Travel

Live Fast — Stay in Control

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If you want to go fast in an F-16 Fighting Falcon, it’s easy.  Just push the throttle forward all the way (this position is called “Military Power”) and then twist it to the left and push again to engage the afterburners.  Depending on aircraft configuration and atmospheric conditions, you might reach Mach 2.0 (roughly 1,300 miles per hour at high altitude).

But there’s a catch.  The afterburners, which dump fuel into the jet engine’s hot exhaust stream, burn a lot of fuel.  As much as 60,000 pounds per hour, which could deplete the aircraft’s load in something like 10 minutes.  Which is why afterburners are used sparingly, generally for take-off and during combat maneuvers.

If you go faster than you should and run low on fuel – no worries, probably there’s a mid-air refueling tanker, like the Boeing KC-46 Pegasus, circling around somewhere.  But you’ll need to slow down to match the tanker’s airspeed, typically around 300 knots per hour.  Even so, you have a very narrow envelope to operate in.  You do not want to approach the drogue basket trailing behind the tanker at faster than a walking pace.  Impact the drogue with too much force, and you could send a sinusoidal shock wave up the 80-yard hose to the tanker and down again, which could not only disrupt the connection, but possibly damage the aircraft’s fuel probe.  In which case you might have a serious problem, if you’re out of fuel and there’s no safe place to land nearby.

There’s a point here for all of us, even if we’re not piloting advanced fighter platforms.  You shouldn’t go fast if you’re not in control.

Stay. In. Control.

This theme applies throughout life – why, even to recreational runners.  Run too fast and you burn out and risk injury.  Runners who start out too fast in a marathon might crack a rueful joke about “crashing and burning.”  Actually, it’s not funny.

But forget running.  What about life?  What happens if you go to fast and don’t keep control?

Or let me ask the question a different way — how can we stay in control when we operate constantly at high speed?

Continue reading “Live Fast — Stay in Control” →

Live Fast — Stay in Control

15,000 Miles Barefoot

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Working in a bank a few years back, I saw that everything important was documented, allowing auditors to review decisions for compliance with policies and procedures.  Which begged the question — why wasn’t I documenting the important things in my life?

So, I opened a spreadsheet in Excel and created a training log.  The first entry dates back to February 15, 2013.  Evidently I ran 9 miles, although there is no indication of where or why or how it went.

Back then business travel took me to Florida from time to time, and I’d sometimes take advantage of a nearby beach to run barefoot – just for the novelty.  On July 10, 2013, I ran 5 miles barefoot on Vero Beach.  The following February, I ran 6 miles in Boca Raton.  The hard-packed sand felt frigid underfoot.

I don’t remember when I read Born to Run, but Chris MacDougall’s warning that shoes predispose us to injury struck a nerve.  Since I was struggling with running-related injuries at the time, I decided to conduct an experiment, although instead of running, I decided to try a barefoot hike.  On August 25, 2015, while on vacation in the Italian Alps, I walked up a nearby ski slope, and what I remember most was how the cows stared at me in wonder, as if they’d never seen a human without shoes before.  Two weeks later, back home in New York, I repeated the experiment on Peekamoose Mountain in the Catskills.

And then I went off the deep end.

Roughly one year later, I reached my 1,000th mile of barefoot training, comprised of running, hiking, and walking.  Speaking of documentation, this quirky accomplishment inspired me to write up a blog post in which I explained that barefoot running had been an “interesting experiment” based on the “calculated bet” that more natural form would prolong my useful running life.  I admitted to some surprise at the feeling of light-footedness, the exhilaration, the sense of a more direct connection with nature.  Even so, I had no idea where this odd journey was going to take me.

When I reached my 2,000th barefoot mile, I published a second blog post, and thereafter it became a habit upon reaching the next thousand-mile-marker to write about what I’d done and learned.  On June 22, 2025, I reached my 14,000th mile but skipped the report as I was busy — so here is my latest update, with the barefoot odometer now at 15,000 miles. Continue reading “15,000 Miles Barefoot” →

15,000 Miles Barefoot

Reconnecting Emotions — An Essay Inspired by the “Masculinity Crisis”

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In his Substack series, “Mindful Masculinity,” Rich D’Ambrosio comments on the crisis he sees impacting contemporary men.  There’s a conflict, he believes, between societal expectations, typically centered on traditional male roles of provider, fighter, stoic — and our personal intentions, which might be different.  Rich elaborated on this point in a podcast with Damon Mitchell, another Substack author writing on themes of masculinity and a coach for men.  During their discussion, Rich spoke of his long career at American Express, where his team focused relentlessly on sales goals.  But then confided what mattered to him most was to be a sensitive and loving father.  His point was that conflict between work goals and personal intentions creates huge pressure for men — can even leave us feeling “disconnected” from our emotions.

At first, I questioned Rich’s narrative.  I’m a stubborn man and purposeful.  I’ve never experienced a state of “disconnection,” nor have I observed this condition in others.

But few days later at a holiday party, a young man named K**** looked me in the eyes, distress written across his face, and blurted out “That’s exactly how I feel – and why I’m on anti-depressants.”  I’d tossed out the topic of emotional disconnection, curious to see what people thought. Continue reading “Reconnecting Emotions — An Essay Inspired by the “Masculinity Crisis”” →

Reconnecting Emotions — An Essay Inspired by the “Masculinity Crisis”

Place of Mystery/Center of the Universe

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Bump — wheels down, LAX, right on schedule.  Baggage secured, I’m on the bus to the rental car center and then barreling along the freeway to my cousin’s home to hang with his family for ten days.  And climb some mountains, too – why, I have a long list of them.

From the highway, I see big peaks floating to the north.  Faint silhouettes cloaked by haze and ocean mist. Baking in the late afternoon glare… 

Continue reading “Place of Mystery/Center of the Universe” →

Place of Mystery/Center of the Universe

Peak-bagging in AZ and CO

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2 weeks out west.  In search of connections.  And peaks to bag, since I have a long way to go to reach my lifetime goal — 1,000 mountains barefoot. Continue reading “Peak-bagging in AZ and CO” →

Peak-bagging in AZ and CO

To the Land of the Black Sun

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9-hours in my faithful black Jeep, and maybe longer, as Google Maps just shunted me off the highway and now I’m rolling through small beach towns (signs flash Ogunquit and Kennebunk), where tourists stroll the streets and mill around in trendy bars, hanging out beneath tall gas lanterns on this cool summer evening — but I’ve got a dull ache in my butt (piriformis syndrome from doing squats again) and I just want to get to Millinocket – or anywhere, honestly.

Strictly speaking, this is vacation, but my mindset is all business.  My mission — to climb the state’s 4,000-footers, of which there are 14.  With long driving times between mountain ranges and interruptions for work calls that can’t be rescheduled, the schedule has little slack.  And it’s not like I can just bang out these peaks.  I hike barefoot.  My pace is slow.

A few weeks ago, this strange thought popped into my mind – that Maine was the “land of the Black Sun.”  The intuition being, I guess, that if you journeyed far enough from home, you’d find places so radically different from the familiar, that common attributes might shift into their opposites.  Like when Clarence King traveled west from Connecticut to join the California Geologic Survey and then, as soon as the expedition was under way, begged permission to climb a mountain.  Any mountain.  How about the tallest one in sight.  This was 1864.  When he and a companion finally reached the summit of Mt. Tyndall, King looked into the sky and saw the darkness of vast yawning hollow space.  While the desert basins below were blindingly bright.  It was a “strange reversal.”  The opposite of familiar sunlit skies and dark cool earth.

On occasion I, too, have experienced strange reversals.  For example, I’ve noticed when wearing sunglasses with polarized lenses, that when I tilt my head, the contrast shifts.  The brightness flickers.  Shadows come awake.

I roll into Millinocket at 2 am.  An envelope with my room key is taped to the door, just like they said it would. Continue reading “To the Land of the Black Sun” →

To the Land of the Black Sun

The Little White Lie in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

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Heart of Darkness ends with Marlow calling on Kurtz’ fiancée in a dimly-lit mansion in an unnamed metropolis which Marlow calls merely the “sepulchral city.”  Still in mourning more than a year later, she wants to know Kurtz’ final words.  Marlow tells her that Kurtz called her name.  But this is a lie – as he lay dying, Kurtz whispered, “The horror!  The horror!”

Marlow’s little white lie was meant to shield a woman’s feelings from an ugly truth.  By the end of the narrative, however, the author Joseph Conrad’s made the point that civilization is based on lies – although we may call them faith, beliefs, ideas, or “the great and saving illusion.”  And we need these lies, he implies, to shield us from the primeval darkness which lies deep within the soul.

But is this really the case?  As someone who spends a lot of time in wilderness, this question nags at me.  I recently reread Heart of Darkness, as I was preparing for a trip to Maine, a place that seems plenty mysterious and primitive, if not quite so far off as Africa. Continue reading “The Little White Lie in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness” →

The Little White Lie in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

Running the BMW Dallas Marathon

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After due deliberation, I made my decision.  The BMW Dallas Marathon, if I successfully completed it, would be my 101st race of marathon distance or longer.

Of course, my mind was immediately filled with images of dalmatians. I made an effort to clear my thoughts of such clutter because these numbers are important.

You see, for an aging marathoner like me, 100 holds this significance — that beyond it there lies no obvious next stopping point.  To go past 100 marathons would be like pushing an aircraft to Mach 1 and then breaking the sound barrier — which produces an impressive bang no doubt — but that doesn’t mean you’ve reached the maximum possible speed.  (OK, I confess to being fascinated with fighter jets and pilots.) Continue reading “Running the BMW Dallas Marathon” →

Running the BMW Dallas Marathon

Homeless in Dallas

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Black tarmac slips into view — tires impact — with jolt and bounce we arrive.  I’ve left New York behind, and with it, family, friends, routines, familiar places – in a word, I’ve left behind my home.  Traded it for a city with a herd of larger-than-life bronze bulls and a brassy sun.  By the way, I like it here fine.  For a two-week stay, anyway.  The issue is, splitting my time between two places – not to mention other travel too – leaves me feeling spread a little thin.  Like Bilbo Baggins, who told Gandalf, “‘Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread.”  Then he briefed Gandalf on his plan: to leave his home in the Shire, to see the mountains one last time, to find a place to rest, and maybe finish writing his book. Continue reading “Homeless in Dallas” →

Homeless in Dallas

Barefoot on the John Muir Trail

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The John Muir Trail is a famous 210-mile hiking route that traverses California’s Sierra Mountains, which Muir referred to as “the range of light.”  I visited the Sierras in 2018 and was impressed by the spectacular landscape.  After some consideration, thru-hiking the JMT became a goal for 2020.

Just getting ready for the JMT was a big operation, as the trip entailed competitive and thus hard-to-get permits, extensive route-planning, careful selection of gear and provisions, and travel logistics that were complicated by the COVID pandemic.  Additionally I decided to take on the JMT in an unconventional format by hiking as much as possible barefoot.  Why barefoot?  For the extra challenge, the special feeling of lightfootedness that comes from moving naturally, and the distinction of doing something important a little bit differently.

The 23-day journey turned out to be an incredible experience; indeed, it contained enough impressions to fill a book.  In the interest of brevity, however, this blog post will consist of a short synopsis of each day on the trail and a photograph or two.

Continue reading “Barefoot on the John Muir Trail” →

Barefoot on the John Muir Trail