Friday, April 30, 2010

Healing

I am supposed to be starting stage 2, explained here, today, but since my feet still hurt I had to refrain from running. I really wanted to, but I don't want to hurt myself more and set myself back more. Darn.

I tried to run outside on the asphalt, but my feet were still hurting, so I stopped before I hurt myself more.

I did however try running in place to 200 steps per minute. This felt surprisingly different than my previous barefoot running experiences. I noticed I placed a lot of the force on my fourth and fifth metatarsals as opposed to it being on my first and second. I also noticed the muscles on the bottom of my foot working harder than before. I tried to be as loosy goosey as possible.

After about 10 minutes of running to the 200 bpm cadence, my feet hurt. I stretched and stretched and stretched, essentially following these stretches. After all that stretching the tennis ball trick made my feet feel so much better. I am not experiencing top-of-the-foot pain yet... kind of waiting on it. I need to stretch more before and after my runs though. I need to force myself to do this!

Tomorrow I have an 8 hour drive, then rafting Sunday. I might blog those days, might not.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

A Blister In The Sun

Yesterday I had a bit of a pitfall in barefoot running. I decided to run a mile around my girlfriends neighborhood around noon. I got to about 3/4 of a mile and I noticed the ground was a bit hot. I ran a little faster to get out of the hot spot, but I couldn't find a spot that was cool. Not one shadow was on the ground. As the heat grew, I ran off the road into some grass, which was almost equally as hot. Here's my run.

I then had to run back inside to relax. By then I knew something was wrong. I looked down at my feet and... blistered, right between my big toe and second toe. My medic bandaged me up so we could go camping later.

Me looking like a dork

We went up to DeSoto Falls, parked her truck in front of a campsite and attempted to start a fire. The sticks were too wet, so we ended up just cooking hotdogs over some cardboard boxes she had in her truck. We then slept in the tent and came home.

Today, after a shower and a trip to the hot tub, my feet are at about 75%. Hopefully they will be better tomorrow so I can get a short run/walk in before work.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Ouchies!

Day 4, Tuesday, I spent a lot of time doing things barefoot, but didn't really do anything too adventurous, due to inclement weather(this is why we didn't go camping or hike Blood Mountain). I did, however, take my girlfriend walking with me barefoot. I explained very clearly to her that I am not advocating barefoot anything yet, since I am not experienced in it. She saw no harm in walking with me though.

Toward the end of our walk she asked me about barefoot running and I explained the forces and how they react with your feet, such as the shock involved with a heel-strike over the shock involved with a front-foot strike, which is explained nicely here and below.



Day 5 was much more exciting. We decided to go run with my parents at Yahoola Creek Park. I thought it would be neat to use my iPhone for something other than calling people, so we used RunKeeper to track our distance, speed, and other statistics. Here's my run!

We found a cool wall of rock!

Before I ran I had no idea how far I was going to go. I wanted to keep it light, but I also wanted to push myself a little further than before. Thankfully, Whitney likes to do run/walks, so we spent a lot of the time just running to a point, walking up to another point, then running again.

Nothing says nature like a vintage refrigerator...

This was great fun, but I felt my feet hurting, mainly my right big toe. I had a friction spot there and it eventually rubbed raw. I ran through it though and turned out alright.




We also went exploring and found a "secret spot". It was at the last place my RunKeeper tracked me(I accidentally closed out of it after that). This place had some cool granite walls and an old refrigerator!

After that I came home and washed my boo-boo, realized that it still had dirt in it, and had my medic take care of it. She did great. :)


Now I am torn between whether or not I want to run today. My toe doesn't hurt, but I know if I don't give it time to heal it will never get better. Maybe I will run with the band-aid on and really try not to mess up the band-aid(this will help me anyway).

Until next time... RUN ON!

Sunday, April 25, 2010

River Walk

Today was a killer day for barefoot life! I did a lot of walking on not so comfortable terrain and didn't suffer too bad.

My girlfriend and I started by going out to Dick's Creek. It was much higher than she remember, but this was due to last nights tornado watches.

Then we stopped by a local gas station + restaurant and ate some BBQ. It was the best I have had in a long time.

We then went to DeSoto Falls. This was my biggest barefoot feat. We got out of the car and I walked around a bit, felt I could do it some more, so we walked to the middle fall. It was about 1.5 miles round-trip on gravel and dirt. The actual trail felt great, but the small pebbles they put down for the old people made some of the walk uncomfortable. I figured what doesn't kill me makes me stronger.

We finished that and stopped by Bogg's Creek. We just got out of the car and touched our feet in it. There really wasn't much to do there.

Finally, we stopped by the Chestatee River. We stuck our feet in, played in the sand, drove down the street some more, and went to another spot we could get in. The river was so high that it covered 3 steps and the sandbags that are usually visible. Silly rain.

Thankfully, I was able to do this barefoot with no problem. Yes, it hurt and I am sure some endorphins kicked in on that gravel, but it is definitely getting easier.

Tomorrow, we are supposed to camp out. We plan on hiking Blood Mountain. I hope to do this barefoot, but I am not sure since it is longer and has more sharp rocks. I will carry some Crocs in my bag just in case.

I am mad that I didn't take any pictures today, but I didn't want my phone's battery to die.

So until tomorrow(or possibly the day after)... RUN ON!

Friday, April 23, 2010

Through Destruction Comes Creation

So last night I decided to try running barefoot for my first time. I ran around North Georgia College and State University's Drill Field. It felt surprisingly free and hurt a lot less than I thought.
The drill field is probably 1/4 mile with a smoothly paved road and sidewalk. I decided to stop since I was just taking a break from my studies and didn't want to do too much too fast.
Today I started training with a modified version of Jason Robillard's schedule, which is located here. The only reason I have modified this schedule is due to the time until my first 5k I intend on running, which is...

Dahlonega's Saving The Girls 5k!

This event is on June 26, which is about 9 weeks away.

I understand that I should not be rushing things. I don't want to, but I need some motivation and I think 9 weeks of training for a little event will be good for me. I have emailed the coordinator of the event for more details on location and terrain.
  • Stage 1 and 2 - 2 weeks: A lot of walking around barefoot with some occasional running.
  • Stage 3 - 2 weeks: Run every other day, increasing 1/8 miles when appropriate. I probably won't keep exact track of this since I intend on running in my neighborhood and local areas, but I will try to restrain from hurting myself and overdoing it.
  • Stage 4 - 2 weeks: Run trails one day, road the next. I will be running around 1.5 miles a day working hard on my form and increasing distance.
  • Stage 5 - 3 weeks: By this time I should be running 3 miles, if not getting close to it. I plan on slowing increasing my pace at this time while still working on my form.
On another running note, I bought Jason Robillard's book, The Barefoot Running Book. It looks to be a great read!

Okay, well until later... RUN ON!