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