Teach Your Boss to Run Barefoot, Part Two

Finding a good mentor in the business world is invaluable.  The right mentor can lead you through the corporate mine fields, show you what's important and how to get results, and teach you how to eat spaghetti at a business lunch without looking like a total dork.  I've been lucky and have had several good mentors.  They each taught me something different, but they all agreed on one thing: When you find a good boss, stick with him.  If he's a bum, run away like your ass is on fire.

Considering the spectrum of managers I meet in the business world, at any given time about half of us should be running like our asses are on fire.  Let's face it.  There are a lot of bums out there.  Here's how you identify a bum early:  1) In the job interview, he probes you about your wife's cup size, 2) He often compares himself to people who only use one name (e.g. Rocky, Ghandi, Sting), 3) He talks about himself in the third person (e.g. "Jake's boss likes his coffee with two sugars"), or 4) He calls his administrator "Honey Bunch".

A month ago I wrote about introducing my boss to barefoot running in Teach Your Boss to Run Barefoot.  If you read that post, you'll learn that I like my boss and I'm a certifiable idiot.  Only a moron introduces his boss to the controversial sport of barefoot running...and then blogs about it.

The whole thing is now spinning out of control.  My boss picked himself up a pair of Vibram Five Fingers before our trip to San Francisco two weeks ago.  We went for a run together that first morning.  His form was better, but the VFFs were still allowing him to pound and bounce a bit.  I suggested he concentrate on sliding his knees forward rather than raising them high, and his form improved even further.  About a kilometer into the run, he asked what other changes he should make.

Wait a second.  When your boss asks your opinion on something, you have several safe options.  All of them involve changing the subject.  You can discuss his personal hygiene, suggest his wife's recent boob job was too-little-too-late, or tell him a comb-over isn't really a hairstyle.  What did I answer?  "Run barefoot."  Yep, I'm stupid.

I knew what was going to happen.  I've seen it before.  Hell, it happened to me the first time.  Here we were running along the footpath next to the bay, the sun just peaking over the hills, salt air filling our lungs, and the poor sucker rips his shoes off and gingerly starts running.  And then he looks at me.

If you are a barefoot runner and you haven't experienced the look on someone else's face the first time they try running barefoot outside on smooth pavement, you either suck or have no friends.  Or both.  That look is why I believe the barefoot running movement is going to be huge.

My boss looked at me as if the Holy Spirit had just chosen that moment to enter his soul.  He looked down at his feet.  He looked at me again.  He said, "Holy crap, I can't believe it!  This feels great!"  (Objectionable cuss words removed and/or replaced.)

Hate to say it, but his form was perfect.  He had a big goofy grin on his face.  He was really enjoying himself.  I was about to drown myself in the bay.

You see, I knew what was going to happen.  I just didn't think it through fast enough.  Naturally my boss was going to love barefoot running.  Who doesn't?  Naturally he was going to start telling other people about it.  Friends, employees, corporate peers.  Naturally he was going to tell them I introduced him to the concept.

Uh oh.  The problem is, people listen to my boss.  He's very well-respected in our business and industry.  I've talked openly about barefoot running, and, not surprisingly, nobody listens to me.  Most just roll their eyes and laugh.  But my boss talking openly about barefoot running will generate more interest than Sarah Palin in a dunk tank at a gun show.

If you haven't read any of my other posts, I should clarify something right now.  I've never told anyone outside my immediate family that I write this blog.  That way I can write morally questionable material, poke fun at anything I want, and use the words "poop" and "boobs" a lot, because, as my wife says, I have the mental maturity of a 12-year-old.

So I don't want friends or people with whom I work to find this blog.  Yes, I know, odds are slim anyway, considering yesterday I had "minus 2" hits on the site.  I don't understand blog statistics very well, but I think that means two people stumbled onto the site, read something, were totally disgusted, and requested that Google remove the site permanently.

I'm now getting emails from people within our company who I've never even met.  They want to know where they can get information on barefoot running.  I've been tempted to respond with, "Um, yeah, there's this cool new thing called the internet...", but I've held back, since they might go back and report to my boss that I'm a jackass.

So I've pointed people to the Barefoot Runners Society (BRS), as well as Barefoot Ted's and Jason Robillard's websites.  Unfortunately, the BRS website has been down for a week.  Fortunately for me, my fellow employees won't see Barefootjake's blog posts that the BRS selected as Member Blog of the Week.  By the way, I think there are only two members blogging at the BRS, and the other guy posts stuff like, "Ran 7 kilometers today. Barefoot.  It was overcast.  Feet are fine."  Exhilarating stuff.

My fellow employees will probably get good info from Ted's site, just like I did when I started.  Jason's site is awesome and well organized, but this blog of mine is listed on his blog roll, so I'll just pray that no one clicks over from his site.

At this point it's inevitable.  You are about to see an influx of comments on this blog.  Most of them will start with, "You know you are going to get fired, right?..."  One will be from Human Resources: "Mr. Jake, while you are free to socialize on your own time and in your own way, this morally corrupt blog of yours makes references to our business and its employees.  It is in your best interest to cease posting immediately..."

I've been working on my response in advance: "Screw you."

Feel free to comment unless you work with me or I consider you a friend.

Running Barefoot And Naked in the Swiss Alps

I finally discovered the single benefit of having a blog:  Groupies.  These aren’t like the girls who throw themselves at any guy who can play the tambourine and hold a microphone.  No, these are people who are too shy to set up their own blog, lurk without posting on the barefoot running forums, but still want to communicate with other barefoot runners.

 It’s kinda like me when I infrequently watch late night German public television call-in shows.  If you aren’t familiar with these programs, you often find a topless lady inviting you to dial in to complete a crossword with the letters Volks_agen already filled in.  You can win 1,000 Euros, and each call only costs a measly 1.95.  It’s perplexing why it always takes at least an hour for someone to solve it.  I watch, and I feel like I’m making a connection with the topless lady, but I’m not really participating.  As far as she knows.

Okay, maybe that’s not the same thing as being a blog groupie.  And to be honest, I’m probably just hallucinating about the groupies.  However, I have received some fascinating private emails from people who thought this site was about barefoot running but find out it’s really about nothing useful.  These emails usually begin with, “You obviously have a screw loose, but I still thought I’d write…”

One nice young woman who has emailed me is an American ex-pat living in the Swiss Alps.  I’ll call her Anka.  It’s beyond me why someone would move their family from Illinois to a place where cows produce chocolate milk and the government is so neutral that its soldiers live at the Vatican, but, hey, to each his own.  Honestly, Switzerland is the most beautiful country in the whole world, and if I could get a visa to live there, I’d start the yodeling lessons today.

Anka’s family has a really cool tradition.  And apparently it’s contagious because the neighbors are now involved.  Anka, her husband, Carl , and her three daughters, ages nine, seven, and four, have a game they call “Who Can Run The Furthest Barefoot In The Snow Without Freezing Their Ass Off”.

This all started a couple years ago when Anka’s husband, Carl, and his Swiss buddies, Rolf and Hermann, were up late drinking schnapps and eating cheese fondue flavored with cherry liquor.  Hermann dared Biff to do a “Fahrversploosh”.   Uh oh.

You see, there’s a secret about us Americans.  We all have this chip on our shoulder.  We all feel like we have to live up the standard of being part of the greatest democracy in the history of the world.   That’s why you can dare us to slide 50 feet down the edge of a razor blade into a barrel of iodine and we’ll do it.  Just to show we’re better than those damn terrorists.  Or the North Koreans.

So naturally, even without knowing the meaning of “Fahrversploosh”, Carl took the dare.  Carl ended up losing a bit of feeling in “Little Carl”, but it was worth it.  These days in their little Swiss town, doing a “Carl” is a term used for anyone willing to expose his private parts to sub-zero temperatures.

All joking aside, these days Anka, Carl, and their girls can regularly be seen daring each other to run barefoot in the snow to the end of the driveway, the end of the street, or the edge of town.  They slip, slide, fall, and get up laughing.  Snowball fights break out.  Even the neighbors join in.

 I asked Anka to write a guest post about their snowy tradition.  She responded that she couldn’t because:

“It’s just like the picture you always take on vacations with the spectacular view and when you look at it at home it can’t reflect the beauty you actually looked at when you took it…

Same with running barefoot in the snow…

It is pure fun, excitement, painful, we always laugh so hard but when you wanna put it in words it doesn’t even get close to all the feelings that you have that moment…”

Anka, I think you just described it perfectly.  God bless you and your crazy family.

Got a barefoot snow or winter tradition?  Leave a comment.

Why American Barefoot Runners Should Avoid European Saunas

One thing that really bugs me about living in Europe is the whole sauna thing.  I just don’t get why a bunch of random people would want to sit together buck naked and sweating in a room hot enough to slow roast a wild boar.

If I want to sweat, I go for a run.  The exercise benefits my heart, muscles and entire body.  Sure, I run with bare feet, but you can’t see my privates.  And I believe there’s a reason they are called privates.

This nomenclature is lost on Europeans, including my German wife, Simone.  On our ski vacation over the holidays, we stayed at a posh Austrian hotel.  This is the kind of place that encourages you to dress up for meals.  Honestly, most of the men show up for dinner in a jacket and tie.

Think about this for a second.  A couple hours earlier we were hurtling ourselves down a mountain on a couple of greased boards.  An hour after that, Simone and I were sitting in a large wooden room with hot rocks, steam and sweaty privates.  Exposed sweaty privates.

And since everyone wants to use the hotel sauna during the one-hour window between après ski and dinner, the sauna is always packed.  That means sweaty privates are everywhere.  Of both sexes.  At every angle.  It’s impossible not to see everything.

Then we all head back to our rooms, shower, and march down to the dining room.  One hour after sitting in the sauna next to a very nice couple of fifty-somethings, Herb and Emma, we now find ourselves formally dressed sitting one table away at dinner.  As I attempt to choke down the delicious filet mignon, all I can think about is Herb and Emma’s privates.

Emma leans over and asks what I think about the filet mignon.  I draw a blank.  All I can think about is that image of her naked with her legs crossed sitting next to me in the sauna.  And it’s not a pretty picture.

It’s even worse than you think.  Since many European women still act like they are allergic to razors, all I can think about is hair.  Enough hair that in the sauna it had seemed as if Emma was holding a poodle on her lap.

I’ll never be able to surgically remove the poodle image from my brain.  But I will stop using the sauna.  And eating filet mignon.

Leave a comment if you dare.