Member Profile of the Week
Abide
No Nonsense Here
Abide, as we know him on the forums, is 31 years old and livesin Peoria, Arizona, with his extended family of“three chickens, two mutts, and two monkeys....I mean children.” Though originally from Elgin, Illinois, it is the west which calls to him. “I talked my wife into buying a piece of land in Colorado and building a house on it. We tried to camp initially, but then it snowed a foot in May and caved in our tent. We ended up renting a 150 square foot cabin down the street for the next year while we finished building the house. We built the entire house from the ground up with our own two hands. Now we travel back to Colorado a couple of times each year to enjoy it with hopes of moving back some day.”
Besides building a house and camping, Abide’s free time is spent mostly playing with his sons and as he says, “hanging with the family...when I am not doing that, I love to hike, snowboard, hit a crossfit wod, run, bike, swim, or play a sport. For down time, I usually watch the Big Lebowski, read a book, or garden.”
Abide is relatively new to running, having beguntwo years ago and is candidly funny aboutwhy he runs. “It helps keep me healthy and counteracts my weight gain due to beer drinking. Although I am not much of a runner, I feel running is very beneficial to one’s well-being. It helps me sleep better, wakes me up in the morning, and provides an escape from sitting at my desk all day. It also gives me time to reflect and think about nonsense to post on the BRS.” Well, and we’re glad for that! Still, he seems to have taken it seriously enough to run both half-marathon, his favorite, and marathon races with PRs of: Half Marathon-2:00 and Marathon-4:30. His favorite race is the Whiskey Row in Prescott, Arizona, because “It was my first hilly race, the scenery is beautiful, and Prescott is a badass town.”
Abide has a somewhat familiar-themed story about why he is a barefoot runner. “I have always been fascinated with people’s ability to run barefoot. I once saw a woman running a very difficult marathon barefoot and was just amazed that someone could actually condition their feet to handle that. I kind of forgot about it for a while and then while I was training for a marathon last year, I came down with a nasty case of ITBS. After a little research, I discovered that people have been successful at getting rid of ITBS by barefoot running. I was already warmed up to the idea and after reading KBS's website I finally believedthat I could actually do it. So I listened to some advice about waiting until after the race to transition and ran my marathon shod and in pain the entire time. The next day, I went out for a short run barefoot and have been hooked since.” Furthering his barefoot journey, he joined the Barefoot Runners Society to“find some unshod running mates. I also love the exchange of ideas and methods and how they relate to barefoot running.”
Abide concludes with his two most memorable running experiences, which he shares as follows: “It's a toss up between running in the Grand Canyon and at Buffalo Park in Flagstaff. The GC is always a memorable experience, I have had good runs and not so good runs there. I also didn't respect it as much as I should have and was crushed by it last time I went. But there is nothing like running down the canyon in snow for the first couple of miles and then jumping in the Colorado River at the bottom to cool off. Buffalo park in Flagstaff is one of those adult obstacle parks, where you run from one station and do a rope climb, then run to the next and do some pull-ups etc.This type of running really appeals to me. The only bad part about the park is the trail is lined with tar sprayed volcanic gravel. I tried barefooting it but made it about 100m and had to wimp out and grab my VFFs. It is probably the most fun I have had running.”
