Barefoot Backpacking

#garmin #beatyesterday

I loaded up the backpack with all the STUFF I think I need for the Rheinsteig hike and went out for a test hike on the Indian Creek Trail.... barefoot.  Only one older lady stared at me and muttered "wierd"; she was out walking her 4 dogs.   I intend to hike some of the Rheinsteig barefoot or at worst in some xero hiking sandals... minimalist sandals built for trail hiking.  

Of course I had intended some barefoot walking and sandaling on the 550 miles of Camino hiking last March only to run into the coldest, wettest winter in Spain in the past 60 years. I've run marathons barefoot in 30 degree temps and I've run parts of ultra runs barefoot in wet but I will not mix the two. A local named Barefoot Rick and I used to run together in the snow barefoot on a sunny day but Rick got bad frostbite on two toes one year and I think quit doing that.

A Facebook friend of mine, Sue Regan Kenney  has walked almost all of the Camino routes in Spain barefoot over the years, some of them multiple times.  From the Camino I sent her pix of tea shops with signs on the walls forbidding bare feet.  I always blame her for the ban. Sue owns a company called BareBottom Shoes (go ahead Google it) that sells foot falsies for those times when the Health Club says you need to wear shoes on the treadmill; her shoes have no bottoms.  Barefoot Rick used to run the track at the local Jewish Center wearing shoes that had the bottoms sliced out; now he shops at Sue's.

I have a long history of naked feet beyond  the nine months in the womb.  In 1998 I was doing a staged 200 miles a day bike race from San Diego to Savannah, GA. It happened to be the hottest summer in 60 years and we didnt race in temps below 100 until we reached Georgia.  The first day it was 120 from San Diego to Yuma, AZ and after 100 miles racers were cutting up their $300 Carnac shoes because their feet were swelling in the heat.  So were mine but  I noticed a German racer friend, Mannfred B was wearing cycling sandals.  I asked him if he had another pair and he let me use them and then buy them.  I never wore regular cycling shoes again and raced coast to coast across the US 4 more times with barefoot sandals. 

Barefoot Sandals in Race Across America 2001 near Dinosaur, CO

When we won  the two man relay division of Race Across America in 2003 racing from San Diego to Atlantic City in 7 days 14 hours and 56 minutes the second place team who were both 25 years my junior came to me at the awards ceremony and said "I cant believe a little old man wearing barefoot sandals kicked our ass".  

Mojave Desert Furnace Creek 508 2000 sandals

When I developed Plantar Fasciitis after about 20 marathons I threw away my shoes in pain at mile 22 in the Marine Marathon in DC in 2005 and accelerated to the finish line.  I went on to run 17 marathons barefoot.  I did the Redman Ironman once and at the pre race Q and A I asked the race director if I could run the 26.2 mile running portion barefoot he said no. His words were "I had to have something for my feet".  So I ran the 26.2 carrying flip flops and when I saw him at the finish line I yelled "I have my shoes".

I ran the NY Marathon  the year Lance Armstrong ran it; I was drug and shoe free.  The race started at 10 am... they bussed you to Staten Island at 6 am to sit outside in the 30 degree temps for 4 hours on the grass. My feet really got cold but I got hot when I saw Lance pull up in a limo 5 minutes before 10.  I stayed with him for 2 miles then got dropped; he had a Kenyan pacer, I still had cold toes.  That night local fox news featured a 5 minute segment on Lance running the race and then showing a stunning video of my naked feet... just my feet.. the announcer said "and one guy ran the marathon barefoot".   My bride proudly lay claim to my toes.

For several years I communicated and ran marathons with Barefoot Bob Sexton of LA, Barefoot Ted of Seattle, Barefoot Rick of KC and my favorite Barefoot Todd of LA, a longtime  LA Regional head of Team in Training.  We would pick a marathon every year and Barefoot Bob would get us all free entry and accomodations in exchange for staging an expo on Barefoot running during the marathon Expo.  There is a 10k race called the BareBuns Run through a nudist colony near Seattle.  All of us threatened to enter it one year and be the only true nudists.

Running with Barefoot Todd in the LA Marathon

It was fun until Chis Macdougall came out with his book "Born to Run" in 2015.  It popularized barefoot running and lead to a lot of people sustaining injuries by jumping into the technique too quickly.  When I had tossed my shoes in DC I had spent months on the treadmill running barefoot to repair my PF.  Now folks were tossing their shoes and wanting to run a marathon immediately.  Bad idea.... I quit promoting barefoot running.

Running the Las Vegas Marathon as Barefoot Elvis accompanied by two of the 200 Running Elvi

Over the years I've run 42 marathons 17 of them barefoot.  I ran a 44 mile ultra trail run from KC to Lawrence  barefoot once only to discover 5 miles of gravel at mile 31. I ran into the grass and woods and followed  up my success with a bad case of poison ivy the next day.  I ran the same race the next year as a relay with my brother and gave him the gravel roads.  

I've run marathons with sandals, flip flops, soled shoes, flats and vibram 5 fingers. I have bought ballet shoes, dance leathers and even cut out my own leather but there is nothing like running in God's Shoes. I ran the Padua Italy marathon in 2005 and finished the race running over 5 miles of deep cobblestone roads that date back to the time Galileo taught at the university there. Shod runners were falling down from landing in the deep crevices of the cobblestones or experiencing pain from landing the sole on uneven surface.  But I was landing in the center of stone on the balls of my feet, a more natural way to run.

Barefoot Todd, the last I heard,  had run over 200 marathons barefoot.  Barefoot Ken Bob I am sure has run even more.  None of these guys nor myself EVER had an injury which is pretty amazing if you believe the statistics in Chris's book Born To Run.  Chris makes the claim that the next time you run the Gobbler Grind 5k at Thanksgiving look at the guy on the left and the girl on the right. One of those will not be seen at the Christmas Day 5k; he or she will be injured.

Posting Again on the advice of Daniel Beaumont

Today My bride sailed down the Rhein River from Amsterdam and went past my father’s hometown of Sankt Goarhausen.  The town from the picture my bride messaged me looks the same as it did the last time I saw it as as 16 yeard old in 1965.

In that year  my parents took myself and my two brothers to Europe for three months touring the continent. It was three months of 5 adults crammed into a Beetle driving  from church to museum to relative then repeat. I preferred to be home listening to the Beatles.  The experience made me a non tourist for life.

My idea of seeing Europe is to backpack all day  and then converse extensively with the locals in pubs, coffee houses and wine tastings.  And so I backpack alone192 miles from Frankfort to Bonn next week, climbing 35,000 feet in the process, walking past 24 castles and innumerable pubs and wine houses. 72 % of the Rheinsteig trail I will be hiking looks down on the Rhein River from a height of 1000-1500 feet.  At the end of the day I come down to the village below, find my pension and converse with locals in tongue.  September is wine festival season along the Rhein.  All of my lodging has been carefully picked to avoid English speakers: mostly pensions and AirBNBs.

To this end I have spent three to four hours a day since April relearning German, a language I have not spoken since my father passed in 1978.  I found a podcast called News in Slow German that I hear and repeat during long practice hikes.  In the morning I hang out on the Easy German youtube site learning German from street interviews conducted in the language. At night I increase my vocab using Babbel.  Finaaly I have used a site called language exchange that pairs users who want to practice each others language either by texting or chatting online.  It is so much easier to learn a language now.

The Easy German site has numerous interviews with non native soeakers who speak German fluently despite having never been to Germany.  One interview that stands out is with a Singapore resident who speaks like a native German.  The German interviewer asked him how he learned to speak so well. The student replied that he has longed walked around speaking  German to himself as he describes what he is doing and experiencing.  Discipline is remembering what you want and I have taken up his approach.

Sankt Goarhausen 2018 as seen from a glass of wine on ship

A friend I met on the Facebook page for the El Camino Northen Route wrote an excellant blog today regarding the need to write on a daily basis to, among other things, organize ones thoughts and fine tune the ability to express oneself. I thought this an excellant piece of advice, rarely seen amongst the tribal postings of social media.  My 27 year old friend moves me to post daily of which this is the first.  Daniel is correct; I do feel more energized having written this.