The Barefoot Contestant- Change Afoot Part 3

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.

--Charles Darwin

Yes dear readers, if you are still with me and wondering when I was going to get around to describing my experience actually wearing the Vibrams, you are in luck. 

Catch up here for those that missed Part 1 or Part 2.

Thanks to some great training tips from Coach Carl, things eased up a bit on the pain.  After several months and some major life events (new job, moving etc…) I had started working out at Carport Crossfit, in Irondale, and was trying to decide what to wear on my feet.  I knew most regular running shoes weren’t optimal for the type of training they did.  Crossfit style workouts call for a shoe that gives an accurate feel or close grip on the ground for balance as well as lateral stability.   Hoisting heavy barbells, slinging kettle bells, tossing wall balls and pushing sleds around will put the traction of any shoe to the test.  

Additionally, I also needed the ability to run the shorter, more intense distances that were often a part of the workouts.  Most were a mile or less. Ever so slowly, akin to the designated last finisher at a marathon, it occurred to me that the running distances that usually comprised their workouts were exactly what a newly minted, Vibram wearing soul such as myself should be running.   

Click.

Decision made.

At the gym the next morning the WOD (Workout Of the Day) required that we run a full mile, to be followed by a round of one legged squats and thanks to an induced state of delirium, I can no longer recall what followed.  As our 5:30am group took off along the railroad tracks, I suddenly found myself at the front of the pack.   My steps were initially tentative since I wasn’t sure what to expect. After a few hundred meters I did a full body “check-in”.  My feet were comfortable and my legs were moving smoothly.  Nothing hurt.  I couldn’t remember the last time I had actually run “only” a mile.  I had no idea what my time would be. 

I could hear the footfalls of people behind me. 

The chase was on!

I could feel that there was some gravel beneath my feet, but it didn’t stab or feel “sharp” through the Vibram sole.  I paid close attention to the road surface and avoided large chunks of broken asphalt or rocks.   I tried to focus on my form and pour on a little of what passed for Master’s division speed.  The noise behind me faded, and my mind drifted back to assessing how the shoes were doing.  They were certainly different.  My calves weren’t screaming at me like they had previously, and I envisioned that every step taken was restoring strength to muscles that too much civilization had weakened.  Distracted by my thoughts I once again realized that I was hearing the footsteps approaching.  I kicked it into another gear I didn’t even know I had.  As the footsteps faded, I once again focused on my legs and feet.  The pain I kept anticipating never materialized.

I finished that mile in 7:11.  Not an Olympic qualifier by far, but pretty darn good for someone whose normal race pace is anywhere from 8:15-9:00 depending on the distance. 

After that performance I decided to give the Vibrams another full-fledged trial.  Perhaps I’d been hasty in my initial assessment.  Wearing them to my Crossfit workouts was part of the plan.  The running distances were optimal for acclimating myself to the shoes.  Additionally, I thought my adjustment would be further enhanced by wearing the shoes as many hours a day as I could reasonably fit in. I bought an additional, colorful new pair of Vibrams: Women's Komodo Sport, and began wearing them to work as often as possible. This allowed me to spend many more hours per day in them, presumably helping my calf muscles and tendons adjust more gradually.   

In order to be fair to the process expounded by McDougal, I resolved to be more patient with the acclimation period.

After two weeks of Crossfit workouts and all day wear, I figured I’d accumulated enough “time in Vibram” to try running more than a mile. 

I gradually worked up through routes of 3 to 4 miles in my hilly, Crestwood neighborhood.   For some reason, completing the Wednesday night 5 miler in Homewood, loomed large.  Perhaps because it took me “away from home” it seemed more challenging.  I’d be out there in the world, practically barefoot and I’d have to run my way back to relative safety.

It all worked out pretty well, and I had just a little nagging soreness in my left calf.  I hoped that with further adjustment it would resolve itself. 

I challenged myself with my regular, 10k neighborhood route.  A couple of slow morning runs followed by a PR had me completely rethinking my attitude towards the Vibrams. 

It was time to bump the mileage up another notch.  Conveniently, another running group here in town had a 7 miler leaving from Pepper Place on Saturday mornings.  More success followed but the soreness from my calf migrated south to my Achilles tendon and has been lingering there ever since.  
It’s tolerable but not optimal.

It should be mentioned here that I do not wear flip flops.  I do not wear them because I truly loathe (putting it mildly) crap anywhere between my toes.  Wearing shoes that isolated each toe was quite a personal stretch for me, but the journey down the path of minimalist conformity required that I tolerate it.  After a period of time, I would stop noticing the material jabbing my toes, but once the shoes were off, it took quite a while before the deep lines and creases smoothed themselves out.  I dismissed “prune toe syndrome” as “part of the acclimation process” and mentally steeled my feet against all onslaughts.

As I wore them more frequently, I also began to notice that, while they seemed to be well-suited for smooth surface, road running, they were less than perfect in other situations.  Small pebbles, gravel and even small bits of broken glass were not an issue.  The Vibram sole was good protection against those, and I felt less likely to twist my ankle if I did step on something.  Larger rocks and big shards of glass were something else entirely.  I was also uncomfortable with the idea of using them as trail shoes.  Smacking toes on rocks and roots is a common occurrence in trail running.  Add in to the equation the possibility that an obstruction could get jammed BETWEEN my toes, smashing AND parting them simultaneously was too much to bear, so I reverted to my trusty, Adidas Adizero’s, for the Xterra half, at Oak Mtn.

I did indeed smack into a few obstacles which caused me to trip and fall a few times.  My toes were bruised, but the solid front of my “real” shoes protected me from severe injury.  Zealots in the barefoot movement would probably have made the argument that, had I been running more “naturally”, more “in touch” with where the end of my foot was, I might not have hit the obstacles at all.  It is quite possible they may be right, in theory, but I prefer that the rocks be less “in touch” with me.   I’ve had too many broken bones over the years, and I am not willing to sacrifice the sanctity of my feet on this point. 

Additionally, I find that the Vibrams don’t seem to “breathe” or drain water very well.  After a long run, the Vibrams always seem to be sodden with sweat when I remove them from my feet. Since they serve as both sock and shoe, this makes sense. As a reformed triathlete I can tell you exactly where I stand on the socks and/or shoes debate. My personal preference: shoes-no socks.  Given my preference,it stands  to reason why I'm still playing pedestrian gymnastics with the  "shoe that is a sock".  Rainy days and puddles turn them into squishy, noisy messes in close contact with my skin.  After one rain-soaked, puddle-hopping adventure, I couldn’t wait to get the soggy things off of my feet.  When I removed them, I fully expected to see that trench foot had set in.  If it is a rainy day at Talladega, I will rip these things off my feet at the finish line faster than you can say Dale Earnhardt!

Despite pointing out a few imperfections, I can honestly report that my progress has been mostly positive. I fully expect to be able to gradually nudge up my long distance runs to pull off a reasonable half marathon training schedule. 

In the name of science, come rain or shine, I will see you all out at the Talladega Half Marathon
-SBG



Promotional Considerations:
Under the category of "shameless promotion" I'd like to give a shout out to everyone at Carport Crossfit, especially the 5:30 a.m. crew.
Thanks for putting up with me while simultaneously getting all of me, not just my feet, back in shape.  
Also, Bill, next time we run a mile, "It's On"!

When More Is Less

“Real difficulties can be overcome. It’s the imaginary ones that are unconquerable.” -Theodore Vail

There's a trend now for parents NOT to immunize children because some famous celebrity decided, that some shady research proved, that vaccines cause autism.

Immunizations happen to be one of the numerous, scientific innovations we are fortunate enough to be able to take advantage of in this country. Many in the 3rd world are not so lucky. Thanks to a former Playboy bunny, some biased “research” and the general public’s willingness to believe in the most far-fetched conspiracy theories…somehow life saving vaccines have become modern society's new bogeymen.  

 The fact that there is NO scientific data that establishes a cause and effect relationship between immunization and autism doesn't seem to faze anyone.  In fact, what comprises an autism diagnosis itself, has undergone wildly shifting parameters.  What is and isn't considered autism has become a moving target.    It is particularly interesting to note, that not only has the bar for an autism diagnosis been lowered, but once it qualified a child for "disability status" the diagnosis rate skyrocketed.  What was once thought of as rude and obnoxious behavior is now excused away with a diagnosis and medicated.  There’s been a big run on getting kids that cherished “disability” status now, because there are so many advantages to being disadvantaged.  In addition to the financial subsidies, parents push family physicians hard for autism and A.D.D. diagnoses just so their children may partake in all of the perks a diagnosis provides. 

Those perks include things like more time allotted to take the S.A.T. and other college entrance exams.  Parents ferret out any nugget that might give their kid an edge when it comes to the collegiate acceptance Olympics, without considering the long term side effects of a drugged childhood.   Bestowing a diagnosis on kids because they may occasionally exhibit unacceptable or anti-social behavior is not doing anyone any favors.  Perhaps a dose of discipline would provide healthier long term results?

So back to the original premise... parents are no longer immunizing children against diseases that the industrialized world worked so hard to conquer.  They think their kids are safe because "We don't have those diseases in this country anymore".  That is until they travel to or bump into someone from one of those 3rd world nations that do not have the immunizations in place to keep those "old" diseases in check.

 There are still places in the world where diseases like polio exist.  We take for granted that measles (rubella and rubeola) diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (whooping cough) are no longer around.  They are.  Thanks to air travel no country can ever be completely isolated anymore.  

 In fact, children in this country are once again dying of diseases that could easily be avoided by a simple vaccination.  It doesn’t have to be that way.  It’s a terrible shame that people are more willing to believe a celebrity’s opinion about science than the actual scientists themselves.  People apparently are under the impression that these diseases no longer exist because they are relatively rare.  The reason they are rare in this country is... 

Wait for it... 

BECAUSE WE VACCINATE OUR POPULATION!

 Currently the percentage of immunized children is still high enough to provide what is known as "herd immunity" so the non-vaccinated still benefit from the high percentage of those around them that are disease free. This is “the herd”, so to speak, that helps keep diseases in check.  When the percentages of the non-immunized begin to outweigh the immunized, there is a significant shift and the herd immunity greatly diminishes.  This puts all of the non-vaccinated children, including those too young for certain vaccinations, at much greater risk. 

Why on earth would a parent subject their child to the very real consequences of not being immunized against very serious diseases because some airhead celebrity, who doesn't even play a doctor on TV, got it in her head that somehow vaccinations were bad?  Children IN THIS COUNTRY are once again dying of diseases that are completely preventable.  Children are dying, because the fear of something imaginary, is overriding what should be a healthy respect for what is real.  

While I am not a physician, I do believe strongly in the scientific method. 

I will not claim to know the actual reasons why the autism rate has gone up so much, even when filtering the diagnosis roster for the more severe cases.

 If I had to venture a wild guess as to why we have more "real" cases of autism in the past 20 years I wouldn't blame it on immunization.  I could make a correlational case for prenatal vitamins... crazy right?

It is also something found predominantly in industrialized nations, so why not look there? Their increased use has paralleled the dramatic rise in the incidence of autism much more closely than the use of vaccines. 

Here's the thought process: We know that a lack of folic acid in the diet of pregnant women can cause spina bifida, a nasty neurological defect… Folic acid is one of the big ticket items found in prenatal vitamins to support the prevention of spina bifida.  Maybe, just maybe, it might be possible... and I'm making a leap here but I think it is possible that too much folic acid, particularly in the highly concentrated doses found in the vitamins, particularly in the bloodstream of some moms that think if some is good, more is better, contributes to other neurological issues such as autism.

 In this world where the law of unintended consequences abounds, I think it could be quite possible that our "more is better" approach to having perfect babies is creating more problems than it solves.

I fully admit I do not have any hard evidence, just a gut feeling. I'd like to the see unbiased research done so we could figure it out with some degree of certainty.

Therein also illustrates the danger of publishing findings based on conjecture and correlation again. What if someone reads my wild guess and "decides" that I'm right.  It even has the potentially popular undercurrent of "evil pharmaceutical companies create vitamins that cause birth defects".  Pretty soon there will be some celebrity somewhere that picks up on the idea, likes it, hypes it and poof... another cause célèbre' is born.   I wonder if it too, will have autism.

Supporting documentation:

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/05/opinion/la-oe-fumento5-2010feb05

The "Barefoot Contestant"-A Long Running Series…The Next Leg…Part 2

If you want to truly understand something, try to change it.  ~Kurt Lewin

We resume our story where we left off last month…(for those that missed it, here's Part I:

 “Eventually, I lost patience with the entire process and the Vibrams ended up somewhere in the back of the closet where they remained, until….”

 …until I began, no, wait.  Allow me to back up a bit in the timeline.  Prior to resurrecting the Vibrams I was still searching for a way to run with less pain.  The Vibrams weren’t doing it for me but they did make it agonizingly clear that I was doing something wrong.  If the shoes were not going to magically correct my running motion I figured I would try a different device.  A running coach.  At the time I was not living in Birmingham.   Thanks to Google, I found a Big, University Level, track coach who also condescended to work with us mere mortal runners for an hourly fee.  I called him and explained my situation and he agreed to meet and work with me.  He told me to meet him by the Track at the Big University Gym at 4:00pm the next day.  I was excited and thrilled.  I had never been a runner as a kid and certainly never been professionally coached. As for organized sports, I played softball and competed in martial arts.  I was a pretty good athlete, but if you had told me to go run a mile just for the heck of it, I would have resisted.  Running, or being told to take a lap, was punishment for a misdeed, not something you did for fun!

 It wasn’t until I was 25 years old and in the Air Force that I learned to run for running’s sake.  In order to pass our PT test we had to run a mile and a half in under 15 minutes.  I had no idea about how fast that might be or whether or not I could even run that far in the prescribed time.  A few months before I left for basic training, I got in the car, measured out a course of a mile and a half on the odometer and tested myself.  It wasn’t pretty, but I finished in less than 15 minutes and that was all I cared about. 

After basic training I found myself stationed at the Presidio of Monterey, in California.  There was so much awe-inspiring scenery to take in and I had such limited time that I found myself running up and down the insane hills and along the waterfront just so I could take it all in.   Looking back, I can easily say that my time in Monterey was when running ceased being punishment and became my personal delight.   It wasn’t until recently, that mysterious, frustrating pain was causing me to reconsider the punishment aspect, which was why I found myself in search of a cure.  So here I was, excited for the opportunity to be at a Big University Track hoping for some athletic enlightenment from a Big University Track Coach.

I met Coach Carl at the track and we introduced ourselves.    He wanted me to warm up first. Rather than run around in circles on the track we took off slowly along the campus road.  I had no idea where we were going and figured we would do a loop around and return to the track.  Instead, we ended up at a huge open meadow that contained the Big University Soccer fields and practice area.  Coach Carl had me run a lap around the perimeter of the field so he could watch my form.  When I got back to where he was standing, he explained some running fundamentals to me and it all made sense.  I was running completely wrong with respect to the way the human body was designed.  I knew that much from reading McDougal’s book but had no idea what I was doing wrong or how to change it.  We have a great shock absorption system, but it doesn’t work if it’s out of position.  He explained it to me in much better scientific language than I will use here, but basically it was that the important components of running take place beneath and behind us rather than out in front of us.

Coach Carl showed me that my feet were hitting the ground way too far in front of my body, rather than underneath it. Or rather, he had me demonstrate to myself that my feet were too far in front.  As I ran he told me to keep my head straight and level and to glance down by only moving my eyes.  If I could see my feet when I looked down, they were too far forward. I peaked down.

Yep, there they were. 

Stop.

Time for a few drills. Each one had a purpose with respect to running form, but I was clueless. He made me skip. And skip some more.  We did a lot of skipping. 

Skipping was hard!

Jump, bring the front knee up high, let the back leg scoot and catch your weight underneath, over and over… until you don’t think you can pick your legs up anymore.

Time for a break.

That’s when he imparted the secret of “The Butt Kick”.   He ran me through butt kick drills.

“When you run, he said, “Don’t think about sending your foot forward but focus more on getting your heel up off the ground behind you”. He sent me out for another lap around the field. First, I want you to skip slowly then pick up speed.  When I thought I was about to pass out, he told me to slow down and add in

 “The Butt Kicks”.  In my mind I equated the heel height to a volume knob for my feet.  The higher I cranked up the volume knob or heel height, the faster I went.  I briefly wondered if it went up to 11.  The more I thought about what needed to be going on behind me the less I found my feet out in front.  I got about halfway around the field and he was yelling at me… That’s it!  You’ve got it, you’ve got it”! “Whatever you are doing now, however it feels to you- just keep doing THAT!  It was exhilarating, pain free and tiring as hell!  I could push myself for hours to slog in poor form through the pain of a marathon, but a few minutes of running “properly” had me gasping for air. 

 I was beginning to see a pattern…Coach Carl’s advice dovetailed nicely into much of what I read about in Born to Run, but on a much more practical level for me.  He didn’t care about the finer points of what shoes I was or was not wearing.  His advice was focused at the gross anatomy level of running rather than the microscopic break down of what I put on my feet.  I had to get the big things right in order for the little things to make a difference.  I made the decision to focus on my form first. The Vibrams remained in the closet for a little while longer…

Garden and Gun

Dear Garden and Gun Magazine,

Years ago as a member of the U.S. Air Force we would have fun breaking in the newbies by asking them to fetch some “special” items.  We gave them names that made them seem as though they were tangible objects but were actually imaginary and impossible to find.  We would have them running all over the base asking people where they might find a “box of grid squares” or a “spool of flight line”.  The joke was always on them but provided an opportunity for some fun at minimal expense to anyone’s ego.

I am obligated to inform you that you now bear the distinct honor of creating a new item for similar amusement. A true and new oxymoron indeed.  The recipe for Strawberry Moonshine Fried Pies from your  Fried and True article, calls for 3 teaspoons of   “commercial moonshine”.  By its very definition “moonshine” is an illicit distillation so throwing the word “commercial” on it is an affront to the heritage of all of those Appalachian distillers who produced and distributed their whisky by the light of the moon.   I realize you probably meant the legal product that would be similar in proof to the high percentage generally found in moonshine.  You could have mentioned it rather that over extend yourselves in an attempt to make a proud, off the grid product more accessible to the masses.  You extend the outrage further once you listed grappa as a possible substitute.  Grape residue could never stand in for corn squeezin’s!  As a magazine that seeks to uncover the best of the south and southern heritage, I hereby formally wag my finger at you for it even being mentioned.   I’m sure there is a good story behind the reasons for it, and I’m happy to listen.  To quote your editor in chief from the same issue, “Because as any good Southerner knows, some of the best stories get told in the kitchen”.  I dare David DiBenedetto to find “commercial moonshine” or grappa in a traditional southern kitchen.

That would be some story!

-- Keep up the otherwise stellar work!

Virtual Actuality

"A neighbor is a person who can get to your house in less than a minute and takes two hours to go back home."

-----O.A. Battista

At their core, I believe most people are essentially lonely or live in fear of being alone.  I do not confuse being alone with the more comfortable and peaceful notion of solitude. Social media now provide the intrusive opportunity for us to be reached constantly, instantly and effortlessly.  When we get an email, a twitter, or a posting on our Facebook page, it is an external acknowledgement of our existence and reassurance-that we are not alone.  We are starving to feel connected. Cell phone and text message chimes trigger a Pavlovian slobber response to the arrival of each small tidbit of attention. They are the equivalent of mental cotton candy for the soul that craves a full meal.  A text is fast food cheap and easy but hardly satisfies compared to the feast of a handwritten letter arriving in the mail.

How did this happen? What makes us feel so isolated?  Part of the answer will become immediately apparent if you look closely.  I discovered it by casually observing the change over the years, in architecture and design of neighborhoods.  Well, we haven’t actually built a neighborhood lately.  Older cities still have grids of inter-woven and connected streets.  There is a mix of people and activities available all within walking distance. 

We don’t plan this way anymore though. Developers have unwittingly and negatively contributed to great, cultural change. They have managed to create spaces that have no sense of “place”.   As property values soared within cities and their immediate environs they pushed the suburbs further and further up the interstate into less costly rural areas.  Now, instead of building neighborhoods, they threw up isolated, dead end, cul-de-sac subdivisions along what used to be two lane country roads.   Unlike some of the originally designed bedroom communities like Levittown in NY, these are built completely without access to any mass transit or connection to the city other than the interstate. Most of the two lane roads do not have adequate shoulders, much less sidewalks that could be safely negotiated by cyclists or pedestrians.  These unconnected neighborhoods ensnare their residents into the trap of having to drive everywhere and this is further reinforced by zoning restrictions that forbid locating things like grocery stores, restaurants and other commercial amenities anywhere convenient.  There’s no “there” there and no “place” to be or go without spending endless hours in a car.  Furthermore, since everyone else’s poorly planned subdivision also dumps out into on the same meandering country road, left turns become impossible and the road is rapidly choked beyond its originally intended capacity. Do we have to wonder why traffic has become unbearable in these regions?  

What about the houses in the subdivisions themselves? Take a good look.  What’s missing?  Any kids in the front yard?  How about front porches? Do you see ANY people outside?

I am fortunate to live in one of the older neighborhoods in my city.  While out walking my dog I noticed that in one particular area, not only did some of houses have front porches; these same sections of the neighborhood also had sidewalks- the original social networks.  When I researched further I discovered that the area that had the houses where porches and sidewalks coincided happened to be in the section of the neighborhood that was designed prior to WWII.   Once the boundary is crossed between pre and post war construction, sidewalks and porches mysteriously and simultaneously vanish. What happened? Was there some conspiracy after WWII to eliminate sidewalks and front porches or was something else going on?

Here are a few theories…

1.  We weren’t going to need to walk again.  Neighborhoods were being designed with the automobile rather than pedestrian in mind.  The Jetson’s were the personification of the idealized, sci-fi family for which the new neighborhoods were being constructed. 

The “FUTURE” (insert full echo effects here) was envisioned as a time for humanity to become labor free. We were going to zip around in our flying cars, no fuss no muss, never having to lift a finger again.  What little exercise we might require could be had by running endless treadmills, completely removed from the environment.  “Outdoors” had somehow become a dirty word. 

What has happened to the state of our health since this mentality became pervasive?  Huge leaps in morbid obesity for one thing.  Of course there are many contributing factors but I’m certain this is one of them. We travel everywhere in our climate controlled vehicles because even short distances are too difficult or dangerous to negotiate on foot. We travel removed and insulated from our surroundings, just like the Jetson’s except they still haven’t managed to invent the flying car yet.

2.  Central air conditioning in homes became standard equipment... 

Obviously this had its practical application especially here in the south.  But what did we lose once we gained climate control? The front porch had always served as a cooler place to sit after dinner until bedtime, while the rest of the house was cooling down.  It was an essential part of the house.  Someone must have decided that since we had air conditioning we no longer had a reason to build porches. These days we would call it multitasking but out on the front porch a family might have spent their evenings doing one of any number things. A few things come to mind:star gazing, sewing, reading, telling stories, playing games, listening to music, enjoying a cool drink or any combination thereof. While you were out there it was only natural that you might wave to or even strike up conversations with your neighbors that happened to be walking by.  It was how genuine connections were forged and reinforced.  All of that is mostly gone now.  Not entirely, but it’s much less common than it used to be.  People are feeling the effects of the isolation from our fellow human beings and are instead turning longingly to digital surrogates. 

I’d like to offer a suggestion. How about instead of “friending” our next door neighbors and chatting virtually on Facebook, we all make the effort to restore our sidewalks and front porches. At the very least, get outside and wave to your neighbors. 

The “Barefoot Contestant” a Long, Running series…Part 1

“Success isn't how far you got, but the distance you traveled from where you started.”-Steve Prefontaine

You know who they are.  You have seen at least one.  The oddballs that show up for races-barefoot.  I saw one running The Mercedes Marathon in Birmingham this past February when the starting temperature, if memory serves, was about 19 degrees.  I just rolled my eyes.    

Back in the 80’s barefoot placekickers in football were all the rage, even in the snow. People were astounded that they could generate enough force to kick the ball powerfully without hurting themselves.  It didn’t seem unusual to me at the time because I had been involved in martial arts for years.  We broke boards with our bare feet all the time. We never wore shoes to work out.  It was more concerning to me that the kicker had to run and tackle opposing players with one shoe on and one shoe off.  That seemed infinitely more awkward than merely kicking the ball barefooted.  That was a long time, lots of miles and many pairs of running shoes ago.

Now, thanks to Born to Run, Christopher McDougal’s runaway best seller (pun intended) more and more of those unshod oddballs seem to keep appearing. 

I must admit, when I read the book back in 2010 I enjoyed it immensely. It was a fantastic and motivating story that has spawned a new school of thought in the running industry-Minimalism.  Well maybe it isn’t new but had been drowned out by all of the technologies screaming for our attention. I thought that the minimalist perspective made so much sense and appealed to the paleobiologist side of my brain. I came to the realization that it probably explained much of the pain and difficulty I was experiencing that had caused me to nearly give up running.  I will also confess that the moment I finished the book, I was so hyped about it that I immediately ran out the door and down the street barefoot to test out the theories.  It was incredibly liberating-for about 20 seconds.  And then along came reality. The book also does mention that those of us that were raised with shoes on our feet are not ready to shed our shoes quite so quickly and completely. I must have glossed over that part.  It was 95 degrees outside and the blacktop on our street was probably hot enough to fry eggs, not to mention my tender tootsies.  I hot footed it to the curb and tiptoed through the crabgrass in order to limp back to the safety of our driveway.

I was mildly distraught.

Had I devolved?  Was I not “born to run” like the author described? Well, to quote Lady Gaga, I probably was “born this way” but after years and years of wearing shoes I no longer was, “that way”.  If my enthusiasm for the concept of barefoot running hadn’t overwhelmed my good sense I would have also realized that my feet were not ready to take the full plunge and that returning my feet to their original state needed to be a more gradual process.

 As I stood there picking gravel out of my rapidly blistering feet, I thought about what sort of transition I’d need to make. 

I decided to start by purchasing a pair of Vibram Five Fingers (most folks refer to them as the “toe shoes”) whose development had also been described in the book.  After all, we may have evolved to run barefoot, but our Paleolithic ancestors didn’t have to deal with all of the urban hazards that we do.  Broken glass, hot asphalt, harsh chemicals and especially that unidentifiable sticky stuff in the road were not part of their equation.   Christopher McDougal described at length, the type of leather sandal that was developed by the tribe of Tarahumara people to use for protection between the bottoms of their feet and the punishing terrain of Copper Canyon.  I considered the Vibrams to be my modern, urban adaption of the same.

I couldn’t help but note that the notion of spending a bunch of money on something “minimalist” was more than just a touch ironic. Caught up in the pursuit of running pain free, less shoe, was supposed to be more beneficial, though just as expensive. In addition to Vibram, other companies have since jumped on the trend and have managed to flood the market in such a way as to ensure that you may now maximize your credit card usage in pursuit of minimalist nirvana.

Brushing away any conception I might have had about becoming some kind of financial hypocrite I pulled them (can I call them shoes?) out of the box and attempted to put them on.  I thought they would slide on like a pair of gloves for my feet.  That is what they look like, right?

After nearly 10 minutes of struggling, sweating and cursing I finally managed to get each of my toes into their designated slots.  After a workout like that a run seemed almost anticlimactic.

I walked out the door, down the driveway and hit the road running.  I should explain that I had always been somewhat of a shuffling runner, a bad heel striker and all the other negative habits about modern runners that I’d read about in “the book”.  

According to Christopher McDougal, running barefoot (or as close as reasonably possible) would encourage proper mid foot striking and all my problems would magically dissolve.  Well he didn’t exactly say that but it’s what I read into it.  I can honestly say that there was no magic on that first run.  There was no great change in my running motion and as I heel-toed hard through my stride I heard the thud/slap, thud/slap, thud/slap of my heel rapidly followed by my fore foot hitting the pavement more loudly than it had with regular shoes.  In typical runner fashion I carefully heeded the instructions to “start gradually” and I ran a mile that first day.  I felt ok so the next time out I ran about 6 miles on a local dirt trail with a small group of runners.  The next morning I could barely move.  My calves had seized up so badly from too much too soon.  It took several days before I could consider any type of running again, shod or unshod.   From then on, I could not go very far before the calf tightness reached out and grabbed me.  McDougal does mention the part about starting VERY gradually, but I couldn’t imagine running less than a mile each time out.  It would take me longer to put the damn things on than I would spend running in them. 

Eventually, I lost patience with the entire process and the Vibrams ended up somewhere in the back of the closet where they remained, until….

Stay tuned. Part 2 will coincide with its release in the August edition of the Birmingham Track Club Newsletter...

Author’s note-The Barefoot Contestant-A Long, Running Series will document my long running experiment, so to speak, with running in Vibrams. My current goal is the Talladega Half Marathon.  

Also-if anyone can provide some grammatical guidance regarding why/how/where I should use the word barefooted vs. barefoot I would greatly appreciate it.

The Tawanda Chronicles-Part II

Oath of enlistment:

“I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”

An old Air Force buddy and I were recently discussing our fond memories of the time we spent at DLI- The Defense Language Institute, at The Presidio of Monterey (POM).  We talked about how challenging language school had been, the types of people we met there and just how unique and extraordinary our military experience was.  We also talked about what a beautiful place the Presidio and the entire Monterey Peninsula was.  So gorgeous in fact, that it required an enormous amount of discipline to fight the urge to spend all our spare time cruising up and down the coastal highway seeking the next adventure.  Studying exotic, foreign languages paled in comparison to the sunsets at Pfeiffer Beach.  Somehow though, we all managed to study enough to pass and enjoy everything northern California had to offer.

In those days, The POM was an open post considered a sub-installation of Fort Ord, located across the bay. (Open Post-meaning that access to the general public was not restricted- no guard gates/access points/fences etc…) Another unique feature was that although it was technically an army post, it was one of the few joint service schools that all 5 branches of the armed forces attended together, along with DOD civilian contractors as well as embassy personnel.

Language education and training was The POM’s primary mission and the open post fostered more of a collegiate atmosphere rather than that of a military base.  There were days I almost (but not quite) forgot I was in the Air Force.   Until the day the “Mad Bomber” as he came to be known, showed up. 

We had plenty of warning. 

Terrorism had not yet become the buzzword that it is today.  It had not entered our vocabulary in any of the languages we were studying.  All we knew was that some idiot kept calling in bomb threats to our barracks, on and off for weeks.  Apparently the idiot's wife, who roomed down the hall from me, and he were having some sort of domestic dispute.  No one in the barracks had a personal phone but there were two payphones in the stairwell entrances for us to use.  If the phone happened to ring when you walked by, you picked up it and banged on the door for the person they asked to speak with.   After his wife refused several times to speak with him, we all got tired of answering the Mad Bomber’s calls.  He would let it ring forever so eventually we learned to take the phone off the hook.

Mr. Mad Bomber then brilliantly figured out a way to get everyone’s attention including his wife’s.  That was when he discovered that he could disrupt our sleep by calling in bomb threats to the barracks.  It seems strange now but we became more or less complacent about hearing alarms go off at 2 am.  We’d drag ourselves out of bed and stand out in the cold for an hour or two while we waited for EOD crews (Explosive Ordinance Disposal) and their sniffer dogs to give us the all clear.

One particular evening while doing our homework, my roommate and I heard a scream from down the hall. That we heard anything at all is noteworthy as doing homework mostly entailed sitting at our desks with our huge cassette tape players turned up to 11, while feverishly translating whatever we managed to hear.  In the days before iPods and ear buds we wore the old school, standard issue, monster headphones.

 

The tone of the scream was chilling and in an instant I was up and running.  I saw a woman burst out of a room down the hall shrieking as she ran.  When I arrived at the door that she’d fled from, there he was- The Mad Bomber, except I didn’t know that yet.  He wasn’t a huge man but he was standing over his wife’s bed slapping her helpless figure around.  All I knew at that moment is that someone was bullying a woman and his was back towards me. 

Enraged, I charged into the room hitting him like a linebacker from behind as I grabbed him around the waist.  It startled him and like bucking bronco he tried scraping me off by taking one or two quick steps backward in to the nearest solid object which happened to be the door of the wall locker.  It dropped me to the floor, was quite painful and yet, it was simultaneously empowering.  At that moment I experienced something that was beyond ordinary anger.  It roused in me a real live, Bill Bixby-becomes-Lou Ferrigno’s-Incredible Hulk transformative fury. 

He must have presumed he’d knocked me senseless and turned his attention back to beating up on his wife.  To this day I am not exactly sure what happened next as the rest of the encounter in that room is a blur.  I know that I must have grabbed him again and that I somehow got him out of the room.  My roommate and others later reported that they saw him hurled through the air out of the room stopping only when he slammed into the far wall of the hallway. 

My memory of what happened re-engages there and all I remember thinking at the time was that somehow we had to get him under control.  I recall that by this time a crowd had gathered in the hallway and there was screaming as he stood up again.  I was hitting him everywhere as hard as I could and my roommate had pitched in by angling for his genitals.  Something was odd in his responses-he was unresponsive to the pain he should have been feeling.  I began to worry that he was high on drugs and could get completely crazy on us.  It was time to end this fight.  He was bent over a little bit and I hit him with a vicious upper cut to his abdomen.  One of my knuckles hit something with a “thunk” that I thought was his belt buckle.

 We’d find out what it was soon enough.

 

The blow caused him to rise up to his toes and then he finally collapsed to the floor.  I cranked his arm around behind his back, put my foot on his neck and locked his elbow in place.  This pain submission move finally stilled him. 

At that moment the CQ (Charge of Quarters) arrived.  He was a good friend and looked at me, standing there with one leg on top of this guy and said something to the effect that he might have known it would be me getting things under control.   

He and another guy grabbed him up off the floor and carted him down to the duty office to call the MP’s from Fort Ord.  I followed behind. 

It may seem unbelievable in this post 9/11 era, but no one in the entire Air Force barracks actually had a weapon or even handcuffs.  All we could do was call the military police to come and take care of things.  He was pretty badly beaten up so they sat this guy in a chair while waiting for the MP’s to arrive.  That’s when he reached into the top of his pants and pulled out a Molotov cocktail.  What I had thought was a belt buckle bruising my knuckles had been the edge of the bottle. I saw bullets taped to the outside of the glass and I knew that if he lit that thing the bullets would be flying as well. 

This time the bomb was real and I turned and pulled the alarm.   Others started running, banging on doors to get people out of their rooms and outside to safety.  We had no idea if he had more than one or what else he may have had strapped to his body.

Later on I found out that he had managed to ignite the cocktail and bullets did fly around the room, although no one was injured. The fire was quickly put out, but according to a friend of mine who is stationed there now, there is still a bullet hole in one of the windows of that room.

Later that evening, C.I.D. (Army-Criminal Investigation Division) and O.S.I. (Air Force-Office of Special Investigations) officers interviewed us for details about the incident.  I was standing there with my roommate as they questioned us. We talked about how we heard screaming, ran down the hall, beat him up, etc... 

Then they asked me, “How and at what point did you manage to take the knife away from him”?

“What knife?” I replied, and that’s when the shaking started.

“Well, he continued, “Mad Bomber’s wife reported that he came in to the room and threatened her and her roommate with a knife.  We found the knife on the floor by the bed and we want to know how you managed to get it away from him”.

A knife explained the blood curdling screams we heard and why the roommate looked so terrified when I saw her running away. 

I told the detective that I didn’t remember seeing a knife.  Suddenly I was dizzy and my knees buckled.  I passed out momentarily, partly from the shock of the entire incident and partly from the realization that I had just fought off an armed attacker.

My roommate picked me up off the ground and we finished answering their questions.  The next night a group of us went out for drinks and celebrated our “bringing down of the Mad Bomber”.   And that was the end of it.

We were never asked to appear as witnesses in a civilian courtroom or military tribunal and we have no idea if any charges were pressed at all.  Many of us have often wondered what became of the “Mad Bomber”.  We do not know if it was reported in the local press.  Considering that CID and OSI conducted an investigation it may not have been reported to the public at all.  What began as a domestic dispute became the focal point of a slew of federal offenses committed and yet…we never heard a word about it afterwards. 

For all we know he went back to his life in West Virginia (where we heard the couple was from) and still brags about the day he threw a bomb into the Air Force barracks at DLI.

A few months later Desert Shield evolved into Desert Storm and more precautions regarding access to the barracks were put into effect.  ID’s were checked, barricades were put into place and parking became restricted nearby in order to prevent a repeat of incidents such as the truck bombing of the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut.  

Fast forward to 2012- if this had happened today there would have been a firestorm of media coverage, and no doubt there would have been a lengthy trial involving charges of domestic terrorism. 

The POM has since become a closed access post due to military restructuring in 1994. There are now fences, limited access guard gates and the general public may no longer use the roads through The POM.  The Mad Bomber would not have such an easy time getting in to the post, much less the barracks.

After the incident my friends and I went back to studying our respective languages; Russian, Korean, Chinese, Arabic etc… as though nothing much had happened.  We did not yet appreciate that we were only beginning to comprehend the full meaning of the English word, “terrorism”.