Midwestern Mindset

Saturday, June 1, 2019

Back-Road Driving 101

Want to go somewhere exciting and new? Chances are you’re going to need to drive some pretty lonely roads to get there. I’ve done road trips everywhere from the frozen tundra of Siberia to the red-sand deserts of the Australian outback. Here’s what I’ve learned about keeping safe along the way.

The Threat: Animals

From deer to wombats, there’s no faster way to run into trouble on a back road. Critters can actually be attracted to roads at night for anything from their warmth to water collected in drainage ditches to the grass that grows on roadsides. And depending on the size of the animal, hitting one can do anything from causing you to temporarily lose control to totaling your car—or worse.

What you can do about it: Where possible, simply avoid traveling from dusk to dawn, when animals are most active. If you must drive at night, slow down. Lower speeds will give you more time to react and reduce the outright severity of a collision. If you’re surprised by an animal running into the road, your avoidance strategy should involve braking as hard as possible. Every mile per hour you can shed before an inevitable impact will make that impact hurt less. Do not attempt to swerve to avoid an animal, as doing so can cause you to lose control of your vehicle—and a tree or a rollover is going to do a lot more damage than a deer.

Gear that can help: The bull bars that mount over or around your stock bumpers are poorly designed and tend to increase damage to your vehicle in a crash. Instead, look for a quality replacement bumper that’s made from thick steel. Good ones retain the function of your airbag sensors and crumple zones in big crashes, enabling that life-saving equipment to work as intended, and they’ll protect your vehicle’s bodywork, lights, and radiator in the event of an animal strike. ARB bumpers are certified to the strictest standards in the world—those of the Australian government—and fit a wide range of trucks and SUVs. Aftermarket lights mount to those bumpers, and their incredible illumination can help you spot animals earlier and further from the edges of the road. ARB again provides some of the best options; I run its AR21’s on my 4Runner.

The Threat: Black Ice

Black ice isn’t black; it’s so clear that it’s invisible. Which is a problem because you won’t know it’s there until your car is spinning out of control. Black ice may be present on any road that’s near or below 32 degrees.

What you can do about it: Slow down. Take corners especially easy when temperatures drop, because that's where black ice presents the most danger.

Gear that can help: If you regularly drive in temperatures below 45 degrees, then you’ll benefit from running winter tires in the winter months—put them on in November and take them off in April. Unlike all-season tires, winters are made from a rubber compound that remains pliable in cold temperatures and is designed to provide grip on ice. We thoroughly explained the benefits of winter tires here.

The Threat: Precipitous Drops

No guardrail but a thousand-foot cliff. Driving over the edge would ruin your day.

What you can do about it: Mountain roads without guardrails also tend to be narrow. So what you really need to watch out for is oncoming traffic. Veering to avoid an oncoming tourist bus that’s taking up your entire lane on a blind corner just does not pair well with said thousand-food cliff. You know what advice I’m going to give here: slow down. The fastest safe pace on roads like these is often equivalent to walking.

Gear that can help: In the mountains, roads tend to be slick with precipitation, runoff, or even moss and leaves. Nothing helps you drive safely on those surfaces like a good set of tires. Make sure yours are less than five years old and aren’t worn out.

The Threat: Falling Rocks

In all my miles, I’ve never actually seen a rock fall onto a road and hit someone. But I have come across an awful lot of rocks, gravel, and dirt that have fallen onto the road, either blocking it, creating obstacles, or reducing traction.

What you can do about it: It’s good, general practice to only drive as fast as you can see, meaning you should only drive at a speed which allows you to come to a complete stop in a controlled manner in the time it takes to cover the distance you can see ahead. In some very rare circumstances, when you’re really in the middle of nowhere, you may find that a landslide or a boulder has fallen on the road, preventing you from getting by. If you come across something of the sort, park your car where other vehicles can easily see that it’s stopped, and get out to assess the situation on foot. Never try to squeeze through a gap that’s too narrow, especially if there’s a cliff on one side of the road.

Gear that can help: A shovel is a good multipurpose tool to carry in or on your vehicle. Here, it may allow you to pry away or remove fallen debris. You can also use a winch, or simply a tow strap can help you pull large rocks out of the way with your truck.

The Threat: Breakdowns

There’s a loud noise, then suddenly your car starts driving funny. Uh-oh.

What you can do about it: Give any vehicle, even a rental car, a once-over before driving it anywhere remote. Check the tire pressure, check the fluid levels, look for leaks or loose parts. Once you’re on the move, regularly scan the gauges for any signs of irregularity, and remain alert for any signs that your vehicle may be in trouble. If you even start to suspect that there might be trouble, pull over as soon as it’s safe, switch the car off, and inspect it for problems. Some issues, like a flat tire, are easy to fix yourself. Others may require a tow to a mechanic. In all cases, you will limit the amount of damage, reduce your cost, and save yourself time if you stop driving immediately.

Gear that can help: Never travel anywhere without the ability to deal with a flat tire. That means making sure that you have an inflated spare that’s in good shape, a jack, and a lug wrench. That’s at the very minimum. Because punctures are common, and because you can get more than one at at time, I never go anywhere without an air compressor, a tire-repair kit, and a can or three of Fix-a-Flat.

The Threat: Getting Lost

Especially these days, when we’ve all become so reliant on our cell phones to tell us where we’re going, it’s incredibly easy to lose your way. In remote areas, this can become very problematic very fast. Getting lost can cause you to run out of gas in the middle of nowhere, or it may take you into terrain your vehicle is not prepared to handle. In some places, it could take you into dangerous areas. Luckily, getting lost is easy to avoid.

What you can do about it: Take the time to create a map before you travel. You can totally do this on your cell phone. If you’re staying on paved roads, then just download an area on Google Maps for off-line use, and plot your route while you still have cell signal. Off-road, take the time to create a custom map, which I showed you how to do here.

Gear that can help: I never travel though an unfamiliar area without a paper map and compass. They’re just so easy to carry and so cheap to buy that even if you only ever have to fall back on them once, they’re totally worth it. I carry a road atlas that spans the entire country in all my vehicles.

The Threat: Getting Stuck

What looked like a simple puddle turned out to be a deep mud pit, and now you’re stuck in it. This can happen on other surfaces, too. I once got a brand-new Mercedes stuck in sand on the shoulder of a highway in Nevada when I stopped to take a picture of it in front of some neat rocks.

What you can do about it: Try and be smart about what surfaces you drive on. Know your vehicle’s capabilities and how to use its drive system and mechanical or electronic traction aids to their full ability. If none of that works, then let most of the air out of your tires, and try shoving anything that might add grip under the tires.

Gear that can help: Cars and trucks are heavy, and trying to get them unstuck can get really dangerous. By far the easiest, most effective, and safest way to get out of a sticky situation is to carry a set of MaxTrax. Just shove the studded nylon recovery boards under your tires, and drive on out.

from Outside Magazine: All http://bit.ly/2JSMYnd

Running After 40: Time to Get Smart

Your forties: the decade when it all goes to hell. You get injured more. Your 5K time doubles. Recovery takes forever. At least that’s what everyone tells you will happen when you turn 40. And they’re (kind of) right. After 30, people can lose up to 5 percent of their muscle mass per decade, and VO2 max also tends to drop by 10 percent per decade. The result? Runners tend to get slower.

“You can expect to see a 1 percent decline in speed per year after you hit 40,” says Scott Murr, founder of the Furman Institute of Running and Scientific Training at Furman University. “And that assumes you’re training properly. If you’re not, you can expect bigger declines.”

But plenty of runners have been successful well into their forties, particularly endurance runners. “I was probably the most successful in my forties,” says Karl “Speedgoat” Meltzer, a professional ultrarunner best known for winning the most 100-mile trail races of any runner in history (38). But he wasn’t winning because he was becoming a faster runner as he aged. Instead he did it by running smarter. We’re not saying that by adhering to the following tips you’ll magically start winning 100s, but they will keep you running strong straight through your mid-life crisis years.

Welcome to the No Mistakes Zone

“Aging athletes have to adjust their expectations, otherwise they’ll get frustrated and potentially hurt,” Murr says. “I’m 57 years old. I can’t do what I could when I was 37 or 47. I can’t even run as fast as I could when I was 55.”

There are certain physiological truths that can’t be denied, but Pete Magill, a masters runner, coach and author of a series of books about running (including Build Your Running Body), says that training right can go a long way to improving performance as you age. “You can still do amazing things in your forties, but you have to do everything right,” Magill says. Loss of muscle mass, increasingly brittle connective tissue, and decreasingly dense bones are a recipe for injury. “When you enter your 40s, you’re in a no mistakes zone. You can’t go out the first day and run 30 minutes as fast as you can like you did when you were 20.”

Recover, Recover, and Recover Some More

The main reason masters runners get injured, according to Magill, is that they underestimate their need for downtime. “Our recovery requirements expand as we get older, and it’s hard for us to adjust,” Magill says. “We feel good and think we’re ready to run hard again, but feeling good is not a green light to push it.”

When you train hard too soon after a big day, you’re not giving your body the chance to finish rebuilding muscle, which is what makes you stronger and faster. “It takes more time than we think it does,” Magill says. “If you feel good two days after a hard run, wait a third day before doing a difficult workout again, otherwise eventually your body will break down.”

Meltzer didn’t start running ultras until he was 29 and he didn’t learn the importance of recovery until he was in his forties. “It took me a while, but I learned to run less and rest more,” Meltzer says.

But that doesn’t mean you should just sit on the couch. Magill says that runners need to adopt active rest—Meltzer, for example, gardens and hikes on down days. It also means incorporating mellower workouts into your training plan. “The trouble is that most runners turn every day into a medium day,” Magill says. “If you have difficult days, you have to have easy days. Most runners run their distance days faster than they need, which sabotages their hard workouts.”

Get Swole

Strength training will help combat that natural loss in muscle mass and bone density. Murr says there’s no one-size-fits-all formula for strength training, as long as you’re working all the major muscle groups.

Magill recommends a basic regiment that includes squats, deadlifts, and Nordic curls. It’s a program designed to strengthen your muscles in the way they’ll be used when you run to help prevent injury.

“The best way to get fit is to train without interruption, without taking breaks for injuries,” Magill says. “Injuries sideline your ability to improve. If you can go a few years without an injury break, something magical happens; your body begins to function in a way you never thought possible. Everything reaches a peak.”

Chill the F—k Out

Meltzer is proof that runners can stay successful in their forties and beyond, and he says he didn’t personally change his goals as he aged. He still wanted to run long distances and for a long time he wanted to win races. He coaches a lot of masters runners who come to him with lofty goals, which he says is fine as long as they keep their aging bodies in mind while training for those goals.

“You can only get so much out of your body, but if you treat it properly you’ll get the most out of it,” Meltzer says, adding that treating your body properly often means runners need to learn how to relax. “I developed a better attitude about running as I got older. I realized that I’m a better runner when I’m doing what I enjoy. I like to be in the mountains and run up 3,000 vertical feet, so that’s how I train.”

According to Meltzer, if masters runners need to change anything as they age, it’s in their mindset. Don’t be so hard on yourself. “Take it as it is. Enjoy it. Don’t get stressed about losing your speed in your forties,” he says. “Just enjoy what the decade brings you.”

from Outside Magazine: All http://bit.ly/2QD1no4

A Handy Chart to Determine Which Truck You Should Buy

Running to Sit Still

I’ve always been an accidental runner. I ran my first race, a 10K, when I was eight, on my father’s suggestion. I ran my first marathon while interviewing ultraunning phenom Dean Karnazes; I told him I’d only run six miles, but we were so engrossed in conversation that I lost track of time and ran the whole way. And when I signed up for my first ultra, a 50K trail race at age 40, my plan was never to become an elite ultrarunner. It was to write my novel. The story had been in my head for years, but aside from a few pages in a notebook, I hadn’t written a thing. I was going to start, really I was. I was just waiting for something. For what? I told myself I needed more stamina, more willpower. I thought that if I could train myself to run for five or six hours at a time, then surely I could condition myself to sit at my desk writing for just as long. I would use ultrarunning to train for ultrawriting.

Ever since I was young, tearing around my neighborhood streets, making up stories in my head, running has always been a way that I write. When I began working as a journalist in Santa Fe, whole sentences would come to me when I ran, ideas moving through me as I moved. I would run in the mountains, high above my world, and find perspective on it that I didn’t always have in the midst of it, going through the dailiness of my life, all its ordinary tasks and demands.

Running teaches you to tolerate uncertainty, to be OK with the strange twists and turns life throws at you. It forces you to be creative when the shit hits the fan and you run out of food, or get hailed on and forgot your jacket, or can’t see out of one eye. You learn not to panic but to troubleshoot—maybe you’re not blind, you just need to turn on your headlamp. It sucks sometimes to keep going, but it sucks more to quit. You learn to see the beauty even when you’re suffering. As Karnazes told me during my first marathon, in 2006, “You’re stronger than you think you are.”

After my father died, in 2010, and I was beset by anxiety and convinced I was dying, too, Karnazes’s words came back to me. I had a baby and a toddler at home, and my anxiety was like a living, breathing wild thing scrabbling inside my brain. The only way to subdue it was to run it into exhaustion. Only after I’d run 15 or 30 miles up a mountain and back was I sure I was still alive. I had to do it all over again the next day. Some days I was fast and running felt effortless, and other days I was so tired and sad I’d have to lie down in the dirt.

Trail running didn’t erase my anxiety, but it did help me manage it. I started racing ultra distances and winning. I started to want to win, and then I wanted to not want to want to win. And so I taught myself how to sit. Not at the kitchen table in front of my computer writing my novel, liked I’d pictured, but on a stone bench in our backyard, against the sunny wall, feeling my breath whoosh in and out, smelling the lilacs or hearing the sound of a single faraway hammer. I was never entirely free of my thoughts—this is a misperception about meditation—but I learned how to see them and let them drift by without getting snagged. I would meditate for five minutes, then seven. If I was really ambitious, I might make it to 12. I told myself that I was not very good at sitting because I was so good at running, but a friend of mine, a serious student of Zen, dispelled me of this myth. “You should be able to meditate for longer because you can run for so long,” he said.

Sitting isn’t so very different from running. It teaches me to hold all possibilities at once, without judging any of them. Maybe I am fast, maybe I am slow. Maybe I’m hitting my prime, or past it. Maybe I am happy. And also sad. All are true. Most days when I get up from sitting, I go for a run. I take my sitting into my running and when I come home I bring my running into my writing. Some days I feel like I’ve stumbled onto a magical feedback loop that works in both directions: the more I run, the more I want to sit. The more I sit, the more I want to write. The more I write, the more I want to run. It’s like a motor, or a flywheel: the trick is to keep it spinning.

In the end, of course, it didn’t work out the way I’d imagined. I didn’t write my novel—not yet, at least. Instead I wrote a memoir about running. Like most books about running, it’s also not about running, but about fathers and daughters, the things they love and the things they lose, the stories they tell and the secrets they keep. I wrote it by running. Things are so rarely what they seem. Isn’t that marvelous?

Contributing editor Katie Arnold is the author of Running Home.

from Outside Magazine: All http://bit.ly/2Qzt8hB

The North Face Wikipedia Drama, Explained

In practice, the campaign was simple: take photos of people wearing the North Face gear in iconic vacation spots, and then upload those images to the destinations’ Wikipedia pages. After all, anyone can edit on Wikipedia—that’s the site’s hallmark. And since Wikipedia entries often appear at the top of Google results, every time someone searched, say, Guarita State Park in Brazil, the first image that popped up would be of a person wearing a TNF jacket or backpack. It was some of the world’s best, cheapest advertising.

In reality, the North Face’s most recent marketing stunt violated Wikipedia’s terms of use. Now the well-loved gear brand has apologized. So what exactly went down? Let’s explain.

On Tuesday, AdAge published a story detailing the marketing campaign, a collaboration between the Leo Burnett ad agency and the North Face Brazil. Essentially, the brand had commissioned photos of models wearing its gear in a handful of highly searched vacation destinations, like the aforementioned Guarita State Park, and then uploaded those photos to Wikipedia, replacing the unbranded, user-submitted photos.

A TNF-branded marketing video, produced by an arm of Leo Burnett, bragged: “We hacked the results to reach one of the most difficult places: the top of the world’s largest search engine, paying absolutely nothing, just by collaborating with Wikipedia.”

A TNF spokesperson explained to Outside that TNF Brazil is an “independent distributor,” meaning the company does not fall under VF, the North Face's parent company, but instead is merely licensed to market and sell TNF gear in Brazil. She said that Leo Burnett had first reached out to TNF Brazil in November, but does not know exactly how long the team had been actively replacing Wikipedia images. Since TNF Brazil is not under the VF corporate umbrella, it did not need to get approval from TNF headquarters before going ahead with the campaign.

Within hours of the AdAge story going live, Wikipedia moderators removed the 12 images (or, in some cases, simply cropped out the TNF logo), and reported the accounts that had uploaded them for breaches of Terms of Use for undisclosed paid advocacy. “Adding content that is solely intended to promote a company or its products goes against the spirit, purpose and policies of Wikipedia to provide neutral, fact-based knowledge to the world,” the Wikimedia Foundation wrote in a response. “It exploits a free public learning platform for corporate gain.”

On Wednesday, TNF headquarters issued a formal apology. “We believe deeply in Wikipedia’s mission and integrity—and apologize for engaging in activity inconsistent with those principles,” the statement reads. “Effective immediately, we have ended the campaign and moving forward, we’ll strive to do better and commit to ensuring that our teams and vendors are better trained on Wikipedia’s site policies.”

from Outside Magazine: All http://bit.ly/2JSBOz5