BIG HEAD little arms

My wife likes to tease me with this. She even pulls her arms in close and waves them around, all stumpy like.

I don't have a lot of reach.

I've been blaming this mostly on all the extra padding, that makes less reach available. But I don't know. Maybe I just really don't have a lot of arm.

When I do yoga, I have to use blocks whenever the pose requires that I reach, well, anything.

I've gotten pretty good with the blocks, so it's ok. I wonder, though, if there'll ever be a time when I don't need the blocks.

I wonder if I'll ever have enough reach on my own.

In other news!

Last Friday we stopped in at the Fleet Feet downtown.

I had posed a question to the Twitterverse about using my Nike+ sensor chip with my Vibrams and I got an answer direct from the horse's mouth (so to speak). I wanted to check it out myself, and, since we were downtown, we stopped in.

After I finished shopping, I dropped the bag in the car & my wife suggested I pop across the street to a different kind of store, since they were having a sidewalk sale.

I glanced up the street towards the oncoming traffic and noted that the light holding traffic back was about to change and took off running across the street.

In flip flops and jeans.

And didn't fall on my face.

Or get run over.

And it felt... Natural.

And I totally declared that an NSV.

Jayrunning.

Hey, I couldn't have done that mere months ago.

Wouldn't even have tried.

And that was kind of awesome.

Help!

I need some advice in a couple of areas. I'm going to bullet them for your convenience.

1. Socks with Vibrams: Does anyone do this and/or have recommendations for brands/styles? Cold season is coming up, and I imagine they'll be needed. Also because the Vibrams sometimes feel sticky gross, and it seems like it'd be nicer to have some fabric in there. I am prepared to be wrong.

2. Is there anywhere that lists all the races & events going on? I've noticed that it's certainly not active.com or dailymile. But where? Do I just need to figure out what websites list races and then cobble the information together myself? Because that would suck!

3. I have no clue how to run at a pace. My natural setting is "fastest", but, obviously, I burn out quickly. I can't run at a given pace, even if it "feels like" I'm running the same speed as last time. Clearly this is an issue, but how do I fix it?