Chris McDougall's Naked Tour came to Town on Sunday. There was a fun run for the event which Ken Bob, Bob Saxe, Cliffiord and I planned the route the previous weekend.
I walked to my car to head out to A runners Crircle which was the start point of the run (great store BTW..) and my car was dead! What the hell am I gonna do?It's 12:18 and the run starts at 1pm and I am 20 miles from the start point. I was freaked! I had no ride so I called my buddy Barefoot Bob Saxe, who was going to be attending but lives on the opposite side of the start. He says "i can pick you up, we might be a bit late but we'll get there". Bob, you rule man. So we got there just in time for the run and we shared some running stories on the ride over and Bob tells me he used to run marathons and he's hoping to do another one, this time barefoot.
Upon arrival one of the first people I see is Patrick Sweeney (aka Bourbonfeet)! I have been wanting to meet Pat ever since he first started posting on the RunnersWorld forums. Pat is really fast, he's got a 2:27 marathon PR and. He is a fun loving guy who's trainign methods are very unorthodox but are really effective. He trains solely barefoot (pardon the pun) and runs almost all of his mileage in dep sand by the ocean.I think he ran 133miles the previous week barefoot. I am pysched to finally meet the man, he is taller in real life and looks younger too!
I continue to take in the sights, there must be almost a hundred runners but only a handul of us barefooters, maybe 10.
Bang...Ken Bob heads out and we are off running. I start off with Pat and a few others life is good. The course seems much harder this time around, the uphill seems never ending. I haven't been running much after the marathon. so I am huffing a little bit. Up from behind I am about to be passed and it's Chris McDougall! I introduce myself and tell him " great book man" and he responds "well thank you very much"a totally cool, genuine character I can tell. He passes me by he is running in Vibrams and the tough technical mountain trail in Griffith Park is Challenging me. Pat is gone at this point I don't know what or where he went but this freakn hill is killing me! We reach the summit and Chris Mcdougall is standing on top and givs me a high five and says everybody remember to give Ken Bob the finger for picking this course! Now the fun part! The downhill section. Downhills on rough trails barefoot are one of my favorite new challenges! I flew past everybody except one other speedy barefooter up ahead and then out of nowhere Clifford pulls along side o me! Cool! Clifford is darn good on thr trails barefoot so we scream cannonball and float and fly down the hill. When running barefoot on downhills( trails escpecially ) you can't fight gravity or you destroy your feet. You have to just lift your feet and freefall, pick your feet up very quickly! It's great practice for the understanding the perception of freefalling. Ran pretty hard to the finish. I think it was about 5 or 6 miles I didn't have a gps on.
Now everybody is milling about and getting their copy of "Born To Run" signed, myself included. Scott Jurek is aslo there and I got to meet him get his John Hancock as well. We all hung and talked, heck, Pat and I were there until everybody had gone. What a great day. Well done.
