, but I don't use them anymore, at least not in warm weather. The most problematic area for me is where the knot touches the top of my right foot (for some reason the left foot never has had this problem). Dirt and grit sometimes get caught and wear a blister, but simply sliding the knot forward or back fixes things (a band aid there would probably be a easy fix as well).

Don't you get rocks and stuff between your foot and the sandal?
Yes, occasionally, but they work themselves out pretty quickly. On the odd occasion a rock doesn't leave on its own, pulling the sandal away from the foot solves things quickly.

What about when it's cold?This is when those Injinji socks come in handy. As long as your feet stay dry (i.e., no snow or puddles), you can run comfortably in fairly cold temperatures. Definitely not any worse than FiveFingers in the winter.

Won't the knot and the laces wear out?
The knot on the bottom will wear out eventually. When that happens, you just tie another knot and go on with your life. As for the lace on the sides, the sole will mold to your foot so that the lace doesn't touch the ground very much. It also makes a difference what kind of laces you have. With leather laces, I can't imagine them ever wearing out. Hemp laces don't wear as well. 

Are they better for road or trail running?
They work great for both. Since the snow melted this year they are all I have been using (I run a mix of road and moderately technical trail). For road running I find them to be just about perfect. In fact, you could make a pretty good case for huaraches being the best road running footwear around. They are also great for trail running. I have had great luck with them, as have the Tarahumara (obviously), who are known for running technical trails in theirs. However, huaraches are better for dry environments than wet ones. Depending on your lacing system (traditional with thick laces works better than a slip-on with thin laces), they can feel insecure when wet and/or muddy on technical terrain. Also, they aren't well suited for climbing or scrambling.

How much do they cost?
See below, but in general, do-it-yourself kits start around $25 and include everything you need. If you have access to free or low-cost materials, you can make a pair for next to nothing.

What are the pros and cons of huaraches?
PROS: cheap (depending on the option you choose), great for road and trails, keep feet cool and dry (sweat can evaporate), toes can splay as much as they like, you feel closer to the trail, street cred among minimalist runners.
CONS: can't try them out before buying, not ideal for cold weather, not ideal for wet/muddy technical terrain, lace between toes can bother some people, people will look at you funny and/or yell supposedly humorous comments.

"ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED BY MY FOOTWEAR?!"

Great! Where can I buy a pair?
Well, first I should point out that you don't have to buy huaraches; you can always do what the Tarahumara do and make them yourself using materials you find lying around. This has the potential to be the cheapest option. The problem is finding materials that work well. Tire rubber is actually not the best option since it is heavy and doesn't have very good ground feel.  Also, most of the discarded tire rubber you will find by the side of the road has steel wire in it and for the life of me I can't figure out how to cut it. Leather is an option but has worse traction than rubber and isn't all that cheap unless you have access to scraps. The same goes for laces--good quality laces aren't all that cheap and shoe laces aren't going to work very well. The bottom line is that unless you have access to good quality, cheap materials you will probably end up with sandals that are inferior in quality to a DIY kit and you could very well end up spending more money doing it than the kit would have cost. 

Which brings us to the next option: buying a do-it-yourself kit and making sandals from that. This is the option I chose (twice) and the one I highly recommend. I bought my kits from Luna Sandals.  Luna has the longest pedigree of the companies around since it was founded by Barefoot Ted McDonald (a barefoot legend in his own right and largely responsible for the popularity of FiveFingers) who learned how to make sandals from the Tarahumara runner Manual Luna while in the Copper Canyons on the trip that formed the basis for Born to Run (triple whammy!). A basic DIY kit (laces + Vibram rubber sole that will last forever) starts at $25 and goes up if you want something fancier (e.g., thicker trail sole, suede footbed, high-tech laces, etc.). Another option which a lot of people like is Invisible Shoes. Their kit also starts at $25.

The final option is to buy professionally made huaraches. As of today there are a number of companies selling pre- or custom-made huaraches or huarache-inspired sandals. Luna and Invisible Shoes both start at $50 (Luna charges an additional $15 for the custom-made option).  Three other companies are Bedrock, Unshoes, and Branca. All three fall into the huarache-inspired category rather than traditional huaraches. 

Lacing Styles 

OK, now that you have your shiny new huaraches, how are you going to tie them?  If you bought Brancas or Bedrocks, or Lunas with one of their high-tech lacing options (elasticized leather, ATS, etc.), then that decision is pretty much made for you, but if you made you own or bought Invisible Shoes or Lunas with traditional laces, then you have a couple of options. The first is the traditional style (sometimes called "gladiator-" or "toga-style"), which is how the Tarahumara tie their sandals. 

This is the way I tie my sandals. It is an elegant design--simple, comfortable, and very secure.

The second style is the slip-on, where you tie the laces in a way that allows you to slip the sandals off and on without retying them. This is great if you happen to be pathologically lazy (which is an odd quality in a runner who probably makes his/her own footwear). Another perk is this makes it almost look like you are wearing normal sandals. There are a number of ways you can tie the laces to achieve this. The first and probably best is to simply tie at the top of the foot like so:

Lunas with what looks like 10mm leather laces

The disadvantage of this method is that you have to cut the laces short, which means that you can't ever change your mind and use the traditional method. To get around this, you can keep the laces long and just keep looping them around and around:

Invisible Shoes in the "around and around" style popular with Invisible Shoe owners

These are the most popular methods but by no means the only ones. There are a lot of people on the internet who enjoy inventing and sharing new styles of tying (especially Invisible Shoe owners for some reason; they really get creative).

Seriously, more questions?

Hopefully that is all of your huarache-related questions answered. If I missed any (or you just think I'm wrong about something), visit groups.google.com/group/huaraches or leave me a comment.

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Order my children's book about barefoot running: What Should I Put on My Feet to Go Run?