Category / exploration

by suffernpodiatry.com

Elevating Fungus:‘Entangled Life, How Fungi make our worlds, change our minds & shape our futures’

A Review: Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake, Random House 2020

The northeastern United States is now covered in a blanket of snow. Under the snow is a layer of frozen grass. Under the grass is a layer of dirt and within the dirt is a network of roots supporting the grass and surrounding plants and trees. And intertwined within the vast number of roots is an endless network of gossamer thin fibrils connecting root to root and one tree to the next, built by the true unsung hero of the world’s terrestrial ecosystem: fungus.

Yes, fungus.

Emerging research has shown that our forests are supported by a large underground mycelial entanglement of fungal fibrils that enable trees to communicate with one another, shifting molecular resources from tree to tree as needed and serving as a communication network to help one tree alert another of impending danger.

Merlin Sheldrake in his first book, ‘Entangled Life, How Fungi make our worlds, change our minds & shape our futures’, is an ideal guide to the world of fungi. “For as long as I can remember I’ve been fascinated by fungi and the transformations they provoke,” Sheldrake writes, “A solid log becomes soil, a lump of dough rises into bread, a mushroom erupts overnight-but how?”, he continues. Sheldrake studied plant science as an undergraduate student at Cambridge and received a PhD studying the interaction of fungal filaments (mycorrhizal relationships), going on to study thousands of soil samples to study their DNA among other research projects.

Entangled Life takes readers on a veritable tour round the planet and beyond of the world of fungi, including a description of their ability to survive a round trip to outer space. Sheldrake describes in vivid detail how fungi are “decomposers” whether that be of wood, rock or an organism such as the carpenter ant. The fungus Ophiocordyceps camponoti-nidulantis routinely infects the ants but from the inside out. The picture of the infected ant with white fungus growing out of its body is memorable, trust me. 

The book opens as the author tags along with a professional truffle hunter and his truffle smelling dog in the hill country of Bologna, Italy searching for Tuber magnatum, white truffles . Sheldrake focuses on the truffles, translated in many languages he says as “testicles,” in part because of their rarefied role in the culinary world, partly because of their exorbitant cost and partly because, well, they are just really interesting as a fungus. Researchers have puzzled as to how the truffles communicate their smell from below ground and have suggested it is due at least partly to the odiferous molecule they contain, methyl sulfide. Sheldrake shares scientific detail without overwhelming the reader, sprinkling chemical or latin names as flavoring, like grated truffles, to season the main dish, the story of how intrinsic fungi of all types are to our world.

One chapter focuses on psilocybin, or, what is known in the category of mind bending drugs as a ‘magic mushroom’. In this case, it actually is a mushroom and Sheldrake traces psilocybin’s history from its use in the coronation of the Aztec emperor in 1486 up to 2016 when both Johns Hopkins and New York University separately studied the drug as a treatment for anxiety and depression. Scientists are still not completely sure how mushrooms affect our brain chemistry. As enthusiastic as Sheldrake is for each impressive property of fungi whether it be their ability to create an odor or alter consciousness, he focuses much of his attention explaining how fungi create expansive webs of interactions linking one organism to another and another.

The heart of the book, in my opinion, is the chapter that challenges us to compare the world wide web we know as the internet to the interconnected subterranean network of fungal fibers which shuttle valuable resources from tree root to tree root, a network now referred to by the popular media as the wood wide web. Mycorrhizal networks can shuttle carbon and sugars between the roots of different trees and even serve as “highways for bacteria to migrate around the obstacle course of the soil” Sheldrake writes. The comparisons to the internet are striking and Entangled Life cites research showing the interconnectedness between a stand of Douglas fir trees studied in one small forest plot. The larger trees in the forest plot had more underground fungal connections than younger smaller trees, just as select pages on the web are immensely more connected than other pages. Developing the theme of connectedness further, the author goes on to cite additional research which draws comparisons between fungal networks and neural networks in the human brain.

Not all scientists agree that the wood wide web is crucial to ecological life and in true scientific method Sheldrake is careful to cite dissenting opinions about its actual importance for survival of a forest ecosystem. He steers clear of over simplification of a topic that continues to yield new findings. Yet while it is clear that the author believes the hidden world of fungal filaments has an important story to tell, he remains objective about the questions that remain to be proved. 

“How best to think about mycorrhizal networks then? Are we dealing with a super organism? A metropolis? A living Internet? Nursery School for trees?….All are problematic.”

In additional pages and chapters the author describes the symbiotic world of fungi and bacteria, new research about the multi faceted world of lichens which include at least a fungus and an algae and he dives into the world of fermentation including his experiences making his own mead and other fermented foods. And the book contains amazing color plates of fungi in various forms and magnifications. Each page of Entangled Life shares a cornucopia of information about fungi, almost making the point itself that fungi are indeed dynamic and beckon study and not merely inanimate sessile objects to be only either ignored or eaten. Overall, Sheldrake elucidates the world of not only fungi and their connectedness but indeed awakens the reader to the “polyphonic swarms of plants, fungi and bacteria that make up our homes and our worlds.”

Howard E Friedman

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by suffernpodiatry.com

“Born to Run” Running Strong After a Decade

“Born to Run” is one of the most successful and influential books ever written about running. More than a decade since publication I can make that declaration for three reasons.

First, some of the people featured in the non fiction account of the arcane world of ultra long distance running still promote their association with the book as an important part of their credentials. Second, according to author Christopher McDougall’s web site, best actor Oscar winner Matthew McConaughey is scheduled to star in a film version of the book.

And my third reason is the most convincing evidence of this book’s outsized influence. During the current COVID-19 pandemic quarantine, my wife and I have desperately searched the house for new books to read. I found and re-read “Born to Run” and loved it all over again. I urged my wife who is an adamant non runner and lover of fiction books to read this non-fiction book about running. She read it in one day. The very next day, she laced up her vintage white Keds sneakers and went for a run! 

“Born to Run” fueled greater interest in running and a new curiosity about running barefooted or in minimalist shoes. Minimalist running shoes were marketed nationwide in the years following. The book’s popularity also probably helped at least a couple of careers and shined light and Ivy League caliber research on an indigenous people for whom running is a preferred mode of transportation.

McDougall introduced his readers to a running niche unknown to the general public and not well known even to most recreational runners in May 2009 when “Born to Run” was published. While most people were familiar with the New York and Boston marathons, fewer people knew that runners were meeting almost every weekend somewhere around the country to run 50 and 100 miles races some lasting more than 24 hours.  During these ultra marathon events runners made brief stops to shovel food in to their mouths, change out of blood stained socks and have their weight checked to make sure they were not dehydrated and risking kidney failure. Runners were lining up in California, Colorado and Tennessee to name a few, not to mention at Badwater 135, the self proclaimed “world’s toughest foot race” starting in Death Valley and crossing through places like Furnace Creek. The asphalt along the route was hot enough to melt the rubber off your sneakers.

But that was not even the most interesting part of “Born to Run”. The primer on the world of ultra marathons was merely a necessary backdrop for the true crux of the book. McDougall takes us on a wild ride to a place most of us have never heard of to meet a motley collection of colorful eccentrics. To tell his story he introduces us to a middle-aged lanky bald runner who Hollywood could never have made up: Caballo Blanco, the White Horse, also known as Micah True.

And that was just chapter one.

“Born to Run” brilliantly weaves together the true story of how the enigmatic Caballo Blanco, an American who re-located to be able to live and run in the Copper Canyons of Mexico, created one of the great running races you never heard of. The book deftly tells the story that brought together the Tarahumara Indians, an indigenous people who use running for transportation, recreation and sport and a disparate group of American runners, including a professional with product endorsements, some relative unknown college students, personal trainers, the author and someone who actually defies categorization, Barefoot Ted.

Along the way, McDougall introduces readers to an assortment of physical therapists, athletic trainers, renowned running coaches, a Harvard evolutionary biologist and a New Zealand professor all of whom have devoted themselves to the study and art of running.

The story follows McDougall’s quest to finally resolve his own struggles with recurrent running injuries and his attempt to train and run a 50 mile race through the Copper Canyons. But the book is not an ego trip for McDougall, as many books written by runners turn out to be. In fact, McDougall’s running plays a minor role since he shines the light on those who have mastered the art. He brings us as close as he can to Micah True. He introduces us to the world of the Tarahumara which leaves you kind of flabbergasted that this community lives about 270 miles south of El Paso, TX and is not a lost tribe in the middle of the Amazon.

Tarahumara men running. credit:https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/skeleton

Much of what makes “Born to Run” inspirational is the author’s uncovering of how running is innate to humans and the role it has played in our development as a species. And for that he cites Daniel Lieberman a Harvard professor who studies human anatomy with a focus on anatomical features unique to humans that allow us to run distances longer than any other species. He tells the story of David Carrier, now a professor of Biology who with his brother tried to prove the ‘Running Man’ theory by attempting to run down an antelope to exhaustion over the course of several days. We are also introduced to a South African mathematician who became so obsessed with the idea of humans as persistence hunters that he left college to live with the Bushmen of the Kalahari to learn exactly how they used running as their primary hunting tool. 

As McDougall discovers that the Tarahumara, the Bushmen and even Barefoot Ted can run just fine in flat sandals or, in Ted’s case, bare feet he questions the need for our modern over engineered running shoes and the multi national industry behind them. McDougall proceeds to take down modern running shoes and in the process the industry leader Nike. He draws support for the idea from physical therapist Irene S. Davis who’s treatment for injured runners evolved to recommend that they strengthen their feet, not their shoes. Cushioned over built shoes have existed only since the 1970s when Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman brought the world cushioned Nike running shoes. Nike provided their shoes to competitive runners than marketed them to a growing number of recreational runners as the jogging boom began to ramp up.

The story concludes with an epic ultra marathon pitting modern running technique and technology against an ancient one as Caballo Blanco managed with difficulty to bring together some of the best ultra marathoners in the United States to race against the best of the Tarahumara runners over 50 miles in the Copper Canyon.

“Born to Run” has not only inspired people to run and still ranks among the best selling running books but the book likely had an influence on the running world. Barefoot running had a moment after the publication of the book with introduction of stripped down shoes which tried to mimic the unstructured sandals worn by the Tarahumara. I saw a young man trail running in New Jersey with a home made version of the ‘hurrache’ sandals the indigenous runners would make themselves and I saw a woman hiking steep terrain in the Catskills barefooted. Even today running races of various lengths and terrain will often have at least a couple of barefoot runners.

Corporate money capitalized on the barefoot running phenomenon too. Vibram, an Italian leading manufacturer of rubber soles for shoes and boots, launched the Vibram Five Fingers, a ‘shoe’ that looks like a glove but for the foot with shaped toes. The rubber bottom provides some protection for the sole of the foot. Vibram was sued for allegedly making some claims that running in Vibram Five Finger shoes “reduces running injuries” based on how the shoes changed a person’s gait. Vibram settled the lawsuit putting aside up to $3.75 million but denied fault and liability. The shoes are still sold. And as for Nike, “Born to Run” did not hurt the world’s leading shoe brand. Nike has gone from selling shoes that give you more support to their now famous very engineered Vaporfly that give you even more cushioning plus a carbon fiber plate to propel runners faster.

While mass enthusiasm for barefoot running has waned, the notion that our feet are stronger than we realize lives on. Physical therapist Irene S. Davis who was at the University of Delaware at the time of the book and now heads Harvard’s Spaulding National Running Center encourages patients to strengthen the muscles in their feet through a series of exercises and not to rely on over built shoes. Daniel E. Lieberman, at the time of publication already an established professor at Harvard and author of the idea that humans are anatomically adapted for long distance running, began studying the running biomechanics of the Tarahumara in 2012 adding to his research on natural barefoot runners in Kenya and attempt to fully understand just what our feet are capable of.

Some of the runners featured in the book went on to further success. Jenn Shelton who was in the early days of running ultras at the time “Born to Run” was written  went on to compete around the world and win various marathons. She now is a running coach. Scott Jurek was already one of the most winning ultra marathoners at the time he was featured in “Born to Run”. He went on to set a fastest known time running the 2, 190 mile length of the Appalachian Trail and for running 167.5 miles in 24 hours. Jurek’s bio on his web site proudly proclaims in large font Born to Run.

Other runners featured in the book openly promote their association with this juggernaut of a running book more than 10 years after publication. Eric Orton, the author’s running coach during the build up to the first ever Copper Canyon ultra and an author himself advertises on his coaching web site that he was “a featured character in the worldwide best selling book Born to Run”.  Barefoot Ted mentions his “Born to Run” bonafides in the first line of his web site and he mentions his appearance in the book multiple times. He also sells his own line of minimalist running sandals and leads running trips and races in the Copper Canyon. For that matter, Christopher McDougall’s web site also mentions “Born to Run” in the first line above the titles of his more recent books. But he is the author after all.

And the Tarahumara continue to live and run in Mexico’s Copper Canyons, with their health and safety challenged by environmental threats and the risk of violence from drug cartels. The first ultra marathon organized with great effort by Micah True featured in “Born to Run” continues as an annual event, drawing runners from around the world. And as for the Caballo Blanco, several years after publication of the book he collapsed while running in his beloved mountains where his body was recovered. His spirit runs on.

Howard E. Friedman

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by suffernpodiatry.com

The crepuscular trail: A last flash of light

Neither “sunset” nor “twilight” adequately describes the crepuscular time of day, that time when the sun has dropped below the horizon but still sends forth just enough of a glow to make your way home. In this dimming light one can just discern the path, but can not see what lives in the shadows.

The only true light to be seen in this liminal twilight zone is the flashing abdomen of the firefly, Photuris lucicrescens.  I spotted my first firefly this summer just a few days ago. In the ebbing light the number of people outside was inversely proportional to the number of flashing, flying insectivorous abdomens. Almost no people. Lots of fireflies. They flash near eye level, staying close to the path or hovering over the grass where they can be spotted, staying out of the dense woods or thickets.

I immersed myself in the twilight several times this week. The first was in a swamp rehabilitated with hiking paths surrounded by phragmites and weeping willows, while dozens and dozens of fireflies lit up the trail like silent fireworks, no two flashes in the same location. The second time was in an urban park which hugs a tributary of the Hackensack River, with fields of yellow trefoils, butterfly weed, lavender clovers, daisies and purple asters, the petal colors all a shade darker in the low quality light. And the third time, tonight, during a run around the neighborhood, crossing through another park, the looming oaks blocking the day’s last rays of light. The bright green of the leaves faded to dark as the twilight zone drew closer to night absolute, shifting from lime green to emerald to hunter green, and finally to a deep brown-green, barely green at all.

We humans have traditionally not embraced this transitional period of dusk. When kids still played outside, the specter of  the coming dark could send kids racing home as the sun set. We are not totally comfortable with this dim light of twilight, unlike the fireflies and other crepuscular creatures such as skunks and deer. This time is their time, the low-quality light the time when they shine.

We on the other hand struggle to make sense of what is neither day nor night, our eyes struggle to adjust, our pupils open at full bore yet not open enough. And religions that base their calendar on the sun and the moon struggle to categorize this ambiguous time as well. If the holy day is slated to begin at nightfall, an indeterminate time is of no help. If a fast from food and drink is decreed to end at nightfall, an approximate time is not helpful. When does one end and the other begin?

In the Jewish religion much is discussed about twilight and dawn in painstaking attempts to delineate one day from the next, night from day and day from night. When can you begin praying? By what hour must you finish? Precisely when must all work cease for the Sabbath?

But all is not knowable. There is no precise moment when the illuminated day time sky morphs into night, just as there is no exact moment when a child becomes an adult. And  twilight will never resolve into nighttime with clarity. We must do the best we can to make sense of dusk and remember that at least some species flourish in the haze of the dimming light. The fireflies are one species that have adapted to use this period to search for a mate and live to illuminate another fading twilight with a final flash of light.

Howard E. Friedman

(written but not published, June 17, 2015)

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by suffernpodiatry.com

“Classic story revised: lichens are fungus + algae + yeast (another fungus)”

I have been a fan of the lowly lichens for some time but have found studying them in any detail quite daunting. Now it turns out that even the expert lichenologists have been stumped, according to a new paper just published in Science. The paper, which I read about in the blog Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne, an evolutionary biologist from the University of Chicago, explains the new research in his blog post, including his pictures from Wikipedia, linked below.

Briefly, it turns out that some or possibly many lichens are not just a symbiotic relationship between fungus and an algal species, cyanobacteria, but also include a third partner- yeast. This finding will explain why researchers have not been able to grow lichen in the lab, as they were leaving out a key ingredient.

Dr. Coyne does a good job of summarizing the findings in his blog post below. But, even if you do not read further, hopefully your interest and respect for these quiet members of the great outdoors will only grow.

One of the classic stories of biology, taught to virtually every student, is the fact that what we call “lichens” are actually a combination of two very distantly related species: a species of alga and a species of fungus. (Sometimes the “alga” is really a species of cyanobacteria, formerly called “blue green algae” but not really […]

via Classic story revised: lichens are fungus + algae + yeast (another fungus) — Why Evolution Is True

by suffernpodiatry.com

Social media documents Everest

As a long time follower of mountain climbing in general and expeditions to Mt. Everest in specific I was intrigued by the idea of being able to follow a current expedition on the mountain underway right now as I write this post via the magic of social media. And not just any old fashioned social medial like Facebook, Instagram or tumblr, but rather through the latest social medial phenom, Snapchat!

Three experienced climbers with legit bona fides, Adrian Ballinger, Cory Richards (climber and expedition photographer) and Pasang Rinji Sherpa, are documenting their climb of the  world’s tallest and most famous high peak. #Everestnofilter is a response to years of guided expeditions primarily for the wealthy and adventurous where the climbs are super supported by dozens of Sherpas and the climbers are assisted in their own climbing  with assistance up and down the mountain and with supplemental oxygen. This expedition in contrast will have some Sherpa support but the climbers are not part of a larger guided expedition. And in distinction to most paying clients who get to the top of the 14 mountains over 8,000 meters including Everest, these climbers plan to join the ranks of the word’s most accomplished climbers and will not carry extra oxygen in tanks but will breathe on their own. This decision makes the climb into the super low oxygenated air much more difficult and dangerous.

Besides the pared down nature of their approach to the mountain and the frequent posts to social media, #everestnofilter is also heralding other nouveau ethics on the mountain, fueling themselves at least in part by eating Soylent a complete nutrient vegan soybean and algae based food available as a drink or powder. The expedition, sponsored in part by Soylent, Strava, Eddie Bauer and dZi is also aiming to raise money and awareness for the Nepali people and Sherpa communities.

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Nari Maya Rai, age 56, tends to millet in front of her home damaged home in Kumlu Village, Solukhumbu District,Sagarmatha Zone,Nepalon Oct. 31, 2015. The May 12 aftershock of the April 25th earthquake destroyed thirteen houses in Kumlu leaving many residents in temporary shelters. Photo by Adam Ferguson (https://dZi.org/stories)

Everest has seen much tragedy in recent years with the loss of life during last year’s 2015 earthquake that leveled so much of Nepal and previous years where climbers and Sherpas have died in avalanches, storms and from climbing accidents.

Now using the latest satellite technology, Ballinger and Richards have already started sending live movie updates from base camp which they are streaming on their Snapchat feed, #everestnofilter. Their name, ‘no filter’ is apt. So much of what we see of any mountain climbing expedition is the glory of the summit fist pump and flag waving, except when people die, at which point we see see the distraught faces of grieving climbers who survived. But in this real time documentary, we truly see the experience with no filter.

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#everestnofilter snapcode

In fact, yesterday’s short film took us into the climbers’ tents to see first hand the cramped quarters, super insulated cold weather gear clothes, boots and crampons lying about and a 2 liter bottle filled with urine ready to be emptied after serving its duty the night before. (“pee bottles” are de rigueur on these expeditions, saving the climbers from having to exit their tents  into the frigid cold during the night).

To follow this expedition, which I recommend if you have even a passing interest in what the world of high altitude mountain climbing really looks like up close and personal, download Snapchat onto your phone and than search for #everestnofilter or take a picture of the expedition’s snapcode to follow this climb.

Howard E. Friedman

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by suffernpodiatry.com

Fund Raising through Outdoors Adventure:Have we taken a wrong turn?

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Henry Worsleyi n the Antarctic, shackletonsolo.org

This past week brought news of the death of  Henry Worsley, a retired officer from the British military who had dedicated himself to Antarctic travel, inspired by his hero Ernest Shackleton. Worsley, who was attempting a coast-to-coast trek of the Antarctic continent, was airlifted only 90 miles from his objective after 71 days and 913 miles of self-supported travel — pulling up to 300 pounds of gear — before dying in hospital from complications of peritonitis. Others have made Antarctic crossings but Worsley’s was to be the first unaided trek . Before his trip, Worsley raised $142,000 for charity to go to the Endeavour Fund, managed by Britain’s Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry, a charity that aids wounded British service men and women.

A few days prior to the news of Worsley’s death, I received an e-mail from a relative I do not regularly hear from, a letter announcing his plans to participate in a 170 mile bike ride to raise money for a camp for children with disabilities, a worthy cause. Like Worsley, my cousin is using his participation in a strenuous event to raise money for charity. And he is far far from the only one trying to raise money by participating in an outdoor adventure. In fact, I would say the practice has become an epidemic. Every 5-K and marathon seems to be a fund raiser. And even if you do not win the lottery to run in the vaunted New York marathon, there is a back door to get a guaranteed spot in the race by running with and financially supporting the New York Road Runner Team for Kids by raising $25,000 for a team of ten runners. Even establishment institutions like Backpacker magazine promote their annual ‘Summit for Someone’, a way to raise money for Big City Mountaineers to support outdoor adventures for disadvantaged youth. Participants must raise several thousand dollars to earn a spot on a guided climb of famous peaks like Mt. Rainier or others.

6a014e894ef9bd970d01b7c7771434970b-800wiSo what is going on here? For hundred of years, adventurers needed no outside encouragement for their adventures. They were self-motivated. Sir Edmund Hillary famously quipped that he climbed Everest “because it was there”. That was actually a throw-away line answering a reporter. He climbed Everest out of a deep attraction to the outdoors and a desire to see just what humans can accomplish. And so it has been with expeditions around the globe. Alexander von Humboldt  attempted in 1799 to climb Mt. Chimborazo in Ecuador, thought to be at that time the highest mountain in the world, documented so well by Andrea Wulf in the beginning of her 2015 book “The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World“.  Sir Ernest Shackleton’ famously attempted to cross the Antarctic.  The world’s highest and most difficult mountain peaks have all been summited by intrepid and driven individuals, for example Mt. Meru, climbed in 2011 and featured in a recently released visually stunning documentary.

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imdb.com. But somewhere along the way, the populace has started associating personal challenges in the outdoors as the perfect way to raise money from friends and family for a worthy non-profit.

Why do we as a society think that participating in a 5-k race or marathon or 3-day bike riding event is worthy of fund raising? Why do we as participants in these events think that our friends will want to donate money based on how may miles we run or bike ride? And why should we as friends and relatives of the runners, bikers and climbers give anyway?  What exactly is the message of “sponsor me to run” that we are conveying?

Outdoor adventure was once a necessary way of life for much of our history, from providing food and fuel to building shelters and  settling new territory, with all that is entailed. Physicality was just a part of life.

Until recent times.

For most of us, our lives are strikingly without great need for physical prowess, No need to hunt or gather or pack up the home and move camp miles away to higher ground when the season’s change. So perhaps, we satisfy our innate need for adventure and physical challenge by setting goals that are a true physical reach for us. For some, the reach is running 5 kilometers ( 3.1 miles), without stopping. For others that challenge is running 100 miles. In either case we are quenching a deeply entrenched human need to push ourselves toward our physical limit and at least know what that limit is.

But the question remains:  Why connect that need for personal challenge to raising money for charity? Shouldn’t my desire to challenge myself remain personal? Fund raising is that thing you do by naming buildings and libraries and college campuses for wealthy donors or for the more plebeian among us, simply asking your Facebook friends and people in your e-mail address book to support your worthy cause.

Running 26.2 miles, on the other hand, is that thing you do to see if you can do it. Could you follow that marathon and swim 2.4 miles and bike ride for a 112 miles to complete a triathlon? Can you cross the Antarctic from coast to coast self supported? Yet for some reason we connect the two events, endurance and charity, and they are connected week after week with the ever present 5k rfund raising ace that take pace on so many weekends. Indeed, in the past year or so, more than 500,000 people in the U.S. completed a marathon and many of them were no doubt raising money for charity.

In the radio interview before his trip, and subsequent death, and in response to the incredulity of the interviewer at the sheer difficulty of his planned Antarctic trip Henry Worsley humbly said, “It’s no black art to sliding one ski  in front of the other, but what will drive me on is raising money for these wounded soldiers…”, referring to the charity he was supporting, the British Endeavour Fund

Worsley. then, touches on the answer. We do not give money to charity to see people punish themselves physically. Quite the contrary. We give to help motivate the athlete motivate himself, to keep running when he wants to quit, to keep cycling when he wants to rest, and to keep pulling a sledge with hundreds of pounds of supplies across the frozen landscape of the Antarctic in sub-zero temperatures against all odds.We help motivate him and he gives money to a good cause. He does our work.

Clearly, millions of dollars are raised each year for charities through sponsored events. And for that reason, I should leave this question alone. As a society, we should be very proud that we rally around supporting our non-profit organizations, the not so hidden fabric of many of our lives. And for spectacular high-profile never-before-accomplished feats like the one attempted by the late Henry Worsley, the endeavor is a great opportunity to shine light on a worthy cause. For those people who will not get themselves out but for the fund raising angle, then the charity connection is indeed mission critical. And you could even say that by donating in support of a run or bike ride you build a stronger connection to the charity you are supporting. It’s all good, it seems.

But perhaps the point at which we as a society have arrived today, where so many either need the motivation or the validation to challenge themselves to run for a cause or summit for someone should make us stop and think. Will we push ourselves when there is no cause? We should ‘summit for someone’ if we can, or run to raise money for the kids, but, I feel, we should also aspire to return to the status quo ante when we valued physical challenge and adventure as an integral part of life, where enduring a daily physical challenge was simply part of what it meant to be a human being.

By the way, I plan to support my cousin’s bike ride.

Howard E. Friedman

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by suffernpodiatry.com

The Lost Secrets of Strength and Endurance

Book Review

Natural Born Heroes by Christopher McDougall (Alfred A. Knopf 2015)

51fN0mD37nL._AA160_ Anyone on the trail either hiking or running invariably wonders at some point, “How far could I go if I had the time?”. With a subtitle of “How a Daring Band of Misfits Mastered the Lost Secrets of Strength and Endurance”, Christopher McDougall attempts to answer the question of just how much we can endure, both physically and psychologically, when put to the challenge. And in answering those questions he aims to understand “the art of the hero”, and to explore the “foundation of both Greek theology and Western democracy: the notion that ordinary citizens should always be ready for extraordinary action.”

The book, which follows his 2011 best-seller ‘Born to Run’ about endurance running, retells a war story that occurred in April 1944 during World War II on Nazi occupied Crete, an island known for its isolationism, spirit of rugged individualism and adherence to what resembles a “paleo” diet since they eat mostly home raised meat plus vegetables which were either grown or foraged in the surrounding mountainous forests.

McDougall opens his book with a retelling of how a band of British Special Operations soldiers together with Cretan resistance fighters kidnapped the Nazi General Heinrich Kriepe. The kidnapping occurred near the general’s Nazi headquarters with a daring display of “chutzpah” on the part of the kidnappers. Once the general and his car had been commandeered, the British-led team than spent more than two weeks navigating the very rugged Cretan backcountry on little sleep or food while they transported  the general to a point where he could be conveyed off the island as a prisoner of war.

The journey was arduous and required truly superhuman physical skill and nerves and resolve of steel. And the mission proved fatal for some of the resistance fighters as well as Cretan citizens of the town of Anogia who were massacred by the Nazis as they struggled to re-capture their general. But it is the endurance of the soldiers that McDougall explores in the book and the topic of endurance in general often in a zig zagging manner darting between the main narrative and long diversions into ostensibly related topics.

Weaved between the narrative, McDougall details a history of military survival training and takes a questionable detour to look at the world of Parkour, and finishes with several chapters devoted to a history of nutrition especially as it has been practiced by endurance athletes. McDougall contends that the gods of Greek mythology learned to survive adversity while dealing with human scale challenges even as they inhabited a godly abode. Some of those gods such as Zeus originated on Crete and they created a Grecian zeitgeist of heroism that was embodied in Crete during the war where men, women and children of the Crete countryside embodied paideia, arete and xenia (skill, strength and desire) but understood that “heroes are protectors” but, “your’e only strongest when you have a weakness for other people”, McDougall writes.

And he discusses the ancient Greek military technique of pankration, a type of free form wrestling, which has its roots in Greek mythology and dates to the Olympic games of 648 B.C.  He touches on ancient martial arts and “The Natural Method of Training” published by Edwin Chekly in 1890, among other techniques, after introducing us to suburban English women who have mastered the art of Parkour. Named for the French parcours,  Parkour acolytes learn to turn an urban landscape into a playground in which they have taught themselves to scale brick walls by running up them, balance and jump off of railings, landing in a somersault, only to spring back up and over the next obstacle. Parkour, McDougall posits, proves that humans have an innate ability to overcome physical obstacles tapping the ‘elastic coil’ stored up in our tendons, ligaments and even our fascia. (see a video of these Parkour moms here).

McDougall strains at times to make the case that the British special ops and Cretan resistance fighters were successful because they harnessed the skills and spirit embodied in these ancient techniques that have some Grecian roots. But one of the main focuses of the author’s thesis rests in his theory about the benefit of the Cretan diet, essentially a paleolithic meat and vegetables diet. McDougall interviews and visits with world renowned  South African exercise physiologist  Timothy Noakes Ph.d as well as tracking down the enigmatic chiropractor turned nutritional  consultant both to the stars and to star athletes, Phil Maffetone D.C.

Both Noakes and Maffetone eschew our mainstream carbohydrate laden diet as unnatural, unhealthy and down right dangerous. They both explain that from an evolutionary point of view humans have evolved to eat meat and plants and if those plants contain carbohydrates, then they are at least complex carbs, not the simple sugars that appear in almost all of our processed food, from Ketchup to soda to breakfast cereals and even packaged bread. Our consumption of large amounts of sugar, they explain, stimulates our body to release insulin, which stores the sugars in our bodies as fat and than drives us to consume even more sugar laden food to repeat the cycle.

When you retrain your body to burn fat as fuel, and not carbohydrates, you can increase your endurance and remain more satiated for longer periods of time, the experts explain. When Dr. Noakes adopted the eating lifestyle he professed, he lost weight and cut his time in the famous South African Comrades 56 mile ultra-marathon by two hours and reduced his time to run a 5K race by more than 20%, all that at the age of 56. Even the entire Los Angeles Lakers basketball team finally cut sugar out of their diet, began eating grass-fed beef, nuts and  kale chips. The exercise and nutritional guru Phil Maffetone went a step further and maintained that not only was the no carb or very low carb diet healthier but combined with some training tips, the eating lifestyle changes would reboot the subject’s metabolism to start burning fat as its primary fuel source instead of glycogen and sugars.  And since the body stores much more fat than sugars, endurance will naturally improve. He is even beta testing an app to help make the switch.

Overall, Chris McDougall presents a compelling argument that anyone could probably push themselves much harder, set higher standards and tap in to inner resources. You hiked 10 miles today? You could definitely push on. You ran a marathon?  Start training for an ultra. The key to ‘mastering the lost secrets of strength and endurance’ then, would be to understand human evolutionary history and make a course correction in one’s nutrition. Assiduous training and having resolute confidence in your abilities like the Parkour moms would also help. And having a tantalizing goal like kidnapping a Nazi general right from under the noses of his hapless soldiers would help as well.

Howard E. Friedman

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by suffernpodiatry.com

A Tale of Two Paddlers

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A lone canoeist in the morning mist (H. Friedman 2015)

Last week two dedicated freshwater paddlers both made the national news. Although the arc of each of their lives differed greatly, their dedication and attachment to the outdoors and to paddling its rivers, lakes and byways was one thing they shared in common. Unfortunately, their death on the water was also their final point in common too.

Douglas Tompkins, 72, the founder of the international apparel company the North Face, a kayaker and adventurer, a land conservationist and a multi millionaire, died of hypothermia after his tandem kayak capsized in cold waters in General Carrerra Lake in Chile where he had been on a multi day expedition with friends, including fellow adventurer and outdoor apparel founder of Patagonia, Yvon Chouinard. The lake is the second largest in South America. Tompkins’ kayak capsized when water conditions became rough. He was in the water reportedly for two hours until rescued by the Chilean Navy. He died in hospital. The other members of his expedition survived. This story was widely reported in major news publications around the world.

Less widely reported, in fact only reported in the weekly U.S. magazine The New Yorker, as far as I know, was the presumed death of another adventurer and truly dedicated paddler, Dick Conant. Spotted by a duck hunter, his  overturned plastic canoe was abandoned along the shore of the Big Flatty Creek in North Carolina several weeks ago with all of Mr. Conant’s possessions, leading authorities to conclude that the paddler had died although  his body has not been found. In an article published last week in the magazine called “The Wayfarer, A solitary canoeist meets his fate” New Yorker staff writer Ben McGrath introduces us to a man of sparse financial means who has spent the past number of years paddling his plastic canoe on rivers covering the length and breadth of the eastern United States, mostly camping out but occasionally accepting the kindnesses of strangers. His home base for several years had been a makeshift campsite in a swampy area in Bozeman, Montana, until the camp site was burned in what Conant suspected was arson.

Mr. McGrath  met Mr. Conant by happenstance along the shore of the Hudson River where the canoeist was on a journey toward the Florida panhandle and interviewed him at length. In fact, one can even hear the iconoclastic Mr. Conant speaking in a New Yorker podcast based on the magazine article. Mr. Conant, who was about 64 years old,  had been a class president and graduated near the top of his high school class  in Pearl River, New York in the 1960s, according to the article. Conant, who was not in regular contact with any of his siblings, had received a scholarship to attend SUNY Albany where he studied art and played varsity soccer.  He did not graduate due to academic issues and possibly the beginning of some psychiatric issues, specifically paranoia. He received an honorable discharge from the Navy in 1989.

But where Mr. Conant did not complete college and went on to drift through a series of jobs working variously at a hospital or library,  Mr. Tompkins who did not even complete his private high school  succeeded in building a small outdoors apparel store in San Francisco in 1966 into a multi million dollar international adventure clothing empire. And after he sold his multi million dollar share of that business, he reinvented him self again as a land conservationist in Chile and Argentina.

At around age 43, Mr. Conant began to re-make his life into that of a near full time adventurer and a writer, keeping meticulous journal entries for his various river trips each of which lasted many months. Indeed, Mr. Conant described himself as a “canoeist who writes”, Mr. McGrath reports. But where Mr. Tompkins and his colleagues had access to the latest kayaking boats and gear, Mr. Conant began his last journey in a $300 14-foot Coleman plastic ‘Scanoe’ he bought at a sporting goods store near his put-in.  And he packed as much as he could into that boat stuffing canvas duffle bags and plastic sacks and covering them with tarps.

It is ironic that Mr. Conant is exactly the kind of person Mr. Tompkins would have wanted as a North Face customer, if only Conant had any disposable income to buy a decent rain slicker or warm winter jacket. Moreover, while North Face and other gear companies tend to glorify the outdoors life as a superior liberating and natural one, Dick Conant flatly rejected that notion. He stated emphatically that he was not heading out to spend months paddling his way around the country to ‘find himself’, but to see interesting things and meet interesting people. In a touching moment recorded by Mr. McGrath, Conant volunteers that he would much rather be living in a home with a wife, had his life  worked out that way.

But it didn’t. And instead of sulk about his life, Mr. Conant set out under his own power to truly be the captain of his ship. Thanks to Mr. McGrath’s timely and excellent reporting and writing in The New Yorker, the public now knows about the extraordinary life and perseverance of Dick Conant.  At a time when we pause to note the tragic and untimely loss of Doug Tompkins, adventurer, entrepreneur, extremely successful business man, land owner and conservationist, a man with good and influential friends, a wife and  loving children and a man whose obituary was printed around the globe, we should also take a moment to remember and appreciate the equally untimely and tragic loss of Dick Conant, “a canoeist who writes.”

Howard E. Friedman

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by suffernpodiatry.com

Migration and a new year

The ultimate trek continues for thousands and thousands of men, women, children and families. Not an adventure trek, like an American family took last year hiking the entire 2,100 mile Appalachian trail. Rather, an escape from unlivable countries, a trek for survival.

Human migration has dominated the national news of late, with daily stories of despair and desperation as families flee either their war- ravished homes or their economically disheveled countries and attempt to relocate in a stable European city. And images of migrants’ failures to reach their destination have made even more of an impact. The troubling and terribly sad picture of a toddler face down, dressed in a shirt, shorts and little sneakers, washed ashore like a dead fish, lying still on a Turkish beach, dominated this past week’s pictures. The dead boy, Aylan Kurdi, was one of two brothers who drowned, along with their mother, fleeing from Syria.

Migration is neither new nor novel. In fact, here in America, question many people about their families’ background and it often includes a story of immigration. Humans have been migrating from close to the beginning of human history. Anthropologists have traced human migration from Africa to the Levant, specifically the coastal plains of Israel, into Europe, Asia and the Americas. And human fossils dating back 42,000 years have been found in Australia, most likely from migrants who boated from other Pacific islands when the sailing distance was shorter than it is today. That distance was estimated to be less than 100 miles then, but has grown to more than 300 miles since sea level rose after the melting of the ice at the end of the last ice age.

Migration is well-known in the animal kingdom. Birds migrate regularly; even the common American robin has the term “migratorius” as part of its scientific name.  Many mammals such as wildebeests and gazelles stage visually stunning massive annual migrations. And in the insect world, the fragile monarch will travel thousands of miles to its breeding grounds.

Yet nation after nation seems to become apoplectic with a large influx of unexpected human migrants. Of course, such a response is understandable, as countries need to be able to provide resources for migrants, including shelter, food, medical care and if the migrants stay, ultimately jobs and education and permanent housing. But the intensity of discomfiture with the arrival of migrants who, by the time they arrive are in a desperate state, is surprising, as if people’s desire for safety and security is unnatural.

Migration is natural and in no way an aberration. It is, in fact, ancient. American Indians often shifted between highlands and lowlands depending on the seasons and the availability of food supplies; thousands of years earlier, their own ancestors crossed from Asia via the Bering Strait. What has changed in the global picture however, is not migration, but the presence of countries’ borders and the imposition of the rule of law around those borders. We have all grown up with distinct countries and therefore accept that this construct is as it should be. In fact, against the backdrop of human and modern-human existence spanning several hundred thousand years, nationality and borders are a recent phenomenon on planet earth.

So how do we, as a world with countries and borders and immigration laws, deal with the natural desire of tens of thousands of people, perhaps more, who want to migrate to a safer or more prosperous land? First, I would suggest that we remember our own humble roots as descendants of immigrants, especially those who were ‘strangers in a strange land’.  In fact, Prime Minister of Israel Netanyahu recently addressed the migrant crisis, since the Jewish people are no strangers to their own history of forced migration, either due to expulsion, from Spain in 1492, or due to fleeing the progroms and crematoria of the second world war. Israel has already absorbed thousands upon thousands of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, even flying to retrieve immigrants from Ethiopia. Israel, he explained, is unable to absorb a new wave of immigrants. But at least he has spoken out and acknowledged the problem.

Second, we should recognize that the need or desire to migrate is not sinister but natural. Third, we should work toward a path to immigration that should be universally provided by all countries, acknowledging that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are not virtues bestowed upon one by merit of place of birth but are universal ideals.”Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” as Emma Lazarus wrote, should not only be a slogan on the Statue of Liberty.  Fourth, more countries should model the exemplary behavior of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is taking the world lead in the Syrian migrant crisis. Fifth, with respect to the Syrian crisis, we should question why more Arab countries are not opening their doors to accept Syrian refugees and why more world pressure is not being brought to bear to resolve the ongoing crisis in Syria that is at the root of the current crisis.

We are now a global community, albeit with myriad national histories and unique identities. Our economies are interdependent. Many developed nations are now an amalgam of multiple nationalities. And while I do not advocate for the total homogenization of the global population and a borderless world, we do need to allow for occasional population shifts. They should not be a burden to any one country and all stable countries should participate in opening their doors. For if we do not work out the mechanics of this challenge now, with a world of nearly 7 billion inhabitants, the distribution of people across the globe will certainly be one of the preeminent issues facing the world in the very near future, as we grow toward the estimated 9 billion people this planet is projected to host in the not-so-distant future.

In one week, the Jewish people mark the end on one year and the beginning of another, declaring that “hayom harat olam”  (today marks the birth of the world). We acknowledge the ‘world’ as one global entity while at the same time praying for our destiny as a people as well as for our individual health and prosperity. The individual is intertwined with the national and both are citizens of the world. And while the message of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year, is decidedly about our personal welfare, our place as individual cogs in the cosmic big wheel is implicit. A subtle but present subtext of the holy new year’s day echos the oft quoted maxim of Hillel the Elder from about 2,000 years ago that appears in Ethics of the Fathers and so brilliantly condenses the challenge of balancing the personal with the communal. Hillel wrote, “If I am not for myself, than who will be for me, but, if I am only for myself than what am I, and, if not now, than when?”

“When” of course, must be now.

Whatever calendar you keep, whatever holidays you celebrate, here is a wish for all to have a healthy and happy year, wherever you are around the globe.

Howard E. Friedman

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by suffernpodiatry.com

A rare encounter at the water’s edge

A black and brown raptor with what seemed like a three foot wing span soared over our heads no more than a dozen feet up, before alighting on an angled tree trunk right on the water’s edge. We paddled closer to shore to where the bird alighted than raised our oars and bobbed in our double kayak on 120 acre Mongaup Pond,a lobular shaped lake, encircled by a maple-beech-birch forest in the western Catskills of New York. The bird stood still, bright yellow feet and jet black talons gripping the tilting bark. It looked familiar but alien at the same time. I knew what it was not but could not identify to my satisfaction what it was.

http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/mongaup-pond-campground-livingston-manor?select=rjCVt5xyfRQWb9Zos-Lmwg

Mongaup Pond, Livington Manor, NY

I can identify most of the fairly common birds I see,  a skill that began with a mandatory assignment years ago in my high school zoology course. I know to zone in on the details of the plumage, the beak and feet colors, the size, any unusual markings seen during flight or when the bird flashes its tail feathers. I look for any marking on the bird’s nape, or crown or rump. I try to remember the shape of its beak as well, pointy, like a spear, or stout and angular, like an anvil.

Something seemed familiar about this raptor, like we had met before. I should know you, I thought, like when you meet someone you think you recognize but can’t quite place. Maybe we went to school together once long ago, or lived in the same neighborhood?  The avian body shape perched in front of me now looked like one I should know, with those distinctive fearsome grasping toes and talons and that flesh ripping beak that looked as strong as iron.

My son and I had been kayaking around the lake for an hour or so and just paddled nearby to the area we camped at many years ago, when he was quite young. I pointed out where we had pitched our tent, made our campfire, tied up our row boat. His memories of those times are faint. I looked at my son now in the kayak, in his teens, and could imagine him back at the campsite more than a decade ago. When I looked at that spot, I saw a past more meaningful than a mere snapshot or even a video clip of that time. What I can picture of the past on that lakefront campsite is so meaningful because it is a page, maybe just a sentence, in a book that is still being written even as we rowed away. I can pair his toddler face and toddler gait then with his teenage loping walk and smile of today. There is always a synergy of the past and the present, not always apparent but always there. The boy on that sloping shore trying to skip rocks years ago is now the young man in the front of our boat, the one who first spotted the soaring bird overhead.

I knew the bird was too large and bulky to be any raptor I had seen in this area. It was not a diving double crested cormorant and too stocky and muscled to be a gangly turkey vulture. I know that bald eagles frequent Mongaup Pond, and I have seen them before, huge wing span, soaring high, bright white head and tail visible even from a distance, such a stark contrast to their homogeneous brown bodies.

And than I knew. I knew this mystery bird, flying awkwardly, was indeed a juvenile bald eagle, not yet bearing the plumage of an adult. It looks like a bald eagle in body type and shape, and at the same time looks nothing like a bald eagle. No white head. No yellow beak, perched calmly as two paddlers approach within fifteen feet. Don’t you know you should not trust us? Fly away.

The child and the adult morphed into one unified image. “The Child is father of the Man”, wrote William Wordsworth in his poem, My Heart Leaps Up. The one gives rise to the other, inexorably bound, different but the same. This young hunting bird is a bald eagle sure enough, even without the distinctive markings. Once I visualized the adult, I could identify his offspring too.

Juveniles often do not resemble their adult phase. A swimming tadpole in no way resembles a hopping frog nor does a crawling caterpillar resemble a butterfly. Even a baby robin has a speckled breast and not a reddish orange breast. And the idea of change is common throughout nature. We accept that an ice cube or steam are just different phases of the same substance. Water is transformed as it goes through each change. In chemistry terms, a phase change results from exposing a substance to an extreme, usually either cold or heat. But in the animate world, time precipitates the change. With time a seed in the dirt will nearly disintegrate before it begins to sprout. The sun will rise and set about a dozen times whilst the caterpillar metamorphoses into a butterfly. And the full moon will appear and vanish about a dozen times until a new born human will take his first steps.

I was not shocked to realize the bird before me did so not resemble an adult eagle. But I was shocked to be only a kayak’s length away, knowing this chance occurrence will not come my way again. And in that moment, the young and old were one, and it was as if I was in the presence of an adult bald eagle in all its majesty. I stared at the juvenile but saw the adult and stared at the young adult in front of me and saw the child.

The young eagle did eventually unfurl it wings and took flight, creating audible ‘thwaps’ of air with each powerful downstroke. It flew low over the lake than slowly gained height and headed away to the other side of the lake out of our range of vision. High above tree line we noticed an adult eagle soaring and could just make out the white head. We knew what we had just shared was one of those rare moments in nature where you are gifted with the opportunity to see something unusual, to learn a little more about the inner workings of the natural world and at the same time given a chance to learn so much more about that most complex phase change of all, life itself.

My Heart Leaps Up
by William Wordsworth, 1770-1850

My heart leaps up when I behold 
   A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began; 
So is it now I am a man; 
So be it when I shall grow old, 
   Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

(poets.org)

Howard E. Friedman

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