CLIF Bar Seasonal Flavors Giveaway

“Then shalt thou count to three - no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out.”
- From Monty Python and the Holy Grail (video clip after post)

I can’t say with any certainty whether the CLIF Company bases their inventory policy on Monty Python’s fictional Book of Armaments, but one thing is sure: when it comes to their seasonal flavors, the number of the counting shall be three.

Here’s what I mean: for the past two years, CLIF has released a trio of limited release flavors with a holiday theme.  Last time around, our family tested all of them, and each flavor was outstanding – so much so that we went out and stocked up on all of them in December, before they disappeared from the shelves for another nine months. (Once the bars sell out of stores, they’re gone for the year – so if you see them, grab them quick.)

This year, the seasonal flavors are back, and the press release that accompanied my sample shipment announced the debut of a new flavor in the lineup: Peppermint Stick, which is about as wintery-sounding as you can get. However, when I was picking my way through the box, something seemed amiss – so I e-mailed my CLIF rep to ask about it.

Me:  Does this mean that the Cranberry Orange Nut Bread flavor is discontinued? That would be a bummer - we all really liked that one.

Her:  That is correct, but I promise you won’t be disappointed with the Peppermint Stick!

Apparently there isn’t enough room in the holiday lineup for four flavors, so this season, as in years past, there are three – no more, no less. The lineup for 2011 is Iced Gingerbread, Spiced Pumpkin Pie, and Peppermint Stick.

CLIF Bar 2011 seasonal flavors; photo courtesy of CLIF Bar

I have to admit that I’m still a little bit disappointed by the development, as I definitely preferred the old Cranberry Orange flavor to the new Peppermint Stick one. It’s simply one of those individual preference things, but I should also point out that I am strongly overruled by my kids, who all love the new Peppermint Stick bar.

It’s no wonder, really. The new flavor tastes almost exactly like a candy cane on Christmas morning – except, you know … one that’s totally good for you. Like the other seasonal flavors, CLIF’s Peppermint Stick is all-natural, made with organic ingredients, and packs the same wholesome balance of carbohydrates and protein for sustained energy that regular CLIF Bars are famous for. In other words, they’re just like other CLIF Bars, but a little more festive.

They’re also a little more charitable; like last year, 1% of sales from this season’s holiday CLIF flavors will be donated to the Winter Wildlands Alliance, a national organization working on behalf of cold-weather athletes and outdoor adventurers to address issues that impact winter recreation areas. It’s all in the spirit of giving, which is something CLIF does exceptionally well.

On that note, I’m pleased to announce that CLIF is doing some festive giving through this website as well. In conjunction with this post, CLIF will award 4 bars of each holiday flavor (12 bars total) to three different readers. Leave a comment below this post to enter, and winners will be announced on Saturday, October 29. Obviously, a very big thanks goes to CLIF for sponsoring this contest, and good luck to everybody!

*Products provided by CLIF Bar

"Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch", from Monty Python and the Holy Grail (click to play):





Get updates as soon as they're posted! Click here to subscribe to Running and Rambling.

Check out the Running Life book for a collection of our most popular columns.

Read more...

Soft Star Holiday Specials; Barefoot Running Book Winner; Random Shots of Beauty

Before we get to the main order of business for the day, there are a couple of cool sort-of-holiday-related announcements from Soft Star that are worth passing along …

The first is that you can between now and October 31st, you can purchase the black and silver version of the RunAmoc Dash for 20% off – just use coupon code TRICK when checking out to receive the discount.

Soft Star RunAmoc Dash

You can read my RunAmoc Dash review here, and pick up the sale version either for yourself, or perhaps for that special Raider fan on your gift list.

Also, Soft Star's Moc3 has been a very popular style for the company this year - and for very good reason -  but until now it’s only been available in solid black. If you’re one of those who wants a little more color in your life, you can now get the Moc3 in brown to match your fall wardrobe, or red in preparation for Christmas. Click here to choose your new Moc3 color.

Moc3 in red or brown.  Sorry the image is so small - that's all they have online right now

*
Business item #1 is announcing our Barefoot Running book giveaway winner. Marlon Magdalena: e-mail me your contact information – you’ve won! To everyone else, thanks very much for entering, and remember that you can pick up the book for $11.55 from Amazon.com in traditional or $12.99 in Kindle format.

*
Item #2 is our Random Shot of Beauty, which continues the sort-of-holiday-related theme. Also, I took two similar photos this week and couldn’t decide which one to use, so you’re getting a bonus RSOB this weekend thanks to my indecision. (You’re welcome.)

Because Central California typically enjoys summertime weather well into October, sometimes the only reminders that the holidays are approaching are when you start seeing pumpkin patches in unusual places …

… such as this one beside a lettuce field in Salinas (click to enlarge) …

… or this one in front of a pasture near Hollister, a town which unfortunately is more famous for a clothing company of the same name (which actually has no origins here) than for the beautiful rural ranch community that it’s been for the past 150 years.

Finally, speaking of the holidays sneaking up on us … stay tuned for another cool giveaway next week.



Get updates as soon as they're posted! Click here to subscribe to Running and Rambling.

Check out the Running Life book for a collection of our most popular columns.

Read more...

Altra Intuition Women's Running Shoe Review and Discount Code

Quick reminder before today's post: you've got one more day to enter my Barefoot Running book giveaway. Winner to be announced tomorrow night.

**
There’s been a fair amount of buzz this year about Altra entering the market as a revolutionary new shoe company … but I don’t really believe it.

After all, they’re not doing anything that other companies haven’t done before. The barefoot-inspired natural running revolution is well into its third year now, and by this point just about every variation of natural footwear has been tried. The key to success today is to work with the base of knowledge that’s out there, and develop products that deliver high performance while maintaining the pure biomechanics that naturalists have come to demand.

On that basis, Altra scores very high marks. They’re a company that’s a little bit late to the party, but one who has clearly done its homework on what natural runners are looking for. Over the past few months they’ve debuted a variety of models aimed at specific types of runners: the Adam and Eve for pure minimalists like me, and the Instinct and Intuition for zero-drop midsole fans like my wife. (They also have a trail-specific zero-drop model, the Lone Peak, scheduled for release very soon.)



Altra Women's Intuition

I’m lining up an Adam review for the near future, but in the meantime my wife got first dibs on evaluating the Altra company by testing their zero-drop women’s model, the Intuition. (Get it? Women’s Intuition? It’s a lot better than naming it “She Knows When You’re Lying”, I guess.) Truthfully, she’s an ideal person to test the shoe, because as I’ve mentioned in the past, she’s not onboard the pure minimalist bandwagon yet, but she really likes wearing flat-platformed athletic footwear.

That’s also the reason why I don’t consider Altra to be particularly ground-breaking, because the Intuition is at least the 4th zero-drop running shoe my wife has tested for me over the past year or so. It’s also not the first female-specific running shoe in this category she’s worn – I’ll throw in some comparisons as we go along - and there’s nothing particularly remarkable about the construction. However, the Intuition has rapidly become her favorite running shoe, to the point where she’s already shopping for a second pair – which is also reason enough for us to take a closer look.

From the top, the Intuition looks pretty much like your standard trainer, with a breatheable mesh upper that provides good ventilation in hot weather. The upper has asymmetrical lacing that is designed to be open in the foot’s natural flex zones, providing a secure fit with fewer pressure points. The upper is also shaped in what Altra refers to as an A-Wrap, which makes the midfoot area snug while leaving the toe box area more roomy.

Merrell employs this same concept with its Barefoot shoe line, but the midfoot of the Altra isn’t nearly as snug as Merrell’s models. To many runners, that will be a point in Altra’s favor, as one common criticism of Merrell’s shoes is that they are too narrow in the forefoot, making them difficult to put on or uncomfortable to wear for long durations. From heel to toe, the shape of the Intuition’s female-specific last is wider than Merrell’s Pace Glove, which is a strength or a drawback depending on your preference. One of the things my wife really likes about the Intuition is the width of the toe box, which gives her feet plenty of room to splay upon impact.

All Altra shoes come with two insoles, one of which helps accommodate zero-drop newbies. The “support” insert has a molded arch and heel wrap like traditional insoles, which helps ease the transition to flat platform shoes. The “strengthen” insole is completely flat with no arch support, which is the recommended choice for truly natural mechanics.

As for that zero-drop platform: it’s approximately 10mm high, but the shoe has a total "stack height" of 21mm, providing plenty of cushioning for a smooth ride. My wife feels that the Intuition diminishes impact much more effectively than the GoLite Micro Lite or Merrell Barefoot Pace Glove. She feels the ground impact much less with Altras; from my minimalist perspective, this was disappointing, but from her “I just want natural biomechanics with the comfort of a regular running shoe” standpoint, this is her favorite aspect of the Intuition.

Part of the explanation for the comfortable ride is a midsole material called A-Bound, a proprietary compound which Altra claims returns energy back to the foot with each step. There’s also something called a Natural Ride System, but I’m not quite certain how it works. Here’s how the website describes it: A combination of unique design elements and materials, working together to let the foot do its thing. Components include outsole and midsole componentry with proper metatarsal parabola, Zero Drop, and foot shaped lasts working together to allow you to run as nature intended. No artificial flavors!  If you can make sense of that, you’re doing better than me. Whatever they’ve got going on in there, it certainly makes for a comfortable platform.

One drawback of the midsole is its relative stiffness, as you can see in the above photo where I’m really pushing hard to curl up the shoe. I’d like to see slightly more flexibility here, but newcomers to zero-drop shoes may appreciate the similarity to traditional trainers. Weight of the Intuition is 8.1oz, which is comparable to regular running shoes (as well as the 9.0-oz Micro Lite), but significantly heavier than the 4.7-oz Pace Glove which is also a lot more flexible.

Altra uses different outsoles on its minimalist and zero-drop shoes, and the Intuition features a FootPod design which mirrors the bones and tendons of a naked foot. This is intended to allow maximum flexibility at all the points where your foot wants to flex, but I suspect that some of the effectiveness of this outsole is hampered by the stiff midsole. Otherwise, it’s a very durable rubber material that’s ideal for roads and grippy enough for fire roads or mellow trails.

Obviously from a spec standpoint, there’s nothing about the Intuition that jumps off the page to make it clearly superior to the other models my wife has tested. So when construction features are a toss-up, you go with how the shoe feels – and by that standard, the Intuition has clearly been the running shoe of choice for my wife this summer and fall. It offers an ideal combination of natural biomechanics with the protection and comfort of traditional running shoes. It’s not exactly revolutionary, but it’s pretty darn good – and that’s probably the best you can hope for from any new company.

The Altra Intuition retails for $100 from the company website, but if you use this link for your shopping, 10% of the purchase price will be deducted at checkout.

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



Get updates as soon as they're posted! Click here to subscribe to Running and Rambling.

Check out the Running Life book for a collection of our most popular columns.

Read more...

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!



Get updates as soon as they're posted! Click here to subscribe to Running and Rambling.

Check out the Running Life book for a collection of our most popular columns.

Read more...

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.




Get updates as soon as they're posted! Click here to subscribe to Running and Rambling.

Check out the Running Life book for a collection of our most popular columns.

Read more...

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.

*
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.

*
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.



Get updates as soon as they're posted! Click here to subscribe to Running and Rambling.

Check out the Running Life book for a collection of our most popular columns.

Read more...

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.



Get updates as soon as they're posted! Click here to subscribe to Running and Rambling.

Check out the Running Life book for a collection of our most popular columns.

Read more...