Evo Morales portrait

From a collection of world leaders that Platon took for The New Yorker during the U.N. General Assembly in October. Says Platon of Evo in the accompanying commentary: "His culture: He wears it with such pride."

Along the Rio Parapeti

On a reporting trip in southeastern Bolivia's Chaco region I got an hour one morning to run along the dirt track that parallels the Parapeti river above Camiri, the local oil/gas boomtown and home to the Guarani national leadership. Just don't fall in the river. "Parapeti" means "Death River" in Guarani. Every few months you hear of another life its fast waters have taken, said Vidal Gomez, a Guarani educator I met who was raised on the river's lower banks. Where Gomez is from, the Parapeti's wide bed is dry half the year.

In my run, I spooked two steers and they ran ahead of me for a full kilometer before veering off the road. Then I ran into more cattle, which was older and almost inert. On the last stretch I sent some pigs scattering off the roadside.

If you're ever in Camiri, stay in the Tinajitas Hotel on the north side of town by the river and do this fabulous 6-miler. The JR in town is where the foreign oil drillers stay. No hotel in town has Internet.

On the Parapeti run return trip you cross over the "puente viejo" and run north until you hit the local military garrison. Run right through it, waving and smiling to the perplexed soldiers.

And Rides .... Biking to Work in Bogota

What I've long said has now been empirically proven: I get to work faster on my bike than any of those chumps in a car. Average for bikes: 17 km/hour ... for cars 15 km/hour

Now, what do I do about the bus exhaust that's poisoning me?

Racism in Sports ..Yet Again

I'm sad, more than anything, that some people (anonymously on the Internet, as I understand) are saying Meb Keflezighi isn't really an American. He's a product of American culture and he didn't run before he arrived in the U.S. at age 12. Oh, and by the way, five other American men finished in the top 10 at the New York Marathon. That's no fluke.

The NYT's piece on the issue

Led by Meb - Return of the Elite American Marathoner

Six Americans among top 10 male finishers in the New York Marathon. In other words, after an incredibly long drought from the days of Frank Shorter and Bill Rodgers, we are back! If you want to know about where today's winner, Meb Keflezighi , comes from (Eritrea) read the remarkable novel "To Asmara" about its independence war by Thomas Keneally, author of the far better known "Schindler's List."
(Click to Enlarge - Photo by Barry Yanowitz - from Flickr)

The Human Body Is Built for Distance

NYT piece looks at recent work by evolutionary biologists who say we developed with the ability to run long distances because we would chase down other animals and eat their meat ... which helped our brains get big.

Says the Times: the gluteus maximus, the largest muscle in the human body, is primarily engaged only during running. “Your butt is a running muscle; you barely use it when you walk," says Harvard professor Daniel Lieberman.

Wired's nice examination from July of the arguments for jettisoning your cushiony running shoes and getting some foot gloves. I have to say, I've been adjusting my stride lately to a shorter, choppier gait and and I think these guys may be right. I'm going faster. I'm also using old running shoes alot. I've got six pairs dating back four years that I rotate around. I'll forgo the foot gloves. Though a guy on our college team, Walt, trained and competed barefoot. We're talking late 70s, folks.

A must-see: one-hour documentary Frontline: The Warning on the stunning contribution of Greenspan, Rubin and Summers to our current Great Recession

Born to Run

What do you say about a book on tape that's wonderfully riveting? "You can't turn it off?"

I'm tearing through Christopher MacDougall's Born to Run like a cheetah after a gazelle. I don't know if it means I'll be running barefoot but I just did 50 minutes on the treadmill listening to it at the gym and I felt oddly like the book's heros. No pain. No stress.

Ah, to be able to run with the Tarahumara, weaving through the goat trails and washes of Mexico's Copper Canyon. (Barranca del Cobre). I wanna go.

If you read the book you'll know the people in the pictures And that dude Caballo Blanco, who is he, anyway? He's s on Twitter now. http://twitter.com/mcaballoblanco

Pre-Cambrian rock, elevation 4,840 feet

Dix Mtn. September 2009.

Climbed by the entire family and bracketed by two nights at a lean-to on the north fork of the Bouquet River.

In the background: Dial Mt. and Wolfjaws on the Great Range.

Footprints

I did some math. I've been running for 36 years and figure I've averaged about 30 miles a week over that span. That's 56,160 miles logged. The circumference of the earth at the equator is 24,901.55 miles. So I'm about twice around the world.

This blog intends to share some of the places I've run. And as I like to hike, you'll get some of that, too.

If you didn't know, the photo is of Bill Rodgers on Staten Island just before the start of the 1979 New York Marathon. Bill was the world's No. 1 ranked marathoner that year.