Got my longest run in yet in my Bikila's - 13.1 mi running the Decker Challenge half marathon. Its a very hilly, challenging course. Longest run in the Bikila's prior to this was 8 mi so it was a with a wing and a prayer that I tried using them.  I ran a low heart rate race running most of the way except on steeper hill sections. Starting temp was about 38F with wind gusts to 20 mph, wind chill around 29. Things went well until between mi 7 & 8 when the ball of my left foot behind the big toe started to hurt, like it was bruising. I adjusted foot strike a bit to ease the pressure on that point. There some short steep hills between mi 8 & 9 that I had to walk on, then a long steep hill at mi 10 that I walked up more than half of. When I got to the top the pain was easing off. Then some rolling hills between mi 11 & 12 gave me some walk breaks. The last mile and a half was uphill but shallow enough that I ran the whole distance, finishing strong with increasing speed and no foot pain. I beat my stretch goal of 3:15 by finishing in 3:11, with 20 people still behind me. Oh, I got passed in the last 1/2 mi by a marathoner in Bikila's! LOL he did the double Decker! God Bless him going around that circuit twice!

Post race - feet and lower legs were sore most of the afternoon. More than they were with my previous three shod races. To be expected I guess since I hadn't really prepped them to go that far. Still I feel good about how it went. Still love the VFF's. Now need to get more distance in the Springs and Huaraches!

Post race report. Well the race started to do a number on my right Achilles tendon. I felt it twinge during Sun night bio breaks and intermittently Mon morning. Stupidly went running Tue morning. No pain during run but it started twinging again in the afternoon. No pain Thur so went for a run on Fri and felt so good I did a challenging 3rd mi hill. Pain back in the afternoon. So did some research. My conclusion is its early in the injury and probably caused by multiple factors. Not going long enough in preparation for the half. Longest run was 8 mi and that was in the Bikilas. I was thinking that since base mileage was significantly more than I built to for previous halves it was ok. Well it got me to the finish, but probably added to the strain on the tendon due to the jump in time on feet. Add to that challenging the hills on a hilly course, combined with flat shoes it aggravated the Achilles tendon. Didn't help that I challenged hills again on Fri. I iced it Sat, took Naproxen Fri night and Sat. Went for a more walk than run easy outing yesterday morning, no pain. Iced it, took Naproxen in the morning, nothing at night. No pain all night. Think I am catching it early,

Lesson for me at least. Even with over 200 combined miles in Vibram's, bf, and Huaraches, I needed to go longer before taking on an endurance race again. That was one of my retirement goals that I will have to enforce! Surprisingly, after retirement, I have found I have less control over how I spend my days than when I was working... to many women in my life (DW and DD the pregger [twin boys due Mar] who lives nearby with SIL)... sigh