VFF

I finally took my Vibram Five Fingers for a spin (see product picture below). Until now I had worn them around the neighborhood walking the dogs, out to dinner with Nicole, and other casual occasions. I thought I might go for a mile or so after work today on the treadmill, a nice controlled environment, to see how they felt. 4 miles later I had to stop, but only because I had to get home to dinner. They felt amazing and my legs feel fresh and strong. I'll wait to see if any lingering soreness creeps in tomorrow, but I don't anticipate any problems.


I expect it to take some time before I am going 15-20 miles on trails with these (if ever) but I think the transition will be eased having thousands of miles of backpacking and trail running in "minimalist" inov8 shoes.

from the inov8 website:

"Running bare foot is associated with a substantially lower prevalence of acute and chronic injuries to the ankle and lower limbs, so, the inov-8 team designs all our footwear range to allow the foot the freedom to move and function as nature intended, without interference from the structure of the shoe. inov-8 shoes protect the foot from the harsh external environment experienced by the off road runner but maintain the feeling and function of bare foot running. inov-8 believes that foot function has evolved over millennia to provide a stable platform on which the runner can perform. It is, and always will be our philosophy to look to the natural function of the foot for inspiration and guidance whenever we design footwear for the high performance athlete or the recreational runner"

I will leave you with this link from NPR about a running segment that aired yesterday. Go on, click the link...

SMFM

Ah the Santa Monica Farmers Market. If you are looking for good food and maybe even better people watching this is the place. We met up with DoubleJ and strolled around until we found Lily's Eggs and picked up a dozen. That became part of "breakfast for dinner" tonight. Pancakes, omelets, and veggie sausage patties. Delicious.

As for the people watching, in the past we have seen several random actors/actresses. Today's sighting was Maggie Grace, best know for her role as Shannon on the TV series Lost.


Taking the prize and standing out far more than Maggie was the guy in the photo below...sporting the striped bathrobe and Birkenstocks. Awesome.

LA weekend

We had a great long weekend with AS in town. Delicious sushi, Thai, burritos, a walk of Hollywood, downtown Santa Monica, a couple of movies, a great hike in the mountains...

Beverly Hills on a Saturday night

Hollywood star walk

free parking!
in the distance...the Hollyhock House

We also toured the Hollyhock House (designed by Frank Llloyd Wright). It was really cool, though his designs are not necessarily practical, but that is a whole different discussion. The movies we saw were hit and miss. First The Lovely Bones. Nicole read the book a few years ago and really enjoyed it. The movie, in our three opinions was a disappointment. On the flip side, we saw Sherlock Holmes which we all found entertaining and neatly set itself up for a sequel.

The hike we took was on some of the trails that I run on a regular basis. They provide a great view of the ocean, downtown LA, and on clearer days than we had you can see the snow capped mountains in the distance. Later in the day we went down to the canals in Venice to walk around and check out all the interesting homes along the water.

That's the news for now.

14 down.

It's after midnight, so officially we are on the 14th day of 2010. So far so good. Maybe someday I'll catch up and blog about all the cool things going on. Until then take in this little update...

weekend hike in the mountains above Hollywood

Yes I know you are all dying to know about the 2009 trail running goal. Yes, I reached it. Yes it was somewhat anti-climatic. I am however about 60 miles into 2010 and feeling strong.

A few nights ago we had AWESOME Thai food with awesome friends Figgy and Stitch. We will definitely be going back there to eat.

Nicole and I are looking forward to hanging out with AS who is in town this weekend and we will no doubt have some awesome adventures.

That's all for now...I have a stack of awesome library books calling my name...and should be asleep by now.

Bye.