Minimalist Running Shoes, 1 Year and 1,000 Miles Later

I get pissed off when I go buy running shoes. A typical pitch goes like: "Choosing the correct running shoes is a serious business... you should invest at least $100 for a pair of good shoes...  these models will correct your over-pronation problem... "  If the salesperson looks like a runner, sometimes he'll add: "Running is a dangerous sport, I've had a lot of injuries myself until..."  Why the hell should I listen to someone who hurts himself running all the time?  I'm skeptical that such a complex problem could be solved by cleverly placing fancy cushioning material in the shoes in the first place.  If it was that simple, why didn't they fix all the running shoes? I'm sure the difference in material cost is negligible.

Long story short, I started to explore barefoot and minimalist running made popular by Chris McDougall's Born to Run, Gordon Pirie's Running Fast and Injury Free, and Harvard's Lieberman.  Pirie was a world record setting British runner who only lived to his 60s yet his name is on Guinness Book of Records for the highest lifetime mileage of over 200,000 miles or, about 100 miles a week for 40 years! I find it uplifting that evolution might have solved our running problems, we are all designed to be endurance athletes.

Asics #3 and #4, Brooks MACH XI

It was a about a years ago when I started my own experiment, I estimate I have run about 1,000 miles in minimalist shoes, basically racing shoes with very little padding. I rotate 4 pairs of Asics Piranha SPs and a pair of Brooks cross country in training. The current Asics are $100 retail and I got 4 pairs of older SP1s on eBay for $150, they are sort of cheap looking (the stripes are just painted on) but extremely light, the Brooks MACH XIs are just cross country racing flats. (I remember a serious runner I knew used to buy unpadded cheap shoes, the kind you find in discount store bins stapled together.  Pirie ran in Plimsolls.)

Plimsoll

To summarize my minimalist experience:
(1) I have not hurt myself in training or running NY marathon wearing racing flats.
(2) I'm not sure about my mid/forefoot running form, looking at the soles of the shoes, the heel portion is worn more than the forefoot.
(3) It takes a lot of practice to hold my form, when I get tired, I can hear myself running louder.
(4) To me, mid/forefoot landing running seems to require more energy, but the shorter, higher stride style is inherently faster. When I slow done, I notice my form gets sloppy.
(5) When I trained the most (45 miles a week), I did experience swollen ankles and other symptoms typically attributed to bad shoes.
(6) Even the thin minimalist midsoles get compressed unevenly after 100 miles.
(7) Racing flats are durable despite the light construction. The upper mesh looks like it'll last a long time, the sole wears out quickly and I extend its useful life with "Shoo Goo".
(8) The Asics can be worn with or without socks because the toebox is rather wide, the Brooks are narrow and I wear them sockless and get blisters sometimes (I have sweaty feet and there are some friction points between the arch support and the upper).
(9) No conclusion is possible for something so subjective. I use a GPS watch but have not done anything scientific with the data.

Phaedo Redux

Phaedo is Plato's account of Socrates' death from the perspective of Phaedo,  it is one of Plato's most well known dialogues which I read many years ago.  The only recollection I have now is how calm Socrates was while waiting for his own death, he and many of his friends and students took the occasion to discuss death and the everlasting soul. According to Phaedo, a student, he did not feel pity and Socrates himself was "happy in manner and words".  In fact,  his mourning wife was sent home so the the BS session wouldn't be disrupted.

Given Socrates' circumstances, he had little reason to be happy. he had been sentenced to death by poison and it was his final day.  His ankles hurt from the chains and he made a remark about how he wished Easop could write a fable about how pleasure and pain are always joined together, one cannot get one (the pleasure of rubbing his ankles) without the other (the pain of the chains), what a weirdo!

The reason I don't remember the rest of the dialogue is I don't believe in eternal soul. I have no patience for that sort of arguments. A cousin of ours died 2 days ago quite unexpectedly, I re-read Phaedo and I feel different reading it this time, one of the arguments "prior knowledge" makes me sit up for the first time.  Socrates believed knowledge is just recollection, we are born with all the knowledge which is passed from generation to generation which could be called the soul. In today's terminology, he's saying genetic memory is our soul.  Recently, experiments have been done to suggest we could in fact change our genetic memory (or genome by default).  For example,  a calf born of stock that is used to cattle grids but has never seen one itself and introduce it to lines painted on a road to resemble a grid. It will not cross. Another well known example is the Överkalix study in Sweden. The link is to European Journal of Human Genetics.

A plausible explanation is that some acquired information is passed from parents to children through genetic materials. I don't want to go crazy about prior lives and prior knowledge beyond hardwired instinctive behaviors, but maybe there is something in this life that can live on forever in our genes. (Unfortunately, the selfish straits may have a better chance in natural selection.)

There'a An Elephant In The Room

I suppose the opposite of "Emperor's new clothes" is "elephant in the room" when we ignore the obvious.

Dejeuner by Manet

 Dejeuner is a painting by Manet where 4 people are having a picnic lunch and at least two of them are inappropriately dressed for the weather.

Gabrielle d'Estrées

Here's a painting in the Louvre collection of Gabrielle d'Estrées and her sister. People have been looking at this picture for 500 years trying to figure out what it means.

Speaking for all men, let me tell you there is an elephant in the room, the main subject is unmistakably sex and the artists had pornographic intents. These are extremely successful paintings and we all recognize them, in fact, the second picture was hung in my office wall for a year and everyone just considered it high art.

Another elephant is the consensual best Chinese novel 紅樓夢, it's obvious to me it was written as a parody. A satire like Voltaire's Candide and Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, they are meant to be funny. Author 曹雪芹was such a jokester in real life, it is a stroke of genius precisely because he made biting commentaries through humor. Take a look at 賈寶玉, his lousy poems, his messed up teenage sex experiences (both heterosexual and homosexual), and how he brown nosed everyone in power, he was nothing but a good looking brat -- the exact opposite of the author.

I suspect some of the people that can see Emperor's new clothes also don't notice the elephant, at least I am that way when it comes to certain things.


Update (3/19/11):
It occurs to me all the books mentioned were published at about the same time, turns out it's closer than I thought:

Gulliver's Travels - 1726 - 1735
 紅樓夢 1754 - many versions
Candide 1759

I'm not saying they had any influence on another, but sometimes things did go viral before the Internet, not just substantive things, also styles and feelings. Very strange.

Praising Emperor's New Clothes

Last night, we watched a Chinese movie called Spring In A Small Town 小城之春 for the first time. This movie was ignored at its release in 1948 and was almost totally forgotten until the 70s when it was re-discovered. Since the 80s, it's been critically acclaimed universally, I check some popular movie websites and it is still getting great reviews (not the remake, which is translated to Springtime In A Small Town in English). It is also voted the best Chinese movie of all time in Hong Kong. Does the Emperor have clothes? After all, the town people seem to admire his invisible clothes till the very of the parade.      

Parents think it's ridiculously bad and the plot moves too slowly, I have to watch the 2nd half twice because it moves too fast. Watching this movie is like reading a book, not only because of the heroine's monologue, it also unfolds like a novel but it won't let you slow down like a real one. I suppose it was influenced by European movies of the same period but the feelings are very Chinese. It's a very good movie in my opinion although I can understand why it may not work for some people.  You may even think the entertainment value is not very high, but at the very least, you'll appreciate the craftiness of the director, every scene has a purpose and no film is wasted to explain the past or the obvious.  

(The director, 費穆, was the father of Chinese soprano 費明儀。I think his brother was the head of newspaper 大公報 費彝民）

My Narcotic Trips

It's been a while since I ran for more than an hour and it was almost too cold to run in shorts when I decide to go for a long run Sunday afternoon.  It took me almost 1.5 hours to finish the 10 miles at my normal long run speed, what struck me was how familiar and unfamiliar the long run felt.  Like seeing an old acquaintance, I was again met by familiar mini mood swings during the run. To call it Runner's High is somewhat simplistic, the mood is on a steady upswing after 10 minutes of running and peaks around the halfway mark. Maybe the body can't s sustain that level of endorphin, or it builds up some tolerance, on the return leg my brain starts to take in negative or aggressive thoughts.  I don't know if it's psychosomatic, the mood then changes abruptly to happiness again in the last half mile, the best part is immediately after the run, the exhilaration is like what you feel when you finally get your finger unstuck in the car door. It makes no sense whatsoever, if I say I enjoy running, the most enjoyable part is the moment I stop doing what I enjoy?.

The whole thing is actually sort of subtle and it can be overcome easily by listening to music or other distractions, but it is there if I pay attention.

To The Guy(s) Upstairs

I felt Schadenfreude when I first heard of the earthquake in Japan because Parents and I had been watching Chinese WWII videos, but the second I saw the horrors on TV, I knew nobody deserved this.  It's beyond me why people turn to religions in times of desperation, were people punished for making a pack with the Devil as Pat Robertson said about the Haiti earthquake? Even the governor of Tokyo is saying something similar that Japanese are punished by Heaven for being greedy.

Regardless of how severe are the punishments, Haiti is not going to return to French rule, Japanese are not going stop being greedy, the wrath of God is totally wasted on us. If you look at the numbers, the Haiti earthquake at magnitude 7.0, which is 100 times weaker than the one in Japan at 9.0,  killed 200,000 people because they were caught unprepared.  When a whole village got washed out, I imagine infants and babies are at risk and it's unlikely they are more sinful than the rest of us.  It's obvious that goodness or faith doesn't matter, it's the readiness and the sound infrastructure of Japan that saved thousands of lives. Our Towers of Babel may be humble compared to Nature, but it's the only thing that makes a difference, any difference.   

Earthquakes, big deal!

The 5th biggest earthquake recorded since 1900  hit the east coast of Japan yesterday. Japan is well prepared for earthquakes and it seems the worst damage was caused by the 10 meter tsunami which swept inland and wiped out part of the city of Sendai (where Nikon cameras are made).

In terms of fatalities, 1,000 plus in this earthquake is nowhere near the top. The dead toll of the 1976 Tangshan earthquake was pegged at 250,000. The worst in recorded history was also in China, 嘉靖大地震 in 1556, when 800,000 people perished in Shaanxi province. The magnitudes of yesterday's quake was 8.9, and the much deadlier ones in China were about an order lower, so it seems human cost can be greatly reduced by preparation for natural disasters. 

Earthquakes are very frightening and they cause incalculable losses but we can take it.  I don't really see the humankind getting wiped out by earthquakes at this rate, Japan will recover, Haiti will recover, it will be a small deal in human history.

維新的露西

With all that 子曰詩云, I hope I don't appear to be a staunch supporter of ancient Chinese classics because I'm not. When I compare Chinese classics with the great books of the West, I'm not overly proud because the quality just doesn't compare. I won't be making such an audacious statement if I didn't know many smarter people than I feel the same way. In the early part of 1900s, Chinese cultural elites all advocated the abolishment of the Chinese written language and one of the reasons was our classics were worthless and they didn't want the future generations to waste time on them. Although the effort to Latinize Chinese failed, Chinese language reform was a great success, today when I see anything written in classical Chinese, I just throw up my hands and don't bother to decipher the unpunctuated riddles.

The modernization movement is called 維新.  The well known leaders were 康有為，梁起超。 In 1919, a huge nation wide movement know as May 4th or 五四運動 broke out. All our culture heroes had something to do with this movement. The strange thing is all these great minds seemed to follow an identical Republican like agenda: building up of the military, industrialization, language reform, etc. The two great banners were science and democracy. Where did this stuff come from? Where did 康有為 get the idea of constitutional monarchy that he tried to pitch to Emperor 光緒？ Was there a Lucy with the right DNA in the evolution of this doctrine?

I think Lucy was 王韜 (1829-97), he was originally from Shanghai and spent his most productive years in Hong Kong. 王韜 was best known for helping translate Chinese Classics into English and the Bible to Chinese. He was the first Chinese to give a speech at Oxford in 1868 and was a already world traveler by the time he returned to in Hong Kong.  Thank heaven for wiki, here's a link to 王韜.

王韜 founded the 1st Chinese newspaper 循環日報 (Universal Circulating Herald) in Hong Kong on Hollywood Road 荷李活道 (the name has nothing to do with Hollywood, CA). From 1874-1884, he wrote more than 1,000 (uncensored by Chinese) editorials covering all the aforementioned reformist topics. This newspaper was widely read by mainland and overseas Chinese, it was quite possible 康有為 was a reader in the 1880s when he started to absorb the western ways wholesale.  康有為 also visited Hong Kong in 1879 and it would be unlikely that he didn't read the only Chinese newspaper as an impressionable young man. When 孫中山 first arrived in Hong Kong, he was shocked by how clean and nice Hong Kong was compared to China, I imagine 康有為 might have the same reaction 4 years earlier and couldn't help wondering why China was such a mess.

孫中山, the founder of the republic, was a student in Hong Kong (1883 on). In a speech he made in HKU many years later, he said the biggest influence in his life was the years in Hong Kong.  Before Sun entered Hong Kong Medical School in 1887, he was a student at 拔萃(1883)  and 中央(1884-),  he must have read the editorials of  循環日報 written by 王韜 with great interest. Before 孫中山 was a complete revolutionary, he wrote a letter to 李鴻章, 王韜 was the old master in Shanghai that helped him write 上李鴻章書. (Allegedly,  李鴻章 got impatient because 孫 couldn't make himself understood in Mandarin, otherwise, the young 孫 could end up as a Qing Dynasty official! The less colorful and more likely version is 李鴻章 was too busy to read the letter.)

To be fair, 盛世危言 by 鄭觀應 was the most influential reformist book (which also advocated constitutional monarchy), published two decades after 循環日報 in 1894 in Macao.  I'm just wondering out loud why such a great talent 王韜 is not a household name today. I'm so curious about 王韜 that I'm googling for all I'm worth for his original books and articles and can only find snippets and secondhand information. *Please leave comments if you know where to find his original writings online.

(You may notice a lot of weasel words in this entry, that's because I haven't done any serious research on this. Please feel free to post corrections.)

Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS and HRM

Garmin Forerunner 305 is a really dorky looking watch with GPS and Heart Rate Monitor.
When it first came out 5 years ago, it was like $400, now you can get one for around $125.  I've been using one for 5 months. GPS works well, but the HRM is erratic. The HRM works a little better with some electrode gel, but still not as well as my old $30 Polar.  I read a few reviews on the web, most people agree that the newer, slicker Garmin Forerunners 40x are worse, so I am happy with the purchase and I try to wear it running and biking.

Over this long winter, I have been gaining weight and not running outside that much. I ran yesterday in a drizzle and it was fun. The watch comes with a PC/Mac program which allows you to analyze you run in any way conceivable.  I usually just look at the summary and pace,  sometimes I'd take a quick look at elevation/grade and I'm always amazed how my pace is effected on the slightest, almost unnoticeable hills. The watch records your location periodically and when you connect the watch to the PC, the app plots you route on Garmin's base map and gives you all kinds of data, you can also export to Google Earth.

One thing I don't know how to do is export just the summary.
I'm using this entry as a place holder for my running log. I'm not a fast runner.
3/6/11   4:49PM Exeter - 6.17 miles, 52:39.82, 8:32 avg pace -  P
3/7/11   9:00AM 20 minutes treadmill @7.5mph, 20 minutes cycling @110rpm
3/9/11   2:51PM Exeter - 7.30 niles, 1:03:43, 8:44 - R
3/10/11 5:33PM Exeter - 2.72 miles, 20:53, 7:41 - T
3/11/11 5 miles treadmill @7.5mph
3/12/11 19 miles bike
3/13/11 5:13PM Exeter -10.0 miles, 1:29:49, 8:59 - R
3/16/11 5:20PM     5.0 miles, no data - R
3/19/11 5:11PM    6.12 miles,  52:05, 8:31 - P
3/22/11 10:03AM 5.22 miles,   47.16, 9:03 - R
3/23/11 4:54PM    7.08 miles,   59:45, 8:27 - P
3/24/11 30 minutes treadmill
3/25/11 5:06PM    7.25 miles, 1:04:21, 8:53 - Mixed
3/27/11 11:35AM 5.02 miles.    43:55,    8:45 - R (allergy)
3/28/11 4:41PM  10.91 miles, 1:42:16,  9:22 - R
foot problem
4/7/11   5:42PM    5.18 miles,   46:24, 8:47 - R
4/10/11 9:00AM 31 miles bike
4/10/11 4:33PM    4.28 miles,   39:29 9:13 - R
4/11/11 5:00PM 21 miles bike
4/13/11 4:58PM    9.77 miles, 1:33:28, 9:34 - R
4/14/11 4:50PM    5.23 miles     46:38, 8:54 - R
4/15/11 8x400m@6:55  4x200m@6:50 200m walking in between

1 Second Life Lessons

Our entire family used to enjoy reading Reader's Digest. Imagine my surprise and hurt when someone said, with a snicker, "Reader's Digest is something you read in the bathroom".

If you read yesterday's blog, you might be misled into thinking Confucius advocated "an eye for an eye".  I feel like I should make myself clear, then it occurs to me maybe I can condense the most important life lessons from Confucius and Jesus into the shortest possible digest for your bathroom pleasure.

If you come in to fart, this is the 1 second version:
Jesus:  renounce everything
Confucius: forgiveness

30 second pee version:
Jesus: The biggest hindrance to eternal life is one's property, one can only give himself completely to God without his worldly possessions.
Confucius: Tolerance that comes from putting yourself in other people's shoes.

Constipation version:
Jesus was asked point blank what was his most important lesson, this exchange was recorded in the gospels multiple times. For example, in Matthew 19:
 ¹⁶And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?
 ¹⁷And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.
 ¹⁸He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness,
 ¹⁹Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
 ²⁰The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet?
 ²¹Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.
 ²²But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.
 ²³Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.
 ²⁴And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
It is clear that doing good deeds and obeying the commandments are necessary but not sufficient conditions for eternal life. The key is to relinquish all your worldly possessions and give yourself completely to the faith, I think this is similar to Buddhism. (Look at the smugness of this dude!) 

When Confucius was asked if he could condense his teaching into one word, he said: "The word is tolerance! What you do not desire, don't do to another." 
有一言而可以终身行之者乎？”子曰：“其恕乎！己所不欲，勿施于人。”
I immediately see red flags, isn't it just the Golden Rule? Confucius probably copied it word for word from some other more ancient cultures. Actually, a similar rule is also in the Bible "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you".  But wait, based on what I learned in high school set theory, these are two different sets. Let's plug in something neutral like "tattoo" for x, then Confucius' version says "If you don't like tattoo, don't tattoo others" vs Bible's version "Tattoo others if you like tattoo".
Ok, at least it seems Confucius copied it correctly. Anyway, he covered his ass by saying he's just a guy who liked ancient things and didn't come up with anything original:
子曰："述而不作，信而好古"

老子，孔子， 神子

The title of this post is Confucius, Lao Zi, and Jesus. They were all considered very wise and lived roughly 2,000 years ago. Confucius and Lao Zi knew each other while Jesus was a few hundred years younger and lived in the Middle East.

One day, someone asked Confucius for his opinion on something Lao Zi said 以德報怨. "What do you think about 以德報怨? Repay wrongdoing/evil with kindness/good?" Confucius wisely answered with another question: "How do we repay kindness?"  Then he stopped being inscrutable and explained: "Repay wrongdoing with justice, repay kindness with kindness."

I use the word justice which is too severe for the original Chinese word  直, or straight. Never mind my lousy translation:

「以德報怨，何如？」子曰：「何以報德？以直報怨，以德報德」

 

Who's right? Confucius and Lao Zi were friendly rivals and had their own fan clubs, I suspect Confucius didn't want to agree with Lao Zi readily but I'm sure he had also expounded upon this himself. What about Jesus?  He claimed to have inherited his wisdom from his famous father so we have to take him seriously also. This is the English translation of what he said on the same subject:

"But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also."

Wow! Looks like Jesus was with Lao Zi. However, Confucius won a moral victory among Chinese, "not knowing good and bad" or "不知好歹" remains a very strong insult in Chinese.

Philosophy is a box of chocolates, you just pick what looks good to you.

Boston Shanghai Restaurant

We went to a Shanghai restaurant called 石庫門 about a month ago in Alston (just off Comm Ave), Pa liked it so much that he started to mention the dishes daily. We went again last week only to find Tuesday was their day off.

Last night, we ordered Pa's favorite 肚襠 and 蹄膀。The food was traditional Shanghai 本邦菜 with heavy sauces 濃油赤醬 which my stomach couldn't hold for more than an hour or two. It was very tasty though, and I didn't detect any MSG and it really didn't need any. 肚襠 is belly of a large fish, normally it calls for a common fish in China 青魚. According to the cook, after much mis-communication because he couldn't pronounce 鯇, 青魚 is just 鯇魚, or buffalo carp. Allegedly, and obviously not in ours, home cooking Shanghai style could be light and delicate, Shanghai-nese don't use chili and heavy spices such as garlic and star anise, even ginger is used sparingly.

I brought my camera to take pictures of the food but was too busy eating, I could barely keep pace with the octogenarians in the feeding frenzy. This is the only picture I took after the carnage:

Shanghai 1928

Back to posting family pictures.

Are these the oldest family pictures we have? Our maternal grandmother is on the left on both photographs. I'm guessing the picture could be  taken in the same session or at the same studio based on the identical fancy paper borders. (Grandma wore two different outfits so it was most likely two separate sessions, it's unlikely she changed at the studio.)

Ma was still a little baby in the first picture so it could be 1928. The girl might be "li Di" and the older woman was a former sex worker from 堂子married into the family. (Name and relation?)

1928 was historically significant because of 東北易幟, that's when Manchuria reunited with the Chinese Central Government. In less than three years, the 2nd Sino-Japanese War broke out in Shanghai (一二八事件).  It's strange because Ma sounded older than 2 when they took refuge from the war in Ningbo.  It coud be  八一三 in 1937 when another battle took place in Shanghai, but then she would have been too old  to start kindergarten later...

Grandma's younger sister was in the second picture, I don't even know her name. Grandma's name was 胡士珍. She didn't appear to be with child, it's possible that it's an older picture taken when she was a young maiden.