32 replies to this topic

[Colac]

I bought these CLUB CASUAL $14.95 shoes in the warehouse, and I have just passed 1240 kms.

They have air in them, that makes them go squish, squish everytime I put a foot on the ground.

I call them my noisey shoes, but they are still going strong....squish, squish......and probably will get to 1500 kms (most of it on steep hills).

Now why is it that a sales person can't guarantee me more than 600 kms out of a $330 pair of cutting edge shoes ????????

[Action]

Well done colac, but I think that most shoes on their own will last forever, it is the feet put in them (and who ever is attached to those feet) that wear them out. I believe my 1,000k out of $190 shoes is good value - I wish I could get away with $15 for the same km's, but my feet (and the body attached to them) just won't let me... well done! :)

[TRAVY]

I second action's words.
I pronate so they may not suit me.
I do not ever ever look at price.
I buy a shoe that suits my feet.

[Obi-Wan]

Lucky you Colac.

[wombatface]

Well done Colac! Reminds me of my first marathon in a pair of $29.95 Dunlop KT26's.

My favourites now are Brooks Radius - comfortable for my wide feet and light. I have two pairs in use and two new pairs under the bed. About $112 on special.

Keep us posted on the 'concrete carrying' endurance test. I feel like a wimp complaining to myself about the extra weight of two water bottles. (w)

[Colac]

I walked 20 kms this afternoon with a bag of concrete on my back to celebrate my milestone of 100,000 kms of walking. Took 2.56.32, so I am improving quite quickly. Wore two packs, and last 10 kms took an extra 4 mins.

My cheap shoes stood up to it okay, but it is the last time I will be able to use them for concrete walking, as sadly, they are starting to thin down underneath, but I was 116.9 kgs on the scales when I set out, and it was large chip tarseal which cuts into the shoes quite a bit.

I will get to 1600 kms, but that includes 9 hours carrying concrete, which is a pretty severe test for $14.99 shoes which have not been rotated with others. Just dried them with paper and hung on clothes line each day to air out any moisture.

It was an emotional time for me, knowing that my special shoes are about to say goodbye, and also celebrating my milestone. Tears were in my eyes over the last km, and I found it hard to stop.

[Oli]

Colac as a completely new runner, I'm absolutely speechless that you've done 100 thousand km! And it's amazing that you did 20 km with a bag of concrete. Is this a common type of training? I've never heard of it? Regardless, congrats on an absolutely amazing milestone.

Wombat, I think I have wide feet too and I will be buying some new shoes shortly. I think I have normal arches and do not over or under pronate however I am not sure, and will get tested at the athlete's foot shop. I was thinking of going for the Puma Complete Tenos shoes which you can check out here:

http://www.pumarunni...glish/home.html

Click on the "footwear" link up the top (orange square) then choose the tenos shoe.

What sort of gait (is that the right terminology?) are your brooks shoes for?


- Oli.

[grover]

I, too, have a pair of Brooks Radius. The only problem I have is my heel pinches when I go running, and I have two long callous's running along the back of them.
Does anyone else have this?
Neil

[Colac]

The 100,000 kms is for walking only, I don't have enough records for running, particularly in my early years, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's nearer 300,000 kms for running, because I avoided owning a car for many years to make sure I got enough exercise.

I wouldn't recommend anyone practice with concrete, unless you are experienced with carrying heavy back packs, or deer on your shoulders in the bush.

You can cause a lot of shoulder injuries and spinal compression problems if you are not strong enough.

As a general recommendation, you should not be carrying more than 20% of your bodyweight in the bush.

I am getting up to 50-60%, but it is extremely rare for me to lose my balance, even on pothole roads, and I have built my strength up over many years.

Your pack has to sit on your back very precisely, and you need extra padding for pressure points.

Carrying a heavy load changes the way you walk, and can cause blisters and muscle strains in new spots, if you don't ease into.

Carrying concrete is just a new challenge for me to do, as I have done most of the usual things that runners do many times over. I have others things I want to achieve this year, also.

[Colac]

Three months have passed since placing my shoes in a retirement spot protected from the weather.

I got a big surprise one day to find the rubber had sprung back, and a second life for the shoes has been "created". Not quite the same as reincarnation but kinda similar.

My initial $14.99 has got me past 2260 kms, and I have swopped the tired inserts with a pair of used inserts from another pair of shoes.

There is advanced deteriation underneath the shoe, but with 42 kgs x 3 less downward pressure to cope with, the shoes are still performing amazingly well.....and despite some very harsh downgrades on my hill course, there are no protests from my legs or feet.

I would need to get 22,600 kms from a $150 pair of shoes to equal what I have got so far - and the shoes are "refusing to die"....they just keep smiling at me....and I feel uncomfortable from subjecting them to overloading (abuse).

I would need a $300 pair of shoes to last 50,000 kms to better these warehouse cheapies on a cost per km comparison.

I have to ask the question "what did it really cost to make my shoes in the factory in Asia" ?

Was it 17 cents, 31 cents or 42.5 cents ?

I did a marathon last week with 51 kgs in my two backpacks, but I was a tad disappointed it took 7 hours - not as fit as I thought.

I can stand on one leg fo 2 mins fully laden at 132 kgs, but 7 hours is embarrassing slow. I should be able to carry my own weight for that distance in that time.

[Gronk]

To be honest Colac, what we all really want to know is if you are still lugging that bag of concrete about :) ?

Gronk

[Colac]

Can't train every day, so I just lug the concrete about on recovery days. The concrete is on my back, the extra weight is in a pack against my chest which is great because it makes me more balanced and less likely to fall over backwards.

In time, I will be able to carry two bags, one on my back, one in front...which is the perfect balance - 80 kg bodyweight equalised by 2 x 40 kg packs of concrete. Better balance lets you walk faster, but you have to avoid pot holes - that's broken ankle country.

[Stu Mac]

WHY

Edit: I'm already wondering should I asked.

[Bellthorpe]

As above, to be able to stand on one leg for 2 mins fully laden at 132 kgs. Self evident.

[Gronk]

Oops, wrong thread. :D

Gronk

[Wobbly Bits]

Although I can see the appeal of being able to stand on one leg for 2 minutes carrying 132kg, I have to ask:

1) Why concrete?

2) Why the weight in the first place. Are you going trekking or something? Or is this a "man" thing that I just can't get into?

cheers

WB

[Bellthorpe]

1) It's heavy.

2) Not without the secret handshake.

[Colac]

Why do men climb Mt Everest without oxygen ?
Why do men walk backwards for 100's of kms ?
Why do men walk marathons on their hands ?
Why do students have drunken pub crawls ?
Why do some people get married so many times ?

Afghanistan girls are NOW allowed to receive an education, but there are only enough school buildings for boys, so the girls are being educated in tents that reach over 40C, by teachers who don't get wages. They don't mind the discomfort as the goal of education leading to self-sufficiency is so worthwhile.

One day the girls may start wearing western style clothes and venture into sport for the first time - some might make the Olympics !!!

I think that you reach a point where you want to do something different, because many of things you have done are old hat.

I am lucky to still have good health and be able to enjoy nature in my 60's - recently I ran my lifetime best for a mile, so I feel encouraged to test myself to the limits my body can stand.

Standing on one foot (with other knee held as high as possible) for two mins is not achievable if you are in poor health or have problems with your ears.

Scratching your foot with a pin tells whether your brain is working well.

There is not much difference between having 40 kgs of concrete on your back or 40 kgs of fat - except that you can't suddenly lose the fat for a race and get a big power-to-weight improvement.

I got to stack 10 tonnes of concrete per hour (by hand) onto pallets in a Melbourne concrete factory last year for the MCG improvements - so I got to thinking that perhaps I could see how far I could carry some.

[Bellthorpe]

I was going to scratch my foot with a pin, to test if my brain's working; but I thought it through, and thought 'no, there must be an easier way'. So I thought about scratching my foot with a pin! Thus proving that my brain is indeed working.

Thank goodness!

[7201]

Colac,

you have some great posts, but I am interested in your estimation of having completed 300 000 km running and 100 000km walking over the period of you exercise life.

By my calculations, for every day for the past fifty years you have:

Run: 16.43 km per day
Walked: 5.4 km per day

Now that does not sound too extreme, but that is over a fifty years period (EVERY day).

Rob De Castella ran 38km every day for four years, and he reckoned that it nearly killed him.

I have been running 20km a day for the past 12 months, and whilst I have conditioned my feet (they look disgusting) and my knees, I don't think that I'll be able to run at this rate for the next half century.

Knowing your penchance for taking inspiration from our evolutionary forebears, even hunter gatherers didn't trapes 20+ km every day; they only did it in the summer months, as the european winter meant that they relied on what they had 'gathered' from the summer time.

Again, I really enjoy reading your posts and look forward to hearing your reply. What is roughly your training programme?

Thanks again.

[Colac]

Living in the countryside a long way from shopping centres, not owning a car for long periods of time, and remaining injury free.

My training methods have been well described in other threads over the last couple of years.

My current shoes are giving me the same value as a car tyre - if profit wasn't the motive, then all shoes could be this good.

Most of my running was at a conservative pace - Rob Castella was on a progressive training plan without junk miles - so the unrelenting pressure on his body was in injury territory at times.

Some years I did the equivalent of 25% of the world's circumference - perhaps I had more time to run than many - I don't race very often because of my isolation.

I could write an interesting book about how to run injury free and have an amazing amount of fun - but it wouldn't get read because I am not a world-class athlete.

[SoLucky]

7201,
We are out of Africa.

[7201]

Agreed, but whether it was a european winter or an African harvest, wwe still hunted and gathered depending on the seasons, so my point still stands.

We did have Evolutionary forebears the migrated from Africa to Asia and Europe, so this is really a semantic.

[Gasher]

Colac

With respect to carrying large amounts of weight whilst walking, have you ever thought about using some of those gold bars you found under the floorboards rather than concrete?? ;)

Weight distribution would be easier (??)

[SoLucky]

7201,
Our forebears didn't hibernate, they kept traipsing, even further and further.

[Easy Tiger]

Oli said
[indent]quote:

---

And it's amazing that you did 20 km with a bag of concrete. Is this a common type of training?

---

[/indent]No, no, no. Don't do it Oli, they'll lock you up.

[Ultraphil]

Write the book Colac. I think it could be very interesting with a combination of your life story and then the training plan!

I feel very envious that you have been able to do so many miles on one cheapr pair of shoes! My legs would be in tatters if i did that!

Phil

PS - Colac? Still waiting for any feedback on the Colac web site. Do you want me to follow up on this issues or not?

[7201]

Solucky,

I think this borders on irrelevance, but you are generalising hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution.

Neandethal, Australopithicus, and even Cro-Magnon Man had to 'hibernate' of sorts; you cannot grow domesticated plants in winter and the migratory patterns of animals meant that meat had to be stored and kept for lean times.

So whilst I appreciate the lively debate on Darwinism; your one liners tend to demonstrate a generalisation of the history of the origin of the species.

Even the Masai and the Khalahari bushmen cannot follow the migratory animals all year; so they capture prey, salt meat, grow maize and 'khat' ( a drug), allowing them the opportunity to stay in one area and rest.

So back to my original point: the assumption that we as a species relentlessly pursued food and plant fodder on foot is not quite true; once we hit the iron and bronze age, we settled in one area, harvested crops and domesticated animals.

That was 26-40 000 years ago.

[Colac]

Ultraphil, its up to you whether you want to give feedback to the Colac committee - I know they are always shorthanded, but you have to look at things from a competitors point of view.

Every finisher is a winner in their own right, and many break personal or national records from their own country - but never get recognition.

At the end of 6 days, runners are suffering from sleep depredation, and they are not up to trying to getting results from timekeepers who themselves are pretty exhuasted. That's why I suggested December.

I have talked to overseas competitors who have told me of the difficulties of getting visas without official invitations - the Nanaga 1000-mile race, from memory had a lot of runners who didn't show up because Visas were withheld at the last moment.

WOBBLYBITS, concrete sounds heavy - they usually ask kids at school "which is the heavier - 500 grams of feathers or 500 grams of sand"? and the kids always say: the sand is heavier.

No its not a man's thing: you have a choice of concrete - 20 kgs, 30kgs or top shelf 40 kgs.
But you need a very supportive pack or you will get shoulder strains.

BELTHORPE, secret handshakes are necessary, also holding the swing rope or you get a wet surprise.

GASHER: The gold was valued at $9.1 million - I got a bar tested, but its still under the floorboards. I got so used to living on the smell of an oily rag that I kinda haven't really got anything I need to spend it on right now.

I tried to sell the house a few times, but there were no takers. Even my dog ran away - I think he was jealous of the ghosts drinking milk out of glasses I left on the table for them.

I have done the odd benchpress with a bar of gold for fun while lying on my back, but I might get robbed if I carted it around the roads. It won't get pinched out of the house as most people become very frightened after being in the house for just a few minutes - the place is quite erie and the ghosts like to have fun with visitors.

[SoLucky]

7201,
I now realise that you must be right.
The average 20k per day that Colac walked and ran obviously must be far greater than any lazy hunter gatherer would possibly have covered.
Thank you so much for the lesson.
Signing off.

[adam cooney]

hey guys does anyone by any chance know where i could get a cheap pair of get lethal 8 football boots thanks a lot Glenn

[Clyde]

I'm not sure? Have I stumbled into the 'Twilight Zone" or something? :unsure: :)
This is one of the weirdest threads I have seen in a while. We have gone from Colac and his concrete carrying escapades, as well as standing on one foot for 2 minutes.
Then we had an evolutionary discussion about hibernation of early man.
And then Adam asks about football boots????? :unsure:

WHAT THE........??????? :unsure: :D :unsure:

[7201]

Thanks SoLucky (I think),

Given that Hunter/Gatherers didn't live much past 35, they would be punching out at least 40 kms a day, probably more in order to crackout the 300 000 run/100 000 walk rates of Colac.