Beyond Barefoot

OK, Boomers out there (Heck, the way things are going, I could ask a 16 year-old the same questions!): When's the last time you climbed a tree? When's the last time you hopped over a fence? How about a forward roll? While hiking, when's the last time you got down on your belly and crawled under a log blocking the trail rather than looking for a way around? If you found yourself on the tenth floor of a burning building with no elevator and no shoes, could you save yourself? Could you save your companion?

When's the last time a book changed your life, even a little bit? I won't try to review Christopher McDougall's Born to Run here. It's been all over the news, and by now just about anyone who has an interest in running has read it or as heard all about it. What I want to do is reflect on how some of the revelations in the book have influenced my thinking about a lot of things.

I'm a cynic. I know it, and everyone close to me is sick of it. But, as I like to say, I come by my cynicism honestly. One of the main threads through this book deals with the myth and the scam of the modern running shoe. Humans evolved for millions of years and survived by running barefoot, yet in a few short decades the running shoe industry has everyone convinced that they can't jog a step without the the latest high-tech - and high-profit - footwear. OK, I am predisposed to the argument that running shoes can wreck your body because I'm suffering with a nagging and persistent case of plantar fasciitis, but the basic argument makes sense to me: Because of their form, support and cushioning, running shoes encourage runners to land heel-first, putting tremendous unnatural strain on the body. Furthermore, by supporting feet so thoroughly, these shoes actually weaken them.

Born to Run is mostly about running barefoot, but it is helping me to braid together several threads of thought that have be twisting around in my brain for some time now. What it is boiling down to is that we American adults - in typical Boomer over-achiever fashion - are going about exercise all wrong. How many of us spend hours on a treadmill bored out of our minds, going nowhere? How many millions of miles have we pounded out on asphalt running in straight lines preparing for 10K's and marathons? How many millions of dollars have we spent because we are convinced we need gyms, trainers and fancy equipment? I say, rather than behaving like machines or drones, we need to behave more like cavemen, or - dare I say it - children.

We need to make exercise more interesting, varied, fun, simple, and maybe even a little risky. Lately, instead of a typical slog on the road for an hour, I like to go for trail runs. I'm lucky in that from home I can quickly run to Moose Hill or nearby Town conservation land. I'm not ready for barefooting yet (Plus it's February in New England.) and I don't have any of the new minimalist footwear yet (I'm still a little skeptical about that, too.), so I focus on landing more on my mid-foot and less on my heel.

As I move across soft and variable trail surfaces, I notice that my foot doesn't hurt nearly as much as it does on pavement. Moving through the woods, I watch the terrain in front of me and try to let my body flow with the landscape; moving left and right, up and down. I start to feel like a wild animal moving gracefully through the forest. (OK, I'm an overweight mid-50's guy with a bad foot and a bad shoulder, but endorphines are powerful drugs that help me hallucinate.) As I run, I scan my surroundings for playthings: A log on the ground makes a good balance beam. A granite bolder lets me become king of the hill. A low-hanging tree branch is a good pull-up bar. I look for different ways to move my body: I bend to clear sticks from the path. If a log is in my way, I don't hesitate to hop over or crawl under. I look for stones to lift and throw. If I see a soft spot on the ground, I might do a somersault. The idea is to vary the movement and use many different muscles to stretch and strengthen the whole body, not to become over-trained in just one way. With all that running, bending, rolling, climbing, throwing and crawling, one should be ready for any physical challenge that comes up in everyday life.

There is also another component to my new thinking about exercise: Useful work. Let's be honest: Most of us have to exercise because we live cushy lifestyles and work at jobs where the biggest physical danger is the risk of a paper cut or maybe carpal tunnel syndrome. For most of us, exercise is actually something of a leisure time luxury. I don't think migrant farm workers go home at night and yell: "Let's go to the gym!" How about this: Next time it snows, don't call the plow guy. Get the kids off the couch and go out and shovel for an hour. Rather than agonize over the price of heating oil for next winter, go out and chop some firewood. Rather than drive to the Piggly Wiggly for your Pringles, hop on the bicycle and pedal over there for some whole wheat flower. Rather than hire a lawn service, push a mower for an hour a week. Better yet: Get out a spade and turn that lawn into a garden. We can find lots of way to get some exercise while doing something useful.

I like to find new ways of looking at our everyday world. I like to think about simple ways to make our lives and the world a little better. Born to Run is helping me to do that.

Turtlehead Boulder, Borderland

One of the traditions of bouldering is to name the rocks. It's a bit of a mystery to me who gets to name a boulder. Maybe it's the first climber to find a rock and bother to name it. Perhaps the honor should go to the first to climb it. Giving a unique name to a rock has obvious advantages, if for no other reason than to help other climbers find it.

Several of the boulders in Borderland State Park have names that have been published online on New England Bouldering and the Mountain Project. I've been able find - if not climb - a few of these rocks including the Ames Boulder, Hardly Working and the Ridge Boulder.

One rock I like may or may not have a name already, but for now I call it "Turtlehead" because it looks like the head of a giant tortoise emerging from the bowels of the Earth. It is right in the middle of the French Trail, not far from its intersection with the West Side Trail. This boulder is in an area with many other good climbing opportunities for beginning and advanced climbers.

This is not a large boulder - maybe 8 feet high - but it has a variety of climbs good for beginners. A few routes have generous handholds and footholds, and one side has a sloping slab with small finger-holds where a climber can practice trusting the grip of his shoes.

The Ridge Boulder

Thanks to the good people at The Mountain Project and their detailed information about bouldering in Borderland State Park in Sharon and Easton, Massachusetts, I found another good climbing boulder close to home. As if carefully placed in the forest by the giant unseen hand of God, the Ridge Boulder sits in the forest at the end of the Ridge Trail about a tenth of a mile up an old woods road from Mountain Street in Sharon.
This big granite erratic is about 15 feet tall and offers many different routes to the top. So far, I've been able to climb four of the easier routes, but there are at least that many more that may be forever out of reach for me but might be fun for those with more favorable power/weight ratios.






On our first visit to this rock, climbing buddy Shai and I met Aubrey, a local climber with lots of experience in the area. He generously offered a couple of beginners lots of good tips and let us use one of his crash pads. Aubrey was wearing a climbing helmet. Many may think that wearing a helmet for bouldering is overkill, but it turns out that Aubrey is a neurologist. Now, when a neurologist - someone who knows a thing or two about head injuries - wears a helmet, I pay attention. Call me a dork, but I now wear one too.

Pac-Man and the Devil

My newly-discovered interest in rock climbing that germinated on a walk to the Boulders on Moose Hill continues to grow. I've been reading, watching You-Tube videos, and I even purchased a pair of climbing shoes. I've learned that a subset of rock climbing known as "bouldering" seems well suited to my ability level and available resources. In bouldering, as the name implies, one finds a big boulder and climbs on it. This can be very easy or very difficult, depending on the size and shape of the rock. A boulder may have gently sloping sides with lots of places to place hands and feet, or it might have tall, sheer faces with nary a bump or crack to grab.

I'm discovering that there are many fine climbing boulders close to home. There may be some on Moose Hill, but the best local climbing spot could be Borderland State Park that is about a 15-minute bike ride from home. This park is said to have many good boulders and I've already visited a few of them.

Even closer to home is Devil's Rock. This huge much-visited glacial erratic is along Massapoag Brook on Sharon Town Conservation land and is easily reached via a blue-blazed side trail off the orange-blazed Massapoag Trail.

Devil's Rock is maybe 20 feet tall, has three very steep sides and one sloping side. I can make it up the sloping side with the help of an old, dead tree trunk that leans on it, providing secure hand-holds on the steeper lower half of the climb. The upper half has a slightly gentler slope I can scramble up quite easily - if slowly - with the help of the sticky rubber soles of my climbing shoes. I find getting down much more nerve-wracking than going up. It's much easier to see where I'm going while looking over my hands than when looking between my legs.

The vertical sides of Devil's Rock are way beyond anything I hope to climb in this lifetime and creeping up and down a smooth slab of granite loses it's interest pretty quickly. Luckily, the Devil has a smaller sister boulder that may well have split off the big rock millennia ago. I call this rock Pac-Man because a big chunk of it has also split off in a way that reminds me of the 80's-era video game character.
Pac-Man has four or five different routes to the top that I've been able to complete so far and a nice traverse - or sideways climb - along the "chin." I hope to complete a few more routes as my skill improves.

This is a good rock for a beginner. Some of the routes are very easy, and others are a bit more challenging, requiring long reaches for small hand-holds or reliance on single small toe-holds. The climber is never very far from the ground, so chances of injury are small.

As I hoped, I am finding that rock climbing is healthy full-body exercise combined with bike rides to the woods. After work just the other day, instead of a car trip to the gym, I rode my bike through the neighborhood and did some good stretching, reaching, pulling, gripping and climbing while listening to the calls of ovenbirds and veerys on a warm Spring evening.