Second barefoot race and 100mi total achieved

Today I ran my second race barefoot. It was a little slower than last week's race as planned following the 10 miler yesterday but I felt much stronger finishing. The mile splits were 9:36, 9:40, 9:20, 9:16, 8:06.

The race was organized by Achilles club and was full of very inspirational runners with assistive technology. In a way, not having shoes made me appreciate the difficulty running with less than ideal physical condition. I can imagine those adjusting to running in prosthetic limbs having to learn to run from scratch. Also the spectators were lot more enthusiastic than usual and accepting for my barefoot run. I did hear someone driving (!) shouting "what an idiot" to me. Ouch!

Btw I made it past 100mi mark this week. I remember when I was wondering if I could do 100mi in ALL of 2008. So far so good.

Also most notably the regular calf pain after the runs is gone which is a huge improvement. Looks like my calf muscles have adapted to not having heels raised. On blister front, the last one I got was during my only shoe run in months (need for speed relay race I ran in near 100 degrees). No blisters on sole during the two longish runs this weekend. Of course I haven't really tested running barefoot in very hot weather yet. (The vibrams do leave very painful blisters on back of the feet and I need to do something about them. )


Barefoot running count: 110mi (incl 26mi in vibram)