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July 7 - September 12, 2021
Mike Sweeney,
Ferg Hawke,
Pam Reed
Mr. Bad-water himself: Marshall Ulrich,
Luis Escobar.
Sunny Blende,
they knew there was no voice in the world more persuasive than the one inside Scott’s own mind.
Scott wasn’t settling for best in the world; he was out to be the best of all time.
he was up against the Curse of Ali: he could beat everyone alive and still lose to guys who were dead (or at least, long retired).
The heroes of the past are untouchable, protected forever by the fortress door of time—unless
Jenn “Mookie” Shelton
Billy “Bonehead” Barnett,
“Barefoot Ted”
He could be totally demented or merrily inept, and the result would be the same: out there in the Barrancas, we’d be cooked.
Living on the edge wasn’t about danger, he realized. It was about curiosity; audacious curiosity,
They were expected to accomplish nothing, so they could try anything. Audacity beckoned.
The Dharma Bums
“Try the meditation of the trail, just walk along looking at the trail at your feet and don’t look about and just fall into a trance as the ground zips by,”
Charles Bukowski
“If you’re going to try, go all the way,”
Jenn always went full speed ahead, only dealing with stone walls after she hit them.
her despair was replaced by elation,
Young Gun ultrarunners were like Lost Generation writers in the ’20s, Beat poets in the ’50s, and rock musicians in the ’60s: they were poor and ignored and free from all expectations and inhibitions. They were body artists, playing with the palette of human endurance.
“When I’m out on a long run,” she continued, “the only thing in life that matters is finishing the run. For once, my brain isn’t going blehblehbleh all the time. Everything quiets down, and the only thing going on is pure flow. It’s just me and the movement and the motion. That’s what I love—just being a barbarian, running through the woods.”
“Nothing works out according to plan, but it always works out.”
Barefoot Ted.
“I’m a pauper by choice, and I find it extremely liberating.”
Few ever saw this Ted. That was their great loss—and his.
“the dramatic dance between sunlight and shadow,”
What fascinated Chase wasn’t action, but anticipation; not the ballerina’s leap, but the instant before takeoff when her strength is coiled and anything is possible.
Running shoes have only been around about as long as the space shuttle;
“Barefoot Ken Bob” Saxton.
Abebe Bikila—the
Charlie Robbins,
Shoes block pain, not impact! Pain teaches us to run comfortably! From the moment you start going barefoot, you will change the way you run.
“No wonder your feet are so sensitive,” Ted mused. “They’re self-correcting devices.
Mother Road 100—one hundred miles of asphalt on the original Route 66
But not Scott; he just sat back, amused. He caught everything and seemed worried by nothing.
Enrique Creel, a land-raping kingpin of such dastardly magnificence that the Mexican Revolution was essentially thrown in his honor.
Most of all, though, he wasn’t used to being responsible for anyone besides the guy inside his own sandals.
Evil had followed the Tarahumara here, to the bottom of the earth where there was no place left to run.
“This concept of bricolage—that less is more, the best solution is the most elegant.
Dr. Daniel Lieberman, a professor of biological anthropology at Harvard University: “A lot of foot and knee injuries that are currently plaguing us are actually caused by people running with shoes that actually make our feet weak, cause us to over-pronate, give us knee problems. Until 1972, when the modern athletic shoe was invented by Nike, people ran in very thin-soled shoes, had strong feet, and had much lower incidence of knee injuries.”
“Humans really are obligatorily required to do aerobic exercise in order to stay healthy, and I think that has deep roots in our evolutionary history,” Dr. Lieberman said. “If there’s any magic bullet to make human beings healthy, it’s to run.”
people went thousands of years without shoes. I think you try to do all these corrective things with shoes and you overcompensate. You fix things that don’t need fixing. If you strengthen the foot by going barefoot, I think you reduce the risk of Achilles and knee and plantar fascia problems.”
Every year, anywhere from 65 to 80 percent of all runners suffer an injury.
That’s big bucks for sneaks you’ll have to toss in the garbage in ninety days,
“We’ve seen tremendous innovations in motion control and cushioning. And yet the remedies don’t seem to defeat the ailments.”
there’s no evidence that running shoes are any help at all in injury prevention.
a twenty-billion-dollar industry seemed to be based on nothing but empty promises and wishful thinking
