The Foot Commute

My official place of work (that is, not the milk crates and plywood from which I do the important work of writing about recreational distance running) has several incentives in place to encourage employees to carpool, ride the bus, and even bicycle to work. Heck, there is even a National Bike-to-Work Day every year. If you carpool you get the best parking spaces. If you ride the bus you get…um…you get to ride the bus. If you ride your bike you get a neat locker where you can safely store your mount while you toil the day away. If you can brave the mildew and don’t mind bathing in public, there are also showers.

We can even win prizes for not driving to work alone. I have been the fortunate recipient of not one but three coffee mugs celebrating my alternative commuting practices. I keep paperclips and highlighters in them despite the fact that I have never used a paperclip or a highlighter at work.

Carpools and mass transit are fine. Bicycling to work is great (though in Seattle you are certainly putting your life into the hands of some very angry SUV drivers if you choose to ride anywhere).  But what about getting to work on foot?

Lately, as a way to fit in my training miles and get to and from work, I’ve been doing the Foot Commute. I can get from my office to my front door in as few as 7 miles and there are interesting routes up to 15 miles (I haven’t done any of those long ones, but they look good on the map). Once I have sent my last email and deftly avoided attending any late afternoon meetings by claiming to be in yet another meeting, I slide on the shorts and shoes and hit the road. An hour or so later, I’m home and I have managed not only to commute but also to build up some miles on the old training calendar. I don’t have to get motivated to go back out after driving home, and I don’t have to interrupt my evening to get my run in. If I want to get home from work, I have to run.

The Foot Commute has some logistic limitations, of course. One is distance. If you live over ten miles from your job, you probably aren’t too likely to lace ‘em up after the 5 o’clock whistle blows. Another is the type of work you do. It’s a little rough to carry your ladders and tools on your back to the job site. Swing shift presents some issues, as does any kid-related shuttling. Most kids aren’t too happy running 5 miles to soccer practice.

Having a reasonable route doesn’t hurt, either. If your driving commute is a reasonable distance but is on the freeway, count on your Foot Commute to considerably longer as you get lost in neighborhoods and industrial parks.

Since we live where we do, weather is also a consideration. Often, I go to work expecting a nice afternoon run in shorts and a t-shirt, only to find it prematurely dark, windy, and cold out when I leave the office.  I leave an old windbreaker in my office for just such occasions.

A final consideration is safety. Remember that everyone out on those streets is coming home, too. And many of them really seem anxious to get there. Running during rush hour requires some extra vigilance against texting drivers, crosswalk creepers, and plain old idiots who don’t believe pedestrians should exist. As it gets darker this fall, be sure to light yourself up and wear reflective clothing. Remember, you’re on defense.

If you work in an office or anywhere that doesn’t require you to carry anything heavy to and from the job, you’re a good Foot Commute candidate. It just takes a little planning and preparation. Some clothes to change into, some way to wash the stank off, and some sort of plan for carrying whatever you need to carry.  For many reasons, Foot Commuting home from work is usually an easier venture. Carpool in, run home.

I think the Foot Commute will catch on.  Give it a try. The Real Runner who logs the most Foot Commute miles between the day this issue hits the stands and the end of the year will win a fabulous prize from the Real Running Prize Vault (also known as my desk drawer). Send your miles to gregsrealrunning@gmail.com

On Being a Minimalist

The Gadgets

Both of my loyal readers know that I am something of a gadget freak. I salivate every time Apple announces a pending announcement. I visit Garmin’s website every day, hoping that a new GPS watch will be hitting the market soon. I have a backup for my backup iPod.  I’ve written before about my love of such things, and also about unplugging from them. But lately the gadgetry has gotten out of hand.

Last week as I prepared for a run, I had one of those moments where you see what you must look like to everyone else in the world. I stood in front of my closet full of running shoes, rifling through a drawer for my running socks, wondering where my running hat was. My headphones dangled from my neck, connected to the iPod clipped to my waistband. My watch beeped, alerting me that it had “acquired” my heart rate monitor. I scanned my selection of shoes. Light weight? Medium? Support? Trail? Minimalist? Maybe this was the day I start breaking in the new pair that just arrived in the mail yesterday? All of my technical fabric shirts were in the wash. I eyed my sorry assortment of plain old cotton t-shirts. This would never do.

Just me and the trail. Try to ignore the fact that I had to carry a camera to get this shot.

I never did find the socks I was looking for. I never did make it out for that run. What is wrong with me?

With apologies to all of the fine sponsors of this magazine (and especially those compelled to send me their products for “testing”), we really don’t need any of this stuff. Any of it. One can make an argument for good shoes, but beyond that? Ratty old gym shorts and a t-shirt will serve the purpose of covering your shame as you run. What else do you need?

In fact, one of the key reasons I don’t do as much cycling as I probably should is because of all the equipment. It just doesn’t feel as real with all of that rubber, carbon fiber, and aluminum between me and the road. I imagine it is the purity of running that appeals to us, whether we know it consciously or not. But how pure is a running experience that includes beeping electronics, carbon fiber insoles, corrective braces, and alternative rock blaring directly into your brain?

Of late I’m on a purity kick. I’m running free of all the tethers of electronics and over-engineered footwear. I run in the same shoes for everything, when I wear shoes. I leave the iPod in the car. Even my trusty GPS stays in my pocket where I can’t see it. No beeping. No music.

At first I was bored. I’m so used to Pearl Jam pushing me through the middle miles that I wasn’t sure what to do. But like the family who takes out the Scrabble board when the power goes out, I quickly learned that I didn’t need the electronics. In fact, I came to realize that my little old brain does a fine job of entertaining me.

I worried about pace. How would I know if I was running too fast? Too slow? Turns out your body tells you, if you listen to it. How will I know when I’ve gone far enough and need to turn around? Simple: I got tired and turned around. What about heart rate? How can I stay in my target zone? Well, for starters, you could pay attention to your breathing and your effort.

This isn’t to say that I’m completely reformed. I still occasionally listen to music on a long run, and I do track all of my runs on my GPS watch. But it is incredibly freeing to be able to just throw on some shorts and go running. I don’t know if we do enough of that. Just go run. For no reason, with no goal, and no destination. Just go run around for a while.

Doing so has reminded me that I actually like running. I used to say I liked that I had gone running, but not necessarily the running itself. Immersing myself in the running itself, resisting distractions, and paying attention to my body has made running more fun than it was when I did everything I could to create a virtual world in which I pretended I wasn’t actually running.

This is all about Real Running after all. What’s more real than just running?

This column originally appeared in the December issue of Northwest Runner Magazine

Real Runner Profile: Owen Connell

Owen Connell at Parlor F in Seattle.

Two years ago at a business meeting in Southern California, I noticed a pair of running shoes near the door of the house where we were meeting. Thinking I might get some good ideas for a local running route, I asked about the shoes. It turned out the owner was an ultra-marathoner who was a recent transplant from Seattle.*

That’s interesting, because my friend Owen is an ultra runner in Seattle, I said.

“You know Owen? He’s one of my best friends! Let’s call him up!” And so it goes when you know Owen Connell.

Now I’m sitting in the chair at Parlor F, Owen’s tattoo parlor and work space on Seattle’s Capitol Hill. Owen is inking a new tattoo on my left arm, and we’re talking about running.

I met Owen several years ago when a friend of a friend recommended him to my girlfriend as a good tattoo artist. It was in our first meeting that I learned he was a runner. I must not have been paying any attention before that, because it’s hard to miss Owen in the Northwest running community.

If you do any competitive trail running in the Northwest or follow the ultra-marathon circuit at all, you probably already know Owen. If you run at all in the Seattle area you probably know him too, even if you don’t know his name. And on the off chance you have never seen Owen at a race, you’ve probably seen his work.

Owen is the “tattoo guy.” He claims he doesn’t hear it anymore, but when you run with him, you hear it from the sidelines. “There goes that tattoo guy!” He is unmistakable for sure. His long legs are literally covered in body art. As are his arms and much of the rest of his body. I’m surprised I know what it’s like to run with Owen, actually, because he is much fitter and much faster than I am.

Running with Owen at the Seattle 26.2

We’ve never planned it, but for the last three years, Owen and I have run into each other somewhere in the first few miles of the Seattle Marathon and run together for the next couple of hours. Last year, I was pretty pleased to be keeping up with him and doing well into mile 15, when he casually told me that he had run a marathon that day before, too.

What?

He wanted to see if he could do two sub-four hour marathons back to back. He can. And he did. He finished the 2010 Seattle Marathon in 3:42:28 the day after running a 3:50:35 the day before in the Ghost of Seattle Marathon. I struggled in 8 minutes behind him

In last year’s Redmond Watershed 12 Hour race, Owen logged 68.1 miles in the 12 hour time limit. He finished the Cascade Crest 100 Mile Endurance Race in 25 hours, 24 minutes. Those numbers still make me shake my head. 68 miles? That’s the distance from downtown Seattle to Olympia, just to put it into perspective. I get tired driving that far.

It’s easy to think of marathoners and ultra runners as super-human, or to imagine that they are somehow seasoned athletes who have trained all of their lives to get to that level. Owen quickly debunks that myth.

“I was like everybody else,” he told me as he inked one of his signature shapes onto my arm. “I was running three or four miles now and then and I thought ‘no way I can run a half marathon!’ Then I went out and did one and it was the biggest thing I had ever done. And once I had done a few of those, I thought, ‘no way I can run a marathon!’ But I tried that and realized it was possible…and if you can run a marathon you can probably run an ultra if you can get your mind around it.”

To hear Owen tell it, running is all about overcoming mental obstacles. So much so, that he forgets ever being injured.

“I’ve been lucky,” he said after I updated him on my latest bout of foot pain. “I just haven’t been injured. “Well, I guess that’s not true. I mean, I get hurt sometimes, but never anything serious. Well…”

And what follows is a list of the types of small injuries that sideline the rest of us but that for Owen are just a part of the mental challenge of running.

“That’s the trick: battling through the low spots and making your body do what you want.”

As I listen to him talk, I actually start to believe that I could tackle one of these ultra marathons. To hear Owen tell it, you just have to ramp up the training miles a little bit and go for it.

But he’s probably been running all his life, right? Nope.

“I was never a runner as a kid or anything. I played sports and was in shape and whatever, but running never occurred to me. Then about 10 years ago I sort of woke up and was overweight, was partying too much, and just wasn’t happy. So I started running.”

At the very least, he must have a pretty detailed and rigorous training schedule, right? Not so much.

“I don’t have a real training plan. I’m kind of an idiot with that stuff. I just go running and try to get my mileage up for races. My girlfriend (ultra-runner Alison Moore) always gets on me about stretching and varying my training and taking days off and all that. I just sort of go out and run. That’s probably why she’s a better runner than I am? I dunno.”

Owen punctuates most of his sentences with question marks or self-deprecating comments, which merely emphasizes his humility. He’s just one of those people that everyone likes.

“I could probably be faster if I trained better. Or if I had a coach. For a while I wanted to try to run a three hour marathon, but I realized I’d need to commit so much time to track running and speed work and all that. I’d rather just go out and run with my friends.”

Running for Owen is a social thing. You get together with some friends on a sunny afternoon and take off into the hills for a few hours. You support each other and have fun together. Maybe that’s why ultra running appeals to him so much. Compared to the thousands of people who lace up for big marathons, the trail running community is small, and everyone is in it together.

Owen's Design on the White River 50 Shirt. 2008.

That’s what appeals to him about art as well, it turns out. It is a normally solitary venture that you can share with other people. His work has been featured on concert posters, event t-shirts, and on the skin of countless people, runners and otherwise.

Owen’s tattoo business is old school. There is no storefront. He doesn’t do drop-in work for weekend partiers or impulse shoppers. His work is art, not iconography.

Parlor F is an artist’s studio hidden in non-descript building on Capitol Hill. He works by appointment only, and does all of his own designs. Sometimes those designs are based on something a customer has in mind, but Owen usually works in abstraction. A tattoo project can take three or four visits before a needle ever touches your skin. The design as to be right, and it’s not uncommon for Owen to go through several drafts of a design idea and to still be tweaking it as it goes from the two dimensions of the paper to three dimensions of the body.

Three hours after I sat down, Owen is putting the final touches on my new tattoo. The lines and shapes are unmistakably his work, but it somehow matches what I had in mind when I first started talking with him about it over a month ago.

My New Tattoo. Undeniably Parlor F.

His work is unique and recognizable, and once you know it, you will see Owen’s art everywhere. As I queued up for a recent trail race on the Eastside, I noticed a design on the calf of the young woman in front of me.

“Owen?” I asked, gesturing to her tattoo.

“Yep. You know Owen?”

And just this week, as I labored through a run with low energy and tired legs, I remembered something Owen said to me the last time I saw him. He was a day away from going in for major abdominal surgery that would sideline him for a month or more and he had just returned from an hour-long run.

“I never feel worse after I go running. No matter how bad the run is, it’s always better to have done gone out there and done it.”

*That transplanted Seattle runner is Jonathan Bernard, the evil genius who came up with Dizzy Daze, an ultra event that goes around, and around, and around Greenlake.

Sign Me Up!

In our kitchen we have one of those big paper calendars you can buy at office supply stores and that (I assume) professional people used to have at their desks to track their meetings before iPhones took over the world. We use our big paper calendar to keep track of where everyone in the family is at any given time.

I have very little on the calendar, but every other weekend or so there is an entry in my hobbled handwriting that says something like “Southern Bellevue Half Marathon, 10k,  and Kids Fun Run for Ingrown Toenails?” (There’s always a question mark at the end, indicating my general lack of commitment to such events.)

 I like to go through the race schedule here in Northwest Runner and put potential races on the family calendar. Note that I don’t usually sign up for anything. That would require commitment.

Usually after a good run where I feel pretty strong and I didn’t crash, I’ll sit down and find interesting races for the next couple of months. On the rare occasions that I have this burst of optimism AND my giant paycheck from Northwest Runner arrives at the same time, I’ll actually register for a race.  I never really know why.

What possesses us to run in these races? We aren’t going to win. As many a reluctant spectator has muttered over the years, we are essentially paying someone else for the pleasure of torturing ourselves. So why sign up?

A lot of runners sign up for races because of the cause the run supports. Cancer research is a popular one. I have no problem with this other than the fact that I think it is a shame we have to hold fundraisers to find cures to diseases. And just about every run these days is a run for a cause. Name your cause, its name is on a technical t-shirt from a half-marathon.

Speaking of t-shirts, what better reason to sign up for a race than to get a shirt? Like many casual runners, I have a closet full of $100 free t-shirts. Some of them are really cool. Most of them have paint or motor oil on them.

I mostly sign up for races out of guilt. I spend a dozen or more hours a week running and staying in shape. I spend paycheck after paycheck on shoes, clothes, and gadgets related to running. I write this column. If I don’t race I sort of feel like I’m doing it all for nothing. So I sign up.

My friends also guilt me into running, whether they know it or not. Cap’n Ron keeps signing up for races and posting about it on Facebook. Guilt. Owen runs a million miles a week and just decides at the last minute to run marathons and ultras because it’s fun. And the ladies from last year’s Ragnar team keep posting awesome results that shame the rest of us. I seem sort of lame if I don’t step up and tie a timing chip to my shoe once in a while.

The races themselves sometimes pressure me into signing up. The threat that a race I really don’t want to run anyway might sell out sometimes makes me break out the Real Running credit card. (This explains why I am running the North Olympic Discovery Marathon despite being nowhere near prepared for it and why I am already signed up for next fall’s Portland Marathon. Sucker.)

Don’t get me wrong, I love race day. Once I am out of bed and have that number pinned to my shirt, I enjoy the low-grade anxiety and the social aspect of the events. I like the challenge of a race. I like having elementary school kids hand me paper cups of water (and if I were rich I would hire a cadre of small children to stand around and hand me water all day).

Races are there to give us a goal on the calendar. Races are there to force us to train and not skip track days. Race days are there to lamely justify our addiction to running.

Race day is for seeing how well you have trained. On race day you have a reason to go a little faster and try a little harder. And if everything comes together, maybe you can set that new PR. That’s why we race.

Sure, we won’t win. But we might beat that guy right in front of us…

The Social Network

Despite the number of hours spent alone, plodding along the sidewalks and paths of your neighborhood, endlessly circling Green Lake with a thousand other lonely people, or suffering through the last three miles of a long run, running is ultimately a very social pursuit. It just seems like most of us haven’t figured that out yet.

On just about every run, I see cyclists in huge pelotons bombing down the trail, men and women in groups of five walking their dogs, new mothers pushing convoys of strollers to the coffee shop, and a gaggle of unkempt teenagers trying their latest moves at the skate park. Together. But we runners are all alone, as if running is some sort of holy, solitary pursuit that we alone can understand and that must be endured in isolation.

Of course I have days where all I want to do is lace up the trail shoes and spend a couple of hours alone decompressing from a long day, but if we’re all out there anyway, why are we by ourselves? There are hundreds of people out right now running alone…together. We’re not much of a community of runners, it seems.

I’ve been doing my part. Whenever I see another runner I give her the friendly wave, a thumbs up, maybe a quick “howdy.” More often than not, I get a confused stare in return. Sometimes an eye roll. Often, I am just ignored. I have tried to figure this out for years now. While cyclists, walkers, skiers, motorcycle riders and dog walkers share a friendly wave and a chat, runners shuffle past each other in solitude. Why? Somewhere along the way, we’ve been taught to suffer in silence. I don’t get it. Why suffer at all? I recently left the house on a rainy afternoon for a run. I had no plan, nowhere to go, and no time limit. I decided to just run for a while.

A mile into the run, I spotted a runner merging onto the trail and gave him a quick wave.

And miracle of all miracles, he waved back! He then fell into stride with me and we ran together for a few miles. We talked about different races, about shoes, about nutrition, about running routes. After a while, he checked his watch and turned around with a friendly good bye. I looked at my own watch. Five miles of running had slipped by unnoticed. No suffering required.

Even if you don’t run together, meeting up with friends for a weekly or nightly run makes it less of a chore and more of an event that you are less likely to skip. It’s easy to bail on yourself, but if your three pals are waiting for you at the trailhead at Cougar, you will at least have to come up with a lame excuse before you bag out.

Now I know some of you run with groups or training teams. I know there are pockets of the running world that are social, but from what I see on the streets, those groups are not the norm. We have to fix this.

1.     When you see another runner on the trail or the sidewalk. Wave. Simple. A smile doesn’t hurt.

2.     When you see a runner struggling and working hard, say something you have read on a sign at a race before. “There’s beer at the end” is often a good choice.

3.     Before you head out for a run, call someone and invite them along. They might say yes.

4.     If you see someone ahead of you, catch up and run with them a while. Introduce yourself. (Note to men, use this tactic with caution, and don’t be a creep.)

5.     When you are running with other people, make it fun. Anyone else remember playing “race you to the garbage can” in school? Try that. See who can turn in the fastest mile. Challenge each other up that hill. Last one to the car buys the beer.

Run with your head up and a smile on your face. Most runners are cool people (except you, grumpy guy in Woodinville who threw your empty GU package at my feet. You know who you are.) You just might meet someone worth hanging out with.

But maybe you’re just not a social person. At least in real life. Facebook thinks I have a couple hundred friends. I actually only have a couple. Social networking is apparently here to stay, and the running industry has made a clumsy pass at online technology.  Maybe someday we can virtually run together by syncing out treadmills and web cams. In the meantime, grab some friends and lace ‘em up. See you out there.

Barefootin'

Yours truly at the end of a trail run in my Five Fingers shoes.

The Real Running closet is littered with running shoes. I have stability shoes for long runs, trail shoes for off-road shenanigans, racing flats for 10Ks, and my “regular” shoes for everyday training runs. Ok, ok, I have three pairs of those. They come in different colors, what was I supposed to do?

Given my love for buying shoes and other gadgets, it was only a matter of time before I got sucked into the “barefoot shoe” world anyway, but after reading a few articles on the benefits of barefoot running, and once Cap'n Ron started running around in his minimalist shoes, I knew I had to give it a try. So I broke out the Real Running credit card and ordered up some of those popular minimalist shoes where each of your five toes gets its own little place to live.

(Dear company, send me some shoes and I’ll mention them by name).

Why would I want to run barefoot? Good question. Feel free to ask questions.

1. Going barefoot is a big leap of faith when you have been raised in soft, supportive, cool looking shoes. Those shoes, though, have taught us to run incorrectly, or so the argument goes. Modern running shoes encourage heel-striking and are engineered to allow this. When you strike heel first, you are impacting your skeleton with 2 to 3 times your body weight (you are also slowing yourself down and wasting energy, but that’s an issue for another time). This is why running shoes have so much cushion and padding in the heels. Running on the balls of your feet, which you have to do when running barefoot, reduces the impact considerably because the joints and structures of your feet and ankles can flex to absorb the blow.

2. Running barefoot gives you immediate feedback and forces you to stay within your body’s limits. When you start heel-striking while running barefoot, you notice. Supportive shoes may actually let us run faster and farther than we should, and the rest of the body takes a beating.

3. Your skeleton was designed to walk and run barefoot. Granted, it was also meant to walk and run on soft ground and live near the equator, but we can adapt.

4. Most importantly, it’s cool. And let’s face it, that’s what this is all about.

The day my barefoot shoes arrived it was (of course) 33 degrees and snowing in Seattle. I tore open the box, snugged each toe into its little pocket, wiggled them around a bit, and took off out the door.

The best thing about running in minimalist shoes is that you really do feel everything, and you have to pay attention to where your feet are hitting the ground. This is also the worst thing about them. I never knew how much broken glass was on the shoulder of my street before. How does that get there? I also found 15 cents on my first barefoot run. Free money! This barefoot thing is going to pay for itself.

Those little pebbles that get stuck in the treads of your other shoes? They like to poke you right in the middle of your foot. Avoid those. Giant beds of nails? Avoid those. Half frozen slushy puddles? Your call, but I’d avoid them.

Steep downhills? Avoid those too, for a while. It’s almost impossible not to pound your heels on those. For your first couple of runs, find a nice flat or slightly uphill route.

And please, trust me on this one, too: take it easy your first few times out. If you aren’t already running off the balls of your feet, your calves are going to take a beating at first. All of the shock that your shins, knees, and hips have been absorbing over the years is transferring right to your calves. In the long run, this is better for you since the muscle can take it. But the days after your first few barefoot runs, your calves are going to be a little angry with you. Stretch them out, give them some love, and you’ll be fine.

Of course, given the ebb and flow of medical research and educated opinions, we’re probably going to learn that running barefoot causes cancer. But for now, it all seems pretty good.

Check out some of the variants of "barefoot" shoes out there:

http://www.vibramfivefingers.com/index.htm 
http://www.merrell.com/US/en/Barefoot 
http://www.terraplana.com/mens.html/

Hitting the Trail

On the Trails Above Missoula, Montana

For the past several years I have been lacing up the shoes and plodding my way across thousands of miles of pavement, building up a training base and getting into shape for a few marathons here and there. At best those runs went fine and I felt strong and fast. I occasionally got into a nice zone where the miles clicked by effortlessly. Often, the only joy I got from those miles was getting home and seeing the pace, the splits, and the mileage totals as my running improved.

But I wasn’t having much fun. I enjoyed running, but when asked how a run went, I had a pretty small range of responses that went from “Fine” to “Good.” Rarely, if ever, did I come home and report that I had a great time.

And the few times I did? I had been running trails. On a trip to visit family in Montana, I stumbled upon miles and miles of single-track trails winding through the mountains around Missoula. My planned four mile run turned into fifteen and I was several hours late for lunch. I had a blast and it made the discomfort of missing family lunch worth it (I also fell asleep at the dinner table later, but that’s another story).

The Last Time Those Shoes were White. Malibu, California

Recently in Southern California, I asked a friend for a running route for a quick afternoon run. He pointed my up into the mountains in Topanga Canyon. I managed  to get lost several times, trip and fall, and run out of water, all the while worried about the mountain cats I know live in those canyons. But I was rewarded with a view of Los Angeles that I definitely will never forget. Barely a half-marathon away from one of the most congested cities on the continent, and I was alone and running like a wild man.

Lately, I’ve been logging most of my miles on dirt trails, and the joy of running is back. I still do a fair bit of pavement pounding, but running through the woods is quickly becoming the running I look forward to most.

Why hadn’t I been running trails here at home? The I-5 corridor between Bellingham and Portland is packed with mountain trails, old rail beds, logging roads, and parks. A quick drive east and the Cascade Mountains await, with an endless network of trails that can be explored.

Even near the city there are trail running options. If you can drive to meet your friends at the mermaid-logo coffee store and head off to run the sidewalks of your neighborhood, you can drive to a park that has miles of trails to be explored.

Splashing through mud puddles and crashing through underbrush doesn’t sound appealing to you? Ok, I can see that. But trail running has a lot more to recommend it than that. Namely, trail running is better for you than running on pavement.

The surfaces are softer, so the impact on joints and bones is reduced. The running motion is more varied and dynamic, so you are using more of your muscle groups as you run. And usually the terrain is steeper and more technical, so you are climbing and descending a lot more than on the streets, building up those muscles and stamina as well. After a few weeks on the trails, your street running will seem positively easy in comparison.

But making the move from asphalt, concrete, stoplights, and car horns to dirt, mud, tree branches, and solitude isn’t easy. As always, I’m here to help. Here is the barest of bare-bones guides to getting started off road.

Trail shoes will become important. But you don’t need to drop $150 bucks on a new pair just yet. Dig out some shoes with some tread left on them and that you don’t mind getting dirty. They’ll do for now. Eventually you will want to upgrade to something designed for the dirt.

There aren’t a lot of drinking fountains in the woods. And you don’t want to drink from that stream. Handheld bottles are the way to go. Hydration packs work, too, but save them for really long runs when you need the extra fluids. Avoid water belts as they tend to get snagged on vines and branches.

Leave the music at home. You want to hear the mountain bikers bearing down on you.

Running alone in the woods? Maybe consider a map? Maybe you want to carry your cell phone? Better yet, run with friends. It’s always better with friends, and you don’t have to carry them in your pocket.

This column appears in the March 2011 edition of Northwest Runner Magazine

Real Run Report - Redmond Watershed Preserve

Lately we at Real Running have been branching out and trying some new running routes and locales. This weekend, we visited the Redmond Watershed Preserve. Here, in what will probably NOT become a regular feature of Real Running, is a first-hand, biased, and unreliable review.

To get to the Redmond Watershed Preserve, simply follow the parade of late-model SUVs east from Seattle. Watch for a break in the subdivisions on the left. You will see a stand of trees defying the laws of real estate expansion and golf course development. This is the Redmond Watershed Preserve.

I kid. We love you, Redmond. Clean streets, wide sidewalks, nicely maintained signs confirming that those cottonwoods and alder trees are indeed part of a "natural space." What's not to love?

On paper (meaning the Internet) the Redmond Watershed Preserve looks something like paradise. It is a protected natural space amidst suburban sprawl, golf courses, and shopping centers. Over five miles of maintained trails wind through the forest from a tidy parking area. 

The bathrooms are clean.

The brochure is very professionally produced.

It's all good at the Redmond Watershed Preserve. Which is probably why I didn't enjoy it much.

After parking near the restrooms, I was greeted by two rather permanent looking signs at the trailhead:

WARNING: CAR PROWL AREA

and

WARNING: BLACK BEAR SIGHTED IN AREA

I'm uncertain if the bear is responsible for the car prowling, but I think it is implied. I glanced back at my unlocked car with my lunch on the front seat and decided the bear could have it if he wanted it badly enough. Off I went.

From the parking lot you quickly cross a power line right of way trail before being sent back into the woods. Here there are more signs. 

MITIGATION AREA: DO NOT MOW.

Okey dokey. I wasn't planning on doing any mowing anyway, but good to know the rules. I continued.

The trails in the Watershed are wide and flat. The surface throughout is mostly hard soil and gravel. The trails roll a bit, but there is nothing anyone would consider a climb anywhere I could find. Every trail junction has a bench and a sign with a map. A few trails allow bikes, horses, and hikers. Some are for hikers only. Giant gates guard these pedestrian-only trails, so you feel pretty safe inside the barriers.

Not the Actual Bear

I wonder if the bear can go wherever he wants? Are there bear-only trails?

As I came around corner after about 2 miles of running, a 30-something year old couple was slowly walking hand-in-hand and enjoying their Sunday morning. Cute. I let them know I was coming up behind them with my usual "coming up behind you" call. Nothing.

"Behind you." I repeated.

"Trail!" I tried.

Nothing.

So it happened that I was about three strides behind them and one of my footfalls somehow registered where my voice didn't. Young man spun around.

"Oh my god! I thought you were a bear!"

Really?  "Nope. Not a bear. Thanks." Off I went.

Listen folks, I 100% believe that there are black bears around Redmond. This little preserved chunk of wilderness used to be actual wilderness. Before those dudes invented personal computing in their garage, this whole place was rural. Your subdivision is carved out of a bear's backyard. But come on. No bear is menacingly tromping around the well-manicured trails of the Redmond Watershed Preserve at 10:30 on a Sunday morning while a few dozen people recreate instead of going to church. Whatever bear was spotted is trying like hell to figure out how he got marooned there while his friends are up in the mountains enjoying the last remnants of winter. At least we know the warning sign worked: people were afraid of the bear*.

And I didn't see anyone mowing anything.

Another mile or so ticked by and I came upon my first group of equestrians. I've never ridden a horse. But I think I would want to have more than 5 miles of trail available to me if I did. I imagine these riders getting up early, pulling the horse trailer around to wherever they keep their horses, loading the trailer, packing up their saddles and whatnot, driving to the Watershed, unloading their horses, getting geared up, checking the bear status, locking their trucks, and setting off into the woods. Several minutes later they are back at the trailhead. Good times. Nothing against horseback riding. Every one of them I encountered was friendly and smiling. 

Equestrian Group #1 commented on my orange shirt. "No one will mistake you for a bear in that shirt!"

You wouldn't think so, but funny story...

Next, another sign:

STAY ON TRAILS

Ok. I'll do that. The nettles and underbrush don't look tempting anyway.

Then another: 

PACK IT IN, PACK IT OUT

Ok. I can do that, too. Especially since I didn't bring anything with me. For the record, though, the teenage hooligan in me wants to litter every time I see one of those signs.

And this is when things got really weird. As I made the last turn onto something called the "Trillium" trail, a man and a woman were apparently working on something up ahead. He had a pickaxe and she a flat-nosed shovel. They were...what were they doing? 

As I passed them, I watched as he pried a stone out of the trail bed and tossed it into the underbrush. They were de-rocking the trail? What?

Sure enough, for the next 100 yards or so, there were dozens of little potholes in the trail where they had removed an offending rock. I've been thinking about this ever since and I still don't get it. Rocks and roots are part of the trail, no? Is the goal a perfectly manicured trail surface? Was the plan to back-fill the craters they had just made? I'm still baffled by this and find myself wishing I had stopped to ask them what the plan was and what on authority they were "beautifying" the trails. Is this some sort of horse-related accommodation? 

Like all good loops should, mine ended where it started. I thought about heading back out for another five miles, but I wanted to make sure my car hadn't been prowled by a bear. So I used the tidy bathroom and ate my lunch before heading out to get on with my day. 

5.3 miles at somewhere near 9 minutes per mile. A respectable outing.

I didn't say it wasn't pretty...

The whole experience is just so...sanitized. It's a beautiful place. Local residents are lucky to have it. I wish we had more open spaces like it near the city that were devoted to human-powered forays into the woods. I guess I just like my walks in the woods to me a little less managed. I like to be able to go more than half a mile without a sign telling what not to do. 

So in summary: beautiful trails, nice idea, great facility, and boring. If you're out driving to go for a run anyway, keep going east.

One of my readers pointed out one way to make the Watershed more interesting:

Try the Cascade Running Club Watershed 12 Hour Race to spice it up a bit. I'm seriously considering it.

*And I suppose the City of Redmond or King County or whoever is in charge around here is hereby not responsible if said bear killed someone. 

Talk About the Weather

You are Here

Running in the Northwest means running in weather. Part of what is unique (and uniquely frustrating) about living in the return address corner of the country is that we get just about every form of weather the jet stream can throw at us. More unique is that our position at the edge of the world makes weather forecasting more difficult here than just about anywhere in the country. So while we wait for forecasting science to catch up with our reality (and for NOAA to build radar stations on the coast) the Northwest runner simply has to be prepared for anything.

As I write this, it is about 30 degrees outside. But the air is still and dry. Great running weather, right? Sure is if you prepare for it correctly, which I never manage to do. I always over-dress for the cold, and then after 2 miles I’m sweating through my clothes, which of course makes me colder as the sweat evaporates and the cold wind cuts into my skin. You’d think I’d learn…

Beat cold weather by protecting your digits and your skull, not by bulking up. If your torso and your extremities are warm, you’re fine. Every fall, I buy a dozen or so pairs of cheap cotton gloves at the local dollar store. I also keep on hand a collection of ugly but warm hats that I won’t cry about losing. After a mile or two, I can peel off the gloves and the hat, cram them into my pockets and keep going. On an out and back route, I stash them behind a sign post or something and try to remember to grab them on the way back.

But cold isn’t the main concern for most Northwest runners (except those east of the Cascades). If you are going to log any serious miles or be at all consistent as a runner around here, you had better get used to going out in weather that keeps fishermen inside.

Really, running in the rain isn’t that bad so long as you’re prepared for it. Most runners, as in the cold, overdress for rain. Too many runners see the rain and think they have to hide themselves from it. It’s just water! Unless it’s truly cold out, which it rarely is during rainy weather, let your skin do its thing. Your epidermis is waterproof, you know. No tights in the rain. Rock those bare legs. And don’t do too much layering. You’ll come back soaked through to the skin, but it won’t be rain water. That rain slicker you’re wearing keeps the water out, but it also keeps the sweat in. Rainy weather is time for the compression tops and mid-weight technical clothing. Layers just soak up water and make you colder. The main concern in wet weather is chaffing. Wet socks lead to blisters. Wet shirts lead to the dreaded bleeding nipples. Wet shorts…well. You get the point. Your best defense is lubrication. Be generous with the Body Glide in wet weather. Trust me.

It’s true that if you run west of the mountains, you’re going to get wet. Sorry. But you can minimize your exposure if you have a little flexibility of schedule and an internet connection. While the long and medium range forecasts here are frustratingly vague, local weather radar is spot-on accurate and darn useful. Sure, there’s a 100% chance of rain today, but that doesn’t mean it will rain all day in your neighborhood. In fact, I can almost guarantee that it won’t.

By checking the live weather radar, you can watch the heavy rain move (usually) from south to north and either get out before it hits you or after it has passed. A lot of times there is a nice clearing out after heavy downpours that make for dry running and excellent puddle stomping.

The base source for weather information, NOAA, has a good live radar at this link:
http://radar.weather.gov/radar.php?rid=ATX

Or try the Intellicast radar site:
http://www.intellicast.com/National/Radar/Metro.aspx?location=USWA0395

For more excellent reading about Northwest weather, there is no better source than Cliff Mass, the undisputed leader in Northwest meteorology. His book, The Weather of the Pacific Northwest will teach you how to watch the weather like never before. And his blog, cleverly titled “Cliff Mass Weather Blog” is a great daily read. http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/

In the end, you’re a Northwest Runner. And that means getting out there in the weather. Run hard. Have fun. Don't forget to tip your columnist.

This column appears in the February 2011 issue of Northwest Runner Magazine