Evolution of a Barefoot Runner

Jesus Joggers

In 1997 Tarah and I decided we had had enough of our “freshman 15” (which was actually closer to 30 pounds, and we hadn’t been freshman for long time). We decided to start living more active lives, which included: tennis, day hiking, backpacking in the Cascades (my first go at backpacking since being a boy scout in middle school and Tarah’s first ever), and even running. The running was going very well. We were feeling great. Then one day, in the middle of a run my knee started hurting. I took it easy and walked the rest of the way home. My knee felt fine even later that day but I let it rest a few days just to be sure. The next time I went out I only made it a fraction of a mile before my knee hurt too much to continue. This time I gave it a couple of weeks, just to let it really heal, but to no avail, again I couldn't even make it a mile. I continued trying every few months after that and purchased several new pairs of running shoes hoping that this time my knee would have finally healed and I could again go for a run. Then in 2009 I read an article and saw a video on the New York Times talking about this new weird barefoot running technique that claimed to be gentler on the joints. The article went on to discuss the mechanics of using your calf as the shock absorber by coming down on the mid-foot instead of on the heel and how this is our natural style of running and how heel striking is only made possible with big thick cushy modern shoes. In the video they even went for a run around central park with no shoes on. At first it really seemed crazy to me. Not just crazy but kind of annoying, like the dude preaching the thing that you’re not into kind of annoying. But the idea stuck with me, and the mechanics made sense. Finally, given my history of knee pain and inability to even run a mile, I thought what the hell. So I walked out the front door barefoot onto a sidewalk of Seattle's densely populated Capitol Hill feeling like a complete nut job. When I started running I noticed immediately that landing on my bare heels on concrete was not an option. I didn't have to think about changing my style; my body simply was not going to allow me to heel strike without shoes. The first block felt awkward, mostly due to self-consciousness over the bare feet. By the second block I was in pain, however, it wasn't knee pain, it was just the pain of my skin being rubbed off by the sidewalk. I was able to run two thirds of a mile with absolutely no knee pain. This was the farthest I had been able to run in over a decade. The two days following that first run were painful in yet another way; my calves have never been so sore! This wasn't a normal nice feeling sore this was seriously intense to where I had real trouble getting up the stairs to my bedroom. A few days later I tried it again and made it a mile, then later two miles, and before I knew it I was running three or four miles with absolutely no knee pain and completely barefoot. The bloody feet had gotten tougher but still hurt, and I was still self-conscious running barefoot on the street, but I was running, and it felt amazing! I started reading more about barefoot running on the web and discovered that people were making DIY sandals modeled after those made by the Tarahumara of Mexico called huarache. So of course I had to make some of my own. I ended up making three iterations before finally nailing down a comfortable design that would hold up to running. They looked like Jesus sandals so I called them my Jesus Joggers. I ended up logging hundreds of miles on the sandals. And fast. I was running faster than I had ever run in the past. Somewhere in there I read the book "Born to Run" with its stories about ultra marathoners and barefoot running and the Tarahumara and of course Caballo Blanco. At that point I was completely hooked. Then one cold wet Seattle winter, after trying to keep myself going with wool socks and my sandals, I finally broke down and purchased some minimalist shoes. By that point it wasn’t some weird fringe thing. I regularly saw others running barefoot or in sandals. I even realized that I had been running right past Barefoot Ted’s Luna Sandals office and there was a new store down the street dedicated to minimalist style shoes. Later that same winter, huddled in the house to keep warm from the cold rain with our new baby girl, Mielle, we decided we couldn’t take the cold Seattle rain any longer. I got a job offer in Santa Barbara and we moved right away. Not long after moving to Santa Barbara I went camping in Joshua Tree National Park with friends from work. Our intention was to rock climb but we ended up on a trail run through the Wonderland of Rocks (a stunningly beautiful and rocky section of the park) and barely did any climbing. It blew me away how fun it was and how alive it made me feel. That was my first real experience with trail running but I couldn’t wait to do more.

Joshua Tree National Park

When I got back from Joshua Tree I went to a presentation by Luis Escobar titled Running With the Tarahumara that included a friendly jog before the presentation. On our run Luis told be all about the upcoming Born to Run Ultras festival. I had never signed up for an organized running event but it sounded like too much fun to miss so I signed up. When the day came I packed the family into our Westy for a weekend of camping and music and drinking and running. It was totally AWESOME. The top volume 4 a.m. mariachi music and accompanying shotguns ensured, however, that my family would not be camping with me in the future. The next year they had a blast dancing to Metalachi and then left me to camp with friends.

I’ve lived in or near the Cascades my whole life but somehow I’ve become more connected to these Santa Barbara hills and trails in the few short years that we’ve lived here than I could have imagined. Thanks to everyone that makes the Santa Barbara trail running and the general ultra community so interesting and fun.

First iteration of Jesus Jogger 

A big move to Santa Barbara!!!!

After 8 years in Seattle we finally decided that we had had enough. In December Tarah said "we have to find somewhere else to live" but this time she really meant it. So I started looking for another job. I ended up with options for San Diego or Santa Barbara and from the title of the posting I guess it clear which we chose. We made the choice primarily on location as both jobs seemed like good employment opportunities. Santa Barbara just has a feel that we didn't think San Diego could beat. Plus my job is right in the heart of SB and we found a place just 5 blocks from it. This cuts my 30-60 minute drive down to a few minute walk!!! :) I'm really happy about that!

Mielle again, sorry

I don't want my blog to start focusing only on Mielle but it turns out that a new baby is pretty much all consuming. These pictures are from Thanksgiving.

We went to the Dr. last week and man oh man she's a big girl. She's weighing in at 20 pounds 4 oz putting her at the 99.9 percentile for weight, 98.5% for head size, and 92% for height. I don't know where she gets it from. Well actually I do. Her sister was the fattest baby I've ever seen. Oh and it turns out that well calibrated cuteometer puts her squarely at the 100% level.

 

Mielle on the road, Westfalia style

 Tarah and I both took our full 3 months of FLMA leave and used some of it to go camping in our new (old) Westfalia VW camper. We were (or I should say I was) a little too adventurous I think because on this first trip to Hood River Mielle is only 3 weeks old. Tarah is a real trooper to put up with me; she's awesome. Everything went very very well except for the first day's drive which was just a little too far and we were all feeling the stress of Mielle being in the carseat for too long. My parents went with us and camped in a tent next to the van. As you can see in the second photo, there is a perfect little sleeping nook for little Mielle just next to us. She actually slept incredible well in the van. I made some spectacular crapes in the morning and we topped them with fresh organic blueberries that my parents bought from a very nice french woman near town. When asked if they were organic she was appalled at the idea of some other alternative.

Mielle is here!!!!!

Our beautiful baby Mielle was born on June 29th weighing in at 9 lbs 4 oz! Tarah is such a fricking trooper, and all that baby with no meds. The top of her little head was poking out for about an hour making me ball with excitement like a little school girl.

Little baby coming soon

We are about to have a beautiful baby girl named Mielle. She's due the 19th but Tarah thinks it will happen in the next couple of days. We are both going to take 3 months off after she's born and hope to do some - not so adventurous - traveling in our new (well new in 1984)  Westfalia camper bus. I'll post a little something about the van soon but I need to take a couple of pics first.

Expanding the Urban Garden, cedar beds

With two new raised cedar beds our urban garden has been almost doubled. One is 4x8 and the other is 4x6, giving us a total of 121 square feet with the steel beds. For simplicity I decided to go with cedar this time, even though I love the metal ones.

These beds will get full sun so we filled them with tomatoes and peppers and even an eggplant. Tarah thinks I'm being silly planting an eggplant in Seattle but we'll see.

A number of years ago when Union Street was torn up, our neighbors collected some of the original cobblestones. They've been saving them for a project that they recently decided was never going to happen, so they offered the stones to me this weekend. I used them to make a cute and very functional little set of stairs between the two new beds. 

Reflux Still

I had such a good time making the grappa with my friends still that I couldn't resist making a still of my own; plus I'm kind of a project junkie. I primarily referenced these two websites: http://homedistiller.org/ http://www.moonshine-still.com/ in designing my sill. I designed the still to reach about 90% pure alcohol but we'll see what it can really do once I have a wash (fermented alcohol of 10-20% alcohol) ready to run through it. The column is filled with stainless steel ribbon (pot scrubbers) to act as virtual plates where layers of like alcohol concentration collect. This allows a temperature gradient to be set up between the kettle and the top of the column. If all goes right, the kettle will be at the boiling temperature of a 15% ethanol/water solution and the top of the column will be at the temperature of a 90% ethanol/water solution.

Moonshine - homemade grappa!

I've taken the next obvious step in the evolution of a home-brewer; homemade hooch! A buddy of mine made a still recently and let me use it to make grappa. Grappa is a spirit made by fermenting and distilling the pomace left over form the wine making process. Typically making white wine involves squeezing the juice from the grapes and leaving the pomace behind as a waste product. This pomace has residual sugar that can be fermented. I was able to get 10 gallons of Riesling pomace from a local winery. The fermentation process was ridiculously easy with little to no sanitary precautions taken. I simply watered back the pomace until the skins were fully submerged and added 2.5 lbs of honey. The honey was some cheap crap I had bought at the store but didn't care for the taste of, so as an afterthought I through it in the mash. I then pitched a champagne yeast and let it go. The next morning it was fermenting away like crazy and the skins were rising well above the tops of the containers. For the next couple of days I punched the pomace down as often as I could, sometimes every half hour. The whole downstairs smelled pleasantly like a winery. From this I ended up with 5 gallons of "wine" that I took down to my friends house. From the 5 gallons I ended up with 1L of a 122 proof spirit. Not a lot to show for the effort but I have to say the results are fricking fantastic. It is very soft and fruity with a nose that is both fruity and floral.

Drunken Goat 6 - 2010

This year's festival was incredibly great again. My mom and dad made a stellar rendition of the famous Piraat ale from Belgium with a whopping 10% alcohol and they had custom shirts made for the occasion (see pic below). Rob A (with some artistic guidance from Jen) made a Kolsch ale spiked with apple cider and lavender.  The lavender was used sparingly and the end product was a delicious light and summary ale. Tarah and I made our first rye ale. It was also a good example of a summary ale with some citrus notes. A small volume of three other homebrews brought the total to 6 this year. Daren and Brina (seen above) didn't have time to build an ale so they did the very next best thing, they came as ale. Brina with a grain wreath and Daren with one of hops. In all my dad counted ~60 people and we cooked ~55 pizzas. I'm really thankful to my friend Andrew who allowed me to mix the dough up in the 20 qt. Hobart mixer he keeps next to his bead in his studio apartment (now that's a sign of a real baker). I made 50 doughs and Anna made ~5 gluten free doughs.

Seattle Urban Garden

Putting in the planter boxes has been a wonderful addition to our house. The only real drawback is that we aren't going to the farmer's markets at all.

The neighbor's cat Calie (AKA Peaches as she's known to the owner) loves gardening with us.

Steel Planter Boxes; urban garden

After looking at an untold number of single family houses to buy and getting out bid four times on shit holes that weren't even move in ready, we were worn out and completely discouraged. So we decided to take our landlord's offer and buy the townhouse that we had been renting for the past 2+ years. Buying a townhouse at first seemed like we were settling due to the lack of a garden. So this year (now that we're done with the inside re-model, the sauna, and the pizza oven) we have decided to focus on getting a garden in.  The 19th and Union corner of the house was completely overtaken by ornamentals doing us no good. These just had to come out. It has now been 5 weeks of a completely full yard waste bin and one full truck load to the dump and we are finally rid of the corner ornamentals.

Instead of using untreated lumber that breaks down quickly (but is nice and cheap) or cedar that's really expensive we decided to try something a little different with our raised beds. They are made of some 3/16 and some 1/8 inch plate steel. We were able to get most of the metal as scrap at 50 cents per pound and the rest of it was 90 cents a pound. But with it all weighing in at over 400 pounds it wasn't cheap at roughly $300 for the set of three beds. Two of the beds are ~8x3' and one is ~5x3' for a grand total of ~65 square feet of urban gardening fun. We also built  a 6' tall trellis for peas and beans. 

Hard Cider - Our new tradition

We set out with the idea of grabbing enough apples from the farmers market to make a gallon or so of hard cider. We planned to use our Acme juicer which if you have one of these juicers you know that even a gallon is pushing it. After just a few minutes at the farmers market it was clear that we would have to rent a real press. We ended up with ~60 lbs of random seconds and a press from Bob's Homebrew.

Pressing the apples was a bunch of fun and Ana, David, Nora and Natalie all helped out. It came out to be a perfect 5 gallons; just right for a carboy. I used some sulfite on it and pitched champaign yeast in the morning.

I'm pleasantly surprised just how well it turned out. (I just got around to posting about this but we made it in the fall.)

Ridiculous Overkill; Stainless Steel Tamper

My brother-in-law Brandt has gone nuts over coffee. He got himself a crazy fancy home espresso machine and an equally nice burr grinder. For a while he was using sub par beans but recently a roaster opened up just across the street from him. After chatting with the owner/roaster and beginning to buy his beans, Brandt has started pulling some creamy delicious shots.

So the other day Brandt was preparing to pull me a show and I noticed that the tamper that came with his fancy machine was far less than fancy. It was totally out of place with all the cool equipment so I decided to machine him a new one. I got a 5" long 2.5" diameter cylinder of solid stainless steel. I've never worked with stainless steel before but I got lots of advise from my machinist friend at work and just started cutting.

The final product is ridiculously heavy and a gross overkill but also so fricking cool that you can barely even believe it. I took it to my neighborhood coffee shop, Tougo, and had Dannel my favorite barista make me a shot with it before I gave it to Brandt.

El Horno de Union Design

Here are some plans (or sketches) for the wood fired clay oven we made. We were able to finish the entire project, not including the roof, in about three days of work. Since we live in Seattle it's necessary to have a roof over the cob. We had some guys that build bicycle tailors and work down at 20/20 cycle weld us up a roof frame that we then covered with corrugated sheet metal.

The clay for the oven came from a local gravel quarry. They hate hitting clay veins and happily give it away. I got it from a woman who bought an entire semi load of this clay for only the cost of the driver's time. She used the clay to make an entire cob house (see picture below).

I tried to use some old fire bricks that I got off Craig's List. It quickly became obvious that used bricks are just too imperfect and would simply not work for the oven floor. So we had to purchase new bricks but ended up using all the old fire bricks to build the attached grill area.

The only other building component that had to be purchased was the sand. I'm sure that if we had of just tried, we probably could have gotten the sand for cheap or free but instead we just got it from the masonry section at The Home Depot.