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PSA: If you hit something with your car, stop to check on the thing you hit

April 6, 2015 · by Oliver Gray

I’m a runner.

I’ve always run when I stop to think about it; across soccer fields, down back roads, through the woods away from ornery bees. My default state is up and moving, feet slapping, heart pounding, lungs huffing, but brain happy. As I’ve gotten older, running has become more of a maintenance routine; an active (and sometimes painful) caloric counter to all those beer-borne carbs.

I rarely talk about my running because there’s little in life I find as boringly self-serving as telling people how and when you plan to sweat. It’s just a thing I do and have always done, and I’m not a competitive racer nor certified trainer, so I don’t see much point in bringing it up.

But today’s story requires the background information that from time to time I peel myself away from the keyboard and the kegs, and punish myself in the name of health and vanity.

Last Tuesday, while I was running, a woman hit me with her car.

I use the verb “hit” here quite literally: she drove the hood of her Honda into the flesh of my legs (I’m relatively uninjured, if anyone is worried). I could forgive an accident, an end-of-the-workday bump caused by fatigue or distraction. I would have dusted myself off, showed her I wasn’t badly hurt, and probably just admonished her for not paying attention to her surroundings. But I didn’t even get the chance, because upon realizing she’d hit something – probably another human being – she drove off.

I sat in the thin grass median, elbow and knee bloody from their recent first date with the sidewalk, incredulous. She just drove off. Didn’t look back. Rode off into the winking evening like a bandit on the run.

I wanted to be mad, but all I could muster, covered in sweat and shock, was sadness. Faith in humanity bruised and bloodied, badly.

The rest of the week was sore and soldiered. My sister’s wedding was only a few days away, the whole family had a lot to do, and I had already pledged my help. There was a house to decorate, tables and chairs to move, photos to take, beer to tap. I did what I could without playing up the pain, resting when I could, sleeping when I needed to. We made it through; the day of the wedding all beautiful and bright. We got to be for one shining evening; be joyous, be teary, be celebratory, be there. It felt fantastic to sit and bask in a moment of pure emotional self-indulgence, where that night, that party, those people made the rest of the world disappear into the sidelines of unimportance.

Now I sit, in the wake of the wedding, happy and tired and introspective. I still haven’t fully gripped the potential seriousness of the car-hitting situation. Everyone seemed outraged enough for me, and I feel lucky that I wasn’t more severely broken. I’d been too focused on what needed to get done to dwell on what happened, too hell bent on then to devote any time to the now.

I realize that’s been my life of late – run, running, ran – forward progress or bust, almost no stopping to catch my breath or rest my legs. Sure, a woman hit me with her car and didn’t stop to see if I was OK. But her actions did at least stop me and my relentless charge against time, forced me to accept that sometimes in life you’re going to get hit by random chance, and random chance won’t pull over to the curb to swap insurance information.

In a very strange, roundabout way, I appreciate her for being oblivious and selfish; she showed me that I may have been doing the same in my tunnel visioned obsession with “what’s next?” which isn’t fair to those I love, and definitely not fair to myself.

So, thank you, random woman in her random black Honda, for hitting me. Thank you for showing me the depths of human selfishness, and how painful that selfishness can be when left unchecked, unacknowledged, unchallenged. Thank you for swinging into my life with painfully impeccable timing to allow me to put myself aside and celebrate a fresh start for my sister and her husband. Also thank you for not breaking me worse, because that would have made for an awkward hobble down the aisle.

For the rest of the world, a public service announcement: If you ever have the misfortune to strike something with your car, stop. Not just for the person or animal or fire hydrant you hit, but for yourself, too. You never know what you might find.

I couldn’t find a fitting photo, so here’s a shot of the beers I homebrewed for Becca’s wedding.

Forgotten Friday: Corporate America, circa 1978

May 30, 2014 · by Oliver Gray

What images does your mind conjure when you hear the term, “corporate park?”

Do your thoughts jump to soulless financial machines: adult Lego bricks available only in greys and browns, photocopies of similar buildings plopped down into populated parking lots, unblinking logos like electric gargoyles perched on feckless facades?

Or do you imagine an actual “park,” a living, thriving, gathering place for a community of professionals, a bustling ecosystem of admins and executives sharing lunches and lessons on a Tuesday afternoon?

I’ve spent more time than I’d care to admit sawing at the invisible fetters of McLean, Virginia, and I recognize the suit and tie mentality permeating every porous inch of the concrete towers that rise like well manicured mausoleums from the DC Metro marshlands. I’m fortunate to not have to spend all my waking hours walking that tech corridor, but I’m still a denizen of a different corporate park, one whose history I’m fascinated by, and have written about before.

I fear I’ve developed an unhealthy cathexis for Corporate and Garden City drives, come to know their presiding dryads well as I’ve built the base of my career. The “park” borders I-495 (the infamous DC Beltway), its air polluted by the sounds and smog of seven hundred and fifity thousand daily commuters, but signs of nature remain. Freshly gnawed trees betray a local group of beavers; fat, ornery Canadian geese turn the little creek into a personal nesting ground every Spring; honey suckles and several other wildflowers sneak to bloom between discarded trash from Metro riders moving from train to office.

It’s here I run, usually after work, usually in warm weather twilight. Doing some quick writer-math, I’ve run approximately 1500 miles in Sisyphean circles around this place over 6 years, giving me ample time get to know it.

And yet, it still surprises me.

On days I’m feeling particularly energetic, I’ll stop to do pull-ups on a set of bars just east of the Metro station. There is a sign there, worn white print on aging blue fiberglass, surrounded by algae stained splintering wood that I’ve noticed many times, but never really paid attention to:

The sign was planted here by the Southwood Corporation, a group that since the 1970s has made giant, custom signs for locations just like corporate parks. Fit-Trail creates an outdoor gym, where any person can move between stations, getting a full-body work out by following the nifty directions on the strategically oriented placards. Or so goes the theory.

I’ve never seen anyone else use the bars to do chin-ups, and have never seen anyone tempt fate by rubbing their back against old, weathered wood to do an isometric squat. Despite my hours pounding the local concrete, I’d never noticed another flash white and blue, anywhere. But this station is 21 and 22 of some indeterminable number; there have to be others, elsewhere, right? At least 10 more with two exercises each, and at least one more down the line, since the instructions on this one say: “Pace to next station: Jog.”

So I jogged. And jogged. And jogged. Heaved and sweated and walked after giving into my asthma. Put my hands on my knees and cursed the Eastern shore humidity. I went around the whole 1.3 mile loop two more times in my search, but didn’t see any other signs. I’d lost the Fit-Trail before I even got a chance to find it.

Returning to the chin-up bars, I was determined to learn more. Upon closer inspection, I found a date that explained a lot:

1978. The year Southwood launched the Fit-Trail line (they’re still making them today for children’s parks and retirement communities), meaning this random corporate park in the middle of Maryland had been one of their first customers. Other than the brief terror of realizing I’d been doing pretty rigorous pull-ups on a thirty six year old metal bar and wooden frame, I felt sort of sad. This piece of signage was older than me, the only reminder that its brethren had ever been here to begin with, the last bastion of a time when this corporate park was more than just a shell for contract vehicles and short-term tenants.

The New Carrollton Metro station also opened in ’78 (not a half mile from Corporate drive), and I imagine some real estate developer spending top dollar to create a vibrant place to work at the then-new (and still) end to the Orange line. An all inclusive vocational vacation with restaurants and social draws and accouterments to made working seem as unlike work as possible.

As I run on the decades old sidewalks, I picture a different, distant version of Corporate drive, one where beautiful afternoon sun showers brought people out of offices regardless of deadlines, one where many people ran this trail to stay in shape, moving from each station to the next, past coworkers who were chatting away about that new movie, Grease, or the crazy situation in Love Canal, New York. I step back into a place come to life with employees who cared and a community that teemed, thirty years before the whole place grew thick with trash and unkempt overgrowth.

But that version, if it ever existed, is gone. Replaced by nothing and instead trimmed down, personality faded and weathered by time. A few echoes do remain, tucked behind the buildings, but with no one to use or maintain them, they’ve lost their luster and appeal.

If history is a cycle, the moves by Google and other progressive companies to create corporate environments where people actually want to go to work might be a full 360 spin of the wheel, returning us to sometime near 1978. I’m too young to know what it was like then, but if these few dwindling symbols are even sort of representative, it’s a time I’d like to experience again, for the first time.

Volleyball, circa 1978.

A Nerd’s Guide to Running in Vibrams

April 11, 2011 · by Oliver Gray

The concept of running barefoot most likely conjures up images of the careless days of childhood; summer grass beneath your tiny feet as the sun melts away in a cool, calm evening. It may invoke imagery of the beach; countless sandy patrons lounging and playing in the sun, feet skyclad in all their glory. For those particularly creative, it may even send your mind back to a simpler time before shoes, where people didn’t have a choice to be barefoot, it was their default way of being.

It almost certainly does not remind anyone of this:

But this is where convenience, necessity, safety, and all other kinds of responsible adult things, forces me to run. There is a little bit of grass, some very gross swampy stuff, plenty of pollution from the very nearby Beltway, and broken glass enough to challenge an Indian street performer. The loop I run is just shy one one mile, making 3 circuits the ideal distance for my fitness needs. In a perfect world, I would have a nice neighborhood park with friendly neighbors walking their friendly dogs in front of their friendly homes to run around, but my park is full of overly noisy basketball playing teenagers who I assume wouldn’t take kindly to someone running in frog-man shoes.

The obvious question here is: “If you have to run in this area, and the area is not conducive to running barefoot (or in minimalist shoes) why not run in normal shoes?” That is a very good question, one that I might need to answer with a succinct, “idiocy and masochism” to prevent further prying.

Whatever my reasons, I run in Vibram FiveFingers. KomodoSports, to be exact. This is my second pair of Vibrams (my first pair were red Sprints), and I must say I enjoy the whole “footie sock” concept turned shoe. The workout can be intense, it teaches your leg muscles to function in an entirely new way, and if you’re lucky, might even help alleviate some pain that is caused by traditional running shoes.

All of the shoes we wear teach us to run “heel-toe”. Our heel is padded by the shoe, which hits the ground first, followed shortly after by our forefoot and toes. Years and years of this being “normal” has made this motion seem very, well…normal. If you study human gait (the motions we make while running) you’ll find that something like 70% of people in the first world run this way (if they are capable of running at all).

Notice I said first world. There are many humans still out there running (a lot of them for survival, not something as petty as “rock hard abs”) who run in an entirely different manner. They land first on the ball of their foot, then carefully bring their heel down behind it. This enables them to be very fast, have incredible endurance, and most importantly, suffer fewer running related injuries, even after dozens of miles of jogging across unforgiving terrain.

I find that a lot of people who ask me about my Vibrams are curious about barefoot running, but can’t seem to do it without hurting themselves. The following tips are meant as a guide for someone who is not an inhuman triathlete, but your normal desk working, modern American who just so happens to enjoy running.

1. Marathons are overrated

The most important piece of advice I can offer is: start small. Even if you are an established runner, used to 6, 8, 10, 20 miles at a time, running barefoot is a very different experience. I overestimated myself the first time I ran in my Vibram Sprints; a paltry 3 miles left me barely able to walk the next day. As you retrain your feet, don’t think you need to run huge distances right away. If you feel like you’re not getting a complete workout by cutting your distance; run some stairs or something that doesn’t involve so much repetitive foot striking.

If you’re not a runner at all, I really recommend getting your legs and lungs into shape wearing traditional shoes; your muscles may need the support, and I’d hate for you to fall over and hurt yourself…

2. Take your feet to kindergarten

This sound dumb. You know your feet, what they do, where they go, how they smell. Unfortunately, if you want to really run barefoot, you have to break years and years of running habits. You have to conciously tell your feet to not strike heel-toe, but instead land toe-heel. Simple on paper, hard as hell in practice.

After about 20 miles of practice, I figured out one of the best ways to retrain your feet. Instead of trying to run on your toes and never letting your heel strike the ground (like I did when I first started), imagine landing on the outside of your foot, and quickly rolling it inward so disperse the weight. It almost feels like you’re running on the outsides of your feet at first, but eventually you’ll figure it out.

3. SLOOOW DOOOWWWN

The worst thing you can do is sprint, especially if your feet aren’t trained yet. The faster you go, the less control you have over your feet, and the more likely you are to strike heel-toe, sending shocks of pain up the backs of your legs. This one is simple, start by doing slow, delibrate runs, for as much distance as you can before you get tired. When you don’t get sore from running a few miles, you can start running faster, eventually getting up to sprints.

4. Soft Supports

It is much, much, much easier to start running in Vibrams on dirt of grass. These tend to be more forgiving if you land wrong and put significantly less stress on your calves. Grass and dirt give when you run on them, so you may gas-out very short of your normal distance. Don’t feel too bad about it, the grass is your friend.

5. Listen to your feet (with your ears and your brain)

Pain is the body’s way of letting us know we’re idiots. Or that we’re doing something very wrong. If your feet hurt badly, stop running. Walk in your Vibrams to get your feet used to them. If you wear supported shoes at all others time, chances are your feet and ankles are going to be relatively weak. Stop wearing shoes around the house, or at the very least wear your Vibrams, to get the muscles around your feet and ankles to strengthen.

Also listen for the sounds your feet make when they hit the pavement. A loud, floppy noise means you are landing on your heel and slapping your toes down. Correct barefoot form is nearly silent (think ninjas!).

6. Emulate Cinderella

Your shoes must fit very well. Vibrams that are too small with cut off circulation and hurt your feet, Vibrams that are too big will slide around and possibly cause blisters. The measuring tool on the FiveFingers website is pretty accurate, but I suggest you go to a store (REI carries a bunch of models) and try them on before you buy. I measured a 40, but my Sprints were a 42 and my KomodoSports are a 41. If the shoes don’t fit, you’ll never get comfortable; if you never get comfortable, you’ll never get a good work out; if you don’t get a good work out…what’s the point?

7. Pride is mortal sin or something

So is gluttony, but I don’t think America got the memo. Either way, you have to be proud to wear your Vibrams. Yea, they’re a little weird looking (especially the ones that are 80 different VERY BRIGHT colors) but they comfortable as hell and good for posture and strength. If you’re going to be embarrassed wearing them, don’t buy them; see my note on being comfortable above.

8. Barefoot isn’t universal

If you try and try to run barefoot, but keep winding up with stress fractures and bruised-up feet; maybe this kind of running isn’t for you. Everyone’s body is different and there is no shame in stepping back and saying, “these are officially hackysack shoes from now on”.

If anyone has any questions specifically related to running, or learning to run, or anything really, feel free to comment on this post, and I’ll give you my thoughts.

Options

March 14, 2011 · by Oliver Gray

I’ve talked a lot about my history of injuries, but just realized I never qualified how I got all of those injuries.

I was a reckless and foolhardy youth, but remained surprisingly uninjured from day to day. I skateboarded, climbed all sorts of tall things, trekked through creeks and woodlands, and even at one point, became an amateur lumberjack. These activities generally led to abrasions, cuts, and all sorts of minor wounds, but never any fractures or otherwise hospitalization requiring maladies.

The main cause of my perpetually broken self was soccer. Weekend tournaments with upwards of 10 games over 2 days, 3 hours long practices 2-3 times a week, and all the random pick-up/street soccer my hooligan friends and I could get our feet on. Soccer was my entire being from 7-17 years old, and I played it with the fervor of a Nordic Berserker, circa 1179.

I played for some high caliber teams, including then Maryland State Champions, Potomac Cougars, and then National Champions, FC Delco Dynamo II. I played with some guys who now plays in the MLS, for the US National Team, and even, on occasion, went toe-to-toe with the famous Freddy Adu.

I suffered broken ankles, wrists, torn ligaments and all sorts of probably avoidable injuries because of the uncontrollable bloodlust I channeled every time my foot touched a ball. But despite all these injuries, I always bounced back. I had been relatively injury free for the few months leading up to March 15th, 2002. Playing in the Richmond Jefferson Cup with FC Delco, I fractured my right tibia and fibula, setting into motion a series of events that lead to the end of my childhood dream of playing soccer professionally.

It sounds very melodramatic when condensed into a single paragraph. At the time, my 16 year old self could see no future, and the perceived inequality of cosmic order was almost too much to bear. I attempted to play competitively until 2004 at Loomis Chaffee, when I finally decided that I was not the player I once was, and would leave the scene admirably with whatever honor I had from playing in my prime.

It was about this time that I developed a strange habit. I began to just run, aimlessly, from place to place, akin to Forrest Gump. I was still in very good shape from playing so much soccer, so running seemed a natural way to expend my energy, albeit without a ball. I enjoyed running; I made friends the battery acid feeling so well described by Chuck Palahniuk, reveling in the masochistic pain of a long, good run.

This habit persisted through college. I ran where I could, and often, on nights of excessive frivolity, I would run home from a party, as it seemed the right thing to do at the time. I never approached it as a sport or workout, instead it was like dropping these words into the text box in my browser; a cathartic release of my potential (energy).

I still run. My elbow injury (that for explanatory purposes, happened when I fell 8 feet from a ladder) prevented me from running as much as I would have liked, but Winter is always my least favorite running season anyway. Now that warmer days are upon us, the urge to put one foot in front of the other at a brisk pace is slowly creeping back into my mind.

To this end, I created a timeline of the evolution of my running shoes:

There is a clear shift from soccer oriented shoes to more traditional running shoes, to ultimately, minimalist running shoes. I’ve read tons of arguments over the merits or dangers of running barefoot, and have to admit that both camps sound like extremists, pushed to being defensive for no real reason.

I started running in Vibram FiveFinger Sprints in the Spring of 2010. I bought them originally just because I like the gimmick and generally love to be barefoot, but after running in them a few times, really appreciated the difference that “supportless” shoes make. I have a bad knee from my aforementioned leg injury, and always ran in very padded running shoes, thinking I needed the extra cushioning to make it past the first mile.

Oddly enough, running nearly barefoot was only painful for the first 2 or 3 miles. After I adjusted my running to avoid landing heel first, I found that the pain in my knee actually dissipated and I was faster and lighter on me feet. It is entirely possible this was just a placebo affect that I could have stumbled upon by adjusting my gait in traditional shoes, but I would have never known, had I not tried different shoes. I just ordered my second pair of Virbam’s, this time opting for the KomodoSport cross training version.

I’ve read the science behind wearing a supportive shoes, and have to admit that it is pretty weak of both sides of the argument. The distances used to simulate running stress and astronomical; I run 3 miles 3 times a week and get a great workout. No one needs to run 10-15-30 miles, and I guarantee they would develop injuries no matter what they had on their feet. Running barefoot seems more natural, but admittedly a person has to relearn everything they know about running to do it without injury.

I disagree that running barefoot is dangerous. I also disagree that running barefoot is the best way to run. People are different; it comes down to having options. You can run in normal, padded shoes, if that is what gets you out there, but it is very cool to see that companies are at least entertaining the idea that some people might and can run differently. I for one love the tactile feel of pretty much just my foot hitting the ground; I can picture ancient Greek armies rushing into combat with nothing but flat pieces of leather protecting their soles.