Annie Leonard and the Story of Stuff

Seattle is fortunate to have a program called Town Hall which regularly invites renowened guests for lectures - economist Paul Krugman, Moby, etc.

Annie Leonard was at Town Hall on March 24 to discuss her new book named after the famous web video The Story of Stuff.

If you have never seen The Story of Stuff it is an articulate and digestible movie about ... stuff. Material. What we use and consume. How it affects us. What our impact is on the world around us and what this really means to us.

Everyone should watch the video.

I regularly talk about running. But I'm not just a runner and need to speak about things that inspire me whether it's from running or not. And to be frank Annie Leonard is truly inspiring. And her message needs to be heard.

To be honest there is no way I can summarize or discuss this topic with the passion, veracity, or intelligence in the way that Ms. Leonard does. But this problem of what we consume, how much, and how much is left is of great concern to me.

Three facts stood out at me last night in her talk:

• Overall humans consumes 1.5 planets worth of resources a year.
• The United States has 5% of the world's population yet consumes 35% of the earth's resources.
• If the top 3,000 corporations externalize about $2.2 trillion of their costs a year which is roughly 1/3 of their profits.

OK, the last one requires a bit of explanation but it basically has to do with the costs that corporations push out to us consumers.

Alright, that's heavy stuff. The best part is that the message is not demoralizing. If anything Ms. Leonard is hopeful that we can solve the problems that we've created for ourselves.

How? The small stuff is good. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. As runners one of the biggest impacts we can make would be not to drink bottled water.

But her argument is we need to flex the "civic" muscle in our brain versus our "consumer" muscle. Join organizations that are doing something about this - invariably these groups need help.

As for me I need to figure out how to become involved. I'm tired of sitting on the sidelines and need to do my part. Sacrificing is difficult but as a runner I know about sacrifice and dedication in pursuit of my goals. I'm passionate about food so it may be something in that area or maybe something to do with toxics in our consumer products. The good news is there is no shortage of problems we need to tackle.

Who's with me?

Barefoot Running - Just Do It!

It's always fascinating to me when I can look back and recall a specific moment in time when my life took a distinct turn. As it relates to barefoot running it occurred on April 21, 2009 when I read The Daily Mile article The painful truth about trainers: Are running shoes a waste of money? 


Part of why I run is to challenge myself both physically and mentally. Something in this article spoke to the part of me that allows me to challenge myself and my long-held belief that in order to run I need to wear running shoes.


Hell, they're called running shoes for a reason right? 


Probably because that's how they were marketed. But I digress.


As with many moments where you make a sudden turn it's not immediately clear that you have and it's the little moments later that more clearly reveal the path you find yourself on.


These revealing moments happened over the next 11 months.

In June I bought my first pair of Vibram Five Fingers (VFFs). As I was in the middle of training for my first marathon it was July before I did my first runs. While I had embraced the idea of running barefoot I had not properly considered that I might need to learn how to run barefoot. The result was some blistered feet and low-grade shattering of my newfound illusion. I put the VFFs on the shelf for a bit.

Fast forward to December and someone recommended Born to Run which has become something of a manifesto for the barefoot movement. Like many others I tore through the book in just a few days and then began evangelizing the idea to those that would listen. I had begun to ramp up my training for the Seattle Rock N Roll Marathon and was preparing to start running in my VFFs. Unlike my summer training I read more on the techniques of barefoot running (my one complaint of Born to Run is that it did not get into the details of good running and diet practice), primarily focused on Ken Bob's site barefootrunning.org.

As luck would have it I broke my toe the morning of the day I planned on making my first VFF run. Not only did this stop my training but it put a hitch in my plan to introduce VFF and barefoot running into my training. With six weeks off I knew I'd have to add miles to my training as quickly (and safely) as possible and so when the toe injury healed it was back to shod running. Sometimes it's just too easy to justify maintaining the status quo.

Along the way I've found more compatriots in the barefoot / minimalist running world. The news of the Prof. Daniel Lieberman study on foot striking has gotten a lot of press. Finally, I saw a screening of Running the Sahara in which Charlie Engle preaches to "just get out there and do it - what's the worst that can happen?" This movie and Charlie really have a way of getting you to challenge yourself.

So the worst that could happen is I went for a barefoot run tonight. One mile. And it was glorious.

The irony is all I had to do was follow the advice of the largest shoe manufacturer and "Just Do It!"

Update:

I should note that I may not have been terribly ardent in my advice to take any introduction to barefoot running SLOWLY. Regardless of how many miles you currently run you are almost invariably relearning to run as a barefooter. The most noticeable effect will be that your calves and ankles will be quite sore after your first several runs. I highly recommend reading the "beginning barefoot" and "how to run" posts on therunningbarefoot.com before your first barefoot run.