Barefoot Running: Book Review and Giveaway

Honestly, it’s getting hard to tell all these barefoot running books apart nowadays – and sometimes it seems like authors need to have either a remarkable story or some eye-raising claims in order to get noticed. Michael Sandler has both, and his Barefoot Running: How to Run Light and Free by Getting in Touch with the Earth is probably one of the most interesting reads on the subject that I’ve encountered so far.

First, the backstory: Sandler was a professional-level cyclist and inline skater before suffering a freak accident during a training session that quickly developed into a near-death crisis. Several surgeries and an extensive rehab process later, he was left with a titanium rod in his femur and a significant leg length discrepancy, and he was told that he’d never be able to run again.

Sandler defiantly tried to run, but had multiple recurrent injuries that couldn’t be solved by orthotics or modern shoe technology. It wasn’t until he started going barefoot that his pain dissipated, and he gradually increased the frequency and duration of his barefoot running until he no longer had any use for shoes.

Today Sandler runs 10 to 20 barefoot miles per day, on all kinds of terrain. He also founded a website called RunBare, which has become one of the best online resources for novice and experienced barefooters. He has coached elite level athletes for more than 20 years, and continues to instruct athletes of all abilities who want to improve their efficiency through natural running techniques.

In other words, there aren’t too many more dedicated or authoritative barefoot advocates out there. And when it comes to the pure mechanics of barefoot running, his book is probably the best overall manual I’ve seen. The central focus of Barefoot Running is several chapters that explain the anatomy, biomechanics, proper technique, progression, and complimentary drills and exercises associated with starting or refining your barefoot running. All of them are simply excellent.

I also mentioned some eye-raising claims, and there are plenty to choose from in the beginning and closing segments of the book. Some of Sandler’s positions I very much appreciate, while others I find quite far-fetched.

We may as well get the bad parts out of the way first: in his book, Sandler makes a lot of claims that strike me as either pseudo-scientific or way too New Age-y for my liking. For example, he spends a lot of time talking about becoming “grounded”, and how the simple act of taking your shoes off can have a tangible impact on your overall well-being by equalizing your body with the polarity of the Earth. Among other things, he claims that being barefoot can help you sleep better, regulate your hormonal cycles, accelerate recovery from trauma, decrease chronic inflammation, decrease chronic pain, and prevent musculoskeletal injury. He says going barefoot connects us to Schumann Resonances, and throws around terms like electro-pollution and geopathic stress to explain how going barefoot keeps our bodies healthier by becoming synchronized with the planet.

Knowing Sandler’s experience, it’s easy to see why he believes in the all-healing capacity of going barefoot, but it seems like a step too far in terms of what’s actually provable. Sandler also voices a strong spirituality in his barefoot exploits, but it’s along the lines of simply being meditative in the moment or tapping into “The Source” of energy and life. While I completely identify with the spiritual impact that running (barefoot or otherwise) offers, my own beliefs differ from Sandler’s, so these spiritual allusions mean something completely different to me than they do to him.

However, there are a lot of things I like about Sandler’s philosophy of barefoot running. First and foremost, he preaches the need to progress extremely slowly and cautiously, and emphasizes the risk of injury and the importance of frequent rest periods to let your body accommodate to the new stresses placed upon it. He’s also very blunt about just how much a moderately fast shod runner will have to slow down in order to properly run barefoot, and acknowledges how frustrating and potentially deal-breaking this aspect might be. From personal experience, this was one of the biggest obstacles for me in my barefoot progression, so I always cringe when I read books or articles suggesting that going barefoot is a magic bullet, and if you just get rid of your shoes, your running will quickly or automatically improve.  It's not nearly that easy or certain, and Sandler points both of those caveats out.

Sandler also scores high marks with me for recognizing that there are times when barefoot running isn’t safe or appropriate for the conditions, and that there are some runners who will be just as content and satisfied by wearing minimalist footwear. He is clear that his own preference is to go barefoot, but he doesn’t have any problem with runners who stick with minimalist footwear without any interest in losing the shoes entirely. He realizes that going completely barefoot doesn't have to be the end destination for everybody - but this contradicts some other barefoot gurus (e.g., Barefoot Ken Bob) who believe that going “naked” is superior in every way, and that even minimalist shoes like Vibrams are agents of destruction.

In fact, there’s a whole chapter devoted to considerations of using minimalist footwear; it's one of many aspects of Sandler’s book that I’d recommend.  Even though I found some portions objectionable, there’s far more to like here than not. Barefoot Running is available for $12.40 from Amazon.com and is also available in Kindle format, and it would be a standout selection in your expanding inventory of barefoot instructional books.

Additionally, in conjunction with this review, the publisher has agreed to provide a copy of Barefoot Running to one lucky reader. Leave a comment below this post to enter, and I’ll announce the winner on Saturday, October 22. Thanks very much to Random House Publishing, and good luck to everybody!



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Orbana Energy Drink Winners, Redux: You ALL Win!

I had another topic planned for tonight, but there was a late-breaking development to a recent post that was worth interrupting regular programming.

If you happened to enter last week's Orbana Healthy Energy drink mix giveaway, I received some great news from the company rep: EVERYBODY’s a winner! The three recipients whose names were drawn will receive a 5-pack of the drink mix, and everyone else who left a comment will receive two free packets to try.

In case you needed reminding, the deal in the original post was this: by entering the contest, you agreed to send me your feedback about the mix after using it, and I would add those comments to the review. The plan now is to collect comments from everyone who gets a sample, and create one giant feedback post at the end of November.

So here’s the way we’ll work it: if you entered the contest, e-mail me your contact info, tell me which comment was yours - don’t assume that I know your clever Blogger username – and give me your address so I can forward it to the Orbana rep. She’ll get the samples in the mail to you, and I need to have your feedback by November 27th (the end of the Thanksgiving weekend) so I can have a post go live by the end of the month.  This is an honor system thing, as I obviously have no way to enforce who returns feedback to me in a timely fashion.  So if you send me your info, I trust that you'll do the right thing and cooperate, or run the risk of bad blog karma.  (I'm not exactly sure what that might be, but you get the idea.)

Oh, one more thing … remember how I said that everybody who entered is a winner? Let me modify that statement just a bit, to show you one person who’s kind of a loser:

Here’s a tip, people: if you’re going to enter my contests, you might want to leave some method of identifying yourself. And before I get 30 e-mails saying “I was Anonymous!”, allow me to point out that this person is automatically disqualified.

To everyone else, enjoy your Orbana, and needless to say, a HUGE thanks to the Orbana company for setting this up. And keep your eyes peeled for another giveaway contest tomorrow.




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Orbana Energy Drink Winners; Random Shots of Beauty

Before getting down to business, one follow-up note about my last post from the Symbol Bridge, where it was pointed out to me in the comments that I mistakenly referred to a medical symbol as a caduceus instead of the more historically accurate rod of Asclepius.

Having a health care background, I was kind of embarrassed for the oversight - until I sent an e-mail to the doctor who was running with me that day. I told him that I wasn't even aware that I had my medical symbols mixed up, and asked why he didn't correct me when we were in the cave.

His response? "I always thought it was a caduceus."

So now I feel a little better. It doesn't make me any more correct, but at least I know I wasn't the only one misinformed.

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The main topic of the day is our announcement of the Orbana Healthy Energy drink mix giveaway winners. Lucid Moon Studio, Chris (Ultra Blog), and Stephanie Z, e-mail me your contact info - you've won! Remember, the deal is that you give me your feedback after using it; I'll probably paste your comments into the body of the original contest post once I collect them all. Congrats to you three, and thanks to everyone who entered.

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Here's your weekend Random Shot of Beauty:

(click to enlarge)

A typical farm house in a typical agricultural field on the outskirts of Salinas, CA. There's nothing particularly remarkable about it, unless you've just spent five days in Los Angeles, as our family did this week. The trip was wonderful - but as we left the big city behind and ultimately returned to these small, rural scenes, they gave the unmistakable feeling of being home again.



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Running Back Through Time: The Symbol Bridge

Spending a week in the outdoors is awesome, and spending a week with a group of middle school kids can be highly rewarding. But spending a week in the outdoors with a group of middle school kids is enough to make you want a temporary escape.

(Click any photo to enlarge)

Such was the case on my trip to Lava Beds National Monument, which was a great experience, but occasionally left me a little bit restless for some time to clear my head. There was one other like-minded parent – who, as luck would have it, also happened to be a member of my training group at home – chaperoning the trip with me, so we stole a few early mornings to sneak out of our tents and go running before the rest of the campers woke up.

(And thankfully, he also brought a camera, because this run took place on the day after my blog camera broke, which qualified as a major catastrophe under the circumstances. It’s nice to have friends who are sympathetic to the cause.)

On a couple of our runs, we weren’t merely traveling away from the campsite, but almost literally back in time – through a volcanic landscape that describes the formation of the Earth so many years ago, and to a destination that is filled with voices from the past.

I guess if you’re looking to connect the present day to the remote past, a trail called Missing Link would be a good place to start. This trail was less than a mile from our campsite, and led the way to our ultimate destination at Symbol Bridge.

The Missing Link Trail makes for a pretty mellow way to start an early-morning run; it’s a fairly serene, almost completely flat trail that meanders through the high desert brush, letting your legs greet the day in a nice, easy manner.

To the casual observer, the terrain underfoot looks fairly gentle as well – and in some stretches it was. The trouble was that footing on this trail, like every other one in the area, is deceptively tricky, because …

… all the trails out here sit atop a massive volcanic field, where sharp, irregular lava rocks jut out from the ground unpredictably all over the place. Sometimes the lava rocks are shallow and hard to see, other times they’re tall and dense, without any flat surface for foot placement. In either case, these are trails where you need to keep your eyes open …

… and your feet a little more protected than usual. Although I reported that I wore my Vibram Trek LS for the entire week of camping and hiking here, I decided to go with VIVOBAREFOOT’s Neo Trail for my trail running, because I knew the thick, knobby outsole would give me better grip and improved protection than the FiveFingers would. It occurred to me that breaking a pinky toe while chaperoning a field trip might be seen as bad form.

Approaching the Symbol Bridge, we passed collapsed lava tubes that once were conduit channels for molten lava directly underground …

… before arriving at the Symbol Bridge, so named because … well, you’ll see in a minute.

This was our designated turnaround point, but before heading back to camp, we dropped down into the rocks to wander around …

… and take a look at the symbols and stories from the past, left here for our enjoyment by the Modoc Indians who called this area home for thousands of years. (By the way, this photo contains the image that was seen in close-up in last weekend’s Random Shot of Beauty).

The pictographs are prominent here, but there’s not much consensus on what they actually mean. According to the park website, the fracturing of the Modoc tribe by the US Army prevented any ethnographic study from taking place later on – and it’s also possible that the Modoc just felt like keeping some of their stories to themselves.

One fascinating aspect of these drawings is that they are all made with lines that are roughly one finger wide. If you stare at them long enough, it’s easy to imagine a Modoc choosing each particular location carefully – low weather exposure, enough sunlight to see but not to fade – before dipping his fingers in paint at this very spot to cast the lasting images on the stone.

This particular wall segment was especially interesting to us for a couple of reasons – one, because of the sheer density of paleo-doodles …

… and secondly, because my running partner that morning is a physician. Or, as I said to him immediately upon seeing the drawing on the left, Hey – that looks like a caduceus! Maybe the Indian who painted this was a tribal doctor! My friend could very well have been staring at the calling card of some long-passed professional forefather. I decided to look for any sort of ancient symbol that might represent a primitive blogger, but for some reason that profession was underrepresented on these walls.

As to why this place is called a bridge instead of a cave – it’s because the cave actually opens on two sides, forming a land bridge on top. You can go rockhopping down one side of this rock formation, and back up the other … and in between, you try not to think about the huge boulders perched perilously in the ceiling overhead.

Also, remember what I said about the Modoc choosing the proper place for their paintings? The bridge structure allows an ideal amount of light to filter through, but the rocks with the drawings are never directly exposed. Of all the caves and lava tubes in the area, this spot seemed just about perfect.

We could have spent a lot longer climbing around the rocks and looking at pictures, but we had kids to get back to, so after briefly stepping into the world of our forerunners, we retraced our steps …

… and returned to the present day, to the campsite where the students were getting ready for breakfast. By our normal running standards, this outing seemed relatively short – probably less than 5 miles in all – but in other ways, it might have taken us farther away from the everyday world than any we’ve done in a long time.

*See other photo tours under tab at top of page.



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VIVOBAREFOOT Evo and Neo Flash Sale; Running Characters

Before today's post, one quick reminder and one cool announcement ...

The reminder is quick: there's still time to enter my Orbana energy drink giveaway, so you can (hopefully) put the stuff to better use than I did. Winners will be announced Saturday night.

As for the announcement: It's time to grab some discount VIVOBAREFOOT running shoes from The Clymb again. The featured models are the Evo and Neo; the Evo is the high-performance running shoe, while the Neo serves equally well as a running shoe or all-purpose athletic model. During this flash sale, the Evo is available for $55, and the Neo is available for just $50 - both prices are crazy cheap.

There are a few casual models available as well, primarily in the women's variety, while the running models are available in both genders. Like all Clymb sales, time is limited - this one ends at 9AM PDT on October 14. Remember the procedure here: sign up with an e-mail address, then get access to the super-steep bargains. Go check it out now - the post will be here when you get back.

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As for the post, my friend Mike wrote some recollections of a few runners we shared the road with in the past, and turned it into a Monterey Herald column that published last week. I know all of the people he's referring to, but I confess to having forgot most of these stories until reading them recently and thinking, Oh, yeah ... I forgot about that one. And by the time I finished the article, I remembered that I was glad to have forgotten.

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Running Life 10/06/11 “Running Characters”

Like any great story, your running life is made more interesting by the characters who inhabit it. Over the years, we’ve certainly run with our share of memorable cohorts.

Usually what happens on the roads and trails stays there, but we’ve decided that the statute of limitations for a few transgressions has expired, so we’ve decided to tell a few of the more interesting stories. Besides, these characters have moved away by now, and we’ve changed the names here so they wouldn’t be recognized anyway.

The Stealth Guy: “Doug” had a job that kept him travelling a lot, and even when he was home his hours were unpredictable. He knew where and when we ran each morning, but we never knew when he was going to show up. And even though most of our early morning runs were done in the dark, Doug always wore black shorts and a black shirt.

He was a very fast, efficient, and quiet runner and loved to unexpectedly come up behind us and yell loudly; or sometimes he’d lay in wait ahead of us when he knew we would be passing. Believe us – being startled in the dark early morning causes an adrenaline rush that can last for several miles. It certainly helped our training.

Doug also provided some unexpected advice one morning when we had a discussion of what male runners wore under their running shorts. To most of our knowledge, the choices were the lining of our running shorts (nothing), a jock, boxers, or briefs. However, Doug added another choice one day, casually commenting that he wore his wife’s underwear as it was more comfortable and didn’t chafe. For the benefit of all involved, that part probably should have remained stealth.

The Pitt: Most conversations in our mixed-gender group are typically rated PG, but whenever “Dave” ran with us, the subject inevitably turned to sex. He had a sort of Brad Pitt complex, believing that he was irresistible to all women. Whenever we ran by any attractive woman on the trail, Dave would wait until she passed out of earshot (sometimes just barely so), and then say, “She wants me.”

This particular quirk of personality became so standard that whenever the group ran by any woman, the entire group of us women included, would all say, “She wants me!” at precisely the same time as Dave.

Often on very long training runs, typically over the 20 mile mark, Dave became afflicted with some strange runner’s variant of Tourette’s Sydrome, where his mouth simply failed to filter anything the brain was thinking. At those moments, EVERYONE on the trail would hear “she wants me”, “he wants me”, or “it wants me” as they were near our group. It made for some embarrassing moments, but just as with The Stealth, it caused a training benefit, too – because our group often tried to sprint away from Dave in the later miles whenever another walker or runner approached.

Special Forces: We had a military Special Forces officer run with us for quite a while, and he taught us one very important lesson: experienced, disciplined runners who run at the same time every day are usually very aware of their bodily functions. If there’s any possibility of “going” on the run, they typically carry toilet paper and a plastic bag.

Inexplicably one morning, our Special Forces guy had the need but forgot his paper. In this dire circumstance, “Paul” kept a cool head under pressure and acted resourcefully, heading to the nearest house that had newspaper delivery. He politely stole the classified ads for later use, and folded the rest of the paper back the way it was.

Paul continued this habit every now and then, and it was just a little story until we realized that whenever Paul had a “need” on Thursday morning, he made a point of grabbing our column from the sports section. Needless to say, after that realization, we didn’t think our Special Forces guy was quite so special.



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Orbana Energy Drink Review and Giveaway

It’s pretty rare that I feel like I don’t give products an honest test, but this is one of those occasions. Fortunately, by the time this post is over, a few readers will have a chance to help me out.

This summer I had the opportunity to test an energy drink called Orbana, an all-natural product designed to provide a sustained energy boost without the spikes and crashes that other energy drinks can trigger. It’s nutritionally fortified to help delay fatigue and sustain hydration, and has a strong following among the triathlon crowd – especially athletes in the UK, where the product was created. Orbana comes in powdered form to mix with water, and is sold in individual packets or in a multi-serving tub.

You’re supposed to drink it 20 minutes before a race or peak workout – but honestly, I’ve been so mellow with my training regimen over the past few months that I never really gave it a good test that way. So instead of posting a completely uninformed review, here’s the compromise I came up with: I’m posting a brief overview of the product, and then I’m picking three readers to receive a couple of sample packets each. If you’re one of the winners, you’ll come back here and share your feedback in the comments section below. Got it? OK then - if you’re interested in the prize, read on.

One of the key ingredient differences between Orbana and other energy drinks is the use of branch chain amino acids (BCAAs), otherwise known as the building blocks of proteins. Orbana’s BCAAs can be used directly by the muscles during activity, and can promote quicker recovery after a race or long workout.

However, BCAAs typically have a bitter taste, so the Orbana folks spent a year and a half trying different combinations of natural sweeteners that not only made the product taste better, but provided tangible performance benefits as well. The finished product has a fairly pleasant citrus taste, and the official description on the packet describes Orbana as an “Orange, lemon, and pineapple flavour (See? British!) energy drink”.

The final sugar combination is a blend of ‘mixed GI’ carbohydrates, some of which act quickly, and others that have a delayed impact. The primary sugar is complex maltodextrin (64%), which happens to be the main ingredient in my favorite training drink, GU Brew, which I love because of its very mild taste. The other 36% is composed of dextrose and fructose, “high GI” sugars that give you an initial lift before the more prolonged energy boost of maltodextrin kicks in.

The mixture is also packed with B-complex vitamins for energy production and mental focus, antioxidants in Vitamins C and E, and of course the standard sodium/potassium cocktail of all energy drinks. Orbana also uses a dose of zinc, which is something I haven’t seen before – it’s supposed to promote active function of the enzymes that help with energy utilization.

(And if you want all the details, you can see a whole nutritional rundown of Orbana here on the website.)

Orbana shipment from Amazon.com

Each 50g packet is meant to be mixed in 8oz of water prior to a workout. The finished product has a fairly thick texture to it, and it’s actually hard to get all of the powder dissolved in that relatively small amount of liquid. From my experience it’s better to mix Orbana with a spoon in a regular glass than to pour it into a sport bottle, because you might have a hard time drinking it through the nozzle. However, once you get it mixed, the taste is relatively pleasant; I’d say they succeeded with making the citrus combination sufficiently palatable for regular use.

As to how it impacts your high-demand workouts or races … I really have no idea. This is where you come in. If you’d like to try a couple of Orbana sample packets, leave a comment below this post. I’ll pick three winners at random, and announce the results here on Saturday, October 15th. If you win, you agree to use the packets within a few weeks, then leave your feedback (good or bad – be honest) in the comments section below. I may move those comments to the main body of the review at some point as well.

(UPDATED: I made the feedback into a separate, giant review post - check it out here.)

If you'd rather skip the giveaway chance and just want to buy your own packets now, Orbana sells packs of five single-serving pouches for $13.46 from Amazon.com.

Thanks to Orbana for sponsoring this review and giveaway even though I’ve been a total slacker lately, and good luck to everyone!

*Product provided by Orbana
**See other product reviews on sidebar at right. If you have a product you’d like reviewed, contact me at info@runningandrambling.com.



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Amazon Returns; Random Shots of Beauty

One important administrative note before today's post: if you read this blog directly on the webpage (as opposed to e-mail or some kind of feed service), you may have noticed that I've returned my Amazon.com banner ad to its former spot at top right.

The whole tax battle between Amazon and the state of California is far from settled, but something of a cease fire has been called while the two sides negotiate and the courts and lawmakers try to figure out some kind of compromise. So after heartlessly firing 10,000 of us a few months ago, Amazon has now decided to invite its California affiliates back. (I know, I know ... I probably have some self-esteem issues here - but that's a separate point.)

I've mentioned before that I don't do any real fundraising for this website, but affiliate sales certainly make the whole "labor of love" concept a bit more justifiable. There's a rundown of my affiliate partners on my support page, but suffice it to say that if you click through my website to shop at Amazon (at least for the next 12 months or so), I'd be extremely grateful. Help me help you, and all that.

Thus endeth the fall pledge drive. On to regular programming ...

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They say every picture tells a story ... but what if those stories are told in a way that's hard to understand?

In my opinion, that doesn't make them any less compelling. Exhibit A is these pictographs from the inside of a cave at Lava Beds National Monument; I have no idea what the story means - but the mere fact that someone was on this exact same spot trying to tell it is pretty darn cool.

I have a story of my own about these rocks - almost certainly less dramatic than that of the original authors - which I'll tell next week sometime.



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