Hertzler Outpost

I had a 24 hour layover in Dubai, so I met my friend Colin and saw some of the city. We drove by the world’s tallest building, the Berj Khalifa, even though it was closed to visitors at the time.

This was an entertaining bus ride near Nairobi, so I wanted to catch some of it on video, especially the Masai Warrior music video.

Asics Hyper XCS

Running barefoot proved different than I expected!

Ironically, I am convinced it is the best way to avoid running injuries, while at the same time I was unable to condition my bare feet to run without getting injured. (Or maybe I was just unwilling to be patient enough after two months.)

The most important factor in all of this was changing my running form – from landing on my heels to landing on my forefoot. That is the biggest factor and the one that I think everyone who runs should know.

Learning to run barefoot is the key to learning good running form!

These are some marks of good running form, all achieved by learning to run barefoot.

• Plant your foot towards the ball of your foot to lessen impact and braking.
• Keep your back and midsection straight with a slight tilt from the ankles, not the waist.
• Don’t let your arms cross your midsection. That creates side to side movement, not forward movement.

After learning to run barefoot and changing my running form, I decided I wanted something under my foot after all. The water shoes worked pretty well but were not breathable, so I decided they wouldn’t work for any distance longer than about 3 miles.

So yesterday I got these racing flats. They have very little padding, so you can feel your foot hit the ground as it’s landing (and respond by having your foot and calf absorb the impact). They have no heel on them, so you have more room to ‘catch’ the impact and spread it across your foot. They seem fairly breathable, too, but they could be better in this area. And they cost $50, less than any other pair of running shoes I have purchased. If they last 250 or more miles, they will also be the best value.

I ran 5 miles in them, and they worked great! I think I’ll continue running in them for now.

It has been two months since I started learning to run barefoot. The purpose for learning to run barefoot is to avoid running injuries caused by landing on your heel each stride. Instead, barefoot running forces you into better running form by causing you to land on your forefoot and absorbing the landing impact with your foot and lower leg muscles.

Here is what I’ve learned about running barefoot so far.

• This type of running will avoid injuries because it eliminates the primary cause of running injuries; the heel-landing impact on each stride.
• Barefoot running is anti-intuitive to most people, yet once you do it you understand.
• Barefoot running uses lower-leg muscles, whereas heel-landing running uses upper-leg muscles. It took me almost a month to get my lower leg muscles (calves) in shape. It was like learning to run all over again.
• Many people run long distances in their bare feet, but I have trouble running more than a few miles in bare feet. I still don’t know if I can build endurance in my feet or if I simply need to put some shoes on.
• Even if I end up wearing shoes for most of my running miles, I will run a few miles barefoot each week in order to keep my running form good.
• I will NEVER go back to my old running form, shoes or not!
• EVERY runner should learn barefoot running form, even if they don’t run barefoot!

My longest barefoot distance on sand has been 4 miles, but my longest barefoot distance on pavement is only 2.5 miles. My right foot is bruised right now between the ball of my foot and the outer mid-sole. I think this was from landing and pushing off on the small stones on the beach in Antalya, but I’m not sure.

One thing IS sure; after running this way, I don’t feel sore the next day (except for the bottoms of my feet, of course). Usually it would take me two days to recover from a 5 mile (or longer) run before I would run again. I think I could run everyday using this form as long as my feet could take it.

Right now I’m running about half my miles in cheap water shoes. They protect my feet, but they don’t breath at all because they’re neoprene. It looks like if I want to run any longer distances I’ll need a breathable shoe. Racing flats are my next option to try.

I’ll keep you posted.

The water shoes worked. My feet were not sore after running a mile in them. My calves were very sore, but I can condition that.

Nevertheless, others insist there is no need for anything between your foot and the ground.

Vibram
FiveFingers

At my class reunion a couple weeks ago, my friend Chris showed me the goofiest looking pair of shoes I have ever seen, Vibram FiveFingers. But when he explained why he had them, it didn’t sound goofy anymore. In fact, he convinced me to learn to run barefoot.

Most of the running injuries I have experienced, and every one of the running injuries I have heard of, seem to result from the forceful impact of your heel hitting the ground and traveling up your leg to your hip. By running barefoot, your forefoot absorbs all that energy instead. This diagram is the best description I found for this school of thought.

I am near the end of my running days unless something changes, so I am willing to try just about anything I can afford.

My experience running barefoot, so far, makes me think it will remove the impact problems and injuries. But now the problem has shifted to the skin on the bottom of my feet. I just can’t see actually running barefoot on pavement without as many injuries, albeit new and different ones, to the skin on my feet. So I went in search of new running shoes in an effort to avoid the same goofy shoes as my friend.

I think I found what I was looking for: water shoes.

Nike Sneakerboat ($20 on clearance)

Generic Water Socks ($10)

After running a mile barefoot last night, my lower legs and feet are still sore, so it will take a few days before I can give these new shoes a good test run. I’ll probably post comments about how it goes on my Twitter feed, so follow me there if you’re interested. (I marked each related post with a ‘hashtag’ of ‘#LTRB’. You can search Twitter for this string, #LTRB, and it will show you all my posts.)

WCA Class of 1984 Reunion Dinner

Had a great time at dinner last night with friends from high school. 25 years made everyone a better version of themselves. Or maybe I grew up enough to enjoy everyone more. Either way, a great time.

Today we had a picnic at WCA’s Creve Coeur campus and got a tour of the building, now much different than when we were there. It didn’t make me want to be back in high school, but it made me glad I stayed in touch with my classmates.

Here’s the rest of the pics from last night and today over on Flickr.

Catalytic converter repair, “cat” repair, as most mechanics call it, has a great range of prices for the work! Back in Orlando when the “check engine” light came on in our Chrysler van, the service station we took it to quoted $750 to fix it. We decided to pass. Then today at lunch, here in Fort Collins, the Chrysler dealership quoted $1020 to fix it. I just laughed. The work got done at Hawker’s Auto for $250 later this afternoon. A much nicer price. I have a little better insight now into why Chrysler is going out of business.

Cold Air Intake Installed

We now have an oxymoron: a tricked out Escort. Andrew installed a cold air intake, something he’s been wanting to do for a while and finally finished last night. How it works, I don’t understand, but it’s supposed to increase power and fuel efficiency by bringing cold air to the fuel injectors instead of the usual warm air that plastic intake pipes provide. Either way, it’s a cool mod to the Escort.

Last September I discovered that my blog would not accept foreign characters, and I actually needed to use some cyrillic letters. I just now fixed the problem, so I’m free to compose in 汉语/漢語 if I want.

The problem was that this website uses a database to store all its information, and that database stored everything in latin characters. I had to export and re-import all my data into a new database that stores characters in the UTF8 character set.

Andrew Bounces

On getting back home I found we had another trampoline in the back yard. Second one acquired by Andrew from his job. Trampolines are way more fun in two’s!

Dead Hamster

Cathy’s sister, Kristen, arrived today for a visit and was getting a tour of things that had changed since her last time here.

“Oh, Kristen, you have to see our new hamster!” said Cathy as she led her to the little rodent’s cage in our family room.

“Oh look, Kristen. He’s dead!”

Followed by three minutes of laughter where they can’t talk because they’re laughing so hard.

Andrew had found this hamster a few weeks ago wandering outside in our driveway (!), so Cathy and Audrey took it in and borrowed a cage for it. A couple days later we learned that our neighbors had found another hamster wandering around in their driveway and had also taken it in. We tried convincing them that their hamster was the sibling of ours and that it was only right to keep this little hamster family together – at their house – but they didn’t buy it.

And it was strangely coincidental when our white hamster died today, because we learned its brown sibling died just last weekend. Maybe they’re together now running on that big wheel in the sky.

Today I found out about an online missions trip. It’s great to see a local church understand how they can have an influence on their Internet world and the challenge others to join them in it. Good work!

…looking a bit sleepy this Christmas

This year the cousins sent us matching Hertzler University t-shirts. Pretty cool.

Here in Orlando today it was about 75 and rainy, a perfect day to stay inside and play with new Christmas gifts.

Lots of little kids came to the door
this year. And this ghost.

Having two kids who don’t like chocolate usually means Halloween is a sweet deal for me. Until this year. Neither Andrew nor Audrey went out for candy, and Cathy and I stayed home and handed it out for the first time in a long time. Negative candy flow.

I’m learning how to use Jott to update my blog. listen

Powered by Jott

My Grandpa Bill

Today I got some photos of my family from around 1947 or so, and I found this one of my grandfather, Bill.

I didn’t know him very well growing up, as he contracted Parkinson’s disease when I was young. This is from an era I never knew, but it makes me think I would have enjoyed knowing him and fishing with him when he was my age.

Pretty Boring in Orlando So Far

Tropical Storm Fay gave the kids a day off school today on what would have been their second day. So far the storm sent little more than rain and some gusty wind, but it was nothing that would have interfered with school. We like this kind of anti-climactic storm activity.

Audrey and Andrew Ready For School

We’re running out of “1st Day of Schools”, but today was one of the last few. Audrey started her freshman year of high school, and Andrew begins his junior year.

This year high school starts during daylight hours. Our county swapped the starting times between the high school and middle schools, so now the poor 6th graders have to be at the bus stop at 6:30 am while the high schoolers sleep in. Andrew said it was weird finishing first hour in daylight.

One interesting contrast between our experience sending Andrew off to high school and that of sending Audrey: On the Saturday before school begins there is an orientation and sign up where you get your locker, find your classes, etc. Both of us went with Andrew two years ago and helped him figure things out. He was happy to let us join him. Audrey, on the other hand, went with Andrew to the orientation day, and was happy to have the independence. She didn’t want a ride to school from Mom on the first day either; she took the bus.

Audrey talking to the kids

Andrew with one of his kids

Andrew and Audrey had a great week in NYC working with the Exodus program for kids. They had some pretty funny stories to tell, and they both came back with a new sense of how God can use them. We’re glad to have them back home!

Read the blog from their week for the rest of the story.

Cathy called me today just after Andrew and Audrey drove off by themselves. Andrew passed his driving test (“It was easy,” he said) and has his regular license now.

He was very happy to discover yesterday that the additional cost of our insurance (due to him being a licensed driver) will be half what we were expecting. Since we’re making him pay the difference in insurance, this meant he had six months of insurance saved up rather than just three.

After a week at camp without their small screens (all campers turned in their phones and iPods for the week), Andrew and Audrey returned home tonight. The first dilemna they each had to overcome upon arriving home related to their small screens. The screen on Audrey’s camera broke, her phone recharger didn’t work, and Andrew’s iPod recharger broke. This created some re-entry stress for the two of them. It reminded Cathy and me of our own re-entry stress last Sunday night as we walked into the problems that awaited us after getting back from vacation ourselves.

They had a good time at camp, though. And in just three weeks they leave for their missions trip to New York City, and they have a lot of work to do in the mean time.

If the last ten years saw huge advances in the information available on a computer screen, the next ten years should see advances in what you can see and do on a small screen. That is, the small screen of a cell phone or an iPod. Campus Crusade recently began using video iPod’s and short film to create spiritual conversation opportunities for our staff members and students, but one of the things we want to begin developing are ways to make our message available to spiritually interested students on their cell phones – when our staff members or students are not around. We have some ideas but no proven model that works. I’m thinking of taking this on as a project.

Andrew, Audrey, and Cousin Amanda
at the high water point of the Mississippi River
near the St. Louis Gateway Arch

Here in the St. Louis metro area rising waters are the big concern right now. Near where we stayed last week, a community soccer field became a community lake due to the flooding. Only the tops of the soccer goals and the top of the picnic pavilion were visible above the water. We even saw someone paddling their kayak around in it. But none of the places we’ve stayed have been low-lying, so it’s mostly something we’ve seen on TV rather than something we have been affected by. We drive to Wisconsin later this week, though, where some of the roads have been flooded along the way. We’ll see how that goes.

Downtown Paducah, Kentucky

Tonight we went to downtown Paducah and walked around the Lowertown Art District. For dinner we had a picnic in the park next to First Baptist, where our friends Grant and Elisabeth got married years ago. Then we went to the “Downtown After Dinner” area by the riverfront and walked around until we’d seen it all and heard it all. A fun evening with family.