The inquisitive one was running on a treacherously winding path through the woods. Rocks and roots were—as is typical of the D.C. area—poking up and snaking everywhere. The inquisitive one, who had just passed the 5-mile mark of an 8-mile run, was thinking about lots of random things. Suddenly, a foot hit a root, and the inquisitive one flew helplessly forward, straight through the air!

Unlike the last time this happened, all four of the inquisitive one’s limbs slammed into the ground. The two knees, left palm, and right elbow skidded across the rocky and rooted ground, as the inquisitive one executed an ungraceful turn and landed hard on the back of the right shoulder. The cheekbone banged, last of all, onto the dirt.

The inquisitive one lay in stunned silence. And then, slowly, gingerly, the inquisitive one sat up.

“Wow,” thought the inquisitive one. “Am I okay?”

Testing and assessing the body parts, the inquisitive one determined that the injuries were mostly superficial, except for the right shoulder, which was mostly not.

“I’m okay,” thought the inquisitive one. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

While slowly running toward home, the inquisitive one thought, “I’m almost glad that I fell. I’ve been fearful of falling for a while now. Every time I trip on a root and almost fall, I feel afraid. Now that I’ve experienced falling, it doesn’t seem so terrible.”

While attempting to strip off the dirty, bloody clothes with an injured shoulder, and to shower with an injured shoulder, the inquisitive one thought, “I’m glad that I fell. It means that I’m tough. Everybody should be as tough as me. Look at how tough I am, trying to lift my arm to shampoo my hair!”

The next day, while experiencing severe soreness and pain in the shoulder with every movement, the inquisitive one thought, “I’m actually glad that I fell! I participate in this particular sport, which results in injury once in a while. Trail running is like mountain biking, snowboarding, and attempting to beat someone up in ring, as they attempt to beat you up! I chose a dangerous sport in which to participate, but I love this sport. My dedication to it is such that I will gladly suffer injuries in its name!”

The next day, while trying to turn the steering wheel and not really succeeding, the inquisitive one thought, “Do you know what? I’m like Superman! Kryptonite might get me down every once in a while, but that can’t stop me for long! Maybe I’m even like Nietzsche’s Superman, which, though I’m not one-hundred percent sure what that entails, sounds, if vaguely creepy, also vaguely sublime!”

Two or three weeks later, the inquisitive one’s shoulder was almost back to normal. Smiling at the thought of a personal über-toughness that could never be eradicated, the inquisitive one decided to go on a long run through a dense forest. And so the inquisitive one took off running, farther and deeper into the woods.

The trail upon which the inquisitive one was running was carefully selected by said superhero. County park staff had meticulously leveled and manicured this trail. It contained virtually no rocks or roots.

The inquisitive one was having a busy day!

Before work, the inquisitive one went on a run. (The inquisitive one did a speed workout.)

At lunchtime, the inquisitive one took a friend’s dog for a walk. (The friend was out of town and had recruited several people to help care for the dog.)

After work, the inquisitive one took the nephew to soccer practice. (The inquisitive one was helping as an assistant coach.)

“How are you?” said the head coach, when the inquisitive one and the nephew had arrived.

Since the nephew was busy shouting “Watch this!” to another boy, the inquisitive one answered:

“Good! Busy day.”

“What did you do?”

“In the morning, I went on a fartlek run—”

The inquisitive one paused, feeling embarrassed at having said that word while surrounded by 6-year-old boys. But no one seemed to have noticed. So the inquisitive one continued:

“During lunch break, I took my friend’s Shih Tzu on a walk—”

The inquisitive one paused again, feeling even more embarrassed.* But again, no once seemed to have noticed.

It was time for practice to begin, so the head coach said “Cool!” to the inquisitive one and then called out to the young boys:

“Okay, everyone, come over here and sit on your ball!”

All the boys gathered ’round, most sat on their balls, and a few looked attentively at the head coach as he demonstrated how to do a soccer move. Suddenly, one of the boys shouted:

“My name is Poopy Pants!”

All the boys burst out laughing. The head coach continued talking about soccer. He had just quieted them down . . . when the inquisitive one, having reached the last straw in the personal tickle meter, suddenly laughed!

It was a short and loud laugh; and the inquisitive one immediately got very quiet.

Everyone within earshot—young boys, head coach, parents on the sideline, bored siblings—turned and stared at the inquisitive one.

And then, a moment later, and all at once, everyone burst out laughing.

You see, the inquisitive one’s laugh had sounded like a cross between a small dog’s bark, a fart, and a little kid pooping his pants.

And, I mean, that’s funny.

*The inquisitive one could've avoided embarrassment by pronouncing the name of the dog breed correctly.

The inquisitive one was running through a forest on a winding path. Rocks and roots were poking up and snaking everywhere. The inquisitive one was thinking about lots of random things. Suddenly, a foot hit a root, and the inquisitive one flew helplessly forward, straight through the air!

“Oh no, I’m about to fall!” thought the inquisitive one.

The inquisitive one might have had many other thoughts at that point; but there was no time! In the next instant, the inquisitive one came to the realization that the feet had rapidly and crazily found ground to scramble over, as the arms had flown out perilously without touching ground.

“Wow!” thought the inquisitive one, running more slowly now. “My unconscious mind must be very powerful! I did not think about doing anything. There was no time to think. And yet, I did something miraculous—I saved myself from a possible injury!”

That evening, the inquisitive one attended a party. Wisely, instead of thinking, the inquisitive one drank a lot of alcohol and blabbed all night, until the host explained that the party was over.

The next day, the inquisitive one went to the local college to take a test. Wisely, instead of thinking, the inquisitive one used intuition to answer all the questions.

That evening, the inquisitive one agreed to go across the way to a neighbor’s house to help with an IKEA shelf that, according to the neighbor, had baffling assembly instructions. Wisely, instead of thinking, the inquisitive one used anschauung* to assemble the shelf.

The next day, the inquisitive one, remembering that test grades were now available online, clicked a button to log on to the course’s site. Then the phone started to ring, and the name of the party’s host appeared on the screen. And the doorbell rang, and the inquisitive one, glancing out the window, saw the neighbor at the door.

“Ahhh—what should I attend to first?!” wondered the inquisitive one.

That was the point when, without thinking too hard about it, the inquisitive one did something.

*Many thanks to R.D. for introducing me to this interesting Kantian word.

If, two days ago, you felt more inclined to travel by foot—this post is for you.

I’m a travel-by-foot person, myself. I’ve been running since I discovered the sport in my late teens. By the time I hit my early twenties, however, I was experiencing intermittent knee pain. A serendipitous conversation with a doctor caused me to suspect that I should lift weights if I wanted to continue running; specifically, I should target my quads (the muscles on the front of the thigh).

To my great relief, this worked! I did not experience knee pain as long as I did my strength exercises two or three times a week. During weeks when I didn’t make time for this routine, my knees would start to whine again.

Thus I seemed to have overthrown the oft-repeated refrain that running is bad for one’s knees . . . but I didn’t understand why it worked. Evolutionarily, I knew, humans were built for running. Did our hunter-gatherer ancestors do squats twice a week? Well, probably they did, regularly throughout the week, during ordinary hunter-gatherer activities like picking berries, utilizing one’s favorite digging tool, or, you know, taking a shit. But that still doesn’t answer the question of why the quads, specifically, need to be strengthened, as opposed to, say, the hamstrings, in order to run without knee problems.

Enter Christopher McDougall’s runaway bestseller. Born to Run, published in 2009, caused a sensation in the running community and running shoe industry that has not yet fully died down. The book advocated running in minimalist style. Barefoot running, running in sandals, and running in lightweight and minimally cushioned shoes became all the rage. In the book, McDougall quotes Eric Orton, his running coach:

“Imagine your kid is running into the street and you have to sprint after her in bare feet. . . . You’ll automatically lock into perfect form—you’ll be up on your forefeet, with your back erect, head steady, arms high, elbows driving, and feet touching down quickly on the forefoot and kicking back toward your butt.”

According to my local running store manager, tons of people started getting injured when running in minimalist, or no, shoes became all the rage. To be fair, McDougall duly notes that a quick switch away from a regular running shoe is a bad idea: “Eric warned me that I was cruising for a stress fracture if I tried to suddenly go naked after keeping my feet immobilized for forty years.” But this warning is buried amidst all the hype of McDougall’s radical running ideas; and minimalism in running shoes now has a mixed reputation. Some say it’s a miraculous life saver, while others say it’s a recipe for injury.

I say, do it with care, and it may just be the ticket to a lifetime of joyful fitness.* Ever since I read Born to Run, in 2017, the ideas therein—especially the ones about running barefoot after your kid; and about running easy, light, smooth, and fast—have been jogging, hither and thither, through my brain. I liked the idea of running lightly, up on one’s toes, well enough to try it . . . but when I did, something strange happened. My toes started banging up against the front of the traditional running shoes I was wearing.

I thought my feet had grown bigger. I went to my local running store and bought shoes a size larger, but returned them when they didn’t solve my problem. Next, I tried, on the recommendation of an employee, shoes in wide width; I returned those, too. Finally, I spoke to the manager, and that was when we started discussing minimalism and Born to Run. He discouraged me from getting minimalist shoes as regards cushioning. I was on board with that; while our ancient ancestors ran, for the most part, on soft dirt, I run mostly on asphalt and concrete. But then he brought out and sold me some zero-drop shoes (with a non-pointy toe box to accommodate my new stride and prevent toe-banging) . . . and something magical, very slowly, happened.

Zero-drop shoes keep the heel at the same height level as the balls and toes, like bare feet, and unlike traditional running shoes that elevate the heel. This means that the gait of a person wearing traditional shoes will differ from the gait of a person going barefoot or wearing zero-drop shoes. As it turns out, the latter gait keeps one moving more forward, and less up-and-down bouncy; more of one’s energy is put into the forward motion. That’s a good thing if you’re trying to get to the finish line fast—or trying to save your knees from excessive pounding.

But more to the point—and this is just anecdotal evidence from one person—I noticed something fascinating when I made the switch. My quads were insanely sore after doing a mini-run in my new zero-drop shoes. This seems to answer my question. I could of course be wrong, but I believe this explains why I had to do so much quad strengthening previously: my traditional running shoes with elevated heels were preventing me from having a natural running form that would force the quads to thrust more powerfully forward and back. Hence, a strength imbalance in the leg muscles. Hence knee pain.

A HUGE word of warning: it took me four weeks to transition from wearing traditional running shoes on every run to wearing my new zero-drop shoes on every run. It may take you even longer, depending on a bunch of factors. The best way to avoid injury is to listen to your body, and only do what feels right to you.

I also want to note that, despite this seeming solution to my problem, I still lift weights two or three times a week. ’Cause, while I do sometimes pick berries and use digging tools, I spend way more time sitting at the computer and sitting reading. And I pretty much always use toilets.

*Please take me and McDougall's book with a big grain of salt. I have def not been to med school since writing the footnote here.

Would you rather travel this road by motorcycle or foot?

Either way, you might enjoy a book called Born to Run. . . . That is, you might enjoy one of two books, both called Born to Run.

It’s amazing that, when Bruce Springsteen wanted to, for some reason, only seven years after the book Born to Run by Christopher McDougall became a runaway bestseller, publish a book with the same title . . . the publishing house actually let him do it!

(That was a joke.)

While these two books are very different—in subject matter and style—their similarities don’t end with the title. Both books, you see, harbor countless pockets of wisdom, interspersed among fascinating stories.

I’d like to juxtapose two quotes from these books that I adore . . . though don’t necessarily fully understand. Both quotes are about the feeling of doing something you love: how it feels to do something so naturally that you become somehow one with it.

Here’s a lesson in running from an incredible distance runner known as Caballo Blanco, as quoted by McDougall:

“Think Easy, Light, Smooth, and Fast. You start with easy, because if that’s all you get, that’s not so bad. Then work on light. Make it effortless, like you don’t give a shit how high the hill is or how far you’ve got to go. When you’ve practiced that so long that you forget you’re practicing, you work on making it smooooooth. You won’t have to worry about the last one—you get those three, and you’ll be fast.”

And here’s a lesson from Springsteen in letting the good times roll—while performing:

“I’ve still never regularly quite had the mojo to freely let the ‘bon temps rouler.’ Except . . . onstage. There, strangely enough, exposed in front of thousands, I’ve always felt perfectly safe, to just let it all go. . . . I don’t know why, but I’ve never gotten anywhere near as far or as high as when I count the band in and feel what seems like all life itself and a small flash of eternity pulsing through me.”

I don’t really know what it means to run easy, light, and smooth (though fast makes perfect sense); but if I try, and sometimes even if I don’t try, I feel these things while running. And I don’t really know what it means to dwell amidst pulses of all life, plus a small flash of eternity, while engaged in an artistic, or otherwise skilled, endeavor; or perhaps I do. . . .

Do you?