One Final Spalsh...and Dash

Just like Michael Jordan and Brett Farve before him, this week Gavin Gee said "I'm going to be doing my last splash and dash...again." One year after his shocking return to the event Mr. Gee is calling it quits as he once again leaves BYU for a job in Texas. After silencing many of the naysayers in last years 3rd place finish, Mr. Gee was considered a favorite for the coveted 3rd place finish. However, when a former BYU Hawaii cross country runner showed up at the pool before the start of the race it appeared that Gavin's hopes were shot. With the extra competition and a lagging head cold the odds of a 9th 3rd place were distant at best. In the mile swim Gavin appeared sluggish and as he emerged from the pool it was clear he was exhausted. "Your in 4th place!" Mr. Gee's wife, Denny, called out to him as he slipped into his tennis shoes.
The first mile of the 10k didn't go well. Running in shoes for the first time since last years race gave Gavin a strange awkward gait and he seemed to be kicking his ankle with every stride. However, 2 miles into the race Mr. Gee seemed to find a groove as he passed last years champion, Eric Otto.
Although Gavin dropped over 3 minutes from his previous 10k time he stilled finished several minutes behind the other two leading contestants. "I was so excited to get another 3rd place award that I ate three oranges and three bananas to celebrate!" However, third place was not in the cards for Mr. Gee this year. It wasn't until several minutes later that Gavin was informed that the second place finisher had only swam half a mile making him disqualified and putting Mr. Gee in 2nd place. "It was hard after all these years to give up the third place title and hand it over to someone else. I just hope they can live up the heavy responsibilities of a third place finisher" commented Gee on the loss of his third place title.
The second place finish completed Mr. Gees collection of splash and dash victories - 1 1st place*, 1 2nd place, 8 3rd places.
When asked to comment on what his secret was to his 10 spectacular finishes he said, "hard work, healthy eating, and low participant rates...but, mostly the low participant rates"



*denotes a team victory that was more due to the help of Ryan Daniels than to anything Mr. Gee did

The Barefooted Lie?

It has been nearly ten years since I first started running barefoot around BYU's indoor track. Back then I ran with a very heavy foot, you could hear my shoes pounding against the ground all the way around the track. Running barefoot, as my friend Ryan Daniels suggested, would force me to change my running style and run a lighter on my feet. It worked fabulously, suddenly instead of hearing the loud THUD, THUD, THUD you would hear a soft pitter patter as I ran by.
Unfortunately, barefoot running is not as easy once you leave the indoor track. So for several years I went back to running in my old running sneakers, until Denny gave me a pair of Vibrams.
The journal of Science had just published an article showing the benefits of running barefoot and I was excited to start cashing in on those benefits. However, after running with my Vibrams I started having people come up and ask me "Have you read Born to Run?" Finally, I read the book and that is when the doubt started. The books arguments were so poorly articulated and lousy with lacunae that I started to wonder if there really was anything to the barefoot argument. Then one day while standing barefoot in my kitchen I noticed that my hip and joints were really aching. I decided to go put on some sandals, and the pain went away almost instantly. Over the next few weeks I noticed that if I am wearing shoes or sandals in the kitchen it takes over an hour of walking around while chopping, cooking, or cleaning before my joints start to get achy. However, when I am barefoot it only takes about 15 minutes. In interviews I have heard from Chris McDougall (the author of Born to Run) he "going barefoot" is always better, if you are running, walking, or just standing around. The argument is that your body knows how to adjust to avoid pain far better than whoever is making the shoe.
Obviously I don't really have much of a case against his point, but over the past two years while back at BYU running barefoot almost exclusively and I haven't felt it help my joints at all. In the past if I ran over 3 miles I would start to ache all over. Well, now when I run barefoot the same thing happens. I haven't been able to notice any health benefit from tossing my shoes. I really want to say that there are benefits because in a crazy way I feel that would add proof to Hayek and Taleb's arguements made in The Fatal Conceit and The Black Swan, by essentially showing that our bodies are so complicated that we can't understand the consequences of our own intervention and hence our "improvements" well only cause more damage. But, so far the only benefit I have seen has been that I haven't had to buy new running shoes for 4 years.

Dad Vindicated

Several years ago Donald Boudreaux wrote an article in the Freeman titled "I will not vote." The article was based on studies done by economist and statisticians showing that an individual vote in an election never has any value. My dad wrote an article saying that although Mr. Boudreaux was correct about national elections his theory did not apply to local elections. Mr. Bourdreaux's rebuttal was that even in very small local communities a single vote had no statistical significance. My dad wrote his own rebuttal on his blog but it is unlikely that it would have swayed Mr. Bourdreaux's position.
Then on election day my sister, Rebecca, called me to ask if she could borrow my car for the afternoon so that she, Austen, and Andrew could drive up to South Salt Lake to vote against the new bond to be issued to the city. Mr. Bourdreaux's article instantly came to mind and I couldn't believe that my siblings were willing to waist over 2 hours just to go vote, something I thought was a completely pointless exercise.
Well you can imagine my surprise when the next morning on my way to the swimming pool I heard over the radio that "the bond in South Salt Lake failed by 3 votes."