Splashing through puddles

Well we are less than a week away from our next half marathon, our next half being the Millarville Half Marathon. Information on it can be found at http://www.millarvillehalfmarathon.com/ . This half is a point to point from Black Diamond to the Millarville's Farmer's Market. This is the first year that they are doing it and it looks like it's going to be a fantastic race, although I must say that we have not been training enough for it.

I find though that I am definitely not a competitive runner. I mostly just want to run for fun. I'm sure I will improve as I run, but I'm not doing it for PRs or anything. Not that if I manage to PR that I'll be upset. No, I'll gladly take it. ;)

Anyways so back to running. Last week on Wednesday I believe, I went out running at lunch time. It has kinda been rainy and dreary all week, and that day was no exception. In fact I was kinda thinking that it was going to rain during my lunch run so I was getting myself mentally prepared for it. Thankfully though the rain stopped just before lunch and it was nice and warm out. I took full advantage of it.

I was trying out my wife's pair of Invisible Shoes Huaraches that she won off of Jeff's blog at Barefoot Inclined. Robbie tried the shoes and didn't really like huaraches, so I figured why not give them a try and see if I like them. Now these shoes were custom made for B's feet so I knew that they wouldn't fit exactly right but thankfully our feet are quite similar so they worked just fine. Oh and did I mention that they have bright pink laces? Super sexy for me to wear.



Anyways I was wearing huaraches with lots of puddles out and I was having a blast. All the other runners were running around the puddles, or even scaling small walls to avoid getting wet but I, with a big grin on my face, plowed straight through the middle. The joys of running barefoot or in minimal shoes.

Short review of the Invisible Shoes, keeping in mind they're not custom fit for me.
Pro: I love the feeling of being almost barefoot. My feet felt nice and free while protected at the same time. I loved the feeling and I'm definitely interested in trying it out more. Kinda trying to decide if I should adjust the shoes and run the half in them. Really interested in trying out other huaraches as well. I'm liking the look of Unshoes.
Con: The noise. I'm used to being super stealthy. The shoes slapped the ground with every step. Everyone heard me coming and I was much noisier than any other runner. Anyone else experience this or is my form just weird in huaraches? Another con was that I got blisters from wearing them. Not on my feet where the straps were, but on the bottom of my feet. I'm chalking that up to them not being the right fit for me. I could feel that they had a little too much wiggle room to them.

Anyways, cut to today. I had a long run planned today heading home from church. It ended up being about 11.7 miles and I fought the wind the entire way. Felt tougher than it needed to be, but I got it done. Because the pathway we run on to get home runs right next to the river, any time there is enough rain it floods. Today this was the case just past the zoo.



The river had flooded the banks and was spilling out onto the pathway. It was only for about 20 feet, but fairly deep, probably up to mid calf on me. No problem though as I just took off my shoes and ran through it barefoot. Fun times. So glad to be able to kick off my shoes and get a little wet. Everyone should feel the freedom to do so, but sadly I have seen enough uptight people who would never do that. Ah well. Their loss. :)

Are you a puddle splasher or do you purposely avoid them?


Kyle