So I wasn’t running for over three months… I was running rather consistently in the first months of this year, and trying to follow most of Ph. Maffetones advice. Meanwhile, I tried to make a transition to barefoot running by adding more barefoot-yards to each run. During the last weeks, I could easily run about one mile barefoot on rough asphalt.
Never felt sore calves during that process, maybe because I had been focusing on ‘barefoot form’ while running shod in the cold wintermonths.
But then my garden started asking for my time… From the beginning of spring, I spend hours after work in my garden, and I didn’t find the time to run, unless I let go of some sleeping hours (which I needed too).
And now, back home from our tour through the South-West of the USA, I’m starting to run again, but (only) barefoot this time...
I ran barefoot about 100 yards on Monday evening, and 200 yards on Tuesday morning.
Unlike it was in early spring, when I was adding barefoot meters to my normal runs, my calves felt a bit sore now, probably because I haven’t been running for a few months. I guess it makes sense to transition like I’m doing now, by only running barefoot, but on the other hand… running only a couple of hundreds of yards feels so…. so nothing…
It is hard to resist the temptation to run farther than I have been told to do in the first days of my transition…
Yesterday, I went out again, and I only ran slightly more than early this week, but after about half of the distance, I had a mental image of a child, running happily, just for the joy of moving.
More or less consciously I tried to mimic the posture of that child… Only slight adaptations of the form I was running in, but for one reason or another it made a huge difference in how my running felt… And in only seconds I felt joyous like a child, and ended my short run with a big, big smile on my face…
(Oh yes… no sore calves today.)
Running in BelgiumAnn
Half Fanatic #846
Good job, Ann!
Before long, those short little jaunts will become longer ones.
Sounds like you have adopted a natural running form.
Bill
"I don't always roll a joint, but when I do, it's usually my ankle" - unk. "Frankly autocorrect, I'm getting a bit tired of your shirt". I ran half my last race on my left foot!
not bad for mile 25
Yes, let us strive to run like children!
Your post makes me happy.