The Naked Tour

It has now been four days since The Naked Tour came through Boulder, so I think I had better get this down and posted before I forget about it altogether. As you’ll soon seen, though, that is probably not possible for me.

Context! For those of you who do not know, The Naked Tour is the book signing tour that Christopher McDougall tied to coincide with the paperback release of “Born to Run.” Rather than a normal tour, though, he decided to do something a little different: throughout the tour, he would be joined at different points by other minimalist-type, form-minded runners, usually mentioned in his book. Together they would do the book signing, lead a run, and then do a “cabaret” about running form and technique. The Boulder stop included notables such as Scott Jurek, Eric (check the last name), and Marshall Ulrich in addition to McDougall himself.

I got a message about this from the Boulder Bookstore, and realized that there was no way in hell I could pass up this opportunity. So I duly showed up at the 11AM start, got my copy of “Running on Empty” signed by the author (Ulrich) and waited around for an hour or so before Chris and Scott arrived.

As far as I can remember, I have not mentioned here yet that Scott Jurek was the assistant coach for my high school cross country ski team for a while, when I was just learning. As I read about him more and more in the intervening years, I found it hard to believe that “Coach Jerk” had accomplished all off his various exploits, and that he was by all accounts a very nice guy. I remembered him primarily for yelling at us to do our “tele turns” on the way down hills, which would have made a whole lot more sense had I known then what Telemark Skiing was.

Thank you, Scott. Turns out, here in Colorado I took up Telemark skiing, and your lessons served me well.

So when Scott showed up at the bookstore, I caught him on the way in, looking a little confused as he was unsure of where to go, and held up my old Marshall School XC ski jersey. A bit cheesey, I know, but that’s part of who I am. I directed him upstairs to where the signing was taking place, and went next door to grab a bite and a coffee.

To diverge significantly, Sunday also marked the last day the Bookends Café was in business. This Boulder icon was where I spent many long hours looking for a job and then, once I found one, working on my research for the NWTC at NREL. It was also the place where I wrote the entirety of my Masters thesis. They never gave their reasons for closing, but they will be sorely missed.

After fueling up a bit, we gathered upstairs to plan the run. This was more complicated than expected. Boulder OSMP has a rule that, for groups of more than 25 people, you are required to apply for a permit to use the trails. Well, they informed the Naked Tour of this fact at 5 on Friday, negating even the possibility of getting the proper permits. And, this being Boulder, there were of course more than 25 of us, so we had to split up.

Here we ran into a problem: the route we were taking up Flagstaff was a relatively less-known one. Scott knew where we were going, but Chris did not, so they could not both lead groups up the mountain. So they asked if anybody else knew the route. One person raised their hand, and I’ll give you one guess who it was.

And so, I briefly joined the Naked Tour as a trail guide. As a reward, I got a (very) limited edition Naked Tour running shirt (pics follow), and I also got a tiny bit of notoriety among those who attended.

So we took off. As long as we were on the creek path, there was no problem being in a big group, and we made our way to Eben G. Fine park together, strung out in a long line of runners that reminded me of the days when I used to train with the Bolder Boulder Training Club, now Boldrunning. Once we reached the park, though, we had to split up.

On most trails in Boulder, this would not be a problem, but for whatever reason, few people know the route up Flagstaff from the Creek Path. The route takes Viewpoint trail up the north side of Flagstaff, to Panorama, which traverses the west face, at which point you get on the actual Flagstaff Trail to the summit and the Sunrise Amphitheater, where the Naked Cabaret, as it is called, would hold court.

Chris and Scott decided, naturally enough, to split the group into a fast group and a slower, more strung out group. But Scott and I were the only two who knew where we were going. And, much to my surprise, I was appointed to lead the fast ones to the top.

At the moment, I don’t consider myself to be particularly fast, and the idea of Scott Jurek, THE Scott Jurek, suggesting that I take the fast group to the summit was more than a little intimidating. But, I wasn’t about to say no so, with some quip with the words “assuming I can keep up with them” I took up off up the trail, leading those who considered themselves particularly quick.

For those of you who have not taken the Viewpoint route up Flagstaff, it starts off at a fairly easy slope. We took off at a good clip, talking, laughing, and generally feeling pretty good. After a couple switchbacks, though, the trail takes a definite turn upwards (straight up the side of Flagstaff for a while, in fact). At that point, much of the group started walking.

This honestly surprised me, as I avoid walking on most trails unless I’m out for 15 miles or more. But I slowed my pace a bit and stuck with them, as the gasps started becoming more frequent and more audible. The amount of effort people were putting out was clearly rising rapidly, and we weren’t even a third of the way up the climb yet.

Through most of the climb, I ran with a runner who works at the “Mind, Body, Sole” store in Denver. He had just run the Cheery Creek Sneak 5-miler that morning, and then raced up to Boulder to catch the “once in a lifetime” Naked Tour. We talked generally about minimalist footwear, running in general, and the Colfax Marathon (which he was running in two-weeks’ time).

At each fork in the trail, or road crossing, I stopped and waited to make sure the entire group got headed the right direction. This is particularly critical after the first crossing of Flagstaff road, when there are several forks that are inevitably confusing for the first time runner. I fully expected to get annoyed by the constant waiting, then racing to catch up to the front of the group. But I actually found it rather tun, and somewhat satisfying too.

At the third road crossing, we joined up with a couple local runners who I had seen at the bookstore earlier, but had to head home to change clothes before joining the run. They had just run up the Gregory Canyon route. Remarkably, one of them was running up the trail barefoot, which if you have ever seen the type of trails we have in Boulder is very impressive. They promptly took up station at the front of the group.

The rest of the run went smoothly. The group would string out on the sections where you couldn’t lose the trail, and compress again any time there was a possibility of confusion. On the long last stretch up to the summit area, most people were clearly feeling the climbing we had already done, and many started walking up the log stairs. I still felt remarkably fresh, and so took off to the top with the two runners we met on the way.

And then (once the trailing group had caught up) it was time for the Naket Cabaret at the summit.

The "fast group" at the summit. Scott's girlfriend was nice enough to drive up with the snacks and drinks.

Chris kicked things off, talking mostly about how unexpected the popularity of his book was.

Eric, (I hope I spelled that correctly) was up next. He talked mainly about how he had not planned on training Chris, but Chris was so obviously downtrodden about his running problems that plans changed more than a little.

Marshall Ulrich was up next. He described his new book. I'll post a review of it when I get the chance.

Scott took the last slot. He kept it short and sweet, as it was getting cold up at the summit of Flagstaff. His message basically consisted of "you can do it."

On the way down, I once again took point, and proceeded to fly down the mountain. Nominally responsible for keeping people on the right track again, I mistakenly thought people would probably be able to find their way back down the trail they had just come up. I regularly sprinted ahead to grab some pictures of the stream of runners pouring down Flagstaff.

Runners streaming down Flagstaff. When else are you going to see this? Apparently never, since Chris got a ticket for having too many people on the trails. There was an article about it in the Boulder Daily Camera last week.

This guy is hoping to finish his first 100 miler this year. He got to mile 60 this past year.

It was on one of these sprints that I seem to have lost some people. I took off ahead, to a point I knew would make for some amazing photographs, and camped out for a few seconds before I realized that nobody was coming. I had not stopped at a fork, and people were, understandably, heading down Flagstaff Trail instead of the Panorama trail, whichi is the way we had come up.

After waiting for Marshall Ulrich, of the surgically removed toenails, to catch up so he could direct following runners, I raced down the trail many had mistakenly taken to try and lead any who were confused back to the bookstore. I found one runner who seemed confused, and, trusting that the people who knew Boulder in the lead group could no doubt get them back to the bookstore, I ran with him down 6^th street and back to the bookstore.

Back at the bookstore, the Naked Cabaret continued. Scott answered questions for a while, while Chris signed a bunch of his books for the bookstore to sell later. Unfortunately, as I had other plans for the evening, I had to duck out early and didn’t get the chance to see the rest of the question/answer period, but even so, I had thoroughly enjoyed the day out with the big names, and hope very much to see Scott out on the trails this summer as I extend my distances.