Flat Hills Road

I’ve written two stories now for CrossFit Journal, a subscription-only internet publication for followers of the strength and conditioning program (movement?) called CrossFit.

The joke of those outside the program is that CrossFit is really a cult, and its practictioners encourage this by referring to people who follow the program as having “drunk the Kool-Aid.” (My editor was recently accused of “buying a Kool-Aid franchise.”) And after a few months keeping half an eye on them, I have to admit there’s a lot of allure there.

The important concept to consider, however, is how CrossFit defines “fitness.” The “What is CrossFit” page says,

Our program delivers a fitness that is, by design, broad, general, and inclusive. Our specialty is not specializing. Combat, survival, many sports, and life reward this kind of fitness and, on average, punish the specialist.

That’s a great idea, in general, but it’s exactly where CrossFit and I part ways. I have a sport–distance running–which I enjoy tremendously, and on average, it rewards the specialist. I might have a laughable vertical leap, but that’s not what I’m training for. I’m training to cover distances for which most people require a car, and do it faster than the other guy. I’m aware of the compromises that requires, and I’ve accepted them because I love what I do. If I was training for combat or survival, you can bet I’d be asking for a cup of the CrossFit Kool-Aid.

A few years ago I started in a new business venture. (For those who don’t know me outside of running, my “day job” is as a web programmer, building websites for a company I co-founded. Yes, I’m aware this site isn’t a great representation of our work, but when we’re busy our own sites come in last on the priority scale.) In that entrepreneurial role, I started reading weblogs of a few other start-ups, just to see what’s going on out there.

That was how I found Atayne (pronounced “Attain”), through the blog of its founder. They bill their products as “performance with a point of view,” and that point of view is that you can have quality, performance running gear made with renewable resources and non-toxic materials.

A shirt made from recycled bottles and coconut husks might not sound like such a great idea, but I have one now (thanks to my brother, who got me one for Christmas) and it’s actually awesome. It’s as comfortable (maybe more) as any other performance top I own (and I’ve had quite a few), and it looks pretty sharp, too.

Times are tough out there for struggling start-ups, but in the name of never letting a good crisis go to waste, I think that makes it all the more important that we put our consumer dollars behind companies with values that match our own. Like it or not, in the marketplace, money is speech, and it’s worthwhile to consider what our spending is saying. The great part about buying Atayne apparel is that not only is it ecologically responsible, you don’t have to compromise on price or quality to do it.

I don’t know the Atayne people, and they don’t know me. But I think they’re doing good work, and I think they deserve the support of the running community.

“…medicine is totally trial and error. And it is really time consuming trial and error because the body can take a long time to respond and long time to heal.” –a friend with medical problems far more serious than mine

I’ve been struggling since December with a round of Iliotibial Band Syndrome, or ITBS. It’s a well-known problem for runners at all levels (when I wrote a column about my last bout, six years ago, I got a sympathetic email from Craig Masback) and because the fundamental problem is tightness and inflammation, it takes a long time to go away.

After a winter of self-pity, weight gain, and runs of 20 to 30 minutes, I adopted a ritual of stretching and stability exercises which allowed me to extend out to about an hour pain-free–sometimes. That’s been in place for about a month and a half and I seemed to have reached a recovery plateau.

We have a theory here that some really stubborn injuries will only go away when faced with another injury. My last round of ITBS tagged off to plantar fasciitis (another familiar running ailment). I’ve retreated to the pool and resolved my running injuries by incurring overuse swimming injuries. I’ve known people whose running pains went away after they went skiing and broke an arm.

Sunday, I was on a trail run with a small group of dedicated psychotics. After a moderate “out” leg, we returned at a pretty brisk pace, and along the way I hooked a toe on one of the trail’s duckboards and went down hard among some roots. The bad part, I told them later, wasn’t the fall; it was the bounce and the slide which followed. I got up, caught my breath, inventoried all mission-critical parts and found them functioning, and we finished the run.

The total haul included some minor abrasions on my right hand and right quad, a more dramatic-looking scrape along the lower part of my breastbone, and another scrape and some very vivid bruises on my left forearm. 48 hours later, the scrapes are fading, but Sunday afternoon I was wondering if I had cracked a rib.

I’ve also done three runs totaling about 2:40 since then, and haven’t had even a tiny twinge of pain from the ITBS.