This past Saturday, I participated in a company-funded 20-miler that took me all around Philadelphia. A Nathan rep was present, and generous enough to supply everyone with some sort of hydration device. Brooks was also present, giving out free stuff and using cornstarch to show off their very cool DNA technology. Also present was Anne Mahlum, founder and president of Back on My Feet (the organization which puts on The Lone Ranger Ultra).

There was a time when I wouldn’t have thought twice about a 20-miler. It wouldn’t even have been the long run of my week. But that time was over half a year ago; concerning long distance, I am out of practice. I’ve been putting in relatively low mileage, running with my high-school racers and then doing extensions afterward.

I was therefore a little apprehensive. The longest run I’d done since the ultra was 10.5 miles. I knew that the jump to 20 was going to be… uncomfortable.

What I did not know was that I was actually jumping to 23 miles, or that I would do it with Maggie, a pleasant– but inconveniently skilled– marathoner. She was in much better shape than I, and running alongside her forced me to keep my pace up.

(Good luck in the Philly marathon, Maggie!)

Anyway, my body held up well under my recklessness. I used this run to test my HPL #020 pack, and I think that the steady hydration contributed to my success. Or at least, it contributed to the fact that I could walk around later that day.

I got into this argument with some friends recently. Most of us were runners, and most of those vehemently defended their perception of running as a sport.

Others denied it the title for reasons as superficial as its lack of a court, gear, and most tellingly, a ball. All sports have special equipment. And most non-runners would agree that running requires no skill. This latter idea abounds amongst the participants of “real” sports like baseball, football, and soccer. After all, anyone can run, right?

This debate got me thinking, and I came to the conclusion that running is not a sport.

Put down your pitchforks and extinguish your torches. I do not agree that it isn’t a sport for any of the silly reasons above. My argument rests on the fact that sports by definition require competition. And any time running involves competition, it becomes racing. So, while racing is a sport, running is not.

Please don’t get me wrong. Many runners feel compelled to defend running as a sport because they feel the label gives it validity and recognizes its difficulty. After all, many argue that it’s not a sport because they think that it doesn’t require skill or that it isn’t difficult. These are preposterous. I, on the other hand, argue that running is potentially harder than any sport, and that it is so precisely because of the characteristics that distinguish it from that time-honored title.

In any sport, the competition is between you and someone else. Your might against theirs. And there’s always a point where your might proves greater or lesser. At that point you need exert yourself no more. The demands placed on you are limited to your opponent’s abilities.

Wrestling, for example, is a sport that I highly respect (real wrestling, not the WWF crap). It locks its participants in a contest of wills, and it typically involves a long, wearying struggle– things that distance runners can understand. The difference is that it’s over as soon as you prove to be the stronger or weaker competitor.

In serious distance running, however, the demands placed on your are limited to your own abilities. When you run (whether training or racing) to the upmost of your abilities, your only limit is full-body failure.

There is no interpersonal competition in running– we specialize in beating ourselves into the ground. To do that, we need no gear, no ball, no ESPN covers. We don’t even need talent. All we need is to push ourselves harder than the rules, harder than the boundaries allowed by any sport.

There are several questions that come up when someone hears that you’ve run an ultra marathon. Perhaps the most common one (after “are you nuts?”) is about motivation. How exactly does an ultrarunner get in the zone before such a long race?

This question usually bring me back to the day before the Lone Ranger Ultra, sitting in the movies and waiting for Toy Story 3 to start. A preview came on for Legend of The Guardians : The Owls of Ga Hoole. It’s a kid’s movie about owls. I’m not sure who decided that owls would be fitting protagonists for a Lord of the Rings rehash, but that’s not the point. The point is, this movie looks epic; take a moment to watch if you don’t believe me:

The song they used, Kings and Queens, gives me goosebumps every time I hear the ending, when the instrumentals fade and the chorus kicks in. Hearing it in the theater, with the giant 3D owl in flight before me, I wished that I could do something epic.

It took about a minute to realize that, in 24 hours, I would begin a 50-mile run.

So the next morning, when it came time to psych myself up, I turned to music. I don’t usually use music to prepare for a race; I run better given time alone in my head. But this song connected my upcoming race to the adventure I craved. This would be my chance to do something awesome. With that in mind, how could I wuss out?

After that I found this. I’m kind of a sucker for sappy stuff; it made me well up. The clip of Derek Redmond hit especially close to home. With this video looped in the background, I read articles on past greats– not Pre or Bolt but rather Terry Fox and Cliff Young. Inspirational figures who put my 50 miles into perspective. A heady dose of techno topped off the emotional overload.

And so it came to be that, as my brother drove me to the race (thanks again, Chris), I was already emotionally drained. But my spirit rose all the higher for it, unfettered by tangled emotion. My mind was sharp and my body energized. It was a new way to prepare for races. And a good one, I think. It got me through a challenge that was truly epic.

Imagine climbing mount Everest. The days of arduous trekking in full gear. Disassembling your tent knowing that it’s going to be another cold, hard day of climbing. Your joints aching, your breath frozen on your goggles. Trudging forward all the same, knowing that the summit awaits you.

Now imagine that there is an elevator leading to the top of mount Everest. Would people still venture to the summit? Sure, but they wouldn’t tell their grandkids about it.

The point is, people climb the mountain precisely because it’s so hard. Its challenge breaks us away from the mundanity of comfort. Much like running, actually.

And so we arrive at my point:

First off, you can see why this ad attracted my attention. I’ve heard similar arguments over the years from many half-assedletes, but never in reference to marathon training.

A marathon is the Everest to most runners. To run 26.2 miles– well– requires several months of consistent, disciplined training. And I like to think that most marathoners, when they excel in such a challenging event, take pride not in how easy their task was, but how difficult.

After all, you’re not going to sit your grandkids down and tell them about the time you took a shortcut to marathon greatness (Unless you’re Rosie Ruiz). You’re going to tell them about the hard work that went into preparing yourself, mentally, physically, and spiritually for the 26.2.

Even if this method worked (which seems unlikely) it would be like an elevator installed at Mount Everest. You could get to the top, sure, but why bother?

Barefoot running is such a hot subject right now that I decided it warranted further discussion. I would love to hear what you all have to say, but first I want to take this opportunity to further clarify my position on the issue (and dispel one major myth about barefoot running).

I do agree that running barefoot is a more efficient way to move. In fact, it’s been proven that running in shoes is 5% less energy-efficient than running barefoot. This seems to have been accepted by the larger running community as well. Throughout college, I was urged to get up on the balls of my feet for the last 3-400 meters of a race. And when I could muster the willpower to do so, I found that it perceptibly raised my turnover rate.

And running barefoot has felt GREAT the few times that I experienced it. Your feet are naturally so bouncy that it’s easy to lift your knees and really open up your stride. And besides, feet want to bend around the uneven ground and stones of the trail (though I wouldn’t run unshod on the streets around here). The only bad experience I’ve had running barefoot was my own fault; I didn’t think the track was hot enough to eat through my callused soles (I was wrong).

What I’m disputing is not the efficiency or fun of running barefoot, however. I’m disputing the idea that switching to barefoot running will solve all of your injury woes. Injuries, according to many minimalist runners, come from running in shoe technology that works against our natural biomechanics. Which is to say, the way humans evolved to move. Less popular are the studies proving that biomechanics actually change over our lifespan to accomodate our big, heavy running shoes. To excerpt from Pete Larson’s excellent article:

“…years of wearing lifted shoes in most modern societies has adapted our legs and feet to the presence of a heel, and the vast majority of runners are now heel strikers (see Hasegawa et al. 2007). As a result of musculoskeletal acclimation to thick-heeled running shoes (particularly in places like the Achilles tendon and calf muscles), some degree of heel lift may be a necessity for many runners in order to avoid injury, at least as they transition to more minimal footwear.”

So, while shoes may not be adapted to your body, your body has sure adapted to shoes. If you had been walking barefoot (or at least with minimal foot protection) since birth, your body would be ready to run barefoot. But as it is, most of our feet rely on clunky, cushioned, supportive shoes. Our natural structure is moot.

So is it too late for us? Should we give up on minimalism and re-lace those Brooks Beasts? Perhaps not; running barefoot, at least a little every week, is believed to strengthen muscles in the foot associated with efficient movement. But the proof that doing so reduces injury just isn’t there. As William Roberts, M.D., says, “there is no evidence to show that either the shod or unshod foot reduces injury rates, mostly because the issue has not been studied scientifically” (Ask the Sports Doc).

Dr. Roberts is backing up my past assertion that barefoot running is not based on science. It is based on sound theories and highly unsound studies. So while it bears potential, and there are many success stories, don’t let anyone tell you that this is a proven science.