Christopher McDougall's Blog, page 8

If you doubt barefoot running is on the rise..

…check out the mob at the NYC Barefoot Festival. Only 2 years old and already booming. Barefoot Ted's monkey-powered cart was the No. 1 hit (well, excluding the free kegs of Smuttynose pale ale). Watching Ted both pull and be pulled caused Dr. Lieberman to label him "both a rickshaw wallah and a shirtless barefoot sahib."

You don't stop running because you get old. You get old because…

The Dipsea Demon made it a motto, John J. Kelley made it a tradition by barely slowing during decades of marathon, and the New York Times reports it's now corroborated by German researchers:

A few years ago researchers at the German Sports University Cologne took a close look at the finishing times of 400,000 marathon and half-marathon runners between the ages of 20 and 79. They found no relevant differences in the finishing times of people between the ages of 20 and 50. The times for runners between 50 and 69 slowed only by 2.6 to 4.4 percent per decade. "Older athletes are able to maintain a high degree of physiological plasticity late into life," the researchers wrote.

New WR for Fastest Fun-Runner on Earth

I met Chris Solarz more than a decade ago, back when the stock market crashed and legions of Wall Street bankers were turned out in the streets. I was writing an article for Inc Magazine about how these masters of the universe were handling their sudden joblessness. Chris' story stood alone: the day he was laid off, he found himself heading down on the elevator with his sad box of desk possessions in his hands, wondering what to do next. He could have gone on a bender; he could have started looking for work; instead, the East River caught his eye as he walked out the door, and in that moment, he decided he'd spend the rest of the year — and a good chunk of his savings — training to swim all 28.5 miles around the island of Manhattan.

Since then, he's bounced back from joblessness to become a successful and sought-after global investment expert while simultaneously setting records for:

*fastest circumnavigation of the entire NYC subway system;

*fastest marathon while tied to 4 other guys;

*most vertical feet run in 12 hours

*and other stuff I've lost track of.

But what I love is that no matter how insanely grueling the challenge Chris sets for himself, he always seems to be having a blast. Check him out here, after getting off a plane after an overnight flight and hopping right into a marathon in Brazil. He's the happiest guy on the street, maybe because it also gave him his latest world record.

Hope you enjoyed it, Mr. Vice President

What are you reading for pleasure? Have you made it through any good books since becoming Vice President?

I read a great deal, but not everything I read is for pleasure. Some of the books I've read recently are Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell; Switch by Chip and Dan Heath; The Icarus Syndrome by Peter Beinart; The Wisdom of Gandhi; War by Sebastian Junger; The Freedom Agenda by James Traub; The Next 100 Years by George Friedman; The Wrong War by Bing West; The Social Animal by David Brooks; The Starfish and the Spider by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom; and Born to Run by Christopher McDougall.

— From a Washingtonianinterview with Joe Biden.

Busted in Boulder: The Graphic Novel

From Jenny Uehisa, who caught the showdown on film just when things were getting testy:

"A kind of wild dirt magazine sort of version of 'Born to Run' that honors the true free spirit of what a lot of these people are like."

Peter Sarsgaard, who was a creative writing student under the great Stanley Elkin at Washington University before becoming an actor, talks about his vision for the Born to Run movie and about adding his own screenwriting touch to the script. He's certainly done his homework, including: interviewing Barefoot Ted at the Leadville Trail 100; getting up at 3am to watch the start of the race; running roundtrip to the top of 12,500-foot Hope Pass; debriefing Prof. Lieberman on evolutionary biology; and chasing down Caballo Blanco for a sit-down.

In the Court of The Barefoot King

Naked Beer Run: The Musical

Kris Wood, you're a guerrilla videographer genius:

Barefoot Beer Run from Kris wood on Vimeo.

And that's some fine body art:

Naked Beer Run II

4th Ave Pub is on standby to welcome 60+ sweaty, semi-shod runners this evening at the end of our 8-ish mile Naked Run across Manhattan. Feel free to join us anywhere along the route. We're leaving Central Park at around 5 (or whenever my friend and new Guinness Record Holder Chris Solarz manages to slip out of work). "Mailbox Mike" Oliva, co-creator of the Fat Ass-style free marathon series, will also be there (Mike earned his nickname at the Vermont 100 in 2006, when he got so hungry and delusional he looked in someone's mailbox along the road for food).

****Schwag Alert*****

Michelle Hinsvark of always-up-for-a-party Vivo Barefoot just got in touch to say she'll be waiting for us at the pub with icy pitchers and free Vivo giveaways. So thanks to Vivo, you may head home loaded and sporting a swanky new pair of Ultras.

Keep in mind, this run is strictly for fun, plus to see if I can avoid taxis and subways the entire time I'm in the boroughs this weekend. Wear whatever you like on your feet — I'll probably have on some minimal shoe, since my soles are a little raw after roasting them doofishly during a way-too-hot asphalt run yesterday. Don't worry about pace, or anything else: everyone handled last summer's Harlem-Brooklyn Run without a problem (even the guy in jeans and a long-sleeve shirt who carried a book instead of water), so if you show up with shorts and a handheld, this will be a breeze.

The 1st Naked Run: Harlem-Brooklyn, Aug 2010

"It hurts to do stupid things."

Barefoot Ken Bob weighs into the New York Times debate on barefoot running. As usual, his insight is the keenest.

The response from Runner's World? "Still anecdotal on key issues."

Sigh. Like watching the Titanic go down.

What happens when you let a bunch of 5th graders out of school to run wild?

Their math scores go through the roof. And one of the best parts? This wasn't some government program or mandatory phys ed requirement. This was one teacher firing the kids up and leading them out the door. What a hero.