Long run in the sun

Crazy Medusa Hair

We have been having the best weather ever. Saturday was warm, like shorts and t-shirt warm, which in Calgary is really anything over 10°C. The kids had choir in the morning so I had planned to run home from church on Sunday, but the weather was calling my name. It was too beautiful. I couldn't waste the day. I packed up my things and I was heading out the door the second Kyle got home. I decided to run along the river towards downtown. I have longed since last summer to run from Edworthy park to downtown.

I decided that I was going to try and get in some barefoot miles but I wanted a light backup shoe to put on in the places where the path is very rough. I packed my invisible shoes, and Kyle's KSOs. I was going to hook the shoes into my fuel belt. At the last moment I decided to ditch the KSOs because they were weighing my belt down and I didn't want to be that heavy. I tucked my invisible shoes into my belt and headed off barefoot and feeling very light.

I ran towards Edworthy Park first and encountered lovely smooth pavement for the first while. It was great fun, there were so many people out enjoying the beautiful weather. The paths were quite packed and at times I had to run along the grass you get around large groups. My feet felt great, I am amazed at how much more I love to run without shoes, even minimalist shoes. The downside to beautiful weather this early in the year is that the paths aren't cleared of the tiny painful rocks that the city uses as traction during the winter. I encountered small sections of these tiny rocks (pea gravel I think) again and again. At first I thought about stopping and putting on my invisible shoes but then my pride overruled me and I ran on. I didn't want to have everyone see that I had to use shoes just to get past some silly rocks. The first section was intense. I told myself to relax and let my foot spread out so that I had the most surface area spread out. With each section I felt less pain and I really started to get a hang of the technique of running over the sharp little rocks. I got to the park and had to turn around to head back towards downtown. I ran over the sharp rocks and felt like a stinking rock star.

2 miles barefoot

I continued towards downtown and the path changed. It went from smooth new pavement to old worn down broken up chip seal. I haven't run on this kind of path yet without my shoes. I didn't think that today was the day to do so. I grabbed out my invisible shoes and slipped them on. I had pre-tied them so it was simple and easy to get them on. Automatically I felt the protection for my feet but I also noticed that they felt floppy. It almost felt like I had to scrunch my toes to keep the shoes on. I had them tied on quite tight and the strap was bugging me a bit. Not much at the start of the run but by the time I was done running oh man my feet felt that strap. I ran another 2 miles felling great. I saw lots of different runners and noticed that most looked in pain, like they were training really hard. Now I don't train hard, in my opinion. I run for fun and don't like to be uncomfortable while I do it. I think that is something that drew me to barefoot running. I was smiling from ear to ear just taking in the beautiful day and feeling so grateful to be running. I took my shoes off again as I got closer to downtown and the path changed to smooth new pavement again. I ran across the new peace bridge. It was so crowded that running on the sidewalk was nearly impossible. I had to run in the bike lane. The sidewalk was super smooth and felt amazing to my bare feet and the bike path was rough but not unpleasant. I ran across and just past and then I turned around and headed back to my car. As I ran back a group of teen boys were skateboarding on the path and they high fived me and asked where my shoe were. I pointed to my invisible shoe tucked into my belt and kept running.

2 miles barefoot again.

I put my invisible shoes back on and started running down the beat up path again. Nothing really interesting to tell except that I really wanted to take my shoes off. The toe strap was starting to hurt and the tops of my second and third toes were hurting from scrunching my toes to keep my shoes on. By the end of my run my feet were sore and I wondered what I was thinking. I ended up with some pretty intense blisters right where the toe strap is on the bottom of the shoe. I also ended my run with the bottom of my foot covered in blood. The strap had dug into the space between my toes and cut it open. Ouch!! So now I am on the look out for a very light pair of shoes to pack with me when I run barefoot. I picked up a pair of Vibram Seeyas earlier this week but I haven't run in them yet. They are definitely light enough and they feel good on so I am hopeful that they may work.


Here's a lovely picture of my feet post run. The first foot had no problems, the second is my bloodied foot. Yikes.

So there you have. I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed this run. I am hopeful that I may be able to run the Harvest Half barefoot. I would love to do it barefoot. I am going to make sure to be careful and not over do it because I really really love running barefoot.

Robbie-Lynn


Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Enjoying the warm weather while it lasts

Today was another nice warm day here in Calgary. I believe at lunch time it was 10ºC out and so I decided to make the best of it. I put on a t-shirt (wicking of course as I'm a sweaty beast), shorts, compression sleeves. I grabbed my Stems and out the door I went. Very quickly after I started I decided that the shoes should come off, and so they did. It was beautiful weather for going barefoot. A couple of cool puddles of water here and there, but almost no snow on the pathway. There was one small section by the zoo that was snowy (and had lots of gravel on the pathway) and so my shoes went back on for that. It's so nice to have the freedom to slip shoes on and off whenever I felt like it and I'm certainly not complaining about the weather.

This was the path by the zoo on Monday. Today there was almost no snow. Woot!

I managed to get just under 5 miles in. My feet were doing pretty good. The old areas that were blistered basically had that old dead skin scraped off from the wet pathways. That was totally cool by me except the new skin underneath was still a little sensitive. I managed to get another small blood blister on the pad of my foot where the new skin was but otherwise my feet came out fantastic.

Small blister (underneath old big blister). Small price to pay.

I can tell you about one really interesting thing that I saw on my run. I was heading back to work and while I was running I saw two guys running towards me holding hands. This seemed very strange to me. I have never seen anyone running while holding hands with someone else. At first I thought it was two 'very proud' guys if you know what I mean. However as I got closer I realized that I had seen one of the guys before. I have taken the bus with him and he usually needs help from people to know what stop it is and he walks tapping a cane in front of him. This was a blind gentlemen who either had a friend or an aide who was helping him to run. How cool is that!!! I have never really thought about that before and so I thought that it was really awesome to see that blindness doesn't have to mean that this guy couldn't run.

Yes, I'm still alive

Wow. It has been far too long since I last posted. We have been busy with so many thing and unfortunately I just never made time to write. So while I'm currently waiting for a bus to arrive I thought I would start a blog post.

Since I last posted my knee has gotten much better. It no longer hurts when I run!!! Woot!! Loving that. Getting into a good groove running has been hard though. With our DNS of the Hypothermic Half there was really no huge momentum in training. Combine that with cold snowy weather and I just wasn't feeling it. However we now have a couple races in mind for the year including the Edmonton marathon in 23 weeks. Which means marathon training starts now. Looking forward to getting back into the swing of things for that.

Other things of note since I last wrote.... Let's see. Oh yeah. There was the one time that I was running in my water shoes around the neighborhood. It was a little icy out and I was running in the dark. Going along at a good clip when all of a sudden I kicked something with my foot and almost went down. Turns out there was a huge chunk of ice on the ground that was frozen to the sidewalk. When I kicked it, it didn't move. Ouch. Pretty sure that I broke my toe with that one. Thankfully it wasn't hurt bad enough to stop running. Laff

Nice big hard ice chunk. My water shoes offered me no protection.

Another warm day I went for a barefoot run and overdid it a little. Managed to get in 8 miles barefoot. Felt fantastic. However it was still a little cold out and so my feet were a little more numb than they should have been. This led to a little sloppy form and a huge blood blister across my right foot. Silly me, however I had so much fun going barefoot.

Mmmmm, blisters.

Had them for a little bit. Ah well

Other than that in terms of new shoes there hasn't been too much change. I got my pair of Neo Trails that I was lusting after but then returned them after realizing that I wouldn't really use them enough to justify having them. Instead I got a pair of Stem Footwear (now Leming Footwear). My Lemings are now my absolutely favorite pair of shoes ever. Great casual shoe, fun running shoe. I will post a review of them shortly.

My new favorite shoes. Sooo nice.

So there is a mini update on what is going on. Getting back on a running training plan and hopefully with it getting back into blogging more.

Mid-December Barefoot Run

I have to say that I am certainly loving the weather this year. Normally by this time we have tons of snow and -25° C cold snaps but this year it has been pretty mild. Weird considering how earlier this winter I heard a report that it was supposed to be a long and cold winter. I'll certainly be grateful for the weather we have so far either way.

Anyways so Monday comes along and I'm set to run outside. I have all my cold weather gear with me just like normal, however when lunch time comes I take a look an the temperature is a nice balmy 7-8°C outside. Lovely. I can shed a couple extra layers of clothing. So I head out wearing just my base layer top, base layer tights, bondiband and water shoes. No socks. Woot!!! I run for about a mile and I get a thought. It's pretty nice out, why not take off my shoes. Off come my shoes. The ground is a little cold but it felt so great to get out barefoot again. Even with the coldness my feet feel alive and loving every sensation. I'm running along the south side of the Bow River downtown and the pathway is clear of snow, just a couple of small icy patches. Absolutely lovely. Cross the river and discover that the City is much more deligent about putting gravel down on the pathway on the north side of the river. Silly city. I joked on facebook that they should be more considerate of all the people running barefoot along the pathways. In the middle of december. I guess we can't really expect that from them.

So nice!!!

I decided what the hey and ran along the gravel for a while. Uncomfortable but not really painful at first. Much better than what it used to be. Nice. I had to finally put on my water shoes again once it started getting painful. No need to be a hero, I like being able to walk without raw stinging feet. ;) All in all I got in about 6 miles total, with probably 4 miles of that barefoot. In the middle of December. Never thought I would be doing that before. I certainly envy other runners in much fairer climates who can run outside year round without fear of frostbite. Glad to have a nice day during the winter to enjoy. Here is to taking advantage of many more days like that.

Although I did manage to get a blood blister on my toe. Hazard of cold weather. Cold = less feeling and easier to hurt yourself without knowing.

Kyle Day 6 : The plus side of dirty feet

Went for another run at lunch time with Paul. Nice to get some more runs in, even if they are not the longest, it still feels great. This week I was able to get out Monday with the Barefoot Pack, Tuesday by myself for about 2.5 miles, today with Paul and I think I'll squeeze in another lunch time run tomorrow by myself.

 I have to say that barefoot running certainly has changed me and how I normally do things. If you have heard of the two kinds of runners, Cats (solitary runners) and Dogs (run with packs, love company) I definitely fall into being a Cat. I like running by myself as it lets me zone out and get some quiet time to myself. That's how I always did things.

Finding Paul and other barefoot runners to run with has been a refreshing change. It's nice to run with others as well. It's great to have someone else to ask questions of, to get advice from and also just to run with. I feel with barefoot running, rather than running in shoes (minimal or marshmallow), it all about connection and listening. You have to listen to your feet, listen to your whole body, watch your surroundings carefully and the tactile sensations from your feet let you connect with the ground so much more. It's pretty cool. With that in mind, I've been enjoying talking and meeting with other runners. I have also been running without headphones in. Not a big surprise when running with others, but when I ran by myself, I ran without headphones. And it felt great. I'm sure I'll still have runs where I want to zone out, but I'm enjoying connecting with everything now.

Anyways on to the run for today. It was just Paul and I today and we ended up running around 2.8 miles. Felt great with no blisters or hot spots afterwards. Got a couple of good tips from Paul also. I was asking about his shoes that he attached to his belt when he runs. I have my Vibrams attached to me whereas he just uses a pair of $8 Walmart water shoes. This is what he uses in the winter and he finds they work well. An additional use that he has for his walmart water shoes is that he will rip the upper off of them and using the sole, make a pair of Huaraches. Good timing with that because I was just looking at Invisible Shoes for Huaraches. This would be cheaper and homemade is cool.

Dirty feet. Also, happy feet.

Another tip that Paul gave me was that having dirty feet is a good thing. When checking your feet for damaged areas you look for red or white spots on your feet. Well when your feet are dirty you can double check it by looking for areas in which your feet are clean where they should be dirty. If you have rubbed off the dirt, you're rubbing those areas when you run. Adjust and move on. Definitely a good thing to know to try and get better form.

Paul and I after our run.

Kyle

Day 1 of Robbie's barefoot running

Hi all just a quick post to let you all know how my first run without my shoes went. It was cool out but I was ready at the door as soon as Kyle got home from work today. I started off my run in my Bikilas, mostly so my new neighbors wouldn't think I was nuts. I took them off .14 miles in and ran along the bike path in my neighborhood. It was great I learned from Kyle's earlier mistake and made sure to lift my feet from my hips and not push off with my big toe. I ran a mile barefoot and even encountered shattered glass across the path. I didn't panic but stepped lightly and avoided the glass the best I could. I hit a number of very small rocks that were painful but I brushed them off and continued on. After a mile I was feeling some numbness in my feet so I put on my Bikilas and continued on.
Total miles run: 3
Miles in minimalist shoes: 2
Miles barefoot: 1

Please note that the blister on the left is from running the half marathon in my normal shoes. I noticed a bit of redness on my second toe on the right but overall my feet feel great.