And a barefoot running story to boot! Check out the great Tail Winds cover shot by Brad Jones at RB Jones Photography, and the articles on pages 10 and 11 about Max and my 109 mile ride of El Tour de Tucson and my record barefoot running of the Dean Karnazes Rock n Roll 50k.
(For the record, we don’t know any circus songs and Vibram Five Fingers are not “just like running barefoot”)
The race report from November’s El Tour de Tucson is in the works, but I can’t resist passing along some photos from the event taken by Brad Jones at RB Jones Photography. Expect to see his work documenting our ride in an upcoming issue of Tailwinds magazine!
http://rbjonesphotography.zenfolio.com/unigallery
A ride report from my distance unicycle riding partner, Max Taint, about our 24 October training ride for El Tour de Tucson. He sent it to me way back on 28 October:
Leif is one of my few Unicycle Bastard friends (www.unicyclebastards.com) interested in distance unicycling and we have been training for and riding in centuries for a couple of years now. Our next long ride is the Tour De Tucson 109 mile century - and I for one am not feeling ready.
We both wanted to and intended to do more training rides than we have, but we have both been distracted by new athletic obsessions: I’ve been riding nothing but my new tall tandem bike 
and Zeke, well, as this new blog demonstrates, he’s gone batshit nuts for barefoot running. We both agreed that we had time for a 50-mile training ride on our 36” unicycles. The route we chose was relatively flat and we established that there would be no particular time or speed goal, but it was just to get some much needed saddle time.
If we were normal, sensible and conservative distance unicycle riders, we would have left it at that, but we felt the need to tinker with reality to design a flatland 50 mile ride that “feels” more like the last 50 miles of a brutal 109 mile ride in the desert sun. This altered state ride became known as the Tequila 50:
The Tequila 50 recipe:
1. Meet other Unicycle Bastards downtown to see the movie Zombieland.
2. Bring a wide-mouth water bottle of Tequila to share. Fact: Tequila in a water bottle gets consumed nearly as quickly as water!
3. Visit two bars afterwards and then Leif and I part ways:
4. Leif wisely decides to leave his car downtown and get a taxi home. I take another route to further prepare myself for the Tequila 50: I take part in a late night eight-mile off road unicycle ride in the Forest Park, I insist on riding a particularly steep ivy covered ravine again and again until I make it down without crashing. I only give up when I cut my leg open, bruise an ankle and fall into a huge pile of dog shit pretty much in one fluid motion of drunkenness. As I sit on the Max train, bleeding into my shoe on the way home, I wonder why people won’t sit next to me??
Now that the important pre ride preparations were completed at 1:30 AM, both of us dropped into a night of poor sleep with little restorative benefit.
The Tequila 50 started at 7:00 AM with our route taking us from the Hollywood area in NE Portland to the Willamette River along the Esplanade and out to rural Gresham along the Springwater Corridor and back again. The ride began with no smiles, none of the usual sophomoric humor about taints, chamois butter, or the effects of distance unicycling on male anatomy. We just got our hydration packs on and start riding. We started off this ride looking and feeling like the zombies in the movie we watched the night before. And when we heard that dreaded bit of tired humor that any unicycle rider gets from others: “Where is your other wheel?” I wasn’t surprised that our response was more of a zombie growl than any other recognizable reply.
At mile 20, we start to feel more alive and this confirms one of my theories that the best cure for a hangover is to get the blood pumping and go for a ride. The trip to Gresham took a little longer than usual and Leif started noticing some knee pain on the return trip, which slowed us down a bit more. By design, the Tequila 50 was supposed to provide a rough start where you don’t feel great and the miles would come slowly at first at the end of the ride, you felt like you just finished a century. I think these meager objectives were achieved. Next: Tour De Tucson 109 miles in November.
Note: Under no circumstances should readers interpret this blog post as an endorsement of the mixing of alcohol or Tequila with any distance athletic event. The authors use of performance reducing substances was an experiment, a lark, and others might say … a half-baked idea, hatched by individuals looking to make the most efficient use of the time invested in training rides and ultimately … just having a good time.
Happy trails, Maxwell Taint
There’s a long running thread on the usenet newsgroup rec.sports.unicycling titled “Who has completed a 100 mile ride?” with the purpose of logging the answer to that question. As of today, 8 October 2009, the list includes 47 names:
Peter Bier
David Stone
Roger Davies
Alan Chambers
Steve Colligan
Mark Wiggins
Takayuki Koike (record holder 6hrs44min)
Lars Clausen
Ken Looi
Floyd Beattie
Johnnie Severin
Cathy Fox
Bruce Dawson
Jack Hughes
Dan Heaton
Scot Cooper
Sam Wakeling
Chuck Edwall
Joe Marshall
John Himsworth
Gracie Sorbello
Rowan Chivers
Tony Melton
Tim Lee
Joe Lind
Rob Muellerleile
Irene Genelin
Beau Hoover
Nathan Hoover
Mike Scalisi
Ryan Woessner
?~Xivind Johansen
Kjetil Juul Pedersen
James Amon
Leif Rustvold
Max Taint
Mark Osmundo
Mike Tierney
Joseph Sherman
Roland Kays
Claude Magnuson
Jan Logemann
Zeke Boisei
Paul Stacey
Joe Myers
Matthew Huber
Tom Blackwood
Congratulations to all of these distance minimalists!
You can keep track of the conversation via your favorite usenet newsreader, or on the thread at Unicyclist.com which seems to do a better job of keeping the thread intact than the version on Google Groups. Of course new additions to this list make news here at Distance Minimally as well!
One from the archives. On 1 July 2008 Donald on BikePortland.org posted the following story about our crossing paths on that Tuesday’s commute:
Unicycles Rule!
This evening, I was running late.
I was lugging my laptop in a pannier, but my 80s Raleigh Comp GS was still in fighting form, tires just topped off to 110 and fresh lube on the drivetrain.
I’ve had a good winter of commuting and I’m feeling my oats, passing fair weather-ers on the waterfront like they were sitting still (which they were).
Then I get to Wieldler and Williams and I spot him. Big wheel Uni. Purple in colour. He passes in front as I wait for the light and then positions himself behind me in line to head north.
Total bike jam and I’m kicking hard for home so I don’t think about him again until I have to stop at Russel for the light.
Shoom, he passes me on the right just as the light turns green.
“I’m totally tucking in” is all I can offer.
So not only did I get passed by a Uni, I drafted one for a good 8 blocks. And it was a good pull. I’m hauling ass and I don’t have the legs to make the pass. But he’s punching a big hole and I’m grateful for assist.
Once the terrain flattened out and I could grab a gear, I offered “Drop in, man” as I crawled past him.
No idea if he tried.
But as I waited to turn left at Alberta, he was right there. Giving me the peace sign.
A totally stud performance.
I Am Humbled.
http://bikeportland.org/forum/showthread.php?t=2105
Photo by OneTireFlyer
I keep finding myself writing a history of my barefoot/minimalist running while working on the race report for last weekend’s “Hundred in the ‘Hood” PCT100. It seems that story needs to be told first. Some of it was told in my recent interview with Aaron from Transcend Bodywork. Some I haven’t shared before. Here it is.
I tried my first jogs without shoes in 2004. During the marathon training clinic I participated in while preparing for a marathon that Fall I heard the recommendation to do short barefoot runs in the grass as a way to improve form and strengthen muscles. I was intrigued enough to try, running on the road rather than grass. I was not intrigued enough to weather past the blisters I would occasionally get when something was a little different than the days where everything went fine. Usually on hot days.
Occasional forays into barefooting. Blisters. Back into shoes for fear of sabotaging my next race. This was the pattern for a couple of years.
When I wasn’t barefoot I was running in the motion control shoes that I
was fitted with at my local running store. Watching me run on a treadmill with a video camera trained on my feet, they showed me conclusive proof that I was one of the biomechanically flawed masses that had to be fixed by science in order to run without injury. I seemed a bit crazy to give barefooting a chance.
In 2006, at the Angeles Crest 100 Mile Endurance Run (AC100), I spent some time on the trail over Mt. Baden Powell with Barefoot Ted. He was doing his first 100 miler wearing Vibram Five Finger Sprints. They looked rediculous to me, and I figured he was somehow equipped in ways that I must not be, but it furthered the intrigue I had for this way of running.
One of the hats that I wear is that of a physical anthropologist. I would like to have thought that this would lead me much more quickly to the conclusion that we are made to run barefoot, but first I was busy working on the simple idea that we are made to run. This was not the foregone conclusion that I thought it should be. Our culture tells us that we have weak feet and that running destroys our joints, that we are apparently not made to run. Anthropology had no standard answer to the question. Eventually I convinced myself that we were made to run, and found compelling anthropological studies that supported the conclusion. From there it was an easy step to conclude that we were made to run barefoot. And then it became the goal.
If we were made to run, then it was not a few biomechanically blessed who did not need special shoes to run. If we were made to run then it was a few biomechanically disadvantaged rather than the masses who truly needed modern designs to let them run. Most of us were just weak from lack of using our feet. If we were made to run, then I should be able to run barefoot.
I picked up some of the Vibram Five Fingers I’d seen Ted wearing at AC100 and started running occasionally in them. About once a week. I would run around 10K in them about once a week for much of the next year, letting my tissues and form rehabilitate and adapt to the different demands of running without running shoes. The following Fall I decided to cross-train over the Winter on a distance unicycle, the roots of Distance Minimally were being laid. This worked great except that when I ran my first ultramarathon of the year in February my feet were sore from peddling a wheel all Winter more than they pounded the ground. I decided to do all of my short runs in my Vibram Five Fingers as a way to keep my feet strong while cross training by unicycle. Soon my definition of “short” got longer and longer, until a couple of months later I toed the line of a 55K race in my Vibrams for the first time. I was certain that I could do at least half the distance without shoes, and was prepared to change if I needed to. The run went great, the full distance in Vibrams, and a personal record on the course to boot. I was hooked. I wanted to see how far I could take this. I prepared for my next race, a 50 miler on the Pacific Crest Trail, and set a PR for the distance in my Vibrams. Confidence increased, I did a 100K the next month with success. I was ready to toe the line at AC100.
I was still a bit concerned about a 100 miler without shoes, unsure about going from 15 hours on the trail that was mostly in the light of day to over 24 hours on the trail including a full night. But I wasn’t confident about wearing shoes for 100 miles either. I hadn’t run in shoes in months, and even when I was used to them I would get horrible blisters on my toes and other damage to my feet from shoes. I wore VFF KSOs, but I put shoes in several drop bags and included shoes in the gear that my crew brought to each of the aid stations. Around 40 miles into the run I slipped into a stream in Cooper Canyon. Soon blisters formed on my wet soles. At mile 54 I changed into shoes in hopes that they would be easier on my blistered feet through the night. Then I threw up. I ventured slowly into the night with multiple goals having fallen out of reach. I finished the race, and had a chance to chat with Ted about my effort at one of the aid stations down the trail, but I regretted that I had fallen short of my goal of a 100 mile trail run without shoes.
Weeks later I qualified for the Boston Marathon and set a marathon PR in my Vibrams, and then I repeated the buildup the next year, this time successfully including true barefoot running as well. I ran 85 miles in a one-day race wearing my VFF Sprints. I ran my 50 miler in VFF KSOs again, and won the “Show Us Your Waldo” award at the Where’s Waldo 100K for my repeat finish in VFF KSOs there. And now I was ready to try the 100 miler again. This time I ran it with success, lucky to get my toes into an early pair of KSO Treks, and set a 100 mile PR in the process. It felt like graduation day, but I had one more goal in mind. Tomorrow I toe the line for my first barefoot marathon.
My feet still show some wear from my 100 miler last week, but hey, we’re made to do this. I’m giving it a shot.
Justin over at Birthday Shoes has written a nice article on my minimalist adventures and introducing his readers to Distance Minimally. It’s a nice writeup, if I may say so myself. Thanks Justin!
A great article by Jim Moore about our 2009 Reach the Beach unicycle century ride, titled “One Wheel, 100 Miles — Ow! That’s Gotta Hurt”. It was published in The Oregonian on 20 June 2009. A nice Father’s Day surprise, I woke up to a message from a friend on my Facebook wall simply saying “I saw the article - you’re awesome!” Unfortunately the online version doesn’t do justice to the full page spread with a great photo of Max and my finish that the newspaper version featured.
http://www.oregonlive.com/outdoors/index.ssf/2009/06/one_wheel_100_miles_ow_thats_g.html
An article by Elizabeth Moore about our 2009 Reach the Beach unicycle century ride.
http://features.csmonitor.com/globalnews/2009/06/10/united-states-one-wheeled-wonders/
Distance: 102 miles
Minimally: 1 wheel
Ahead of our 2009 Reach the Beach ride, our group of 4 distance unicyclists appeared on KGW’s morning news in the “Out and About” segment with Drew Carney throughout the newscast.
An oldie-but-goodie. This video by fellow distance unicyclist Monty Mcfly documents the first century ride that Max Taint and I rode.
Distance: 102 miles
Minimally: 1 wheel
