So, Richard has his little 'kicks' of new, innovating technology...and recently he has decided that ignoring the innovations of running shoes is the best idea, based off the book "born to run"; it answers the question :
"Why does my foot hurt when I run?" Basically, the answer is because everything we have been taught about running is wrong. The thing that causes the MOST injury to athletes is the fact we are even wearing shoes in the first place. Our bodies were made to run, barefoot.A runner that is famous for running barefoot, Barefoot Ted, has a blog here. As we all know, with our dirty roads and the fact that our culture isn't accustomed to running barefoot, there has been an innovative running shoe invented called Vibram five fingers. These are basically gloves for your feet, so you can run in the cold, outside, wear them in water...basically wherever. Richard and I tried some on the other day, they were pretty awesome. The only downside is that they are $80 on average, so we are waiting for newer versions of the shoe to come out before we actually purchase some.
The author of this book was really first interested in this barefoot thing when he discovered this tribe in Mexico called the Tarahumara. Here is what he says:
"Then I meet the Tarahumara, and they’re having a blast. They remember what it’s like to love running, and it lets them blaze through the canyons like dolphins rocketing through waves. For them, running isn’t work. It isn’t a punishment for eating. It’s fine art, like it was for our ancestors. Way before we were scratching pictures on caves or beating rhythms on hollow trees, we were perfecting the art of combining our breath and mind and muscles into fluid self-propulsion over wild terrain. And when our ancestors finally did make their first cave paintings, what were the first designs? A downward slash, lightning bolts through the bottom and middle—behold, the Running Man."
Anyway, this tribe will run up to 70 miles a day. With no injuries. It's insane. It's because their stride is great due to the fact they wear very thin-soled sandals that they make from leather. They don't need these dumb cushion-y running shoes that make you land harder on your heel, and therefore ruin your bones. No, they run with shorter, lighter strides. Rich and I went to a running shoe store this past friday, and the worker had read this book as well. He loved the theory so much, that he even had a friend who could take your running shoes and shave off all the cushioning to help correct your stride, while still wearing a running-type shoe. Of course, I can't tell what store this was because they could get sued for telling their customers to alter their running shoes in such a way. But I was really glad to see that someone else knew of this important concept of running with as little cushioning as possible.
Another one of our 'latest crazes' is the book series "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins.
Basically, it takes place in the future US, but now it's become this corrupted country called "Panem". It is divided into 13 districts, and 12 of them have to fight over food. The way they do this 'fairly' is the Capitol randomly picks two children (ages 12-18) from each of the districts to fight to the death in a hugely televised arena. Whichever child wins, their district gets food for a year.
It's pretty sick, but awesome. And the sequel just came out, so Richard and I rushed to the book store to use our precious gift-certificate this weekend. We LOVED them both. :-)
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