Korea bike touring wrap up

While it’s tempting to fall into the trap of writing in the style of “Day 1, I woke up, had some breakfast, and rode my bike through the Korean countryside until I found a nice motel and had a really interesting dinner before a settling into a much-needed sleep” I find those kinds of tales to be the least-creative and most-boring types of tales, so I’ll avoid that.  And my en route post of last week was a good general summary of what my trip was like, so I’ll add a little to that here. 

Generally I found the cycling in Korea to be great; they have put in an ambitious effort to create a lot of long bike paths (I was able to ride straight into the heart of Seoul with nary a single car to deal with!  Just needed to watch out for the many cyclists) and off those paths the secondary roads were generally lightly traveled with slow, courteous drivers.  The only thing lacking was detailed maps using english characters; this was actually a bit surprising since – fortunately – all the road signs were done in both Korean and english, which meant that I didn’t have to spend a lot of time trying to decipher the Korean characters.  As I had moved off of Jan Boonstra’s map I was navigating by a very large-scale tourist map and the sun, which worked fine until it started raining and the sun was gone.  As I was trying to exit a biggish city I rode for a couple of hours trying to navigate my way out north of the area using smaller roads only to stop at one point and realize that I had done an exact loop back to an earlier spot.   But at least I knew where I was!  But the day ended nicely as I sniffed out a riparian bike path for about 50km that whisked me down to a town with not only a motel to dry off but also a super-cool museum of Buddhist carvings and artifacts.  And that town was on the Four Rivers cycling route, so the next day I rode the last hundred km along it to Seoul. 

Once in Seoul I had gotten the beta that the Bukansan national park was worthy of a visit.  This is a great place: it’s literally within the Seoul city limits, and to access it I took the subway for 45 minutes, got off, ran through an urban area (that included brand-specific stores by The North Face, Mountain Hardware, Merrell, Gregory, etc) and hit the relatively burly trails.  The trail I chose went up 750m (2300 or so feet) in 2.5km (less than 2 miles) for an average grade of approximately 30%; they don’t mess around with silly low-angle trails and switchbacks!  Not surprisingly, this national park officially (according to the omnipotent Guiness) has the highest visitors per land mass of any national park in the world; ie it’s the most crowded!  Clearly the aforementioned mad Korean hikers love to take advantage of the convenience to the 8M people in Seoul.  Regardless of its popularity, it’s got some dramatic granite faces with brilliant splitter cracks, and I know that there are two classic climbs called “Chouinard A” and Chouinard B” from YC’s time spent there as an Army guy (NOT the Korean war; he’s not that old!). 

Overall Korea is a worthy cycling destination in that it has all the correct components:  nice rolling terrain in rural areas, not a lot of traffic, relatively quiet cities, cheap/nice/well-spaced motels, a deep, rich culture that is quite different than ours, great food, and  - a bit unusually – incredibly simple access in and out of the major cities on perfect bike paths.  The only negatives are the lack of maps in english, lack of ANYONE outside of Seoul who speaks english and a challenging language to “learn” (though the numbers are quite easy), high heat/humidity in the summer, and lack of decent camping opportunities (no campgrounds and pretty much every inch of arable land is cultivated and otherwise there’s thick undergrowth.  But the cheap/plentiful/nice motels make up for the lack of camping, and that means less stuff to carry…..

Following are 90 pics with captions, if you are so inclined....

As I left Busan on the bike path, they had some benches that provided beautifiul freeway overlooks. 

The concept of Korean “exercise” is mostly unresisted movement.

This guy had a mobile bike shop; he parked alongside the bike path and sold bike stuff

Tubes, bells, blinky lights, tools, etc

This bike path is right on the outskirts of Busan, a city of several million people.  Hard to believe.

The Koreans do not mess around with lame bikes

A few km from Busan I met this owner of a bike shop.  He was excited to hear that I was from Reynolds (wheels) hometown.

When I saw “information” at the top of this sign, I was psyched  Unfortunately, the rest of the actual information was in Korean….

This guy wouldn’t sell me half a melon, understandably.  I couldn’t really fathom eating a whole watermelon, throwing away half, or toting most of one, so I didn’t do anything

Not really sure of the reason for or appeal of this “building”

I remembered that the Nazi swastika was an adaptation of this, which is a holy emblem on Buddhist temples.  Such painful irony. 

Leaving the idyllic bike paths for the roads wasn’t that bad.  A pretty typical scene, with pretty typical traffic. 

a clearly very-staged photo

taking a break from the burly flat terrain

I found out later that Korean “bullfighting” is actually that: they put two bulls in a ring to do a sort of bovine sumo match. 

Some locals who got a big kick out of the traveling gringo

The guy on the left surprised me by speaking good english; he had served with Americans in the war. 

A far cry from my buddy’s Pinarellos and Ridleys!

Tilling a rice paddy.  Pretty impressive that the engine wouldn’t get flooded.

I rode through what appeared to be a big garlic area.  I think it’s the national flower! 

I was there during the harvest, and I could smell garlic in the air. 

Traffic Jam

More traffic

This bike’s name was not thought of by a marketing expert….

12.9 percent at the end of a hot day took its toll on me....

Apparently “KOM 1km” needs no translation (if you’re a bike geek, that is; “King of the Mountain” in one kilometer, for non-geeks; consider yourselves lucky!)

More great bike paths

Traditionally Korean people have slept on the floor. 

At the end of a 150 km day, I ended up at this “motel” that was a traditional-style home. 

My nice proprietoresses

I stumbled into a cool museum of masks; it focused on local traditional masks like these

some more awesome masks

cracking myself up

some ladies psyched to have their picture taken

At a traditional village that servd aed as both a museum and a "real" community, people apparently didn't want to actually walk the 1 sq mile. 

another way to avoid walking

It was a great place to continue my quest to create a coffee table book called “Tourists Around The World”

This was a presentation that only happens on weekends at one time, and I happened to bumble into it.

It is a big favorite of kids, which was a bit weird considering that the climax was the evisceration of the “cow

I went to a cave that was actually quite cool and tried to take some pictures until I realized that photos of caves are totally lame

This city was completely relocated in the mid-80’s due to displacement from a dam

The best bridge to nowhere I’ve seen.  Pretty big bridge that was pretty much done, but literally went from nowhere to nowhere.

It was nice to know that I was entering a “Heavenly Blessed Land”. I was hoping that it would manifest itself in not getting hit by a car.

I got pretty hammered by the heat/humidity and got pretty de-electrolyted; I hoped that Korean pizza was a good recharge!

Koreans make plenty of money, and many of the big American athletic companies are queued up to separate the Koreans from their won. 

I like trying street food, and Korea had plenty of opportunities for it

with plenty of chilies! 

As I tried to exit the only big city I encountered I saw these cranes/herons doing some fishing; and later I was psyched that I had taken noticed it and taken a picture because after 2 hours of riding I found myself right back at the exact same spot

I’m not sure how this could possibly happen, but it looked like an exciting opportunity

This path had a couple of miles of trestles

So stoked to have gotten out of the city and off the main highways in the rain

I stumbled into a super cool museum of Buddhist artifacts and wood carvings done by a Korean artist who lived on the grounds. 

How can you not think Buddhism is cool when it’s full of guys like this?

This is an example of a Boddishativa, which enlightened beings who give up their sweet state of enlightened peace to go back among the sentient beings to help them attain enlightenment.  Nice guys! 

Some locals

Out on a hike up into the mountains I came across this temple, which was quite a ways up a steep trail.



There was a chain called “Paris Baguette” that took me a few days to discover. 



The gratuitous Buddha.  Impressive that they were able to carry it up into the hills to the temple

Because the trail was steep….

The Koreans are mad hikers.  

 And they take their “trail building” seriously. 

 They take their gear seriously:  “Technical Expert”

They also take their summit picnicking seriously!

 this guy was definitley "Extreme"

I really got into appreciating the Korean culture….

One of the few english speakers I met; she gave me a personalized tour of the buddhist museum. 

 a pretty typical Korean dinner (and lunch, and breakfast) spread....

 

And a pretty typical gringo enjoying a typical spread



I wasn’t the only one appreciating the bike paths; Koreans are pretty avid cyclists, both for getting around….

I'm not sure, but I think this says "Korea loves bikes!"

As I approached Seoul there were a good handful of bike path-based restaurants

Completely supported by cyclists

The lovely proprietress, who served me a great dish of spicy-but-iced noodles

I worked a paceline with this “team” for about an hour as I got closer to Seoul

to reiterate: these guys don't mess around with cheap bikes! 

I took a beautiful, quiet bike path along the river right into the heart of downtown Seoul.  This guy helped me navigate off it into the city. 

 o

Some awesome street food



I asked “is this pyrannha?” (in English) and she nodded vigorously, so I went with it! 



Seoul has a national park within the city limits that you can take the subway to. They proudly point to the fact that it’s the most crowded national park in the world. 

Gratuitous summit shot.   750m in 2.5km; an average of 30%!



It was so hard to resist not giving this temple bell a huge ring!



it was nice to see a brand near and dear to to my heart was there to separate Koreans from their wons. 

All in all a great country for bike touring; very user friendly, nice people, good accomodations, hilly without being burly, good food, and an interesting and rich culture. 





Cycling Korea - quick dispatch

I'm about 4 days into a great bike tour in Korea, and because the accomodations here are so cilivized that a $30 room has a computer in it I thought I'd create a quick dispatch.  For some reason the blogger site doesn't give me the option to add photos  -which are always a little better  - and I need to hit the road, so I'll keep it quick. 

I'm riding from Busan - the 2nd biggest city in Korea, is the major port for the country, and also the shoe "manufacturing" center (they don't manufacture any more; the Koreans, like the Americans, are "using" (exploiting?) cheap labor across the straight in China and now - more commonly - are moving production to Vietnam) to Seoul.   A couple of years ago the government embarked on an ambitious project to create the "Four Rivers Trail"; a route that uses Korea's four major rivers to enable a nearly car-free bike route the entire 450km.  It's pretty amazing that any government - much less an Asian one - would take on a project like this to enable bike touring. 

When I started looking into it I was all over the 4 rivers route, but then I started thinking wow, that has the potential to be pretty flat and boring riding, and about that same time via the interweb I hooked up with Jan Boonstra, a Dutch (I think) guy who apparently has done a lot of touring in Korea and created a really cool route that uses some of the 4 rivers route but also diverges quite a bit into hillier, more interesting terrain.  The route uses the cycle tracks to exit busy Busan - which was awesome - but then veers off about 10-15 miles from town, and despite the fact that it's no longer on the bike path, like many countries most cars stay on the freeways and for the most part the rural roads are super quiet; few cars and people drive pretty slowly here. 

After a few days following Jan's map I decidedf to veer off and head for one of Korea's revered national parks.  I have always heard that Koreans are mad hikers, and I was keen to go for a big run/hike, and it was Sunday so I'd get the full effect of the Korean hiking experience.  And I was not disappointed.   I hiked/ran up to the highest peak in Seboraksan National park, and I literally saw hundreds and hundreds of people, despite the fact that it was quite steep hike for 3000 or so feet.  The hike itself is a whole story unto itself and I've got some hilarious pictures, which I'll post about separately later. 

Veering off Jan's map was a little daunting because of my lack of knowledge of Korean, the lack of knowledge of the whereabouts of motels (I didn't bring camping gear, and feel like I'm paying $20 for a much-needed shower and $10 for a room/bed; I'm pretty much bathed in sweat all day) but thankfully all the road signs are in English as well and I'm getting a sense of how the roads work - and because of the aforementioned motel room computers I've been able to use google maps to identify a route that I can superimpose on my very broad tourist map (I suppose if I had an I-phone that little task would be taken care of....). 

I've been struggling with the heat/humidity; I've been sweating so much that I think I'm losing salt/electrolytes at a faster rate than I can put back in, and I feel like I've been pretty well-wiped out doing pretty moderate efforts.  I was able to sort of rejuvenate myself late in the day yesterday with a full bag of Korean Bugles!   (which I think I've never eaten in the US). 

I'm now in a town that was 100% displaced around 1985 due to the construction of a dam that seems sorta worthless; the "lake" is probably over 100 feet down from it's high point and appears to be about 5 feet deep, so the town is surprisingly-modern in an otherwise sort of rural part of Korea.  There's a cave here I'm about to go check out (not really sure why, but apparently it's one of the "things to do here" and then leap back on the steed to head towards another national park.  I need to be in Seoul to catch a bus back to Busan on Thursday, so will rattle my way towards that goal.

More later.....hopefully with pics, if I can figure out that part (again, if I only had an i-phone.....)

Bike Touring

Even though my first bike tour – when I was fourteen – was pretty much a rainfest on the Oregon Coast, my second tour was an equally damp outing in the San Juan Islands a year later (at an age where it’s pretty easy to get jaded/disillusioned quickly!) I’ve had a lifelong fondness for this awesome mode of travel, and was fortunate enough to find a partner in Ash who shared my enthusiasm for it (she took the unconventional way home from college after graduation:  she rode her bike home to Washington from Yale in Connecticut).   

I’ve since ridden the OR coast (in blazing heat that time), one big, post-graduation trip that took in England, Scotland, Wales, Holland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, former Yugoslavia, and Greece; and after a bit of a hiatus I did a trip to Baja, and once I met Ash we have been on a pretty consistent schedule of at least one or two tours per year and have been to Norway, Bulgaria, Mexico’s Copper Canyon and Jalisco, central Idaho,  Peru’s Highlands, Western and Eastern Cuba, France’s Pyrennees, Italy, Colorado, Montana, Jellystone/Tetons/Beartooths, and a few in Utah as well (I wrote an article for Utah Cycling about last summer’s CO sojourn that just came out here: http://www.cyclingutah.com/june/Cycling-Utah-June-2013-Issue-counter.html - it’s near the end of the issue, which for some reason is having a tough time loading on my machine…).  And on Thursday I’ll be starting my first Asian bike tour, riding effectively 500km from Seoul, Korea to Pusan. 

Ash and I invariably remark on every tour we do:  “Why aren’t more people into this?”  When I did my Big Tour around Europe fresh out of college I thought “man, when people find out how awesome this is, this activity is going to catch on like mad!”

And truth be told that it sort of has along with the meteoric rise in the popularity of road riding, though this growth has come via trips that are done in a bit more controlled manner with people doing guided and/or supported, gear-free trips.  Those are fine, but it always seems like those trips sort of miss out on the what is the essence of being on your bike: the freedom to just go where you will and let the events, weather, accomodations, people, and nutty experiences just sorta flow your way.  I think that one reason that people are sort of turned off by bike touring is that the concept of carrying weight on your bike – when you’re accustomed to zipping along on your 16 lb bike on 23c tires – is daunting.  But the truth is that when you’re on a bike tour the only thing you are doing is riding your bike  - or not – and whether you go 50 miles on a “loaded” rig or 70 miles on a speedster, it doesn’t really matter; you’re just riding along and putting out the same amount of energy regardless of your speed.  And the truth is that you don’t need much:  a handlebar bag, rack, and rear panniers is all that we ever use to tote our gear, and we have definitely done our share of mowing unloaded cyclists down on climbs, so it’s not actually all that slow. 

And you get to really appreciate scenery like this!

And it’s cheap; if you bring camping gear it pretty much costs food (though admittedly we invariably become The Great Metabolizers after a few days, so the food bill goes up!).  And, of course, the great beauty is that for exercise nutcakes like us, the vacation and the fitness are pretty much one and the same. 

Ash (little yellow dot on this low-rez photo) near the top of 12,000 foot Cottonwood pass in Colorado

When I was in Norway I had the unusual experience of driving a lot of roads (finding rivers to kayak) and then riding the same roads a couple of weeks later.  I was amazed at how I pretty much had the life sucked out of me in the car and through lidded eyes and a dulled brain I missed a lot/most of what was going on outside, and how stoked I was to be on the bike later on the very same roads. 

And the opportunities to meet locals en route is remarkable. I don’t know if it’s the fact that touring cyclists are somewhat rare, or they are more vulnerable and therefore approachable, or there’s simply no metallic coccoon around them, but the ability to meet and chat with local folks when on a bike tour is unmatched by any other mode of travel.    A lot of people go to different places/countries to see “things” – natural, ruined, magnificent, etc, and that’s great – but driving and even using public transportation sometimes it’s easy to be separated from locals, But when you show up in a French boulangerie covered in sweat and dust and enthusiastically gobble down some amazing pastries and wash them down with water coming out of the town square spigot; well, for some reason that kind of stuff makes it pretty easy to engage with people. 

An awesome Cuban painter

Some great folks in Paonia

A roadside stand proprietor in Cuba

some folks we stayed with in Cuba

And when else do you get to hang out with barn animals?

That said, Bulgaria’s people, perhaps still affected by the the post-Cold War scene, did not really engage with us much, and I’ll be curious to see if the Koreans (who seem to be known for their industriousness and stoicism) will be similar.  And for sure, in the case of Bulgaria and in Korea the complete and utter lack of any kind of language communication can present a bit of a barrier (in addition, to – I anticipate – a fair bit of consternation as to where to go, what to eat, etc).   And no doubt, you are at the mercy of the weather: wind (I rode for a week down the Yugoslav coastline into the Bora winds), rain (it poured incessantly on Ash after I had to leave her in Norway), heat (I nearly expired on the south coast of Cuba), and cold (I did a 20 mile descent out of the Dinaric Alps with the temp well-below freezing) can be challenging, but part of the fun is dealing with the unforseen challenges that invariably arise. 

Sand is a good challenge as well!

I don’t necessarily feel compelled to “promote” things like mountain biking, backcountry skiing, kayaking, etc because there are already plenty of people doing those activities and the resources are a bit limited.  But Ash and I feel like EVERYONE should bike tour, and the “resource” is truly infinite.  I’m stoked to get back on the steed in a new land.  



Enlightenment

On Thursday I had the pleasure of watching Ash get inducted into The Utah Community Foundation’s Enlightened Fifty Club, which, in their words: “recognizes fifty individuals who are making a measureable – but often unsung - difference in the lives of Utahns through innovation, collaboration and commitment to the common good.”   When she first told me that she had been nominated and chosen, I was a bit taken aback:  “’Enlightened?’  That’s a bit of a loaded term!” because it seems a bit lofty and perhaps a bit snobbish.  And ironically, it was at the venerable Alta Club downtown, which apparently only started allowing women in the building in the 80’s?!?! 

But regardless of the term - and they seemed to be preferring the term “E-five-oh” at the presentation – it was great to see Ash be included in a cadre of people that are both impressive and inspiring in what they’ve done for their communities.  It’s probably fair to say that the talent of these folks and the level of accomplishments would probably put them at the CEO level of many companies, but as it is they are making a fraction of their private-sector counterparts yet, it may be argued that they are getting a lot “more”  ouf of their inspiring work than salaries can account for. Here’s the site with the list of folks:   http://utahcf.org/the-e-5-0/item/1362-congratulations-to-the-2013-e-50

Unfortunately they don’t have the paragraph that was read about each person; they were all really inspiring. 

And here they are:

Where's Waldo/Ashley?

Here’s the slide that was up when they were describing Ash and Wasatch Community Gardens:

 

And here’s the slide for our friend Lauren Scholnick, who’s been a fierce defender of employees’ rights:

 

And I wasn’t quite fast enough to get the slide for Lauren Barros, who has been an equally-strong voice for the lesbian/gay-parent community as well as many others in social justice litigations. 

Here’s the enlightened one, sporting her impressive lapel pin:

 

She was sort of hoping that this ceremony was going to convey upon her in one evening what these guys have spent a lifetime getting! 

 

Maybe next year the E-Five -Oh could convey some saffron robes?

Being generally devoid of any opportunity of public recognition of my own enlightenment, the next morning I went out for what invariably will be the last day of a great ski season with Colter and Tom McFarlane.  We headed up to the late-season icon of the Pipeline at Snowbird:

 

Somewhat challenging skinning and booting got us to the ridge above Little Cloud bowl, and then the broad summit of the American Fork Twins:

 

And then “deep” in this really nice line:

 

Colter finding his own enlightenment by kneeling in the snow:

 

Dropping in to the sick 2^nd to last snowpatch:

And now I just landed in Korea, where I’ll work for a few days before heading out on a bike tour that will incorporate at least some of the “Four Rivers Path”: a government-sponsored/built, relatively car-free bike route of 3-400 miles from Seoul to Pusan!  Should be an interesting adventure. 

Running Shoe follow up

On our little trip last week I was able to read “Tread Lightly”, a book that came out last year that is a bit of an update on “what has happened since Born To Run came out.”  I was a little discouraged initially when they opened with basically a rehash of “those amazing Africans who can run down gazelles” tale from Born To Run that – admittedly – is a pretty amazing thing.  But then the authors (one of them was a high school runner who stopped in college and then rediscovered running at the ripe old age of 30 after he was horrified by a photo he saw of himself and realized he was overweight, and his co-author is a 50ish guy who was a former triathlete who got out of it and then re-discovered running as well as a cathartic endeavor) used that as a platform to go into more depth than BTR did on injuries (why they happen and why they haven’t decreased), a more-thorough history of the modern running shoe, a more-thorough analysis of running barefoot, the rise (and fall) of the concept of motion control shoes, fascinating sections on foot strike and stride length, and also  - interestingly enough – finished with a chapter on nutrition. 

Overall I felt fairly validated that my own opinions that were generally created by observation and anecdotal “evidence” were generally reflected by these guys, who had done WAY more research.  It was pretty clear that both of them have been a bit “saved” by the modern, minimal running movement, but it was also clear that they were trying very hard to be objective, and referred to a lot of studies to back up their theories. 

With regards to the evolution of the running shoe, it’s of course the stuff of legend that Bill Bowerman made the original waffle soles with his wife’s waffle iron blah blah blah.  Slightly lesser-known is that he was also the protagonist of the elevated heel.  His theory was that tipping the skeleton ever-so-slightly forward would actually propel runners forward at a better clip.  At the time he was working with Onitsuka Tiger (the future Asics) before he and Phil Knight started Nike, and he was disappointed that they only acquiesced by 3/8 of an inch, instead of his desired ½ inch (he also is credited with using nylon as an upper material for his steeplechasers, since nylon doesn’t hold water the way that the leather shoes of the era did, not to mention being much lighter when dry as well).  The facts that Bowerman wrote a wildly popular book called “Jogging” and the US team enjoyed good success under his tutelage at the 1972 Munich Olympics  - where Frank Shorter won the marathon  - further entrenched the power that Bowerman’s perspective held. 

The authors’ perspective on the evolution of the “motion control” movement was that there was a general perception that runners pronate and runners get sore knees, so therefore shoes needed to control this movement.  They reference the military study that I had heard about that measured arch height and arch flexibility, and also analyzed the long-held association of the “wet test”; that is, your wet footprint – flat, normal, or obviously high-arched – with shoe style selection.   And they had found some other, more recent studies that put motion-control shoes on a variety of those who “needed” them and those who didn’t.  These studies proved pretty conclusively that a) arch height as indicated by the wet footprint test has   relevance to how much support one needs, b) medial posting – the most common method of limiting the pronation movement - doesn’t actually work, since our legs/body overcome that slightly-denser foam anyway, and c) those people who did pronate actually got worse with motion control shoes!  “Every runner in the highly pronated group who were supposed to be wearing a motion control shoe got injured.  In fact, highly pronated runners actually fared better in neutral-cushioned shoes.”  In 2011, a study was published in a British journal of medicine that concluded:

The findings of this study suggest that our current approach of prescribing in-shoe pronation control systems on the basis of foot type is overly simplistic and potentially injurious.

(http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/45/9/715)

 Interestingly, one of the co-authors of this study was Gordon Valiant, who is an old friend of mine and has been doing basic research at the Nike Sports Research Lab for eons (and, not only did Gordon run a sub-2:00 half mile at something like 45 years old is one of the biggest forefoot strikers I’ve ever seen!).  To be fair to the giants, good on Nike for allowing Gordon to be published like this…..

So why did it take 40 more years of before people started questioning the concept of an elevated heel and anti-pronation efforts despite the fact that many of the major shoe companies employed/engaged biomechanists and there was never any actual information that either of these things actually helped at all?  The authors point a lot of blame at shoe stores that were using oversimplified metrics (“the wet test”, watching people run from behind) yet were eager to sell people shoes, but having been in the biz for a while, I think it’s a bit more complex than that.  It’s a bit of a circular cycle:

 

I show magazines as being at the center of the problem, which is not necessarily the case;  they don't have that much power.  I think it’s more that they have a small effect on all the participants in the cycle who have little incentive to make dramatic changes.

I must say that I think it’s quite hilarious that despite 30-40 years of shoe companies trying desperately to one-up each other with their patented Flubber technologies it was a shoe sole­ company (Vibram) that introduces a product (Five Fingers) that changes their industry, and that product wasn’t even intended to be a running shoe in the first place!  Though this actually takes a bit of credit away from other companies like Newton, Hoka, Inov8, Vivo, etc that were being developed at the same time, and as mentioned earlier, Nike helped a lot with the Free.   

The book's section on stride length and footfall was quite provocative.   Basically, they indicated that most people – especially at the slower, more recreational level – overstride, which inherently creates a toes-to-the-sky, heel-first strike that is then supported by a thick, cushioned shoe heel (and is more taxing on the system, which may account for the fact that the average marathon times have gotten slower and slower over the years).  And what barefoot or minimal running effectively forces you to do is shorten/quicken your stride, but the truth is that you don’t need barefoot/minimal shoes to do this; you can just do it.  I’ve been experimenting a bit on this with both running and skinning on skis (after the brilliant Colin Gregerson told me in no uncertain terms that longer skinning strides are an absolutely less-efficient way to go uphill faster) and find it pretty effective.    And they pointed out that running faster – shorter intervals, fartleks, etc – is a great way to “pull” people into better, less-overstridy form in addition to increasing cardiovascular capabilities (as I love to say:  if you wanna run faster, just run faster”). 

And finally, nutrition.  They pointed out that “Boston Billy” Rogers did the entire running world a bit of a disservice by winning consecutive Boston and NY marathons in the late 70’s while espousing a diet of ice cream and mayonnaise-laden pizza, and that people have this opinion that “if I run, I can eat a LOT”.  Which means that a lot of recreational runners don’t necessarily see the pounds melt off/stay off the way they “should”, and that even as people are trying to shave ounces off their shoes, they may be allowing weight on their body to add – according to some studies – 2.5 seconds per mile for each extra pound on the body (over the “ideal” weight).  And extra weight changes the way the body is carried in the running motion, and change can manifest itself in injuries.  And the modern trend of sugary energy burst “food” products reinforces eating more - and not as nutritious – calories in general.   They advocate “turning back the clock on nutrition” (the name of the chapter) and reference Michael Pollan’s “Eat Real Food.  Not Too Much.  Mostly Plants” quote as a good summary that a diet of whole foods, fruits, veggies, etc can help manifest more injury-free running.  An interesting way to wrap up a book that’s ostensibly about legs, feet, and shoes.

If you’re a running geek or a shoe geek, it’s a great read, and if you’re only mildly interested it’s still a pretty good book.

http://www.amazon.com/Tread-Lightly-Footwear-Injury-Free-Running/dp/1616083743

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