GrumpysMonkey

Recently several people have asked me more about the barefoot running and I figured I’d take a few minutes to share more about it in case anyone is thinking about making the switch.

1. Are you really running barefoot? No. We’re running with five finger shoes. These shoes provide enough protection that small rocks, glass, and small tree branches don’t hurt. Yes, having parts of the shoe between your toes is a bit weird. But other than making it a little hard to get the shoes on the first couple of times, they feel just fine.
2. Do your feet hurt? No. Well, not really. You need to build up slowly with running barefoot. Your arches will get tired quickly and the balls of your feet will be sore the first few times because you’re running with little to no padding so the feeling is much like a bruised sensation. For me, this feeling took about a month to go away. It took me a month to go from zero to 3 miles each run. The first couple of weeks I was doing quarter and half mile runs and that’s it. But now I’m up to 5 miles and I could probably go further if I just had the time. (We’ve been busy).
3. What about knees, hips, ankles? I’ve had a history of knee and hip problems. But since switching to barefoot running, I’ve had no problems at all. My calves are tired because the motion of barefoot running, when you’re landing on your mid-foot rather than you heel is a lot harder on your calves. But your calves are designed to take it. So other than taking some time to build up calf strength, I’ve had no problems whatsoever.
4. Do your feet get cold? A little. Particularly when running on wet ground or on wet leaves, some water does seep into the shoes. And when it is cold outside, the first quarter of a mile is kind of cold on the toes. However, once you’re running, you don’t really notice it anymore unless you run through a puddle.
5. So why do you do it? Really, go read the book Born to Run. There’s a lot of technical information about how and why, but basically, when you land on your heel, your leg is extended in front of you and that actually hyperextends your knee (which is bad). When you land on your mid-foot (the fleshy padded part), you actually land with your foot almost directly underneath your body, Your leg is still kind of bent and this is how the knee was designed to work.
6. What about speed? Your stride is very different barefooting than with shoes. You’re basically just lifting your feet and using momentum to propel yourself forward. So stride length doesn’t really factor into the picture. It took me a while to figure out how to go faster. I was stuck about a minute per mile slower than I was with shoes. But I finally figured it out today and I was back to my old speed. Basically, you need to maintain a straight back and sort of angle your body forward to increase momentum.

Some other information.

So I’m a pronator. What that means is that when I land on my foot (my left particularly), the ankle and foot sort of bend inward a bit. This can cause all sort of problems, including knee problems. This is why I’ve had knee issues. So I’ve been investing in expensive shoes that are supposed to try to prevent pronation. Unfortunately, they can’t fix the entire problem no matter how expensive the shoes so you still end up with knee issues. The theory behind barefoot running is that the pronation is actually fixable when your body learns that it has only itself to rely on (and not those expensive shoes). I haven’t had my stride analyzed since I started barefooting, but I do know that I have no idea where my knee brace is and I DON’T CARE. I haven’t needed it since I started this. Not only that, but no more shin splints, no more hip pain, and I can run multiple days in a row. We ran 4 miles this morning and I actually ran partway back from the grocery store this afternoon. I NEVER could have done that in running shoes.

I want to try this. How do I get started?

If you’re seriously interested in barefooting, there are a couple of things I suggest. First, get the book Born to Run. Read it. Then if you’re in Seattle, do a lesson with Barefoot Ted. He’s local to Seattle and you can do an intro lesson with him and bring up to 4 friends. He’ll give you exercises to get started and help you figure out your stride. We did this and it was very helpful. We’ll go back in a month or two for a refresher lesson to make sure we’re still doing everything correctly.

Ok, so this is sort of a rant.

Today, on Twitter, someone was complaining about random re-tweets. Those things that happen when you say something, someone you know repeats it, and then someone they know repeats it again. They felt that somehow their privacy was being invaded because the person repeating what they said was a stranger.

This irks me a lot. First of all, my dear husband, asked this person about it. Now something you should know about John. He’ll support any position if the logic is there behind it. Not saying he’ll agree with it, but he can get behind you for believing it. But, there must be logic behind it. If your argument isn’t logical, he’ll try to help you figure out logic to support it even. Even if he doesn’t believe in it. You want to know how to support a position? How best to convey your beliefs? Talk to John.

John asks why this person is upset over something said in public and gets jumped on because he’s trying to understand the logic.

Twitter is a public platform. Things you say are not private. Even locked accounts (those for which you have to approve every person who follows you) can be re-tweeted. So nothing you say is completely and totally private. It is much like blogging. You cannot control who reads a public blog. Anyone, in any country (well, any country that doesn’t restrict traffic) can read your blog. Criminals can read your blog. Nothing is stopping someone with bad intentions from reading your blog. Nothing is stopping someone with good intentions from reading your blog. Unless you’re password protecting pages or posts, what you write WILL be accessible by a shit-ton of people.

Twitter works the same way. What you say on Twitter is available to the general public. What other people say on Twitter is available to the general public. If you use Twitter, it is your responsibility to know that what you say is for public consumption. If what you’re about to type isn’t intended for public consumption, then DO. NOT. SAY. IT. 

There’s no hostility here. I have no ill will towards the person who made the initial statement. They are a lovely person with a lovely blog.  I am merely pointing out what I see as an inaccuracy. What is put on twitter is public. That is a statement of fact.  What you write on your public blog is public. Don’t have  any expectation of otherwise.

There’s not much of a point to this post. Other than just to get it out there.

I want to write.

I want time to play games.

I want time to sit on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, and crochet while watching a movie.

I want a weekend at home that doesn’t require cleaning.

I want to write again for pleasure, for myself, for no reason at all.

I want a day, or a week, or really, more than a week, that isn’t scheduled. That isn’t filled to the brim with work and posts and chores.

Yes. I am OK. I am just tired and overworked and unsure that will ever change. I work more than most people realize. I love my life. I love my work. But sometimes I just want a break.

We’re going to get a new faucet for the kitchen.

We’ve decided on a style, and now we have to pick a color. We’re debating between stainless steel and tumbled bronze.

Here’s a link.

You can see both colors on that link.

Our cabinet knobs are chrome, our dishwasher is stainless, and our fridge is stainless. But we will likely replace the fridge within 5 years and the cabinet knobs are easy to replace.

Our house is a 1915 Seattle style craftsman. So we do like to preserve the older look of the home.

Thoughts? I want to order in the next day or two.

This time I’ll talk about food. I’m not always entirely happy with the style of my food writing. I want it to be somehow more. I’m not sure if I want more variation or more punch or more emotion, but something more than what I’ve got now. But since I’m also hypercritical of myself and unwilling to make too many changes on Cook Local without having tried them first, I’ll do some writing samples here. Feedback always appreciated.

Though it is nearly an abomination given the quality of food we normally eat, right now, at work, all I have to eat that I can describe right now is a snack sized Milky Way.

Is there anything more ubiquitous than thesnack sized candy bar? The perfect brown rectangle, with just that hint of molding on the top that you want to believe is the chocolate dripping off of a spatula, but is really just a mold to give the impression of uniqueness…

The smell is familiar. It’s the chocolate of my childhood. Though now that my pallete has been exposed to so many high quality chocolates, I can detect the slight chemical scent in the aroma.

Biting into the bar my jaw vibrates. My teeth and my tongue can sense the overload of sugar that’s about to flood my mouth and I think they are protesting. The caramel sticks to my teeth while the nougat coats my tongue. After the first two tentative bites, when I don’t even want to finish it, I dive right in, downing the rest of the bar in less than ten seconds. The sugar has just taken over and demanded more.

Like any cheap thrill, there is an aftertaste and I can feel the cheap chocolate, with its high fructose corn syrup sitting in the back of my throat. Water is a necessary accompaniment to a cheap candy like this, though right now, all I want is another.

Ick. I can’t say I like much of any of that. But then again, this is just an exercise.

So here’s my current list of things that annoy me. I’m sure I could come up with more items that annoy me if I was at home, but right now I’m at work on my lunch break, so this is the best I can do.

1. Our freezer. It’s too full and we have to fight to get it closed.
2. Our kitchen sink. The faucet is too short and awkward and throws water everywhere.
3. Our washer. It is a front loader and there’s no “SOAK” mode. I can’t get my dish towels to not smell stale.
4. Our closet. Not organized. Not enough space. My side particularly. John’s side is fine.
5. Our pantry. There’s always shit on the floor in front of it. Always tripping over stuff.
6. Shelves above our stove. Not organized, can’t support a lot of weight.
7. Our fridge. We lose stuff. Things go bad. Seems there’s always more moistsure than there should be (and it isn’t an old fridge)
8. Our breakfast nook area. We’ve been toying with removing the table and putting a butcher block type wheeled cart in there for food prep.

So, I need to decide what to pick off next. We’ll go to the plumbing store this weekend to see about the kitchen faucet. But what next?

Obviously we need to keep money in mind. There are a few things we have been weighing.  

1. Do we want to spend the money for a heater upstairs? It would likely be about $7K.
2. Do we spend the money on a new washer and/or dryer?
3. What do we do with the pantry? I’m sort of out of ideas for that. I can’t quite get my head around what we need to do there.
4. Same goes for reorganizing the shelves above the stove.
5. The breakfast nook would be easy to mark off other than figuring out what butcher block to buy or whether to use the one we have in the guest room.
6. Then speaking of the guest room… we need more bookshelves in there. Maybe we spend the money on that.

I know I’m just talking out loud here and there aren’t any “right” answers. But for those of you who know me and read here (all 3 of you), what would you do? Any thoughts?

Last Friday I went on my longest “barefoot” run yet. I made it almost 4 miles. I took a couple of walking breaks, and my feet were plenty sore by the time I got home, but I made it. I’m now no longer worried about running the Jingle Bell Run in December. Now I just need to work on my technique and my speed.

“Barefoot” running is slow. You’re taking very short strides, since your foot is supposed to land directly underneath your center of gravity, so you need to work on cadence more than anything. Supposedly the ideal cadence is 90 (which is actually 180 steps per minute). Right now my comfort level is about 155. You are supposed to increase your cadence at the same rate as your mileage – no more than 10% per week. But I”m still working on being able to comfortably run around the lake regularly, so I’m going to work on that before I really focus on cadence. I hope to be working on my cadence by the end of the month.

Since it gets dark so early now, I don’t have a lot of time to regularly run, so I’m trying to bring the VFF’s to work every day and go for a 30 minute walk each day that it isn’t pouring out. So far so good and the daily walks will also help me drop a few pounds, which will make the running that much easier.

Today’s post will be more of a creative writing exercise. I’m not sure where it will take me, but I’m going to sit down while enjoying a cup of coffee and just put some words on a page (or rather in an electronic box).  Ideally I’d like to try to do these writing exercises two or three times per week. I still have dreams of getting back to writing a novel (or maybe even finishing the one I got so close on years ago) and regular writing is the way to do that.

A hand touched her face. Fingers explored her wrist, finding a pulse and she stirred, the first vestiges of consciousnessstill clouded. Suddenly, almost violently, she was awake, taking deep drags off the oxygen mask like she hadn’t had a hit in months.

She remembered everything. The dark figure dropping from the ceiling. Fumbling for the gas mask stored in the emergency locker and nearly having it secured when the figure, a man with broad shoulders and black leather gloves ripped it from her head. The tattoo on his left wrist was burned into her brain. A black dagger stabbing a cobra that looked to circle his entire wrist. Then the pain as he slugged her and the clatter of her shoulder hitting the emergency locker as she went down. The last thing she saw as he stood over her were his black Nikes.

Her only questions were these. “What (or who) had he come for?” and “Did they have any idea she had a photographic memory?”.

I’m contemplating trying to blog every day this month both here and on Cook Local. You see, it is NaNoWriMo again (national novel writing month) and every year I lament that there’s no way I’ll be able to participate. i just don’t have the time.

But I think I can blog every day, even if I just short little posts. I’ll use it to get back to my personal blogging, and to do more with Cook Local. I’ll try some new things, try to build a community around Cook Local, and just get into the habit of writing more. I really want to get back to writing for pleasure (and not just for the blog). I’d like to get back to writing fiction.

But onto today’s post. Things that annoy me. I’ve decided that over the next year, I’m going to try to get rid of the things that annoy me most in my life. (No, John isn’t going anywhere.)

The first of those annoying items is gone as of today. We purchased a chest freezer and now the freezer attached to our fridge can be easily opened and closed. We can find things in it and we’ll actually have room for ice now! Yay!

Our sink

Next up is the kitchen sink. We need a new faucet because the current faucet it way too short and ends up spilling onto the backsplash all the time. It isn’t long enough and the water ends up running onto the division between the two sinks and getting everywhere. Plus, I’ve got to lean way far forward to get to the faucet.

I could use some help though. Anyone have an idea as to what to do with this area behind our sink? It collects water and gets very dirty. We’ve taken to putting a dish towel behind there all the time to sop up the water.

Also, any ideas for faucets that would work? We’d love one that is high and curved or one that has one of those extensions that can be used by hand.