Contest for FREE Blue Ridge Marathon entry!

As you may or may not know, I'm setting my sights on the Blue Ridge Marathon in April next year. It's going to be my 1st barefoot marathon.

The course looks spectacularly beautiful. Like forget your finish time and stop to soak it all in beautiful. Sure, there's a hill or two. OK, there's over 6000 ft of elevation change, half of that being uphill. Well, up-mountain. Awesome.

So, you want to run it with me... for free? No, I won't make you take off your shoes. Run in stilts if you want; I don't care. All you have to do is:

1. send me an email (inkyd at rocketmail.com) with Blue Ridge Marathon in the subject line OR leave a comment in the (where else?) comment section.
2. Answer this question: What was your WORST pre-race meal?
3. Deadline: Oh, let's say by midnight, Oct. 11. 10/11. Nice and binary.

I'll be doing the random # generator thing to declare the winner.

Personally, I've eaten many different foods before running, as I'm a gluttonist pig. But the worst experience I've had was running 3 miles in the hot afternoon after eating some chicken, beans, and rice. I didn't puke, but it was touch-and-go the entire time. Not very exciting; surely you can do better.

Dirty, Gnarly Feet

I saw this clip on MSNBC about barefoot running this morning. Watch it if you feel your IQ needs to be knocked down a couple of notches. It's the usual BS about glass and grody (remember grody? Ah, the 80's). Re glass, I'd like to ask: how do you know there's glass on the ground? Because you can see it. If you can see it, why on earth would you step on it?

But that's not what I'm focusing on today. "Dr." Nancy asked the pseudo barefoot runner (he said at the end his fiance makes him wear Vibram's most of the time) to show his feet. his soles, which looked a little dirty from walking barefoot on the studio floors but otherwise fine, weren't even in the frame before the "Dr." said, "eewww, those are some gnarly feet you have."

Here is my right gnarly foot as of this morning before I ran:



A closeup of the main area of contact with the ground:


No calluses, nothing grody as far as I can tell.

I went for an easy two miler with the wife through town. Here's what they look like after:



The longer the run, the darker the gunk on my feet. Today is supposed to be a rest day, so two miles is all you're getting. But you get the gist. The light patches are the dry, tougher spots where my feet bear the brunt of my weight. People tend to think they are calluses when I show them my soles during/after a run. They're not; I think that's just what happens, unless calluses disappear after a couple of minutes of scrubbing with soap and water:



and a closeup:



If you would like to use my feet for foot modeling, I'll put you in contact with my agent.

Bear in mind, this is after 225 barefoot miles in two and a half months, almost entirely on asphalt and concrete. Add to that the few long runs on gravel paths wearing minimalist shoes.

Questions for shod runners: how often do you clean your feet? Is the road really more grody than the inside of your petri-dish of bacteria shoes? How do they smell? Are you starting to feel swindled yet?

The numbers are in

from the Twin City Track Club:

Official time: 44:42
34th out of 507
4th in my age/gender group (!)

Well I'm all puffed up like some deadly but delicious Japanese delicacy.

10k PR

44:55ish. I decided to go for speed instead of education (and, frankly, I wasn't in the mood to be a spectacle), so I wore the aqua socks ($6). I felt I was definitely hitting the ground harder than I would have if barefoot, even though I really tried to focus on lifting the feet and being quiet.

It was a good cardio workout. I kept a consistent, mildly anaerobic pace (I think).

Can you tell I'm looking forward to the next road race? Don't get me wrong, I love the trails, and the organizers at Twin City Track Club run a first-rate operation. Trails are just tough, and I don't want anyone hearing me say "ouch."

Next weekend is the Triple Lake Trail Race. I'm doing the half marathon, despite what the website says. I'm familiar with this course, and it's tough. I'm going for a finish without injury goal.

Oh, and how about me being all speedy today? I should break a toe more often. It's fine, by the way.

On the rocks

Ken Bob recommends learning how to run barefoot on the rockiest, most uncomfortable terrain you can find. I'm finding there's more to that than just "if you can do it here, you can do it anywhere."

Normally, my approach to dealing with a gravel path is to try to run on it as if I'm running on pavement. This never works, and I always assumed it was because I wasn't relaxed, that I tensed up once the road got tough. That's probably part of it, but I think there's more.

I went for a 3miler with Iris this morning. In the middle of it were some of our local gravelly road goodness. I had to step extra light, because today it was like someone had scattered the rocks over the smooth ground. When it's all rock, it's not as bad because there's some give if you step on a rock that protrudes. When you step on a rock not supported by anything but the ground, the give has to come entirely from the runner.

Once past the gravel section of the route, I thought I'd try to run on the pavement as if I was running on the gravel (instead of the other way around, as mentioned before). I think I let my feet get too far in front of me, but there was ZERO noise coming from my foot contacting the ground. At one point I even tilted my ear to my feet, straining to hear a sound. Nothing. I felt like a wheel. I even sprinted a bit in this fashion - only at the peak of the acceleration did I hear the lightest sound of my feet tapping the ground.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the shoe companies do know what they're doing, and I just haven't been exposed to the evidence. But man, this is fun.

Getting faster

when i should be taking it easy.

I almost didn't run today, figuring I shouldn't push the toe, not quite perfect ankle, etc. But the weather is so nice and crisp, it was overcast, and I had absentmindedly put on my running shorts and watch already. Seriously. I was all, "hm, should I run today? Probably not. Oh, look! I'm in my running clothes! How did that happen?"

Yeah, I've got issues.

So I step out. The cool asphalt feels really nice. And... I'm off.

I don't stretch. Not in any focused way. I figure if something feels tight, then I should relax it. I feel loose almost right away, legs feeling springy and awake. Soooo, I figure I can pick up the pace a bit. So long as my feet are quiet.

It turns into my first barefoot tempo run. I've done some mild fartleking, but never a maintained speed. Everything feels ok, so I decide to see how fast I can run my local 3.5 miles...

Turns out to be 27:41. Not too bad, considering I haven't done any real speed work in months. My fastest barefoot run by far. I'm starting to grok the "lead with the hips" concept, and my feet feel great. It's scary, though. I feel a little out of control, making it hard to relax. I can hear the difference - when I'm tense, I hear my feet. Relaxed, I sound like a ninja at a quiet convention.

Funny, I don't feel that much of a difference in my feet. I wonder if they're overly-toughened. I wouldn't be surprised, considering how flagrantly I've ignored all advice to take it easy and go slow.

Oh well. I am what I am.

To balance out

the hippyness of that last post, I'd like to say I hope Marquez schools Mayweather Jr.