Timmy O’Neill decides to hire Scott Jurek and find out:

(Source: Cedar Wright)

I really wasn’t sure what to expect going into the race. It starts at 11:30 in the morning on a small island off the coast of Maine, where you run multiple loops along the 2 mile paved road that goes from one end of the island to the other.

Because it is such a small event, you get a lot of personal attention that you just can’t be afforded at a larger race.

Because you run out and back on the same loop 8 times, you get to know all of the other runners and volunteers throughout the race as you pass one another over and over again.

Pre-Race Training

Going into this race, I didn’t know what to expect. I ran the Exeter Marathon back in April, and since then have run the Pineland Farms 25k and (a week later) a 12.1 mile mountain run at Sunday River.

Other than those 2 runs, though, I haven’t really gone over 12 miles for a single run since April as I’ve been keeping my mileage in the low to mid 40s for the most part. The longer runs that I have gone on have been predominantly on the trails.

Not exactly what I would call prime training for a 50 kilometer road race.

Why Run GCI?

Gary Allen invited me up to run the race and mentioned some of the folks that would be there, such as Chuck Engle (the Marathon Junkie) and Larry Macon (who has run 105 marathons in a single calendar year.)

I thought that the concept for the race sounded fun, despite being called crazy by my friends.

Some thought that running loops over and over again would get boring, others think that even a half marathon on the roads is too long and why not run on trails, and some thought both.

For myself, I figured that it would be a good introduction to what it might be like to do a 12 or 24 hour loop race.

For a timed race, you strive to go as far as possible in a certain time limit rather than to cover a certain distance in the shortest amount of time. The 50k would only involve about a 4 hour commitment while giving me a good idea about what it might be like to constantly cover the same ground.

I’ve also found that I really enjoy the smaller races that don’t have hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands of runners. Add that on to the fact that Great Cranberry Island is a few miles off shore from Mount Desert Island, we would have permission to camp out for the night, and they’d feed us beer and lobster, and how can you say no?

The Personal Touch

Gary Allen and Mary Ropp, the race directors from Crow Athletics, were wonderful hosts.

When you got off the ferry, there were signs there to greet the runners and let them know they were in for something special.

For example, one said, “If you start to feel good during an ultra, don’t worry, you’ll get over it.”

Another said, “Life is short, running makes it seem longer.”

As we began the half mile or so hike to the fire house and church where we’d be pitching our tents, we noticed that the runners names were nailed to the telephone poles, which makes for a nice souvenir to take home after the race.

At the start and finish area, there was plenty of space to lay out your own personal aid station and for the most part was plenty of food and drink to get the runners through each lap. There were two official aid stations, the second being an unmanned water stop near the far side of the island.

The locals on the island all came out to watch, and some kids set up their own aid station near the ferry. Their aid station was my favorite, with cold water, plenty of gatorade, and hosings on demand.

With the extra aid station, this meant that in total there were 45 aid stations along the 50 kilometer course, which is almost 1½ aid stations per mile. Many residents also set up sprinklers near the side of the road, which was great because the temperatures were a record high of 97 degrees with 90% humidity.

There was a Life-Flight helicopter demo scheduled for the island the day of the race, but because the President was vacationing a few miles away on Mount Desert Island they grounded all unnecessary flights.

This meant that we got to set up our tents before the race instead of having to wait until afterwards, which was convenient as it’s always easier to bend down and pound in stakes before running over 30 miles.

Unfortunately, a boy from the island flipped over his handlebars and hit his head after the race started, so they needed to call in the Life-Flight Copter after all. So, while the tents were all set up, they’d all been dragged into the woods so the helicopter could land. I’m pretty sure that I heard that the boy was back on the island by the time we sat down for the lobster bake and that he was okay.

The Race

Given the record high of 97 degrees and the 90% humidity, I think that it is safe to say that it was not quite cold, even on the starting line. Everybody was in high spirits, though, as we lined up and got ready for the shotgun start.

Yes, you read that right. The race was started with a shotgun.

Before the race, Chuck Engle asked me if I was up for going out in 6:10s, which if you read above about my training you’ll understand why I got a good laugh out of that.

My original plan was to go out in 7:30s and to use a run/walk system similar to what I did at Exeter.

With Chuck jumping out to an early (and never relinquished) lead, I settled into a 7 minute per mile pace that I felt was comfortable enough not to destroy me later in the race. Plus, it allowed me to run with Adam Daniels and Ty Thurlow.

I’ve raced Adam a few times before and I knew that Ty was itching to run slightly faster than I was planning on, and the conversation was enjoyable between the three of us so I decided not to use the run/walk and be forced to run alone right away.

We stayed together for the first loop, and then Adam and I pulled away from Ty a bit. Adam wound up sitting in second place for about 18 miles, although I took a quick trip into the fire house at mile 7 (the start of loop 3) so he ran most of those miles on his own.

My new strategy, since I’d decided against run/walk, was to just stop and take a break any time I wanted, usually at the start/finish area where I could grab some food or drink from my bag or (in one case) a banana from the actual aid station.

That strategy served me very well, as I felt very comfortable up until the last 5 miles or so, and never had much worse that a slightly sore lower back. I think a large part of it was that I consciously made an effort to smile and say something positive at every person that I passed in the other direction or lapped, and it’s hard not to enjoy yourself when you spend so much time with a big grin on your face.

The course itself was pretty flat. There was a small rise near the ferry, but I actually enjoyed that hill because there was a good breeze coming through and a lot of shade from a big tree.

The hill at the far end of the island wasn’t quite as steep but was a bit longer, and while I didn’t notice it the first 5 or 6 loops it definitely seemed to get larger on the last 2 or 3.

I feel that I managed the heat really well. I was glad that I decided against going shirtless, as there were a lot of sprinklers and hoses along the course and the ocean breeze did a great job cooling me off as I travelled from hose to hose. I stopped after about 2 hours of running to reapply my sunscreen, although I was sweaty enough that I don’t think that it did much good. I did get a little color on the back of my arms and on my shoulders where my singlet rubbed the sunscreen off but nothing painful, thankfully.

I could tell it was hot, but I never got uncomfortable. I think that the high temperatures and humidity for my runs and races the last few weeks did a good job acclimatizing me, and unlike most of my runs recently there were no deer flies to bite me as I ran on the island.

About halfway through the race, I saw that there was a very real possibility that Chuck was going to lap me, and even though I knew that today wasn’t a day for me to beat him I’m too competitive to take that sort of thing sitting down. I let him know around lap 5 that it wasn’t going to happen, and I spent my second to last lap using my finishing kick to make sure it didn’t.

I needn’t have worried too much, though, as the heat and the extra 5 miles finally got to Chuck and his last couple of lap splits weren’t too far off from mine. I had enough time at the end of loop 7 to visit the firehouse rest room again and to return from the ferry side of the course to meet Chuck coming into the finish a quarter or half mile out for him.

At that point, I knew that I had second place pretty much set and slowed way down.

Throughout the race I’d slowed down to run with folks that I was lapping and get to know them a little better than just from encouraging each other as you pass in opposite directions, and I did a bit more of that in the final 2 to 3 miles.

I never did do any run/walk (except when eating a banana) but I did stop and stretch at the last turn around and chat with a local that was walking up the road there.

On the final stretch back to the finish line, I saw that Amanda Labelle was having a great race and had taken a commanding lead for third place. In fact, if I didn’t watch myself, there was a chance she might have caught me. In the end, I only beat her by less than a 3/4 of a mile. (Her last loop was at 7:37.5 pace and she was only 5:38 behind me.)

At the finish line, I got my finisher’s medal from Chuck and shortly thereafter got the great and totally unexpected surprise.

There Is Nothing Cooler

When I met my wife, she was just starting to train for the Maine Marathon. She got injured right before the race and couldn’t run, and had worked up to a long run of 22 miles. This was about 6 years ago.

Since then, she started running half marathons again a few years ago and even ran a 25k trail race this year, her longest race to date and close to if not the longest training run she’s done since 2004.

Her plan this weekend was to come out and get in a long training run of about 16 to 20 miles (4 or 5 loops) and to crew for me. She took photos at the start of the race, and actually started a few minutes behind everybody else.

In her second loop, she grabbed the camera again and took some in-race photos of the scenery and we even got a nice picture of the two of us as we crossed in opposite directions (Thanks again, Jose!)

I didn’t realize she’d been running the entire time at that point, and a few laps later I even had her run down to the tents to grab something that we’d forgot to put in our backpack near the aid station. The entire time she was running, everybody kept asking how she was feeling and how far she planned on going.

After I finished, she came running by. “I’ve run the 5k loop at the start and 5 laps of the 4 mile loop, I think I’ll do one more,” she said to me. She wasn’t looking too comfortable, and she wanted some of the watermelon and blueberries we had down at the tents, so I got to start crewing for her.

I was wondering if she hadn’t done the math in her head and whether she realized that running an extra loop was going to get her further than a marathon, which she has never run.

Well, she knew. She came back up from the ferry side of the loop looking much better, especially after getting some watermelon, and she said that she was going to finish the race.

I caught up with Gary while she was out finishing loop 7, and we found another advantage that these small races have over larger and less personal races. Gary just wanted to know a few things:

• Did she start with everybody?
• Does she have a watch going?
• Did she do the first 5k loop?
• Does she know how many loops are left?

After hearing yes to all of the above, he post-registered her for the race and let the timers know to give her an official finishing time after she finished 2 more laps, and he would make sure she got a finisher’s medal and a lobster. (We paid at the lobster bake after the race.)

When Erin finished loop 7, she was very excited to hear that she was now officially a part of the race, and that she could now actually make use of the food table (not that there was a ton left or that she wanted anything other than the blueberries from our own cooler.)

She was hurting, and she did a lot more walking in that last loop, but she finished her first ultramarathon.

You never know what you are capable of, and most of our limits are ones that we put on ourselves. Had the race not started with a 5k out and back, Erin may never have tested herself to the point where it made no sense not to finish.

Erin may have been the only person to finish the entire distance that hadn’t started the day planning on running 50k, but she was hardly alone in finishing her first ultramarathon. She wasn’t even the only person to finish her first ultramarathon before finishing a marathon.

There were a lot of great performances, and I’m glad that we got to be a part of it.

The After-Party

Following the race, there was a lobster bake. Gary brought in 2 kegs, one of Guinness and one of Bar Harbor Ale.

He figured that a gallon of beer per mile was about right.

There was also a fireman’s supper going on, but we had plenty of food between what the runner’s brought and the corn and lobsters that Gary was cooking that I never got around to going inside to get anything else.

Some people were silly enough to leave after the race and catch a ferry back to the mainland, but I was having too much fun hanging around getting to know all the people that I’d seen over and over again all day (runners, volunteers, and spectators) that I can’t imagine why you’d want to take off.

Most of the overall awards had been given out at the finish line, but the third place female overall award was still there to be handed out and everybody got an additional finisher’s rock.

The awards were round granite stones, beaten down over the past 20 million years by the ocean right off the island, and labeled appropriately.

Around 10pm, it was pretty dark out and Gary got everybody’s attention: It was time to “make ourselves invisible” and clean up the start/finish area. So, we all headed up to the road and spent 15 or 20 minutes in the dark picking up the aid station tables, cleaning up the trash, and taking down the archway over the road.

It was actually a bit of fun, and there were enough hands that it was pretty quick and easy. After we were done we went back behind the church to continue partying, although Erin and I retired pretty shortly after that as we were both pretty tired.

Leaving the Island

Sunday morning I was up at 6:00, but not too many people were moving around. Erin said that the tent city really started to get up around 6:20 or so, but by then I had already taken off on my hike.

My original plan was to head out a mile or so to where my name tag was hanging off a telephone pole to take it home with me, but I noticed a few hundred yards down the road that there were some cups on the ground so I turned around and rooted around in the fire house until I found a (mostly empty) trash bag that I could carry with me.

I wound up hiking the upper part of the course. There wasn’t much trash from the runners, only 3 gel packets, 1 can of an energy drink that had been served, and some cups that had been carried away from the aid station. Most of the trash I found was cigarette butts and beer cans. In other words, about what you’d normally expect on a trash run.

Whoever had cleaned up the aid stations the night before had done a pretty good job cleaning up the trash and cups, especially by the unmanned station which was very clean all around.

I got back to the camp around 7:30, and everybody was moving around starting their day. Erin had picked up all our belongings from the tent, so I just needed to break the tent down and fit everything back into my duffle bag.

We were able to get to the ferry dock for the 8:20 trip back to Southwest Harbor. We wound up having breakfast back on MDI with Helen Bradler and John Tallarico, who had run the race in 4:52:49 and been annointed the sexiest couple on the course by Chuck.

Unfortunately, the place we ate at only had turkey bacon and no real bacon, so I went with pork sausage instead.

I feel pretty good after the race. My lower back ached towards the end, but it felt better within an hour or two of when I stopped running and nothing else ever bothered me during or after. Erin was pretty sore, but not as sore as we’d both expected that she’d be.

That’s the advantage of properly managing your fluids and nutrition during a race like that, I guess.

If you’ve ever thought of running a marathon, I highly recommend heading out to Great Cranberry Island. Crow Athletics puts on a great event, and it should go on everybody’s list as a must-visit race. If you would rather crew or just go for a training run, that’s encouraged, but you just might not get a lobster afterwards.

As for myself, I’m going to plan on fitting it into my schedule again next year.

This was the largest margin (that I’m aware of) that Chuck has ever beaten me by in a race, and I’d like to see how the race progresses when I’m actually in the kind of shape I like to be in when running an ultra. (Namely, I’d like to have at least a few long runs under my belt…)

Hopefully we can get a good competitive race next year, if Adam, Ty and Amanda all come back and we can convince some other speedy folks to come out and race with us. In better conditions, I could see a few people going under Chuck’s new course record, and could even see a sub-3 50k out there.

(More Info: Race Site – Full Results [PDF] – Photo Galleries: RTW – MJ – CA)

We were running a wee bit late out of the house on the way there, and it took a while to find someplace to stow the car at the race, so my warmup was a little lacking at just under 9 minutes.

That’s all right, though, since the humidity meant that it didn’t take much to warm up my muscles anyway and it did it’s most important job: it cleared my head.

I still felt tired and woozy on the drive over to the race despite resting my eyes most of the way (obviously, Erin was behind the wheel.)

While warming up and standing at the stating line, I saw a few people that are normally much faster than I am on the roads, and one person that I thought looked familiar and who warmed up in a BAA singlet but whom I hadn’t met…maybe I had seen him in New England Runner at one point? Turns out that he was Mike Dowling, a 2:34 marathoner. (That’s another way of saying that he’s a lot faster than I am.)

So…now that the race is growing so rapidly, and is bringing in the faster runners, how is that going to affect my race strategy?

Turns out, not so much. The course was a little different this year than in year’s past due to some trail maintenance on Fox East, so in the first couple miles you get to stay on the snowmobile trail quite a bit longer and cut out some of the single track.

The additional wide double track meant that my normal strategy of going out in front of everybody so that I could be the first to the narrower and more technical trails was going to be a little more difficult, and the faster guys on the starting line meant that it was going to be that much more important.

So, it was time to line up while Ian Parlin gave his pre-race instructions. He included the normal directions about trail etiquette and how the course is marked, and also shared the story about Chris Douglass and why the race is in his memory.

This type of trail race was the sort of thing that Chris loved, and he died in a car accident a few weeks before the first Scuffle.

His family has been very involved with the race right from day one. Quite a few of them ran and/or volunteered this year, including his mother who won her age division!

I took a front position on the far left of the starting line despite the slight turn towards the right at the beginning so that I could go out as fast as I wanted and not have to hurdle a large stone that sticks out of the trail around the corner on the right side.

The race starts on one of the Knight’s Woods Trails, and I went out as hard as I could for the first quarter mile to build up an early lead and kept up a pretty hard pace the rest of the first mile or two.

Coming up on mile 2, I heard Mike coming up on me on some of the easier single track, but then we turned onto the Bat Cave trail. This trail has pretty technical single track and a lot of loop backs, and with the previous night’s rain it was a little slick in places.

My goal was to put in a surge after every blind corner so that I would stay out of sight completely and wouldn’t give anybody behind me any motivation to try and catch me late in the race.

It worked. I believe that this was Mike’s first trail race, and he wasn’t familiar with the course while I’ve run it many times.

The race was basically a time trial the entire way, especially once I’d gotten a little ways into this initial stretch of single track. Knowing which corners I needed to slow down for, which would have trees I could slingshot around, and which turns really weren’t that bad so that I could maintain my speed helped me stay upright and maintain my momentum. It also helped that I know where the roots and rocks are so that I could easily choose my path.

I spent the next couple of miles comfortable that I wouldn’t be caught, but pushing as hard as I could to open as large a gap as possible before reaching the aid station where you leave the single track to get back onto the snowmobile trail.

The aid station is around 3.75(ish) miles. I didn’t waste any time, but blew past without even thanking the volunteers. (I knew them both and figured that I could catch up to them after the race and thank them then.) I thought that it would be better to keep up my pace than to worry about getting water.

My biggest concern was that one of the faster guys from the starting line was going to get onto the double track and run me down once we were away from the technical parts of the course. I didn’t want to lose.

The trail rolls a little uphill for a third or half of a mile past the aid station, and goes through a few good sized mud puddles that had filled in from the storm but were still smaller than in years past. Then you get a good mile plus stretch that is straight down where you can really fly. I didn’t want to get caught.

The way that I see it there’s basically 2 key strategies to winning this race. First, being the first to the single track, and second, using your finishing kick 2 miles from the finish when you reach that downhill stretch.

You don’t know you’ve hit that downhill right away because it isn’t straight down at first, but being able to make use of that trail won the race for me the first time I ran it and has stood me in good stead the last two years. If they can’t see you when you reenter the Knight Woods at the end, then there’s less motivation to try and catch you.

There are some small hills in the Knight Woods, and a couple of sharp turns, but it’s a short section of trail that you just need to maintain your finishing effort through.

I was still alone, but I kept imagining that I might hear somebody behind me and kicked as hard as I could right through the finish.

I came in under 40 minutes for the first time, about a minute faster than the first year I ran the race. Some of that I think is because you have a longer stretch of double track at the beginning, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the course was a little shorter as well. My goal next year is going to be to break the course record on the original course so that I don’t have to worry about it’s legitimacy.

I wound up winning by about a minute, which was good for a loaf of banana bread and a $50 gift certificate as a prize. Trail Monster Running won the team event, so I also got half a case of Smutty Nose which I shared around at a post-race BBQ.

I hung out at the finish line and gave a high 5 or shook the hands of probably 90% of the finishers (I took a small break to help Ian out with the results). A lot of people must have fallen today, since at least a third of the people had sandy/muddy hands and palms.

Everybody cheered really loud when she crossed the finish line, which she powered right through the chute and actually collapsed into my arms.

Thankfully, I caught her, since I wasn’t expecting her to just fall over since nobody has ever actually done that to me before. I think she might have actually been aiming at Ian, though, since she repeated the maneuver for him once she had gotten back on her feet.

Thankfully we got some rain the night before the race to muddy up the course a little bit since it’s been way too dry lately. The rain was enough to drive away most of the deer flies, who were only in evidence at the finish line and who didn’t bother me at all during the race.

I wore my Nike waffles during the race, which were a little slick in some of the muddier spots but I stayed upright the entire way. I wound up skiing probably 4 or 5 times but always regained my balance quickly without losing too much momentum.

There are two more races in the Bradbury Trail Running Series, and this year I plan on actually running all three. So far, the Scuffle has been the only one I’ve been able to compete at.

Here are some pages of interest if you’d like to know more about the Bradbury Scuffle:

• Race Site
• Race Results
• Facebook Page (course photos)
• Course Preview Video
• Course Map [PDF] (2010 Interactive Map)
• Race Photos
• Race Reports:
  • 43:36 – Jeff Walker
  • 46:28 – Ryan Triffitt
  • 49:10 – Jamie Anderson
  • 50:04 – Danielle Triffitt
  • 57:10 – Valerie Abradie
  • 62:10 – Kevin Robinson
  • more as they are found…

Rather than relying on opinions, she decided to get to the truth of the matter…

Okay, I had to prove it to myself. If it was just a matter of high humidity that gave me a super soaked shirt, then I didn’t want to continue to speak negatively about the Atayne shirt’s wicking properties, SO…

I did a little experiment with the help of my bachelors-in-chemical-engineering husband, Casey. Thanks, Brock, for the idea.

The Experiment

I took 5 different brands of shirts, and ran on the treadmill in each one for exactly 5 minutes after a 10 minute warm up. I weighed the shirts in grams before the run, immediately after the 5 minute run, 5 minutes after the run, and 10 minutes after the run.

The Data

My Analysis

The New Balance and Atayne shirts had 2g of sweat evaporate out, with Brooks at 1g, and the others not at all – after 10 minutes of ‘air time’.

One big difference I saw while running is that the Atayne shirt is quite heavy and definitely felt hotter – I almost felt like I was putting on a jacket (compared to the others), especially when compared to running in the lightest, the Nike shirt, in spite of the fact that Nike didn’t wick/dry as well.

In any case, that was enough for me feel that with all the other plusses about the Atayne company (green, Maine company, community service) and shirt (design, odorless, colors, softness), I can give my full support towards Atayne for this project and any other race that we put on!

…I can admit when I’m wrong!

By the way, I lost 69 grams or 2½ ounces of sweat in just the shirts in 25 minutes — drink up!

…and now I have lots of laundry to do…

Sandy

(Photo Sources: Sandra Walton – Sasha Wolff)

I went out right where I wanted to be with a 5:33, after which I passed a few people to run most of the race in third place. My effort was pretty consistent, with 5:43 and 5:39 miles, but then I actually got outsprinted at the very end of the race by Nathan Buck, who just completed his 5^th race of the season and is poised to jump onto the leader board after his next race. I did manage to go under 18 minutes for a 5k for the first time this year, which is nice.

Marc Halverson and Abshir Horor led the entire race and finished together in 16:46. Too bad I couldn’t really see the finish too well from almost a minute behind them. Similarly, Dana Quincy had almost a minute lead in the women’s race, finishing in 18:59.

Dave Manz (01:46:35) managed to maintain his spot atop the leader board this week despite not improving his cumulative time, but Toby Grindal (1:48:13) managed to drop 35 seconds in second place and I have moved back to third place by dropping over 3 minutes from cumulative time when I traded last week’s 20:52 for this week’s 17:41. Lily Childress didn’t run this week but maintains her spot atop the leader board in 02:02:53.

More Info: Full Results – Leader Board – Complete Runner’s List

This year’s Boilermaker had a record field of 11,524, and both men’s and women’s course records fell. Lelisa Desisa won the race in 42:46, with Edna Kiplagat winning the women’s race in 47:56.

My favorite comment in the video has to be: “There is no chance we’ll see a course record set here in Utica ever again.”

(Source: WKTV)

Many of the lessons could easily be learned on your own, but knowing what to expect and following a plan from somebody that has helped others learn to run barefoot is certainly easier than muddling through yourself and hoping you don’t get injured.

I also held a contest to give a copy of the book away, where the only criteria to enter was to share your own experience or lack thereof in the comments. If you were one of the people who entered, then you had a 1 in 22 chance of winning.

After a quick visit to Random.org, the winner has been chosen!

Here is the winning comment:

Chiraag Says:
July 13th, 2010 at 7:56 am
I’m curious about what is the right time to experiment with barefoot running: should I have years of experience first, so that I have a better understanding of my gait with shoes?

Congratulations, Chiraag! I’ll email you for your postal address so I can get a copy of the book to you.

As for the answer to your question, that depends entirely on you.

A new runner may actually have an advantage over an experienced runner in learning to become a barefoot runner because they won’t have as many bad habits and won’t feel they have to try to maintain their current speed or distance on their normal runs, so they’ll be less likely to get hurt as long as they don’t try to go too far, too fast.

So, if you are interested in running barefoot, then just start no matter what your experience level. I’ve found that running barefoot has improved my running form even when I’m wearing shoes, which leads to feeling better after my runs and recovering faster from them.

I personally don’t believe that I need to run barefoot all the time, I only run barefoot as a part of my training and still do the majority of my racing while shod.

(Photo Credit: Marylka Yoe Uusisaar – Book: The Barefoot Running Book)

There were a lot of barefoot runners this week, probably 6 or 8 that I noticed. Nice to see it becoming so popular.

I started out running with my wife, but saw somebody I wanted to chat with a little and she pulled ahead. When I caught back up to her, I didn’t stay with her too long before running ahead where I saw a guy that ran the black fly race a few weeks ago so I ran with him and chatted a bit. Then I picked up the pace again and went a little quicker as the race went on, passing 3 or 4 barefooters on the way. One of them finished with a bloody foot; she wasn’t too happy. Oops. Thankfully, she just had a little cut on her toe.

In the overall standings, I moved back to fourth place this week despite dropping 65 seconds off of my cumulative time as my week 3 race is no longer used as one of my top 6. This works out well for me in the long run, though, as I should be able to drop my week 9 race pretty easily.

Not that it will matter very much. Dave Manz is still in first place despite not running this week with his 1:46:35. Lily Childress ran her 6th race, which popped her right into a strong lead on the women’s leaderboard with a cumulative time of 2:02:53, about 11 and a half minutes ahead of another new arrival on the leader board in Christy McAllister, who herself has an almost 10 minute lead.

So, since we’ve passed the halfway point, here are some stats:

In 9 races, 79 people have run at least the 6 required races in order to appear on the leaderboard, and 6 people have run the race every week for the past 9 weeks. Of the 922 people that have registered for the races, 694 people have actually run at least once and have crossed the finish line a total of 1,860 times.

More Info: Full Results – Leader Board – Complete Runner’s List

Overview

Jason splits the book into 4 main sections for the different levels of experience you will find yourself as you become a barefoot runner.

First is the Pre-Barefoot Running section, where you will learn how to build up some strength in your foot in legs, get used to sensory overload from nerves that have potentially been ignored for a significant portion of your life, and to help improve your foot-eye coordination.

The next section is about Starting to Run Barefoot, which gives tips on how to actually start running, the types of terrain you may encounter and which ones you should start out by running on, and the basics of barefoot running form.

The third section covers Intermediate Barefoot Running and focuses on how to add hills and new types of terrain to your running, how you can start speeding up and running further, and the common injuries that barefoot runners experience.

The last section is on Advanced Topics such as racing, trail running, and extreme weather.

Jason also discusses handling hecklers and the 4 types of people that you will encounter and interact with as a barefoot runner, ranging from the non-runner and inquisitive running peers to hostile runners that think barefoot runners are an affront to nature.

What I Like About the Book

The book is very short at 61 pages and can be read in a single sitting or two. For the most part, Jason stays right to the point and offers his experience and advice in an easily digested format. He labels all of the different theories, activities, and hazards that you should be aware of which makes it quick and easy to find information later that you want to refer back to.

I think that Jason’s exercises for the beginner barefoot runner are a good way to introduce yourself safely to running without getting hurt. His 6 guiding principles to barefoot running are reflected throughout the book, which are:

1. There is no 1 right answer
2. You need to experiment to see what works for you
3. Your body is the best teacher
4. Patience is required
5. Running relaxed is key
6. You should be having fun and enjoying yourself

As somebody that has used barefoot running as part of his training since the early 90s, I especially like his last point.

Running barefoot is just a lot of fun, so make sure that you don’t let running become a chore.

What I Didn’t Like About the Book

There are only two things that I didn’t really care for in this book.

First, Jason is definitely zealous about barefoot running and is eager to share his positive experiences and expertise with others. For the most part, he does this well, and his advice on how to deal with people that heckle you (shared both from himself and from others in the barefoot running community) is certainly useful and worth a chuckle or two.

In a few places throughout the book it definitely seems more like a crusade, though. I don’t mind sharing the benefits of barefoot running with others, but I don’t feel the need to convert anybody to it that has no need nor interest.

Second, Jason is a pretty funny guy and I’ve enjoyed his humor in some of the videos that I’ve seen him post. Unfortunately, I don’t think that the humor translates into print quite as well.

Rather than laughing at some of the jokes and self-deprecating humor, I found myself rolling my eyes instead which distracted me from reading more than anything else.

Where To Find More Information

The Barefoot Running Book is available for purchase at Amazon as either a print publication or as a Kindle e-book.

You can find more information about Jason at his website, The Barefoot Running University, where he offers workshops, articles, and links to barefoot and ultramarathon resources around the web.

I will also be giving a copy of the book away next week.
Just click here and leave a comment to enter the contest.

(Photo Credits: Jason Robillard – Mike Baird – Seema K K – Mike Day)