one man's trash

it's a weekly routine.

tuesday is garbage and recycling pick-up day in my neighbourhood.  out to the end of my driveway i lug my one-bag limit garbage, our green (compostables) bin, our gray (paper) bin and blue (other recyclables) bin.  this is the time of year that it gets tricky sometimes as the snowbanks can grow to seven or eight feet high ... but it's not december yet, so it's not yet an issue.

anyway, like clockwork around 9:30 i often see the same person - almost all year round - come by, rummaging through the blue bins in search of returnable wine and beer bottles.  in the drier months he'll swoop by on his loaded-up bicycle, but in this sloshy-snow he travels like the post carrier on foot.

i don't know just how profitable it is or isn't to collect the deposit from a suburb's worth of bottles.  what i do know is that it can be a tricky business.  bottle collectors can get territorial, and there have been times when i've seen two of them just about come to blows because one's been encroaching on another's turf.  and other times homeowners can become pretty ornery about someone rifling through their stuff, even though discarded - and i suppose that in the era of the threat of identity theft everybody's guard is up.

it's to my discredit that i've never stopped to chat with our local bottle collector.  i don't know his name, his story, where he lives, or how long he's been at this gig.  he may collect out of necessity, out of OCD, or out of interest - like people who comb the beaches with their metal detectors.  

what i do know is that i've no problem with him dropping by to sift through (i do try to leave the bottles on the top of the bin) for a contribution to his weekly take.  as a first-world society i feel like the least that we can do is to not be so tight-fisted as to interfere with someone else's initiative to turn trash into cash.  i think that we'd all be a little less materialistic and a little more altruistic if we paid attention to the hebrew scriptures which say 

"When you harvest the crops of your land, do not harvest the grain along the edges of your fields, and do not pick up what the harvesters drop. Leave it for the poor and the foreigners living among you. I am the Lord your God." [Leviticus 23:22]

i'm all for recycling and saving the planet.  if this is one way that it can happen, let him go to town.

. . . . .

oh, and for all of you who might be disappointed that this isn't running-related content, let me just point you toward a few organizations that are making a real difference in the lives of others through the culture of running - because like my friend lewis often asks, "how can this be about saving lives?"

• Shoes4Souls
• Janji 
• The Hall Steps Foundation 
• Mo Farah Foundation

one man's trash

runners can change the world

i will likely never chain myself to a tree to stop a forest being cut down.

but that doesn't mean i'm not vitally concerned with how we're treating our planet.

around my house, i'm the nag who's on everyone's case about leaving the lights turned on in rooms where there's nobody.  i scour packaging of all shapes, sizes and materials to make sure that they shouldn't go into the recycling bin before they're dumped in the trash.  i'm willing to risk foul odours and the occasional maggot in order to collect compostables in our 'green bin'.

with that kind of MO, it's only natural for me to wonder how as runners we can contribute to a brighter ecological future.  

aside from the "well, you can use your feet to take you places instead of your car" suggestion (which is an entirely valid one, by the way), i often wonder about the waste that we produce in purchasing and using so much gear.  maybe that's one reason why at least 70% of all my running equipment (apparel, shoes, even timepieces) have been purchased from second-hand stores.  there's enough good stuff that people give away that i'm prompted regularly to ask do we really need to give the merchandising industry any more reason to keep the production lines running overtime?

but given that i myself am a creature addicted to novelty, one of the other ways in which i compensate for my own consumerism is to pay close attention to recyclability:

• i've always wanted to own a pair of the brooks green silence (in the original hansons-brooks colourway) because of all of the intentional effort invested to make it an environmentally friendly product ... i still hold out hope!
• numerous pairs of shoes that have been retired from my collection have found their way over to the local Running Free store where they have a receptacle for good condition shoes that can be re-distributed to local and global populations in need
• i just read about Soles4Souls, whose express purpose is "to give relief to the victims of abject suffering and collects used shoes to support micro-business efforts to eradicate poverty" - i can totally get behind that.

as my friend lewis has often challenged himself (and me in the process), the question to ask while running is how am i saving lives by doing this?

i hope to always have a good answer to that question.

runners can change the world

road review - saucony kinvara vizi-glo

i've been thinking a lot (and in fact acting a lot) on the theme of quitting.  i know that it sounds all negative and stuff - but my friend (who is a great musician and olympic-level athlete) rosanna tomiuk has some insightful comments on that.  

but in terms of running, for me it's not about giving that up - but letting go of some good friends who have served me well ... the saucony kinvaras:



these shoes joined my stable in the late summer of 2011.  they were my second pair of the first generation kinvaras (i originally had a lime green pair that really stood out when i was doing training runs through rural romania), and were purchased for $39 thanks to a coupon and the sale at the running room outlet store.

at the time (and even still) the saucony kinvara was considered the crème de la crème of the new breed of performance running footwear - lightweight, low heel drop, suitable for training and racing.  i was excited to try them out - and i remember my first impression when i donned them for a road run:  it was like wearing socks that were shoes.

these kinvaras have seen me through several races and probably well over 1500km of running now.  why have i held on to them for so long?  here a few reasons:

1. fit - the kinvaras had (more on this below) a great shape for my foot.  true-to-size, there was ample forefoot room and a nice feel around the heel.  as i noted, like socks to run in.
2. lightweight - at 7.7 oz in a men's 9 (mine were a 10), they were definitely on the leading edge of minimalist shoes.
3. colour awesomeness - while they did have a variety of plainer colour combos, the vizipro orange and lime green pairs that i had in my closet rocked.
4. traction - featuring these great outsole 'pistons', the kinvaras have been in use year round, even on ice and deep snow runs.  i've never had a concern about tumbling in them.
   
5. flexible - the mesh upper/sockliner design of these shoes mean that they conform nicely to my foot as it transitions through all of the motions of the footstrike.  plus these shoes have seen me move from a midfoot-strike to a forefoot-strike pattern and have allowed me to do so without any real hindrance. 
6. drainage - connected to the comments above, i used the kinvaras in some triathlon work and the fact that they got my feet dry quick after T1 (i didn't have bike-specific shoes) was a huge bonus.

given all of these pluses, why surrender them now?  just a few thoughts:

• upper wear - yup, they've split open at the point where my forefoot flexes.  probably a good indicator that i'm either landing on my forefoot or at least springing off well, but the rip is widening as well.  don't know how long they'll last that way.
  
• fit across forefoot - what was once a positive is now not so much.  i've gone to the extent of even skipping the bottom two speedlacing eyelets to create a bit more room for splay and flex (in addition to removing the insole, as noted in a previous post).  i wonder if transitioning to forefoot running over the last 10 months or so has actually made my foot a bit wider.
• midsole compression - this may or may not be just a psychological thing on my part.  i have always had these shoes in rotation with at least two other pairs, so they've had adequate time to decompress/expand between runs - but i'm sure that the seasons of rain, snow and salt have not done much to keep the midsole in pristine form.
• not my prime shoe anymore - this is definitely a psychological thing.  if these shoes were newer, this would be a weak (and wasteful) excuse to part ways with them ... but now that i have my current favourite (merrell road glove) and new race shoe (skechers gobionic) to rotate through, it may be time to bid them adieu.

my first pair of lime green kinvaras were donated to the recycling program at my local running free store.  as these puppies aren't in quite as good a shape as the first pair were, they may just find their way into our local landfill (i don't believe in trying to pawn off trash to others).

i only wish that they were biodegradable ... that would have been a fitting tribute to bury these shoes alongside some of the roads that they have carried me down.  fare thee well, kinvaras, fare thee well.

road review - saucony kinvara vizi-glo