Running

My friend Tom turned me to TED for the first time a few year ago.  Then another friend said on Twitter that the TED iPad app was awesome.  Since I have little TV to watch here in Geneva TED has become my 20 minutes a day before going to sleep where I try to see an interesting video to make me think about something else other than work and the kids (then I try 20 min. of meditation right before going to sleep).  So last Friday night I saw this TED video on running and was very intrigued by the Tarahumara story. 



I didn't know whether to believe the whole TED speech by Christopher McDugall or not but my friend German had been trying to convince me for a while to try barefoot running which I was honestly too scared to try (I've always had either knee or ankle problems and have felt that I need all the protection I can get in the form of really bulky but stable shoes). But last night after I saw ANOTHER amazing speech from TED on running, I decided to download the book Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. I'm only 10% into the book but I'm already fascinated by this whole barefoot running thing.  Of course it seems like the #1 question people come up with is "how do you do it, how do you run barefoot?".  So I looked up a couple of videos on YouTube that explain how to get started.  I think I really want to do this after the half marathon on May 15 (I'm definitely not brave enough to attempt it during training for a half marathon).  I've already looked up these Vibram Five Fingers shoes for barefoot running that I'm going to get myself for Mother's Day and try out a couple of weeks after the half marathon. Even if I don't do it all the time it seems that at least doing it part of the time helps to diminish some of the pains and injuries from running with traditional shoes.  I also looked at the NIKE Free shoes but it seems that the Vibram Five Fingers might be the best way to go.  I just hope I'm not doing something totally crazy. Who knows? This might be the thing to inspire me to go for a whole marathon.  Also, there was a quote from the Born to Run book I found really cool so I wanted to share it here. I hope it's inspiring to my friends who are trying to get into running.

"Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're the lion or a gazelle-when the sun comes up, you'd better be running." 

Happy Running!