Christopher McDougall's Blog, page 18

World's Best Barefoot Coach.

I've been lucky enough to learn from a lot of excellent barefoot runners and natural-running coaches. Dr. Mark Cuccuzella in West Virginia and Ryan Miller in Boston are top-notch; they teach Danny Dreyer's ChiRunning and are masters of making the technique easy to learn and remember. Ken Mierke, the Annapolis-based coach developed Evolution Running and first got it through my head that form is everything, is also a superb instructor.

But every time I run into Lee Saxby, I learn something...

Reinventing Running: "Something bizarre happens in this activity all the time. Case in point…"

To Scott Jurek: "Have you considered drug-running?"

ULTRA RUNNER from Cedar Wright on Vimeo.

Breaking news from Nike: We've been talking a lot of crap, and selling it.

Or in the exact words of a study co-authored by Gordon Vailant, Nike's head of biomechanical research:

"Our current approach of prescribing in-shoe pronation control systems on the basis of foot type is overly simplistic and potentially injurious."

This is mindboggling and explosive stuff, and no one explains it better than Peter Larson. Essentially, one of the top minds at the world's top sports shoe company is admitting that the whole running shoe business is built on nonsense. The second...

Even GI Joe is afraid of running shoes

U.S. military researchers finally stepped in to settle the dust and resolve the running shoe debate. Their question: do running shoes cause the injuries they're supposed to prevent?

Their answer: Hell yes! Or as they put it:

Researchers found almost no correlation at all between wearing the proper running shoes and avoiding injury. Injury rates were high among all the runners, but they were highest among the soldiers who had received shoes designed specifically for their foot types. If...

"One injury that I have always had that never seems to go away is plantar fasciitis.."

I got home, took the KSO's off, and had some blisters, but my PF pain was gone. I was amazed and bewildered.

—Sean Filner, former plantar fasciitis sufferer.

Next time you come across one of those befuddled news stories which ponder whether minimalist running is a fad, consider the case of Sean Filner. Like many runners, he turned to natural foot motion after suffering endless injuries in running shoes. I've yet to meet a runner who turned to shoes because of problems with natural foot motion. ...

The Secret of Eternal Youth, in haiku and video.

Focus on easy

first. Because if that's all you

get, that ain't so bad.

—Micah True, aka Caballo Blanco

And such ageless form:

Short, quick strides. Feet under hips.

Backs straight, but relaxed.

The end to road rage, Panda Express and middle seats

"I'm always a hopeful kind of guy," says Bothwell, who has been in regular contact with Yoeli's design team for the past two years. "By 2010, I can see us having five or six X-Hawks in our fleet." But by then, Yoeli reckons, you may already have one in yours.

—From "Going Way Off Road," New York Times Magazine, Sept. 26, 2004

Six MIT studs are making more than just themselves look smart. Six years ago, I wrote a story for the New York Times Magazine about the race to create the first...

TED conference, July 11: Reinventing Running

What if every runner had as much fun as Catra Corbett always does?

TEDx, the worldwide conference series devoted to "ideas worth spreading", invited me to speak at the Washington, DC event on Sunday, July 11.

http://tedxpennquarter.com/speakers

It's at the Newseum, and limited general admission tickets are available. While it's been hard recently to avoid talking about running shoes, I'm not planning to focus on feet. Instead, I'm more interested in drilling down into transferable skills...

TED conference, July 12: Reinventing Running

TEDx, the worldwide conference series devoted to "ideas worth spreading", invited me to speak at the Washington, DC event on Sunday, July 12.

http://tedxpennquarter.com/speakers

It's at the Newseum, and limited general admission tickets are available. While it's been hard recently to avoid talking about running shoes, I'm not planning to focus on feet. Instead, I'm more interested in drilling down into transferable skills of the Tarahumara, looking at realistic ways we can adopt the best...