I sure am glad because I have not had a public place to air my thoughts. And that means that either I have been keeping it in or even worse I have not been having any interesting thoughts. I enjoy writing posts that act as a running commentary on interesting thoughts that I have rather than those of a personal nature, but I figured that I needed to break back into this whole blog thing with something easy. And what is easier than spilling about what has already happened to you?

So that was my way of saying sorry for not writing, but I was busy buying a house and getting married! But I’m back!

I have been running barefoot for over 9 months now. I started off running a few blocks, and I have progressed to now run a few miles a couple of times each week. Yes, it will sometimes be briefly uncomfortable when I step on a pebble, but it is usually gone in the next step. However for most people the thought of pain is enough to prevent them from ever trying to run barefoot. On the other hand, just because I run on the street does not mean that everyone has to.

Yep, that's mine

• I was not born with shoes. (Of course I also wasn’t born with clothes, but clothes don’t injure me. If they did, I wouldn’t wear those either.)
• Injuries increase with the price of the shoes according to surveys from runners.
• It’s recommended (by pediatricians) that young children be allowed to walk around barefoot so that they can develop their feet. There must be something there, right?
• By the laws of physics the force of each step when running has to be translated and absorved somewhere. Running sure isn’t hurting your feet. Where does that leave? Perhaps the knees and hips?
• Tough and hardened feet are much more useful than soft tender feet. Soft feet are nice to the touch, but they can’t nearly do what used feet can do. If you had to run away from danger, you can’t exactly stop to put on your shoes.
• Without the artificial support of shoes, your feet need to balance and adapt. That is, the muscles and tendons in your feet will get stronger. It’s similar to why it’s excellent to do exercises without artificial support. You need to balance while also performing the task at hand. And that will make you stronger and strengthen the entire structure.
• There sure are a lot of people from other countries that are awesome runners without the need for shoes. Have you ever thought about that? Not only are they awesome, but they have lower incidence of injury. Just because I wasn’t born in a culture like that does not mean that I cannot become like that!
• I stand for freedom!. I always have, I always will. But it is a different kind of freedom that I feel when I’m running barefoot. It kind of makes me feel like a little kid, and I love that.
• The arch is one of the strongest structures known to man. We use it for bridges to hold up amazing amounts of weight. Have you ever seen an arched bridge have something filling the entire arch? No. That’s because the arch is strongest when there is nothing filling that gap. Surprise, surprise guess where we have an arch.
• One of the most important reason to consider running barefoot is that it makes you more conscious of your running form. So while your form might suffer when you’re running with shod feet, you won’t modify your behavior because it doesn’t manifest itself until years of running have beaten your body down. However you will definitely notice the difference with bare feet. You will not strike your heel. You will land on the balls of your feet. You will be careful of where you go. You could learn how to run with better form from someone teaching you. But that doesn’t mean that you’re necessarily going to change. Pain is a much better way to modify your behavior than mere information. It’s a reminder every step that you need to run correctly.

I run barefoot. I enjoy it.

References:
SportSci – Running Barefoot
The Painful Truth About Trainers
Barefoot Rick – I enjoyed reading some of his articles and thoughts about running barefoot.

There are skinny gluttonous people and there are larger fit people. Size is not of the utmost importance. It would do me well to remember this.

A big company means big things
Like long processes here and there.
They also block Gmail
Which doesn’t seem smart, but I’m sure that they don’t care.

Other things are great,
Company activities abound.
Is it somewhere that I’ll stay for a long time?
Who knows if that’s what I’ve found.

Changes are sometimes good
And it’s already happened (June first).
So now I’m off and going
For better or for worse!

I do have a few amusing things that I want to jot down for posterity’s sake:

The Fundraising

Initially I was only thinking of what I could get out of running a marathon. First off I could say that I ran a marathon. I could learn about myself and what I’m made of. And so on and so forth. But part of the way through the training I decided to run for Team World Vision. It was rewarding to be able to realize even in the midst of such a solitary sport that I could be doing this for other people. It was good to get to spread the word a little bit about what World Vision is doing in parts of the world, and it’s even better to be able to raise funds for a charity that is spreading the love of Jesus Christ in tangible ways to our world.

I’m still accepting donations so I welcome you to visit my donation page and consider joining with me to support this charity. And a HUGE thanks to everyone that has already supported me.

The Toe

On May 20th, I went to Costco to get my tires changed. Prior to this I had moved one of my existing tires to the spare tire because I had a nail in the sidewall. Basically this meant that my spare was usable but just barely. So I asked the tire center at Costco to move one of the existing tires to the spare so that it would be a little more reliable if it ever had to be used. I asked them if they did it when I picked it up, but I wasn’t confident that they did it as I had asked them. So I wanted to check it out for myself when I got home. As I was pulling the tire out from under my truck, it hit the toenail on my right big toe and separated the nail from the flesh a bit. I just stared at it because I was in shock. I had just read a post about hacking a marathon in which Adam Pash of Lifehacker fame briefly mentions messing up his big toe before his first marathon. I, of course, thought something like that would never happen to me. But that is also why I Hate Murphy (of Murphy’s Law fame). So I’m staring at my big toe, and blood is starting to come out. Thankfully I washed up, wrapped it up, and later applied some liquid bandage that took care of weather-sealing the wound. While it could have been pretty horrible, it all turned out alright. In fact it was the least of my worries during the actual running. On the other hand it did make the days leading up to the marathon more stressful!

The Mob

I made the mistake (again!) of starting off further back in the full field. That meant that there were a lot of people in front of me that were going to be running (or even walking!) slower than me. So I had to weave in and out for the first 6 miles at least. Stupid urge to urinate right before the start even though I had done so at Union Station a half hour earlier!

The Band

Yes, my Iliotibial Band started to hurt. This is the same injury that I experienced when I ran my half marathon. And all of this, I am guessing, happened because I was not paying attention to my form at all in the beginning while running through the crowd. I started to feel the effects of it near mile 10, but it didn’t actually start to hurt until perhaps mile 15 or 16.

The Wall

Initially I did not think that I hit The Wall. But now that I’m thinking back about what happened in the last 6 or 7 miles of the race, I might have to change my answer. Reasons why I might have hit The Wall after all:

1. Hallucination – I thought that a mile marker was coming up. Then I looked up again, and it was nowhere in sight.
2. Forgetfulness – I lost track of what mile I was on near mile 24. Or was that mile 23…
3. Dead tired – Usually I fancy myself strong of mind. But there were quite a few points where I could not psych myself up to start running. I just felt like I was stuck.
4. Focus – It was near impossible to think about anything else except for finishing. I could not multi-task with my brain.

Yes it sucked a lot. And no you have no idea what it feels like unless you experience it. Everyone should.

The Pace

I started off on great pace to finish in 4 hours. That would been extremely ideal. However I started to peter off as the race went on such that I eventually was trying to struggle to complete in 4:15. And that didn’t even happen. Thankfully I did finish under my overall goal of under 4:30.

The Near Fight

Generally people in and around a marathon are going to be pleasant and full of good cheer. But as I was running I noticed that there was a middle aged Causasian male runner who was getting into it a little bit with a young Hispanic male on a bike. I didn’t see what happened, but they were talking as if I was about to see some fisticuffs right there. My guess is that someone ran into someone else, which almost caused a much more devastating accident. I steered clear of them and picked up my pace to get away!

The Stairs

After running a marathon, take my word and walk down stairs backwards. I look dumb, I know. But it feels worlds better than walking down like a normal person.

The Day(s) After

Take it off from work if at all possible. Luckily this is possible for me. I was tremendously sore from head to toe. The soreness ranged from my shoulders and back to my entire legs and even my foot! In fact every step that I took with my left foot felt like there was a ball underneath it. Imagine my surprise at discovering this when I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom! The day immediately following the marathon was definitely one of the most sore days of my life. I was hobbling around like a crippled old man.

Conclusion

So there you have some of my thoughts. I hope that you enjoyed them (if you read them). If you just skipped them, that’s fine as well. It’s your loss.

I definitely do not regret doing the marathon. It did indeed teach me about myself, and the whole experience is something that will have forever changed me. Doing one is completely different than hearing about it from others. Will I do another? Who knows. A guy that I chatted with a little bit before the start encouraged me to not be someone who is “one and done.” It took a lot of time to train for it, and I was still definitely feeling the effects of doing such an extreme thing. But considering all that I learned, and all of the health benefits that I received I would count it as something well worthwhile.

Oh and if you’re wondering, here are my official results.

I looked at a number of very worthy charities before I decided that I wanted to be a part of Team World Vision.

From their website:

World Vision is a Christian humanitarian charity organization dedicated to working with children, families, and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice.

If you are interested in joining with me to donate to a worthy cause, please visit my fundraising page:

Derek’s fundraising page

• You are very likely under the impression that cotton is a glorious and soft fabric. But let me tell you that 15 miles can dictate otherwise. Chaffing is real, people. And it’s dangerous. It is just crazy how such a small discomfort can completely occupy your mind. It is a nice reminder to get yourself set up completely before setting out. So beware for certain parts of your body. Personally it happens with my crotch and nipples. Is that too much information? Haha TOO BAD!
• Seriously? Cracks in the sidewalk? In fact yes. I thought it ludicrous to even consider them. How hard is it to just watch where you’re running? If there’s a crack, don’t trip on it. It’s obvious, it’s simple. And I failed. Yes, that is correct. I was running a while ago, and I was paying attention to the jacket that I was holding in my hand. Next thing I knew, I was stumbling and nearly on my face. Thanks to the amazing reflexes that God placed in me, I was able to remain upright. Really, I couldn’t believe that I didn’t eat some cement right there. A passing truck saw and slowed down, but continued on their way once they saw that I had not even fallen down. I counted my lucky stars and was thankful (once again) for reflexes that are faster than I can say, “Oh no!”
• Running along major streets leads to some interesting scenarios. People driving by can be placed into a few categories:
  1. Haters – They will try their very hardest to scare me with honks and shouts. Usually they’re in high school, and they have so little in their life to be excited about that the best thing to happen to them would be to see others suffer. Pretty much they’re retarded.
  2. Encouragers – When passing they either honk in a more friendly way or yell out encouragement. I appreciate that, and I think that’s right kind of them.
  3. Leerers – This probably happens much more to girls, but there are definitely those that will make comments that are somewhat lascivious. As a guy, I actually think that it’s awesome to get that. Haha don’t judge me. A girl yelled, “Sexy!” when I was running without a shirt a little while back. Why didn’t I have a shirt on? Because I can! Well that’s only partly true. It was also pretty hot and… see the point about chaffing.

If you so desire, you can see my LA Marathon 2009 training log for yourself.

While training for the half marathon was a good introduction, it wasn’t nearly as intense. The thing about marathons is that they are known to be much more difficult to do without training. A half marathon (at 13.1 miles) is daunting, but it is still doable without too much training. But with 26.2 miles, there is the very real chance of “hitting the wall” (where the energy is depleted from the runner’s system leaving little left to continue on). And there are even some very well-publicized cases of people dying during a marathon. I want to train so that those things will not happen to me!

I have definitely found out that something that you do not get right away is how much of a commitment this is. Training takes a large amount of time! I am on week 10 (out of 16 weeks) of my training, and I am running about 25-30 miles weekly. Holy moly! All of that training consists of an average of 45 minutes for the non-long runs and upwards of 3 hours (so far) for my long runs. I have a single long run each week that comprises less than half of my weekly mileage. And both my long runs and my weekly mileage will (and should) continue to increase. All told, I am spending a significant portion of my time on this.

What have I learned from training thus far?

• A commitment to exercise and health is life-changing. And not easy.
• Perseverance and the power of the mind is key.
• Having a goal and training for it is an excellent way to lose weight. I was not even looking to do it, but it just happens!

• I don’t know if running adds years to your life, but it definitely adds life to your years.
  [Runner's World Article (Page 6)]

• Running, amazingly enough, can be enjoyable. (It can also be torturous!)
• It is definitely nice finding out that I am not dependent on my car. I can in fact go to the supermarket or the bank without it, if I so desire. This week I will also see what it feels like to commute from work to home using my running shoes.

I am not nearly done yet. I will not be until I cross that glorious finish line. However I can say that I am registered. And that is either a cause for me to commend myself or ask what in the world have I gotten myself into.

Here in America people often have middle names. We especially like to use the middle initial in order to make our name more unique. But our middle name is usually kept to ourselves. Or perhaps it’s just left to those times when our parents are exceptionally angry with us. There’s nothing like having your full name yelled to let you know that it’s time to do something right.

In any case I have found myself over the years enjoying learning what people’s middle names are. After thinking about why this might be so, I have realized that it’s probably because it usually is secret. I like knowing secrets. Doesn’t everyone? Middle names in particular make me feel that I am getting the chance to know people better because I have discovered something that so many other people don’t even take the time to find out. It creates an instant connection with them.

To top it all off, middle names can often be unique. And that can lead to amusing situations, indeed.

Middle names win. Sharing is caring. Ugh that’s so cliche, huh?