More running stories (a hint)

I am listening to Coyote Network News with Caroline Casey - something that always makes me grin. That woman can use words like no other person I've ever heard, much less heard on radio.

She is interviewing a man, whose name I'm not sure of (Martin Prectel?), who is from a pueblo in New Mexico. They are talking about lots of things, but (as she usually does) are going from one interesting story to another and one poetic moment to the next, and occasionally touching on a book that he's written about the rituals of his youth. One of those rituals was running.

I love this description: The sun and the moon would be threatened with death because the people would walk too heavily on the earth. So they ran. The run was to keep the sun and the moon in the sky, so that the world would continue on and so that people would have food in their bellies.

Gorgeous imagery, huh?

From what they are saying, there is one whole chapter devoted to this ritual run, where the folks who planned and held the race would actually have to hide the finish line because the runners would refuse to cross it since it would make the other runners feel bad. At one point, they put the finish line down and several of the runners simply turned around and went home. Competition wasn't a part of it.

This is on first hearing, by the way. I just went to their website and the details aren't listed yet. I plan on looking into this speaker in greater depth at first chance...If I can get and read the book I will report back!

Ah! Here he is! (I almost got the spelling correct, too...)

Martin Prechtel

And here's his latest book, which is, I think, what they're talking about. On the other hand, it's Caroline Casey, so it's hard to be sure. <grin>

The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic: The Parallel Lives of People as Plants: Keeping the Seeds Alive

Daniel Lieberman's new article

It's finally out - a retrospective study comparing injury rates among 16 forefoot (not necessarily barefoot) runners and 36 rearfoot runners by Daniel Lieberman. Lieberman's conclusion was that rearfoot runners have more problems with "repetitive stress injury" than forefoot runners. Since I'm not a doctor I don't have access to the full article yet. I, for one, would like to know what "repetitive stress injury" is. Also, a retrospective study isn't, I think, as definitive as other types...again, it's not my field, so I just nod and say. Okay...more please?

The first thing I did was go searching for the name of the article to see what was being said. I saw, as usual, that all the pro-barefoot running sites were kvelling...honestly, I'm not sure it's time for that yet.

This one was where I felt I got the most information. I've found it before and it's always interesting. It's an international crowd of English-speaking podiatrists who all gripe at each other more or less constantly, some of whom have a clue and some who don't. At least one of them is fairly curmudgeonly about barefoot running with just as much or more bias that the most zealous barefoot running advocates. On the other hand, they are doctors and they have access to a wide range of studies and (presumably) know what they're looking at when they read them.

As someone who has run barefoot and minimally shod now for over a year, I can say that you do trade one set of possible injuries for another, especially as you make the transition. I don't hear much about that from the BF advocates, although you see it constantly on the BF running forums. I also hear constantly about the horrible injuries that rearfoot, thickly shod runners regularly experience. I can say from experience that my pain from running (and living) in shoes was much greater than any discomfort I've had from running barefoot.

What I don't see anywhere is the idea that transitioning from shod to barefoot running requires any kind of lifestyle change, which it does. The assumption is that when you transition to BF or minimal running that a runner will once again work competitively and repetitively to conquer miles upon miles of terrain with their feet.

Bare feet don't necessarily do that without a fuss, especially those that belong to someone who drives, sits and has worn supportive shoes all day most of their lives.

Barefoot work requires a certain amount of reverence for the earth and for our bodies. If that reverent attitude takes you miles on foot, then there you go, but my sense is that people follow trends more than they listen to their bodies. We are a culture that believes in conquests instead of experiences. History is ignored - if we paid attention to it there would probably be fewer wars and running injuries.

Being barefoot is a metaphor for the larger changes we need to make in how we live in the world. Maybe this is an unpopular attitude, but I think that we need to ditch the start and finishing lines and just get out there with our feet on the ground for a while, stop when we're tired, skip when we feel like it and use our senses to experience what we've been missing.

Kids are making their own moccasins!

There's just nothing like a bunch of preteens making their own shoes, not to mention their own shoelaces and a license to have their own bootstraps and a connection with the ground that is their own, dare I say (to stretch a metaphor beyond what it normally can stand).

The seventh graders at our daughter's school made these beautiful moccasins after the winter break.  (Photo by Elias Feldman.)

Anna Halprin's "Movement Ritual and Dance Explorations"

This morning I began studying with Anna Halprin, the great-grandmother of West Coast U.S. contemporary dance. She is simply amazing. I've heard her say that aging is hard and I have heard that she has been ill, but she looked beautiful today, her movement supple and easeful.

I was floored (yes, that is a pun) to find that she does a long series of barefoot warm-ups. One of her first lessons to us was that wearing shoes and even socks is a bit like wearing a muffler on our feet. I wanted to jump up and down and scream "yes!" but I didn't, which was good, because we got to jump up and down in the next exercise...and skip and run. Ms. Halprin told us to let our shoulders move, to feel it coming from the feet and the floor. Before I knew it, I was doing the same thing that I usually do when I take a run through the Presidio, except that it included going in all directions, not just forward. It was great - both good for the brain and nicely tiring for the body. I can't wait for next week!

In fact, Ms. Halprin is so foot-centric in class that she asks all of her students to take off everything from the ankles down, including socks, and asks for pant cuffs to be rolled. I was excited to see that because I have, for a long time, gone completely barefoot in rehearsals, even in cold weather, simply because anything that separated me from the ground or the floor was too much.

So this brings me to a new point.

One of the first things that drew me to barefoot running was a video of a runner who was running a long race at a track with a bunch of other folks. The camera shot pictures of him running. His movements were light - not a prance, exactly, more like a sort of weighty skittering. His head never changed levels, his legs were very quick. Compared to the shod runners he looked incredibly graceful. One of the shots was of him and several other barefoot runners keeping him company as he circled the track over and over again. During the interview he said that he didn't feel as if he were running. To him it felt more like dancing. 

My sense is that when I take my shoes off and move, that I am dancing, not just covering distance between point A and point B. Or even if I am simply going from one place to another, when it's skin to the ground it becomes more than the sum of its parts. Although it's usually in minimal shoes, Parkour is one of the most elegant, efficient types of dance I've ever seen (not counting the egregious use of acrobatics, which is like putting cheap corn syrup frosting on the finest cream cake in the world). Another thing that I remember and again, I can't at this moment find the video - is an interview with Parkour expert David Belle who says that the less shoe on the foot of a freerunner the better. (I will do some searches and if I can find it again will link, I promise!)

Dance is just another way to get from point A to point B, to get that journey to mean more than the sum of its parts. This is why I tend to start from ideas rather than any particular dance vocabulary. To me, the definition of dance is just to engage ground reaction force, to see where it goes, and where it came from. It's one of the most beautiful forces in the universe, its four-dimensionality poetic in its complexity and perfection. 

When your feet talk to the earth in a way that allows the forces of gravity to spread up into the body, that's a dance. If you were lying down, on your knees or sitzbones it would be possible to find this same play of weight and rebound.

I think that people need to ground themselves and dancing does that. It's also a deep human need that like everything else, modern humans have compartmentalized and reserved for specific circumstances only to be done by specially talented and trained people.

That's certainly not true. Everyone can dance, which means that everyone can run. Which means that everyone can dance. Of course.

Phil Campbell's Sprint 8

There are so many days when I go out and run and realize that although my heart and lungs would like to speed on ahead much faster than my little sprints I enjoy, that the overall constitution of my feet and legs aren't quite ready for that burst of speed that I'd really like to take.

Running well, at least in my world, is to run like a child. When children run and play, they don't run solidly at a low to middle speed for hours with padded shoes. Our daughter and her friends run as fast as they can for short bursts with as little on their feet as they can get away with. When they stop running, they are thoroughly present, playing, imagining, looking and listening. Then they sprint again. I remember doing things like that as a kid.

Recently I received an interesting mailing from Mercola.com about a conditioning program called Peak 8 or Sprint 8 created by Phil Campbell. It's all about working the anaerobic muscles of the heart, as well as setting up the body to burn fat during rest. It encourages production of human growth hormone (or as Campbell describes it, "fitness hormone"). All of these happy things especially support middle-aged folks, like me and many people I know. When we reach the middle of our lives, our growth hormone production slows and it's harder to maintain fitness levels. According to Dr. Mercola this slow-down has a lot to do with increasingly sedentary lifestyles, and is completely avoidable.

As a barefoot runner who is always working on form and avoiding too-much-too-soon injuries, the Sprint 8 sounds like a nice way to work in between runs so that when it's time to put my feet down on the pavement, it's easier to maintain form without feeling the need to run too fast and hard - at least until my constitution is ready to run with that intensity...that's something I look forward to!

It's surprisingly simple. A person sets themselves up to sprint as fast as they can for eight 30-second periods, each followed by 90 seconds of rest. Campbell suggests a stationary recumbent bicycle. Now, if only I can get over my dislike of pedaling in place...

Here is a page about the program as well as two very informative videos.

Judith Aston's Bicycle Dance

Here she is...the lady who came up with the Aston technique, using ground reaction force to dance on a stationary bicycle! 

She does have her shoes on, but she's got a sense of the earth, even balancing with one hand on the handlebar and one foot on the pedal. 

Thoughts on flat feet

On the bus to the studio...

The tibialis posterior has been on my mind these days, although that could be said to be an irony, considering the distance between those two parts. I mentioned before that I struggled with flat feet much of my life. Whenever I restart running after a long break I inevitably strain the tissues around the posterior arch and up deep in the calf. After berating myself for not taking my own advice, I slow down for a while to strengthen that line.  The tibialis posterior supports the posterior arch. It extends deeply up the back of the lower leg, through a notch at the calcaneus, opening into a sort of supportive hammock for the arch. It makes connections up the deep line that includes leg adductors and inner unit. When it goes on strike, so does the core. Spotting a person with weak tib posteriors is easy. Look for ankle pronation, and slack inner leg line, possibly with nocked knees. The big giveaway is the inability to access the core when standing, especially in a person who can find it when seated, kneeling or lying down.

The bus ride to the new Body Gallery is almost done. Over and out...