New Trails: Pine Ridge Trail, Nebraska

If you're looking for a new trail to explore in a relatively unexplored part of our country, check out the Pine Ridge Trail in Nebraska. When most people think of Nebraska, they don't think of pine trees and hills. The Pine Ridge Trail might just change your perception of trail running in Nebraska.

From the Pine Ridge Trails brochure:

"The Great Plains’ ocean of rolling, grassy swales and farmland erupt abruptly into the rugged country called the Pine Ridge. This unexpected region owns an uncommon diversity of plant and animal life. The timbered canyons and open parks mix western and eastern plants, grazed pastures and sprawling timberlands. While the Ridge is not wilderness, it is still wild. The Pine Ridge Trail gives hikers and horseback riders panoramic views of the varied terrain, flora and fauna."

The Pine Ridge Trail is presently 27 miles long and designed to eventually extend 52 miles in length and connect Chadron, NE to Crawford, NE. Along the 27 mile trail are numerous other single track routes that all together add up to over 100 miles of single track trail through the Pine Hills of Nebraska. Find yourself a map and get out there an explore this hidden gem.

At Trail Runners Outpost we'll be regularly posting information about relatively unknown trails in lesser traveled locations. So, if you're traveling or if you live in these areas, we hope we can point you towards some great new trails for trail running adventures.

Palmiero-Winters Setting Trail Records on Prosthetic Leg

Great article on Amy Palmiero-Winters from the Milwaukee Journal

Ultra runner takes pain in stride on prosthetic leg

By Tom Held of the Journal Sentinel

Posted: Nov. 2, 2009

Amy Palmiero-Winters has set records for amputees, including for 50 trail miles and 100 road miles.

With her incomparable standards, Amy Palmiero-Winters rated her 50-mile run in the North Face Endurance Challenge in southern Wisconsin as very successful and relatively easy.

The 37-year-old from Hicksville, N.Y., set yet another unofficial record for 50 miles.

More important, she finished without blood dripping down her prosthetic left leg.

That represented a vast improvement in pace and discomfort from her first outing in a 50-mile trail ultra, in May, when Palmiero-Winters struggled to the finish line in Bear Mountain, N.Y., just 30 seconds before the 13-hour cutoff time, and "bloody as hell," in the words of the race director

Since then, with a series of awe-inspiring runs, Palmiero-Winters has not merely set records but created them, in categories for amputee runners that few ever pondered.

Her run on the Ice Age Trail on Oct. 24 established a new standard for 50 miles - 8 hours 43 minutes - breaking by nearly 90 minutes the unofficial record she set in September, in the North Face Endurance race in Washington, D.C.

In between, on Oct. 11, she became the first female amputee to finish a 100-mile ultra on the road, the 10th annual Heartland "Spirit of the Prairie" Endurance Run.

Palmiero-Winters was the fastest female in that race, with one sound leg or two.

"She's pushed the envelope way past what is conceived by the public," said Erik Schaffer, president of the high-tech prosthetic company A Step Ahead.

"She's setting a new first every time," Schaffer said. "There have been people with prosthetics who have done some long runs, but nobody is close to her worst time. We're trying to track it, but there's nobody doing what she's doing."

Her performances on the road have been mind-boggling. Her determination on the trails has been nearly incomprehensible.

Running on steep hills covered with rocks, roots and leaves, Palmiero-Winters has almost no margin for error. The ideal landing area on the narrow, hook-shaped blade that serves as her left foot is roughly one inch square.

Without an ankle, heel or calf muscle to absorb the impact, the shock of each hard step travels through the prosthetic into the tibia, fibula and patellar tendon in what remains of her leg, cut off about 3 inches below the knee.

Painful chafing

"If I step on a rock on the front of my running foot, it will hyperextend my knee backward," she said. "If I step on the back, it will throw my knee forward. And it's the same if I step on a rock to the right or the left of the foot. It throws me to the inside or the outside of the prosthetic leg.

"All that twisting and turning and rocks kind of throws you around inside the prosthetic. That alone creates a lot of pain."

As she runs, the size and shape of her shortened limb changes and loosens in the specially fitted carbon fiber socket. That causes the chafing, blistering, tearing and bone bruising that Palmiero-Winters suffered in New York.

"I have no idea how she was running," said Nick Moore, director of the five races that make up the North Face Endurance Challenge series. "It was impressive. She has unbelievable fortitude."

Eyes on Olympics

Mental toughness and a high threshold for pain have helped Palmiero-Winters run beyond what anyone with a prosthetic has done before. Her natural running ability puts her among the best runners in any category, and she expects to compete with them at the sport's highest levels.

Among her goals is the Badwater Ultramarathon, the 135-mile race through the blistering heat of Death Valley.

Before that attempt, Schaffer will have to tweak the ultra runner's custom-designed prosthetic to stop the heat transfer that burned her limb during an unofficial Badwater venture this year.

With a personal best of 3:06 in the 2006 Chicago Marathon, Palmiero-Winters holds onto the dream of qualifying for the Olympic marathon trials. USA Track & Field officials have said she would be allowed to compete in the qualifying trials if she can reach the entry standard.

Her immediate focus remains on ultras and the trails, where her love of running has been rekindled.

Stacking ultras in a remarkable run, Palmiero-Winters plans to finish the North Face Endurance series in San Francisco in December. Her next race will be her first 100-mile attempt in the woods, the Ozark Trail Endurance Run on Saturday.

Those are all races, distances and challenges that Palmiero-Winters never contemplated as a young runner with two sound legs.

She took the sport less than seriously, even after running a 3:16 in the Boston Marathon in 1993. A year later, a car hit Palmiero-Winters while she rode her Harley-Davidson motorcycle near her hometown of Meadville, Pa., Her left foot was crushed.

Showing what would become familiar fortitude, she ran the Columbus Marathon with the damaged foot in 1995, but the injuries required more than two dozen surgeries and eventually amputation, in 1997.

'A second chance'

That ended her running pursuits for more than five years but eventually brought an improved perspective and motivation.

"I didn't realize until after I lost my leg that I have a great natural talent and I never took advantage of it," Palmiero-Winters said. "When I woke up that one day, and realized, instead of losing my life, I lost my leg . . . it was about time I put the most effort I can into the things that I do.

"I did get a second chance."

She soon rekindled the desire to run.

"The feeling I get from running has never changed," said Palmiero-Winters, a single mother of two - Carson, 6, and Madalynn, 4.

"Running makes me happy and proud of who I am. Overall, it makes me a better person.

"I have two little kids. When I go home, I sure like that they think they have the world's fastest mommy."

A welder by trade, Palmiero-Winters now works with A Step Ahead, based in New York, and has started a nonprofit organization, ASPIRE, to help children and young adults who have lost limbs.

Those children, and her own, provide the inspiration that carries Palmiero-Winters through painful miles.

Thinks about backers

"For me to get through what I have to get through, and I do it every single race, I think of the people who support me and the people who stand behind me," she said.

"If I'm running one mile and something hurts, I'll think about my kids and how they cheer for me and their smiles. And the next miles, I'll think about one of the little kids I coach, who always says 'Remember the little engine who could,' and the next mile think of my godson, Drake, and then my little buddy Jake who's missing both his legs at his knee.

"At the prosthetic company, I'll think about the guy in the back and the guy who makes my leg and how hard they work so I can do what I do. I think about everybody in my life, and I get strength from them."

The Human Body is Built for Distance

Another interesting article from the New York Times addressing how the human body is designed for distance running.

The Human Body Is Built for Distance

By TARA PARKER-POPE

Does running a marathon push the body further than it is meant to go?

The conventional wisdom is that distance running leads to debilitating wear and tear, especially

on the joints. But that hasn’t stopped runners from flocking to starting lines in record numbers.

Last year in the United States, 425,000 marathoners crossed the finish line, an increase of 20 percent from the beginning of the decade, Running USA says. Next week about 40,000 people will take part in the New York City Marathon. Injury rates have also climbed, with some studies reporting that 90 percent of those who train for the 26.2-mile race sustain injuries in the process.

But now a best-selling book has reframed the debate about the wisdom of distance running. In “Born to Run” (Knopf), Christopher McDougall, an avid runner who had been vexed by injuries, explores the world of the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico, a tribe known for running extraordinary distances in nothing but thin-soled sandals.

Mr. McDougall makes the case that running isn’t inherently risky. Instead, he argues that the

commercialization of urban marathons encourages overzealous training, while the promotion of high-tech shoes has led to poor running form and a rash of injuries.

“The sense of distance running being crazy is something new to late-20th-century America,” Mr. McDougall told me. “It’s only recently that running has become associated with pain and injury.”

The scientific evidence supports the notion that humans evolved to be runners. In a 2007 paper in the journal Sports Medicine, Daniel E. Lieberman, a Harvard evolutionary biologist, and Dennis M. Bramble, a biologist at the University of Utah, wrote that several characteristics unique to humans suggested endurance running played an important role in our evolution.

Most mammals can sprint faster than humans - having four legs gives them the advantage. But

when it comes to long distances, humans can outrun almost any animal. Because we cool by sweating rather than panting, we can stay cool at speeds and distances that would overheat other animals. On a hot day, the two scientists wrote, a human could even outrun a horse in a 26.2-mile marathon.

Why would evolution favor the distance runner? The prevailing theory is that endurance running allowed primitive humans to incorporate meat into their diet. They may have watched the sky for scavenging birds and then run long distances to reach a fresh kill and steal the meat from whatever animal was there first.

Other research suggests that before the development of slingshots or bows, early hunters

engaged in persistence hunting, chasing an animal for hours until it overheated, making it easy to kill at close range. A 2006 report in the journal Current Anthropology documents persistence hunting among modern hunter-gatherers, including the Bushmen in Africa.

“Ancient humans exploited the fact that humans are good runners in the heat,” Dr. Bramble said. “We have such a great cooling system” - many sweat glands, little body hair.

There is other evidence that evolution favored endurance running. A study in The Journal of Experimental Biology last February showed that the short toes of the human foot allowed for more efficient running, compared with longer-toed animals. Increasing toe length as little as 20 percent doubles the mechanical work of the foot. Even the fact that the big toe is straight, rather than to the side, suggests that our feet evolved for running.

“The big toe is lined up with the rest, not divergent, the way you see with apes and our closest nonrunning relatives,” Dr. Bramble said. “It’s the main push-off in running: the last thing to leave the ground is that big toe.”

Springlike ligaments and tendons in the feet and legs are crucial for running. (Our close relatives the chimpanzee and the ape don’t have them.) A narrow waist and a midsection that can turn allow us to swing our arms and prevent us from zigzagging on the trail. Humans also have a far more developed sense of balance, an advantage that keeps the head stable as we run. And most humans can store about 20 miles’ worth of glycogen in their muscles.

And the gluteus maximus, the largest muscle in the human body, is primarily engaged only during running. “Your butt is a running muscle; you barely use it when you walk,” Dr. Lieberman said. “There are so many features in our bodies from our heads to our toes that make us good at running.”

So if we’re born to run, why are runners so often injured? A combination of factors is likely to play a role, experts say. Exercise early in life can affect the development of tendons and muscles, but many people don’t start running until adulthood, so their bodies may not be as well developed for distance. Running on only artificial surfaces and in high-tech shoes can change the biomechanics of running, increasing the risks of injury.

What’s the solution? Slower, easier training over a long period would most likely help; so would brief walk breaks, which mimic the behavior of the persistence hunter. And running on a variety of surfaces and in simpler shoes with less cushioning can restore natural running form.

Mr. McDougall says that while researching his book, he corrected his form and stopped using thickly cushioned shoes. He has run without injury for three years.

Black Hills Runners Club

South Dakota has some great trail running opportunities, and the Black Hills Runners Club has taken advantage of these great running trails by hosting their first Black Hills Runners Club Trail Running Series. Unfortunately the series is wrapping up, but there is still time to run the last race in the series, the South Dakota Trail Championship on November 7.

The Black Hills Runners Club is an active running club that promotes running in the Black Hills area of South Dakota. The Black Hills is home to many scenic and fun single track trails for running including the 100 mile long Centennial Trail that runs from Wind Cave National Park in the south to Bear Butte in the north and traverses the length of the Black Hills. The Black Hills Runners Club is now taking advantage of these great trails by offering a trail running series on various trails throughout the Black Hills. Stay tuned for more information about the 2010 trail running series and consider a trip to the Black Hills of South Dakota for some awesome trail running through the scenic and historic Black Hills.

South Dakota Trail Running Championships

Below is an advertisement for the 2009 South Dakota Trail Running Championships taking place on November 7th 2009 at the Storm Mountain Trailhead. For more information check out http://www.bhrctrails.com/SDTC.html

Insight from New Balance About the Development of Their New MT100 Shoe

Below is some really interesting insight from Byran Gothie, New Balance Outdoor Project Manager, into the development of the New Balance MT100 shoe. It appears that NB really took real trail runners advice and experience into account when developing this shoe. We may have to give this shoe a try...

We tried not to treat the 100 as a direct update to the 790 but instead a new shoe to our lightweight trail category. We did start with the 790 though to figure out how we could build a better shoe. In addition, we added ultra trail runners Anton Krupicka and Kyle Skaags to our Outdoor Ambassador Team around the time we started looking into an update. The first thing we did was look at shoes they ran in for high wear areas. The attached image shows how we built the outsole specifically around the high wear areas of an ultra runner’s efficient gait. The lateral mid/forefoot has been built up the most to provide support to the highest wear area. The midfoot/heel is actually ground contact so that there is a smooth transition or just a contact point. The heel has been designed specifically for braking, as we found that the only time they landed on their heels was when they needed some control going downhill. The heel and forefoot heights are the same as the 790, 18mm in the heel and 8mm in the forefoot.

Anton and Klye then came out to our sports testing lab in our Lawrence office where we ran them through a bunch of tests like force plates and motion capture. This helped to validate our theory and solidify our work on the midsole/outsole.

Harakiri Mountain Run

Video of a cool mountain race in Europe.

Good Morning America Interview with Lost California Runner

Lost California Runner Wishes She Had Done Some Things Differently

This CNN article describes some of the mistakes the lost California runner made prior to leaving for her fateful run.

By Ashley Fantz

CNN

(CNN) -- The California runner who was lost in a forest for three days without water had barely a few hours to go before she would have died, her doctor said Thursday.

Runner Maria "Gina" Natero-Armenta, 36, survived for three days without water in a California forest.

Maria "Gina" Natero-Armento, 36, not only survived 72 hours with only a slice of apple in her stomach and a little bit of water for nourishment, she also has only one functioning kidney, Dr. Derrick Hong said.

He spoke with CNN on Thursday afternoon, along with Natero-Armento and her husband, Armando Armento, in a conference call interview from her room at Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo, California.

Natero-Armento is no amateur when it comes to distance or mountain running. She's one of the top female finishers in a San Diego 100-mile race and an experienced ultrarunner with top times in other 100-mile and 50-mile races. Her body was unusually strong to begin with, but she also has one kidney -- the other doesn't function because of a congenital disorder.

"This is extraordinary," Hung said.

She said she had planned a simple eight-mile run, a small fraction of what the ultrarunner usually tackles in a sport that challenges competitors to run at least farther than a 26.2-mile marathon. She is among the majority of ultrarunners who like doing 100-mile races.

She set out from her Oceanside home at 5:30 a.m. Sunday to meet Fidel Diaz, her running partner and brother-in-law, who is also a serious ultrarunner. They planned to run along a trail in the the Cleveland National Forest near San Diego.

She brought along two water bottles and wore a Camelpak, a backpack that can be filled with water. That was plenty of water for an eight-mile outing. She didn't bring food with her, but Natero-Armento said she ate a piece of apple before she started, and that was the only food in her stomach.

Natero-Armento said she did several things that were out of character that day, and she wishes she had been more prepared.

"I am very careful usually, but that particular day, I was not," she said. "I normally, the night before the long runs, I have everything ready. And this night, I had nothing ready, and it was just a mistake."

She usually wears a Garmin GPS watch, a sophisticated device that runners use to find out where they are, the distance they have traveled, calories burned and altitude.

"I didn't have my Garmin and wasn't wearing a watch," she said. "I don't know. I always carry food with me, and I didn't have nearly enough."

"I always carry my phone with me, and I didn't have my phone with me, and that really was a big mistake," she said. Feeling antsy to just get on the trail and run, she wasn't thinking deliberately. "I just wanted to get going that day; get some fresh air and go for a run. I hurried up."

Natero-Armento and Diaz began running about 6:30 a.m. Sunday, she said. She lost track of as much as eight hours, she said, as she and Diaz became lost. By then, she was dehydrated and disoriented.

And Natero-Armento said she also made another, more serious bad decision. At some point in the run, Diaz had become ill. Ultrarunning is a sport in which some participants sometimes push themselves way too hard.

"[He was] pretty much beside me or in front of me, but I do know that I was insisting on keeping going since I was OK," she said. "He doesn't eat or drink much ever [when out on runs], so I know he can handle that."

She said that she kept going because she'd seen him run hard while sick -- also not uncommon in 50- and 100-mile races -- and that she figured he could handle it if she pushed him.

She said they became separated as they two were going over a rugged hill.

"We had separated because we were going through a hill quite a while and had to go through brush, and that's how I have a lot of scrapes. So that was very difficult," she said. "[We] crawl under and break branches, and that was the only way we were going to get out of there, according to Fidel. So I don't think he was able to see that I was not there anymore."

She said that Diaz was in front of her. He would shout to her so they knew the other one was close by: He shouted to her, and she shouted back. Then, at one point, she couldn't hear him anymore.

"When I called him and he didn't answer, at this point, I lost a little bit of control," she said.

Night turned into day. She had no water or food, and she didn't try to eat anything. She became disoriented but had the wherewithal to know that she was completely out of fuel. She didn't have the strength to keep walking, so she climbed into a ravine, believing that would be the safest place.

Diaz was not available for an interview Thursday.

He was found Wednesday several hours before she was. It's not clear why he was lost for so long and where, for days, he had traveled in the forest.

Rather than ask for water, law enforcement said, Diaz asked how Natero-Armento was doing and if someone had found her.

"I really had to, from the beginning, accept that I was not capable of getting out of there, there was no where to go," she said, recalling her hours in the ravine, thinking about her husband and her family. She told herself she would live.

"I knew what I had to do."

The experience has not scared her away from distance running on trails. When her kidney is strong again, she will be back, running

The Search for the Lost California Runner

Video of the search for the lost California runner Maria “Gina” Natera-Armenta: