Today was no fun...
I was rather tired, and I took another route that turned out to have a very rough surface: the roughest parts of my previous runs are like the smoothest I encountered today.
Impossible to keep my HR on or below MAF.
Running in BelgiumAnn
I didn't run for two weeks because... well, things happened, and they are too boring and complicated to explain ;-)
Back on track now... I repeated the same scheme I did during my last run, and it went fine, although my right calf felt a little bit stiff today.
About 6 week of transitioning to barefoot-running. Today I really needed a run, and so after a few run/walk intervals I decided to ditch that Start2run scheme that I'm using (Belgian lookalike of the C25K), and just run as long as it felt good, and to keep my HR around MAF. TMTS or the right decision? I think it turned out to be the latter: during that first longer running-interval (about 11 minutes instead of the 5 my scheme dictated), I felt some ache in my left ankle. I tried to adjust my form, and suddenly not only the pain was gone, but running felt so much smoother... It was like I could go on and on... (but although I didn't follow the intervals of my scheme, I tried not to run farther than it said)... And when I finally arrived at the dreaded chip&seal at the end of my run, even that felt smooth!!! I finally think I dare say I'm a bit of a barefoot-runner!
Petco Run/Walk/Wag 5k
Awesome!! If chip seal felt smooth it sounds like you mastered soft landings! Now if you could teach me!
bob e v 2014 goals: keep on running! Is there anything more than that?
Complete the last 3 races in the Austin Distance Challenge, Rogue 30k, 3M Half, Austin Full
Break the 1000 mi barrier!
History: blessed heart attack 3/15/2008; c25k july 2008 first 5k 10/26/2008 on 62nd birthday.
Barefoot! Amazing. It was fun to read this thread.
Hi again, guys! Long time no talk to. I'm doing C25K again (third time?). I'm on week 1. It's going well, but it's very clear how out of shape I've gotten. I broke my foot last year and just never got back to working out. I signed up for an October 27th 5k as motivation. I'll have to walk part of it, but that's okay, right?
Call me Ray (not Ishmael)
First barefoot run in the rain... And first barefoot run in the cold - OK, 11°C/52°F isn't that cold, but during my previous barefoot runs the temperature was always over 18°C. And because of the rain (and it was pouring!) it felt even colder. My hands were cold, my face was cold (headwind during the second half of the run) and during the warm up and the cool down even my feet were cold. I can tell you that the hot bath afterwards even felt better than the run!
And like I noticed already during some earlier barefoot runs: I must speed up to keep my HR around MAF... it's still a very slow pace, but it feels good that I don't have to slow down anymore to keep it on MAF.
@Obiebyke: welcome back!
And sometimes, when you least expect it, a run just feels PERFECT. I didn't ran in the weekend, because I felt like I was getting a flu... cold, chilly, and tired, an achingh throath... And today it wasn't any better yet. But I didn't want to wait any longer, and decided I really had to run. And although I had a headwind in the first part, and the pavement was cold and wet with the rain that just came down, it was such an easy run. Everything felt so fine... My soles felt sensitive, not in a painfull way, but in the way they 'noticed' every small irregularity, and immediately adapted... even a pebble under the ball of my foot didn't hurt... A perfect MAF-run too... a HR that stayed just below MAF...
Ran 32 minutes, barefoot and on MAF.It felt like a really slow run, although it was far from my slowests... (I know that I AM slow, and in that respect 'I'm running on MAF pace is quite a nice excuse to hide that even on a higher HR I'm still having problems overtaking a slug... Which reminds me: among the wildlife I spotted today on my run, there were several slugs... and even a dragonfly, despite the low temperatures for this time of the year.)
Last year I kind of overtrained, and since I started running again afterwards, I really took care to take it slow...
And since I started running barefoot, it seems much easier to maintain a regular pace/a regular (low) HR.
First time that I ran barefoot in plain daylight... Quite a lot of bikers on the towpath, and I got the usual comments like 'Watch out for thumb nails!'