The Usain Bolt documentary The Fastest is set to be released in 2012, but thanks to a clip posted on Runnerspace.com we’ve already learned three important things:

1. Usain Bolt has the most fun looking training regimen of all time and it isn’t much different from mine, except that mine involves floaties.

2. Usain Bolt’s coach is hilarious, and gets funnier and funnier the longer you listen to him talk.

3. “Runnerspace.com” makes me want to shrink a bunch of marathon guys and have them pilot a spaceship into my body.

… but numbers one and two are the most important. Listening to the guy go OH MY GAD IT’S USAIN BOLT CAN YOU SAY MORE KETCHUP, HE IS SO FAST, OH CHRIST is the best, and I’ve gone back and watched it a couple of times, both to laugh and to commit his commentary to memory, should I need motivation the next time I’m marathonning it at the bottom of my swimming pool. The longer he goes, the closer he gets to being Jessie Eisenberg in Adventureland calling the amusement park horse race. And Usain Bolt’s out of the gate, taking an early lead! But look out! Here comes Green, issuing a challenge from the outside lane. Green runs well on a muddy track, folks, so today’s conditions give him a slight edge.

If this documentary turns out to be an hour and a half of Bolt doing handstands in a pool and two minutes of him murdering white people at running, I’ll buy a ticket. I’d like to think his speed has nothing to do with training, and he could just sit and play Madden all year and still destroy my entire country at his sport. This video proves that even when he’s underwater he’s faster than me, but then again I’ve always been a mustard kind of guy.

Josh Cox is one of the great American runners, but it wasn’t that long ago when he was dirt poor with awful hair. When K-Swiss had their four-day shoot to restart their awesome Kenny Powers “MFCEO” campaign, With Leather’s Josh Zerkle was invited to check it out and spend time with the athletes supporting the California-based shoe brand. Among those was ultramarathon runner and reality show alum Josh Cox, who discussed some of the tools of his trade with Zerkle in a roundtable discussion last month. While you may never set the American record for the 50K or run a marathon in 2:15:01, you might try after reading this inspiring discussion. Portions of this Q&A were edited for clarity and space.

With Leather: So how long can you actually run on a single pair of shoes?

Josh Cox: That’s an interesting question. I was on the standard athlete shipment, so I assume I was getting these shoes like all the triathletes are getting and everyone else, and I’m like, “I need more shoes, man!” [laughs] Shoes will typically last up to 500 miles. That’s the rule of thumb, but now the way that they’re made, the treads don’t wear out as fast. I look at the bottoms and I think, “My shoes look great.” But what you want to look at is the cushioning system. Look at the side of the shoe, and when you start to see a breakdown through the sole, that’s the cushioning system breaking down. You won’t realize it until you put on the fresh pair and go, “Whoa! These feel awesome!”

In your peak training, is that a new pair every two weeks or so?

Yeah. But I like them new and I get them for free. I like to get new shoes after every 350 miles or so.

Did you ever use those barefoot-simulating shoes? The ones with the toes in them?

Oh yeah. So…[long pause]…I have a large social network, and I get guys on Twitter and Facebook and they’re always asking me, “What do you think about these?” These are guys that identify themselves as barefoot runners. “Barefoot Runner Mike,” like that’s literally his screenname. Whatever. But I’ll tell you this: I thank barefoot running for learning how to run properly. It’s a great tool and we actually do some of that. You want to strike you foot in the middle of your foot. You don’t want a heel strike. Heel striking is breaking.

A lot more stress goes into the leg when you’re heel striking. It’s a shock. When you strike on the mid-foot, the shock happens underneath the body. When you’re out on your heel, it’s too much. Lots of injuries happen that way.

I’ve been to Africa. I’ve trained with the Kenyans in their camps. And I’ve been out there with them, and yeah, the schoolchildren are chasing us while they’re carrying their books and yelling “Mazunga! Mazunga!” That’s Swahili for “white man!” They would come up to me and say, “Why are you running? Europeans don’t run.” And I’d say, I’m not European. But they’ve been doing this since they were four years old, and they’re built…they’re Kenyan. They weigh 120 pounds and they’re running on dirt.

I wish I had a nickel for every Barefoot Runner Mike who reached out to me in the last year, saying he was dedicated to barefoot running and later said, “I’m injured.” People want to go out and run 20 miles barefoot and I know it’s cool or whatever but you’re gonna get hurt. And to each his own, but…

Would you recommend doing that once a week? Or–

Yeah. In small doses, I think it’s fine, it’s actually a good idea. If you can start by walking around the house, the mall in your bare feet [Editor's Note: Ew.], there are a lot of muscles in your feet you don’t use because we have shoes. Then, when you start running with those things, stay on soft surfaces. There’s nothing worse as a runner than being injured. When you want to get out the door, and you can’t, it’s horrible. You need to start slow. That would be my advice.

Read the rest of this entry »

Kenyan marathoner Nicholas Manza Kamakaya won the Gold Coast Marathon in Queensland, Australia, set a course record, and lost $27,000 in the process.

Kamakaya can run a marathon in under two hours, ten minutes. He did it in Beijing, setting a record of 2:08:49. The Gold Coast Marathon was offering a 27K bonus to anyone with a time of 2:10 or under. Kamakaya set the record at 2:10:01, winning $10,000, but if that time had been one second, just ONE second of a marathon shorter, he would’ve more than tripled his pay. That’s the futility of life, isn’t it? Guy Fieri tells you you can do this, but you don’t keep ping pong balls bouncing on a slanted table long enough and you lose like a hundred grand. What the f**k is the point of our lives?

Kamakaya seemed much cheerier about the situation.

“I’m just happy. For me it’s so nice [to win],” said Manza. “It’s very special for me because it’s my first time in Australia and I’m happy because I’ve run the course record.”

This was his first win, having finished sixth at Rome and second at Beijing and Los Angeles. I guess 10K is still a pretty sweet sum for an afternoon of running, and I applaud him for being a better, much less bitter, and way, way faster person than me.

[h/t to Fourth-Place Medal]

Kenyan Olympic marathon champion Sammy Wanjiru is dead, having jumped from a balcony after a domestic dispute with his wife and another woman. National police spokesmen are saying it was a “fact of the matter” suicide, but his agent says it wasn’t. Here’s a quick recap from a local official.

“Wanjiru came home with another woman friend at around 11:30 p.m. and then when his wife came home and found them she inquired who the lady was,” area police chief Jasper Ombati said. “They got into an argument. His wife locked them in the bedroom and ran off.

“He then jumped from the bedroom balcony. He is not here to tell us what he thinking when he jumped. We do not suspect foul play. In our estimation we think he wanted to stop his wife from leaving the compound.”

The interesting thing about THAT (besides the fact that a Kenyan Olympic champion killed himself after being caught cheating on his wife, I mean) is that the balcony is being described as “13 to 19 feet high.” I’m not an Olympian, but I’m fairly certain I could survive a 13 foot drop. There’s an entire thing in The Dark Knight where Eric Roberts is all, “a fall from this height won’t kill me!” and Batman is counting on that and throws him off the fire escape. And that brings up further questions, such as “why did he think doing this would stop his wife from leaving the compound,” and, “how did his wife lock them in the bedroom, or maybe I don’t understand how Kenyan houses work.”

Regardless, a promising, gifted young athlete is dead for an absolutely ridiculous reason, and that’s a shame. People always say “it doesn’t make sense” when somebody dies, and for once, they’re really right.

[NESN]

Who can think about the “labor situation” in pro football when THIS CAT HAS A PERSONAL TRAINER. Cats are the most spoiled animals on earth. I saw cat walking to the mailbox on Tuesday and I wanted to punch him in the face. Anyway, fitness trainer Michael Greenblatt found this stray cat and just took him home one day BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT YOU DO WHEN YOU SEE A CAT YOU JUST STEAL IT. But I guess the cat likes to run.

In fact, this black cat likes and actually demands to go for a daily run. So much so that Greenblatt is training Roadrunner “like an athlete” and using the same fitness principles that he does with his human clients. Greenblatt runs Roadrunner through a series of speed drills, timing her speed on every drill.

–Paw Nation.

And you thought the NFL combine was pointless and stupid. Just shut it, America. This cat will be representing you in the London Olympics. I can’t wait to see him working at Home Depot in 2014.

via @HollyEgg.

Does combining your favorite thing in the world with your least favorite thing in the world make the thing you hate better, or the thing you love worse? One San Francisco man was willing to give us an answer when he did just that, combining the greatest thing in the world, drinking, with the worst, exercise. He drank 13 beers while running the 13 mile San Francisco Half Marathon at a rate of one beer per mile. And, as you can expect, adding the sauce to your morning jog doesn’t make it better.

I puked three times, blacked out for miles 11 and 12, and needed five hours to finish. This is my story.

–Exercising While Intoxicated via Uncoached

Best opening sentence ever. I’m always a fan of people who pioneer new ways to pound brews, but running’s painful enough sober. I’ll set the over/under at the number of times he fell down at 10.5.

Block quotes don’t do this article the justice it deserves, but you can find a full description of how the race turned out for the alcoholic athlete here. I also made the executive decision to put a video of beer drinking cats after the jump. It’s funny because they think they’re people. Read the rest of this entry »