I remember when “camcorders” first became widely available to the average consumer in the mid 80s. Remember those honkin’-huge shoulder cams that recorded straight onto VHS tapes? You felt (and looked) like a News Channel 5 cameraman hauling that thing around, peering into the black and white viewfinder.

We’ve come a long way, though. Now you can film in HD with a camera the size of a pack Marlboro 100s.

I knew we’d be capturing a ton of video on this trip and that it would eventually be edited into a documentary (more on that in a bit). At the same time, I’d been messing around with the Flip Ultra HD camcorder, a tiny little guy that produces amazing results in made-for-web video. The fact that it fit in a shirt pocket didn’t hurt either.

So I bought a half dozen of these relatively inexpensive guys before we hit the road. The idea was that everyone on the crew could have a camera with them at all times to capture all aspects of RunTellmanRun. This would lend the final documentary an intimate, do-it-yourself atmosphere that an audience could connect with. That appealed to me.

Having Flip Ultra HD camcorders at our fingertips every waking moment, we recorded a little bit of everything. When Ben shaved his beard in the hotel bathroom somewhere in Pennsylvania, Luke got it all on camera. When we toured the Yuengling Brewery in Pennsylvania, the Flip was along for the ride. And for better or worse, those little cameras captured all of my moods and emotions while running almost 600 barefoot miles.

All that footage was being fed to Sara, our offside editor who absolutely kills it on FinalCut. She organized and compiled it all and she’s in the thick of editing up the documentary. She should have a rough draft ready by early next week (if you were one of the backers of our Kickstarter fund, you’ll get a link to that rough cut).

We also sent a few Flip Ultra HD camcorders to our friends at the Stepping Stone youth shelter in State College, PA. They’ll be using them to document the process as they remodel their outdated kitchens with the $10,000 supplied by your donations.

And that’s the story of our Flips, our documentary, and our quest to help homeless youth in America.

SHABAMBO!

-Tellman

Luke logging some "proprietary" footage on the road with his Flip, somewhere in Ohio. Look how small that camera is.

I flew down to Miami last weekend for a marketing seminar. Sitting through hours and hours of meetings, my mind kept wandering outdoors. I couldn’t wait to fling my shoes off and run a few barefoot miles on South Beach. The warm sand between my toes, the cool water lapping at my ankles, the gentle breeze… I was going to be in heaven.

Being February and all, I assumed I’d be in spare company on the beach. Surely I’d be the only, or maybe one of a few runners out there. I was wrong.

I bumped into a whole throng of runners. But really, it was one runner with an entourage. Who was this man jogging on the beach with a group of loyal followers?

He goes by the name Raven. He has been running 8 miles on the sandy shores of South Beach in Miami for over 35 years. Literally, this man has not missed a single day he started on New Year’s Day in 1975. 8 miles, everyday, no variance. No matter the weather, no matter if it’s Christmas or his birthday… The Raven is out there running.

I ran for quite a while with The Raven and became totally inspired. Apparently  I wasn’t the first. He had a group of almost a dozen “followers” gathered around him  like 6-year-olds around the ball during a soccer game. Some chatted while they ran and some remained silent. Some looked fit and trim and some looked like newbies to the running world. But they were all there because of The Raven.

To those people, and to me, The Raven represented discipline. No, not discipline, that’s not the right word. More like promise. You could be having a totally crappy day with no end in sight, but you can be sure The Raven is out on that beach, and you can run alongside him. In today’s topsy turvy economic outlook, it seems like nothing is guaranteed: jobs, house, retirement plans, college plans. But The Raven… he’s a guy you can always count on. The rock. The anchor. The guy you can always run a few miles with.

8 miles everyday since 1975. Simply amazing.

If only everyday life was as reliable as The Raven. Unfortunately for the millions of homeless kids living in America, the only daily guarantee is more hardship. In honor of The Raven and his solidarity, I ask that you head over to http://www.runtellmanrun.com/donate and give $10. Please do it now, before you get distracted by something and forget. $10 may not seem like a lot, but it’ll pay for food for one day for a homeless kid. And if just one kid can have the guarantee that he’ll have food in his belly every day, no matter what, life will be a little less complicated. Thanks.

SHABAMBO!

-Tellman

Among the greatest inventions of all time, it would be unfair not to mention the printing press, the cotton gin, penicillin, the light bulb, Nintendo, nachos and democracy. But I need to add one more iconic, important item to the list: duct tape.

Seriously, is there anything duct tape can’t do? When we were on the road, we went through a dozen rolls of the stuff in a few months. The rolls we kept in the back of the RunTellmanRun van were used the most heavily, for sure. Dean and Chuck used the “Gray Miracle” daily.

Here are the top 5 ways RunTellmanRun uses duct tape on the road:

1. Foot repair. Before we discovered the wound-closing powers of Gorilla Glue, Dean would throw a patch of duct tape on the sole of my foot if I was bleeding after a run. A tape that sticks to cinder blocks just as well as human skin is amazing.
2. Door repair. When the door to the family RV wasn’t latching properly, it was duct tape to the rescue. Ditto for the shower door.
3. Dean repair. When Dean broke his leg just before Christmas, we thought about putting him in a duct cast. He went for the real deal, though, at the hospital. Wuss.
4. Bicycle accessory attachment. Water bottles, medical supplies, flashlights, food… Dean carried a lot of stuff with him on his bicycle. When the saddlebags overflowed, duct tape took care of buisness.
5. Battery containment. We had a lot of small, battery operated gizmos on the road. With daily abuse, the battery compartment cover was usually the first thing to break. Nothing a 5-inch piece of Duck couldn’t handle.

Remember, if you can’t Duck it…

SHABAMBO!

-Tellman

Isn’t it funny how you can develop a close bond with an old car?

Of course in my case, it’s not a car – it’s a Recreational Vehicle (an “RV” we call it in the biz). I bought two used RVs last summer in preparation for the barefoot run across the country. One would house me and my family and the other would (try to) contain the crew.

I couldn’t afford brand new, so I bought two well-loved Majestic RVs from a Cruise America dealership outside Washington D.C. Ben and Luke flew down and picked the beasts up, driving them about 12 hours back to Vermont. They made it one piece without breaking down. “We’re off to a good start,” I thought.

A few weeks later, the crew and I went on a week-long test run through New Hampshire. We made it to Keene, NH the first day and parked the twins in a Wal-Mart parking lot. The thermometer topped out at 90 degrees that day. At about 3 p.m. the generator on the crew RV went pffftt putttput brrrbbll pfttttttt, and died. No air conditioning and no power.

That was Day 1.

Over the course of the next 4 months, “Crew” and “Family” — those were our nicknames for the Majestic RVs — would give us all manner of pain and pleasure. There were the good times: playing cards all night in Crew, or enjoying a pleasant night’s sleep on the double bed in the rear of family. There were the bad times: driving Family to the closest RV repair shop about 2 hours away from our location in rural West Virginia to get a new starter for the generator.

But the ups and downs are what solidifies a bond between man and machine. That ‘ol Majestic RV parked on my front lawn is part of the family now.

SHABAMBO!

-Tellman

P.S. All the repairs to the RVs come out of my pocket. That new starter for the generator? Well, it wasn’t cheap. But for just $5, you can feed a kid at Covenant House in New York City a warm meal. Can you help? Please head to http://www.runtellmanrun.com/donate right now.

It’s been snowing (with a little bit of rain and sleet thrown in) nonstop in Vermont for the past 3 days, and it’s still coming down hard. It’s not supposed to stop for at least another 2 days.

I looked out my office window this morning to check on Bessie, the RunTellmanRun RV, and noticed that the hedges along the edge of my yard are completely crushed. Whereas they stood eight feet tall a few days ago, they are now about two feet tall, pigpiled by 18″ of wet, heavy snow. Daaang. Luke, our PR guy who lives north about 20 minutes, said his house is cocooned in a snowy tomb this morning after all the snow slid off his roof and piled up against his windows. In Ohio, where our Chief Sponsorship Gal Melissa resides, they’re digging out of some major accumulation. Even Chuck, my trainer who lives in Arkansas, is dealing with more snow than he can remember.

I heard that last week, save Hawaii, every state in America had snow on the ground.

When I hear a stat like that, I can’t help but think of homeless kids on the streets. When every single state in continental America is dealing with snow, every single homeless kid in continental America is struggling with suitable housing to get through the winter.

Fortunately, there are shelters like Stepping Stone in State College, Pennsylvania that cater to the 21-and-under homeless population. Unfortunately, scaled-back funding for these types of programs is becoming commonplace in today’s bleak economy. More and more, shelters that house kids during the dead of winter need private funding.

RunTellmanRun is proud to support shelters like Stepping Stone. Help us help homeless kids by donating $25 right now, before you close this window and it skips your mind. Just head to http://www.runtellmanrun.com/donate. $25 could mean the difference between a cold night on the streets and a warm bed in a shelter. Thanks.

-Tellman

P.S. We finally got Ben out of Bessie’s driver seat. We can’t get him to take off his Native sunglases, though — he wants to get back out on the road real bad. So do I.

I spend a lot of time on my iPhone. Too much time, most would say. My Motorola Bluetooth Active is always in my ears when I’m out running.

I’m reaching out to you guys – to anyone who may be reading this – to see if anyone knows of any iPhone apps that expedite donations to non-profits. So many people have iPhones, and the Droid is taking off as well, that I think it’s an excellent way to reach the wired world. I thought it was brilliant the way people could text a $10 donation to help the victims of the Haitian earthquake.

How ’bout it? Do you know of any examples of philanthropic iPhone or Droid apps? My hope is that we can eventually get something like this going for RunTellmanRun, but I want to put out some feelers and get some insight from y’all.  You guys have come up with some brilliant suggestions in the past and I appreciate the help.

Now, where’s my Motorola Bluetooth Active?…

SHABAMBO!

-Tellman

P.S. While we may not have “text to donate” capabilities, you can quickly and easily donate $10 to help homeless youth in America by going to http://www.runtellmanrun.com/donate. Thanks.

Ladies and Gentlemen: another guest post from our friend Ben…

I have this cap. It’s a wool Stormy Kromer cap.

It’s DUMPING snow right now in Vermont, and I wore my Stormy Kromer when I walked down to the knitting store this morning. Walking and thinking, I had an idea that, in a way, running across the country barefoot is a lot like my old Stormy Kromer cap.

About a century ago, Mr. Kromer designed this cap to stay on his head when frigid arctic wind was blasting through his locomotive cabin. His old caps kept blowing away, so he designed one that would stay put no matter how fiercely the wind blew.

When Tellman was running across New Jersey, Pennsyvlania, West Virginia and Ohio, he had a lot of “wind” trying to blow him off course. There was the poor road surfaces, the bad weather, the near-constant pain and injury, the naysayers saying he was “crazy”, the bad drivers… the list goes on. But like an old Stormy Kromer, he stayed on.

Granted, a persistent heel injury and an evaporated budget eventually did force us to return to Vermont last month. But ya know what? Once in a great while my cap gets blown off. I pick it up, dust the snow off, and put it back on. Tellman’s the same way – he’ll be back out on the road soon, logging barefoot miles and raising money for homeless kids in America, picking up right where he left off.

His persistence (some call it stubbornness, but there’s a difference) has always amazed me, and I’ve known Tellman a long time.

I know there are kids on the street in America with no place to go, and yet they continue on like an old Stormy Kromer. Despite the odds, kids like Caleb, a former resident of the Stepping Stone youth shelter whose parents both passed away when he was young, stay on during “rough winds.” I hope you’ll consider donating $10 right now at http://www.runtellmanrun.com/donate so we can give those kids an even better chance of surviving the wind.

Thanks,
Ben

If you asked me, “Tellman, if you were stuck on a desert island and you could only have one item from home, what would it be?” I’d say, “hot sauce.”

But if you asked me, “Tellman, if you were out running a marathon every day doing a barefoot run across the country and you could only have one item, what it be?”

I’d say, “Easy. Vaseline.”

See, there’s a certain amount of chafeage that comes with running long distances. And by “certain amount”, I mean a freakin’ lot. I’ll spare you the intimate details of where the chafeage occurs, and save you the description of its visual impact on those areas. All you need to know is that it’s not comfortable, and if it’s serious enough it can sideline me for a few days.

Thankfully, some genius invented a petroleum jelly and named it Vaseline. I buy it in small squeeze tubes for portability purposes. But believe me, I’d buy 5- gallon tubs of this stuff at Costco and hook it up to a beer keg tap if I had room in the RunTellmanRun van.

Hope this wasn’t too much information for you – just trying to offer some insight into life on the road. Anyhoo, whuddya think of Luke’s Vaseline song?

SHABAMBO!

-Tellman

Ben, our navigator/driver on the road, had a birthday last week. I’d tell you his age, but Ben doesn’t “age” in the traditional sense. In fact, on February 18 every year, Ben doesn’t get a year older… February 18 gets a year Ben’r. Yeah, think about that one.

Anyhoo, my wife Jodi and I were trying to decide what to get Ben for his big day, and we couldn’t get past the Utilikilt idea. Utilikilts ARE Ben. Nobody rocks ‘em harder.

Don’t you dare call Ben’s pant-substitute a skirt, though. That there is a kilt, with utility-like overtones (that’s probably how they came up with the name).

While Ben gets to make a fashionable choice rooted in his Scottish heritage when getting dressed in the morning, there are millions of kids in America who don’t have that luxury. When we visited youth shelters along our route, we heard from employees that clean clothes (in addition to bedding) were what kids needed most when they first arrived. $25 can go a long way in clothing a homeless teen. Can you help? How ’bout right now?

Please head to http://www.runtellmanrun.com/donate.

Happy B-Day, Ben.

SHABAMBO!

-Tellman

Ben, rockin' his Utilikilt in Pottsville, PA.

Guest post from Ben

I had the weirdest dream the other night.

I dreamed that Luke and I were driving along the interstate in a Kia Rondo. We were driving from Vermont to West Virginia to meet up with some crazy dude who was running barefoot across America to raise money for homeless youth. Hootie and the Blowfish kept playing on the radio. We hurtled west in that Kia Rondo for about 13 hours.

Once we arrived at our destination, Miss West Virginia was waiting for us, wearing her tiara and everything. Chuck was there, and Dean too.

Wait a minute… that wasn’t a dream. That really happened! The Rondo, Miss WV, Chuck and Dean, it was all just another day on the road with RunTellmanRun. Wow.

I’m going back to bed.

-Ben

P.S. The youth homelessness problem in America is not a dream, however. Good kids with real problems are alone on the street with no place to sleep. The good news is that $35 can get a kid warm bedding at a shelter like Covenant House in New York. For a kid who has slept in an alleyway, a bed with clean sheets and a warm blanket is a truly precious gift. Please go to http://www.runtellmanrun.com/donate and donate $35 right now.