On Bare Foot Running, (now the buzzword is BFR) & the latest war

I have been running since 1968 in some form or another & after almost 30 years of coaching runners of all guises, from the gazelles who grew up running barefoot everyday & winning gold medals in the marathon in shoes, to regular folk who’d get injured if they fetched the mail barefoot.
Come on, isn’t every war (that hurts us all) & failed bills through Congress that would benefit millions, always because we have some lunatic fringe refusing to live & let live & has to force their paradigm, no matter how poorly supported or justified, down our throats to the detriment of all including themselves?
Those of you observing this titanic struggle between those that swear if we do not run with the feet we were born with in all their naked glory, frostbite, stress fractures, cessation & all, we will definitely destroy the planet & all upon it & have a miserable time in general while we run & those who fear that their livelihood is in danger because they’ll never sell another running shoe (or device that allows pleasurable perambulation to millions ) again, take heart—between black & white are a myriad shades of grey & every other color of the rainbow.

Those than can run barefoot do & should, those that clearly should not, should not…

If we all grew up rurally in regions where there was no concrete or asphalt, or broken glass & shards of various metals lying about, then maybe…
AND
If we all started life using running as a primary mode of transport (together with walking) for EVERYTHING we did & EVERYWHERE we needed to get to, then maybe
AND
If we all lived in climates where footwear was never a prerequisite demand of our environment, then maybe
AND
If we all grew up never having the posterior side of our legs shortened by footwear with heels, then maybe
AND
If we all weigh under 110 pounds if we are female & 130 pounds if we are male, then maybe
AND
If we all had the time, the structural integrity, the youth, the willingness, the mechanics, the soft tissue, the environment, the guidance, the patience, the support & the understanding, then maybe:

WE WOULD ALL BE ABLE TO RUN BLISSFULLY BAREFOOT INTO THE SUNSET WITHOUT A CARE IN THE WORLD, SMUG IN OUR DESTRUCTION OF THE MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR BEHEMOTH THAT IS THE RUNNING SHOE INDUSTRY

BUT ONLY IF

Now barefoot running has been around since the dawn of man & man is the only creature that manipulates his environment to such an extent that it requires of him to continually adapt to survive & function within that environment. So those that claim to be the father’s of this movement are just as full of it as Christopher McDougal (yes he who wrote the really wonderful treatise, Born to Run) when it comes to claiming ownership of the “art”. McDougal has done a great job of bringing it to international prominence & can possibly claim blame or infamy for it being such a hot topic or as a young New Jersey friend recently called it – a hot mess.
Born to Run was 1st published in May 2009 – on September 24th 2009 McDougal published a fantastic article in Men’s Health magazine called Everything you know about muscle is wrong, (again the combative in-your-face type title that seems to be his hallmark). This is all about connective tissue being the answer to all athletic health, power & performance – maybe so, & those of us in the industry have long been working in this field as well as with the other components of performance, but this a story for another day. Suffice to say that Christopher, after months of gradual conditioning with an ultra marathon coach & his heroic voyage in the mountains of the Copper Canyons, with the whimsical Arnulfo & his magical people waxed euphoric that by running with his minimalist Indian sandals he no longer suffers from any of the niggles & injuries that us mortal men do, like our most recent winner of the New York Marathon (& an Olympic marathon silver medalist) suffer. Now here, in this article, he speaks of his elusive (“piercing”) plantar fasciitis, which is “so unpleasant that I (he) can barely run or lift anymore”. The addressing of his connective tissue imbalances miraculously cured this condition. Christopher McDougall, even though he runs among the Amish farms of rural Pennsylvania, obviously does not have all of the above ifs…
I have critically observed & worked with many hundreds of runners both as a coach & running biomechanics specialist. I work with the individual running quirks of many world class athletes & regular athletes. I address each one according to need. Some actually need less orthotic, less support, less cushioning. Many have feet that have atrophied & lost critical motion capabilities because of overly restrictive or ill-advised footwear or orthotics. Many can benefit from time spent walking or even some small amount of running barefoot on well cushioned surfaces like grass or synthetic grass surfaces – this will return neuromuscular feel & function; this will teach true elastic-loading & unloading. This will also strengthen critical muscles & tendons in the foot & lower leg. It is a very gradual process & prescribed not because the athlete desires to run barefoot full time, but to heal & enhance their running experience. But even if the greatest runners in the world, with the exact background as I have described above attempted to do the training volumes & training intensities required to make the living that they do on the roads of Boston, London, New York & Chicago & then race on those surfaces at those speeds they would surely all break down – only one man has ever won an Olympic marathon barefoot & his name is Abebe Bikile, an Ethiopian who ran 2:15 barefoot because he was such a late entry into the Ethiopian team, Adidas could not find him a pair of shoes that fit – he had trained barefoot however. It is interesting to note that his father was a shepherd, so clearly he grew up exactly fulfilling ALL of the above Ifs. He won the next Olympics in 2:12 in Puma shoes. Both the 1st sub 4min South African miler, DeVilliers Lamprecht & Zola Budd ran barefoot & they both told me that eventually their feet gave them so much trouble that they could no longer run (DeVilliers) & that they had to resort to wearing shoes for training & eventually racing as well (Zola). The greatest runner of all, Haile Gebrselassie, realized after being badly beaten in the London Marathon with a time of 2:06, that he would have to forego his habit of running on his forefeet, he would have to lower his heel to the surface to compete against the world’s best. He now runs the marathon 3 minutes faster! He has run in Adidas shoes his entire career. Granted that the elites, that are so much lighter, so much more athletic, so much stronger & that have been conditioned to run since early childhood can wear very minimalist footwear—stands to reason. The great recent winning tradition of Japanese woman in world & Olympic marathoning has shown us that very thin, light-weight shoes can be worn to cover distances in excess of 130 miles per week. However, again, these ladies are tiny & they have very, very high stride rates (hence have very light foot strikes).
Many of the world’s greatest runners are heel strikers – having these athletes switch to barefoot running would no doubt destroy them – I am sure their adversaries would welcome their attempts to become members of the fiercely cultish zealots who say it’s barefoot or nothing.
Before footwear became as advanced as it did, distance running was reserved for only a small select group of men & school children participating in track – the 1st woman’s Olympic marathon only occurred in 1984! Even 5000m was considered too far in the 80s & women could only run a 3000m on the track. All this because we thought running was too hard for most people.

HAD IT NOT BEEN FOR THE ADVENT OF THE MODERN RUNNING SHOE, DISTANCE RUNNING AS WE KNOW IT TODAY, A SPORT OF HEALTH, FITNESS & HEROIC PARTICIPATION WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ACCESSIBLE TO THE MASSES. IT WOULD HAVE REMAINED A SPORT FOR A SMALL COMMUNITY BLESSED WITH THE PHYSIOLOGY & MECHANICS OF A BORDER COLLIE. THE LUNATIC FRINGE WHO NOW SO IRRESPONSIBLY & VEHEMENTLY VILIFY RUNNING SHOES WOULD HAVE US RETURN TO THOSE DAYS WHEN NONE BUT A FEW MECHANICALLY BLESSED INDIVIDUALS WOULD HAVE ACCESS TO A SPORT THAT SAVES & ENHANCES THE LIVES OF MILLIONS.

Could anyone with the patience & access to intelligent guidance pursue the holy grail of running some distance barefoot? Yes they could pursue it, but would the end justify the process – could they ALL succeed? Nope – many may be called by this current reigniting of the debate, but very few will be chosen & the humble PT & local running shoe store will again have salve & solace for the many who simply desire to go for a run…
It is so easy to attack big brother – but how many know of the global efforts of the top footwear companies to do exactly the opposite of what the BFR-or-die bunch say. Why would great running stores like the Boulder Running Company & top shoe companies like Brooks (http://www.facebook.com/l/f1503;www.brooksrunning.com/media/File/0900_barefoot_running_whitepage.pdf - a great series follows this by various top specialists in the field, a worthwhile read & very, very responsible of Brooks to issue), want to injure individuals? Surely they too are in the business of serving their community with equipment that enhances their experience & reduces their risk of injury – if Toyota produces a car that injures people it recalls it; similarly if a shoe company produces a shoe that fails to function, they replace it with a more effective model; shoe stores choose lines based on what they, as experts, believe will serve runners’ best interests. I have watched Nike's efforts with their Free shoe & praise them for being both innovative & responsible with their product & marketing - like everybody else, they still make plenty of shoes for average runners who could only run with the cushioning & support provided.
Even the greatest ultra distance runner of them all, Scott Jurek (also praised & described at length in Born to Run), feels that BFR need not be one or the other, but can serve as a great tool for a number of things.

Much can be done to enhance the running mechanics of the individual. I have been blessed to have been placed in the position to help many who hurt themselves through poor running technique or shoes, or help others run faster. I do this by teaching appropriate running skills & suggesting to both on occasion, that they consider changes in footwear; I will even recommend the use of barefoot or minimalist footwear walking & running as one of a number of effective tools, but what I won’t be doing any time soon is suggesting that the only true “Cool Aid©” to be drinking is that of barefoot running!

More on Walk/Run

Again a good question to my website (http://www.bobbymcgee.com/) on the run/walk method for running & triathlon success.

"Hi Bobby, I'm a Level 1 Coach and recently watched your webinar 'Run/Walk Your Way To Faster Racing Times' (. I am very interested in the program and am thinking I will try it. I'm training for a 70.3 in June. I had a question - when you follow this program, do you suggest that every training run should be a run/walk? I run 3x/week. And, would that change if I ran 5x/week instead or 3x? In your webinar you suggest that someone may decide during a race to run the last 5K of a long run. If that's the case, wouldn't it be good to have some of your training runs be pure runs (no run/walk). Thanks!"

Thanks for your interest & query. If you only run 3 times per week, I believe, especially if you intend to race run/walk, which I highly recommend, that if you run walk EVERY session, you will be able to run at least one extra run per week, which will positively impact your run ability. However as a direct answer to your question I usually recommend that all runs over 45min should be walk run. Many, many age groupers would be best served running shorter, but more frequent runs & run/walking ALL of them. The pros I work with only do this on their long runs. If you ran similar volumes, but ran 5 times per week, you should see an incremental increase in your run fitness.

I understand your question regarding finishing the last 5km in a race without a walk break, but this is if you realize you are home free & could get home faster if you ran the whole way & even if you had miscalculated, at this late stage there is no harm done & you can simply take a walk break to restore yourself (reset) & then run on. If training, as you are, for a longer race it is not a bad idea to walk/run the majority of your run & then try to run the last 3-4 miles without walk breaks. This will increase your functional strength, but will increase recovery time & there is a greater risk of injury. A better bet is to simply pick up the walk/run pace in over the last few miles/km in some long runs – in this way you improve your specific fitness, teach your legs to be able to finish strongly & the risks of injury & delayed recovery are minimized.

Good luck & best wishes for a great race!
Bobby McGee

2K10 here we go. Happy New Year

Fitness, fun, competition... Just love the moments & bask in the doing, such blissful silliness.

In so many ways I am the luckiest coach in the world. I have ample work to do. I feel that I still have so much to learn – both a scary & great place to be. I had & still have great mentors. Athletes seem to feel I have something to offer them that will enhance their performances. I absolutely love what I do. I wake up every morning with only one conundrum – how to fit it all in; family, personal health & enrichment, life’s menial realities & then the myriad facets of my vocation! Put this way methinks I whine too much.
As Richard Bach said, obviously my mission here on earth is not complete because I am still alive. Hmm, just had a thought; how does Tiger Woods explain to his kids what went down, when the time comes. He was leaving some legacy there for a long while & now, while the performance legacy is still intact, he now is father to another legacy that is massive in the public psyche. We all have skeletons in our closets no doubt – I certainly have & it is up to us to manage those as they pertain to our way of being as athletes.
Anyway, this needed to be said in order for me to continue to develop a doable & still useful relationship with my blog. Perhaps a twitteresque approach might be best, where whatever the current high point is of what I am working on is briefly encapsulated in what is hopefully a provocative paragraph or two & then sit back & see if this is what you guys want – via comments or emails to my website, http://www.bobbymcgee.com/, & then make sure I answer your comments with ones of my own!
Waddajaguysthink?

Oh to be lean without the mean!

Another blog entry driven by an email from a client - they so inspire me to keep hard at it EVERY DAY, because truly the greatest reward for what I do is to see athletes experiencing joy in what they do.

"It has been about 18 months since my personal session with you in Boulder, and it is still as fresh and meaningful as it was the day we met. I have been working on the basic ideas you suggested, especially the “habituation” of a solid training program.

The one aspect that I have not yet mastered is what Bobby called “the fat loss game” but I am working on it and know I will make progress. If you have any additional writing and/or tips on this I am certainly open to suggestion!!!

To be honest, I am surprised that I still recall and think about our training session, but I truly do. I find it amazing that a one hour session has had such a profound and long lasting positive impact on me."

How very kind of you Joe – it makes the heart sing when you positively impact some aspect of an individual’s life. Happy Holidays to you & your family as well, (& to all of you out there that read my blog!).

The “Fat Loss Game” as you know, is the toughest one of all – here are some more guidelines, some old, some new:
· Read In Defense of Food – by Michael Pollan
o Eat often, not so much, mostly raw & unprocessed fruit & vegetables
o Eat meat as a side dish
· 5-6 meals a day, keep the caloric density weighted towards the AM
· Serve your actual (tested daily caloric requirements) with these meals; no more, no less (yes – no less)

- Also read Bob Seebohar's book - Nutrition Periodization for Endurance Athletes

· Fuel your training separately before, during & after workouts; so when you train, you eat extra to fuel that training, when you don’t train, you eat only your regular daily requirement.
· Walk plenty as part of your training – throw in a big hike (1 – 6 hours) per week. Start & end all runs with a 3 – 5min walk. Make sure that at least 60% (if possible 80%) of your other/run training is easy aerobic (below 70% of heart rate reserve – max minus resting times .70, plus resting)
· Eat (good) fats
· Stay satiated – i.e. do not allow yourself to get hungry. Snack proactively (i.e. choose, buy, decide on snacks while satiated, not when you start becoming aware of hunger)
· Watch out for the caloric density of juices, sports drinks, salad dressings & sauces

Hope this is useful,
Best wishes,
Bobby McGee

Are you Running SLOWLY enough?

I get such great questions on my website that provide an opportunity for me to spout my opinion on my blog. This one should be of use to many runners & triathletes.

"Bobby, I have attended several trainings by you. Which I have taken a lot out of each one. I am an endurance coach. I was wondering if you could answer a training question. It seems my faster athletes do not have a problem doing their easy runs, easy....say 45sec or more per mile, slower then their Marathon pace. But the athletes at the other end, the 9:00 MP runners always seem to struggle with at their V-Dot predicted easy pace. They complain about running so slow. I am concerned they are spending to much time in the grey zone. What are your thoughts? Thank you."

This is a complex question & I am very glad you asked it – it is most challenging for the slower runners, they ARE going too fast & in that grey zone - diminishing their chances of transcending their current plateau & here’s why:

Their easy pace is too close to their race pace – a common challenge for marathon coaches of the masses. A vast majority of marathoners run their easy & long runs at their marathon pace. In order for them to super-adapt they must find a way to change this & initially the answer is for them to go slower in training & trust it. In this way, pretty soon, they’ll start to adapt & their projected marathon pace WILL go up (faster) & then their training pace will also. This is a mental skill also – teach the ego to shut up & then teach the body to train for adaptation. It can take years for this adaptation to take place fully. See if the following points help out – they do for my runners & triathletes:

· I have had success with teaching the slower runners at altitude to NOT run until they can run at less than 70% of their actual heart rate reserve (i.e. using their resting HR as an evening factor). They walk brisker & brisker at that sub 70% until they can run, or they run on the downs & then flats & walk the climbs (which brings them into grey if they try to run), until they adapt. It can take 18 months – but most can do this in about 6 or so weeks
· I use the walk/run method a LOT (even with elites) – this helps them run a bit faster (as they’d like), but keeps the HR down – they slow to a walk when it begins to exceed 70-75% of HRR. This helps with fat metabolism training also. Check out my webinar on USAT website, from a couple of weeks back on walk/run: https://usat.confedge.com/ap/registration/home.cfm?i=register&e=f7413f5f-8e53-4c04-b8ad-51d0b3d3e63f&grp=Archive&newRegistrant
· Have them do ever increasing hikes & get more & more hilly with these. I start with 45min & work up to even 4+ hours.
· Finally, check out the latest triathlete magazine (p106), for something that I have used & believed for years - 12 – 15% grade (on treadmill also) walking. Is exactly the same as running without the impact & HR is easily controlled

Good luck & please let me know if this helps,

Best wishes,

Bobby McGee

The Fast makes me Furious

In the recent 70.3 world championships Tim O'Donnell, who was unbeaten at the distance this season up to this point, was given a 4 minute or so time penalty. He took it well, as all great athletes do, but ended up some 4 minutes back of the winning time & losing out on some significant income. In the women's pro race the lead bunch of men caught up to the lead women & most of that pack tagged along for a ride that turned out to be the fastest ever for women. Need I say more?

Years ago race walking reached an impasse that almost led to the demise of the sport. The technique of the top athletes had developed to such an extent that the naked eye could no longer determine if the athletes were actually competing according to the rules of the sport & the clause "apparent to the naked eye" was introduced into the rules.This meant that the athletes could now "cheat", which would be visible in slow motion video, but not to the eye of the officials.

Similarly, after much fighting about "true" triathlon, which implies that the ride is a non-drafting event & no rider may slipstream behind another rider & so gain as much as a 30% advantage in doing so, the Olympic movement decided that the Olympic triathlon event would be draft legal & a criterium style ride was instituted. There are various reasons for this, some of which may be that the event became more exciting from a spectator standpoint & much less controversial in the application of the drafting rules which have changed somewhat over the years.

Non-draft racing makes sense for the masses of age groupers because it is much safer. Though I still believe that a draft legal event should be offered to suitably qualified age-groupers. This would help the Olympic sport immeasurably. However the issue of policing the pros has become a major bone of contention over the years, as so often a good swimmer will see their hard earned position rapidly evaporate as a pack of poorer swimmers "work" together & catch the lone swimmer on the bike. So too the less effective biker may "sit in" & do less work on the bike & be able to have fresher legs for a superior run.

Most of my work is with the Olympic style of racing, where tactics, team tactics, superior bike handling skills & crit-style cycling smarts can make or break an athletes performance. My own competitive years were spent racing triathlon as the proverbial "race of truth", as the time trial on the bike has been called - a wholly solo affair. I therefore have no opinion either way as to which may be "better" or purer, each sport is unique, but where I am really biased is in the disadvantage experienced by the honest racer.

If the margin is so slim & the field so full that effective, fair, across the board draft officiating becomes impossible, as definitely seems to be the case in the pro sport of half & full Ironman races & the big money non-draft Olympic distance races, then the good name of the sport is falling into disrepute & becoming something of a farce.

I am close enough to many of these professional triathletes to know that a lot of money (relatively speaking) is at stake here. These athletes earn a meagre living relative to their stature, expertise, hard work & talent when compared to sports like football, baseball, basketball & hockey - even track & field & road running. There are not that many opportunities either - how many of these gruelling races can an athlete do at the very highest level in the course of a career? The sport has so many variables & a myriad things can go wrong on the day & dash months of careful planning & masses of hard work, without the spectre of either (unfair) disqualification or being beaten by a cheat being added to the mix.

I know that race directors & many influential individuals in the sport care, but what needs to be done is a review of each event to determine the number of participants that the specific course can handle & still be fairly marshaled. Clearly this is often NOT the case - it is hard enough to be a pro triathlete & have to decide, "Should I go with this pack as my competitors are doing, or should I play by the rules & end up with a position inferior to my true ability?"

Of all the non-pro athletes I spoke to who ran in the New York Marathon this year - the biggest marathon ever, the complaint was the same - "a magnificent experience, but I could never really run freely & ended up with a time between 10 & 40 minutes slower than I was capable of". The race was too crowded for a runner to actually run to ability.

In this case my advice is, "you have to run the great races, have an adventure & don't expect a great time, unless you get seeded in such a way as to be able to have an open run. If you want to run a PR, choose a smaller, less crowded event." But in the case of the pro triathletes, what are they to do?

My point? I dunno... maybe a cry to those in power to think of the long term health of the sport & find a way to have the best athletes win cleanly, whether that be in draft legal or non-draft races. I do NOT think that either type of event should consider changing to a different format, but clearly the policing & the problem MUST be reviewed & addressed - the current system is NOT working!

Bobby McGee

Meb is True Blue

Boy does it ever sicken me! What do people want? After reading Gina Kolata's article http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/sports/03runner.html?_r=1&emc=eta1) (reporting on the web traffic saying that Meb Keflezighi is not an American & therefore not the 1st American in 27 years to win the New York marathon). I am so deeply saddened, that even amongst runners such racialism still exists. Hats off to Alberto Salazar coming out & saying that he too was born in another country & he was the last American to win NY!

I wonder how many people know that Meb's physiology is that of an elite distance runner, but no more so than any number of other elite American runners. His secret is EXTREME dedication & commitment. His attention to detail, his self-discipline, his work ethic are legendary to those in the know.

Meb, from my side, "Way to go my man - what a wonderful run, after the travails you have been through since your silver medal in Athens, this qualifies as one of the greatest comebacks of all time!"

Bobby McGee