First WOD and a 4mi run in chilly 42degree rain

Running routine has slowed down a lot since the marathon. I ventured a run out in chilly rain at 42degrees.  The run was exact repetition of a similar run about a month back. The first two miles were pretty uncomfortable but then the leg warmed up and it was smooth sailing after that.  I need to find solution to the discomfort for first two miles as it feels pretty dangerous running in such state. On related note, the nice thick soles are degrading quickly. I am not sure if it is the sudden drop in running milage or abrasion in these chilly conditions. If the sole develop cracks that could be a problem. On the bright side, even the thin fresh skin on the blister area is holding up remarkably well so abrasion might be such a bad thing.

I did some strength workouts just before the run and decided to keep the run short. In particular, I did 40 air squats which I am not accustomed to and was hurting in thigh muscles. It was first of, hopefully, series of indoor workouts I plan to introduce as it gets too cold to run outside. This particular workout was part of a, so called, CrossFit, routine. CrossFit is workout routine which does NOT believe in routine. The basic idea is to do variety of strength training routines in tight timeframe so all body muscles are worked out, especially using routines which mimic real-life strength motions such as pullups, weightlifting, jumping etc. Interestingly enough, cross-fit is as opposite of marathon training as it is possible as it purely focuses on strength training. However, its workout do include 400meter sprints. 

Also open ended nature of the workout should make it possible for me to combine them during my runs. For example, on my short 4mi run today, I discovered the pullup bars in Arthur Ross Pinetum section of the part and did one (yes just one) pull up. There are no lights in that section and the whole part is damp with 3inches of muddy water.  It was bit crazy but I had to try at least one. I will have to keep an eye out for other such places in central park I can do CrossFit workouts such as rock/rope climbing, weightlifting, balancing, parallel beams, rings etc.

BF in NY for 791mi

WOD#1,  8PUL/24PSH/40SIT/80SQT

8mi in 45degrees dry conditions at 10min/mi

Weather finally improved and was about 45 degrees today so I ventured a run in the evening. Its been a week since my last run which was the PR 4mi race. Without marathon training it is hard to be motivated to get out in the cold but once I am out it was a lot of fun. Tavern on the Green has set up fantastic lighting on its tree which feels like illuminated gigantic snowflakes dropping. Quite fascinating. Once the Christmas season starts, I should try few runs through the city to see all the christmas decorations. If not running, at least I have to choice to pick my route on my bike ride back.

On barefoot front, the first couple of miles were a bit uncomfortable then the run felt pretty nice. I shouldn't really complain about 45 degrees as that will feel like a walk on a sunny beach after it gets cold. I am considering running in vibrams for couple of miles before taking them off as the feet warm up. I could probably do this whenever its dry. Not sure how to deal with wet or snow conditions yet. I just hope that the feet somehow adapt. 

While the cold issue continues to be top priority, I did discover a somewhat new technique for running downhill. I ran down the Harlem hills at about 7:30 pace. The trick is not to push forward while reducing impact by bending knees and also keeping the stride smaller than usual. The result was  a noticeably smooth run down. Calfs are hurting bit but I am convinced that that is the most efficient way to run downhill. None of the old injuries are showing any signs and legs still feel fresh which is nice. 

Another interesting observation which I cant really explain is that the legs are very clean when I scrub them after a run in cold. Also the soles seem to getting thinner. Perhaps the cold runs are causing abrasion to the sole but with nice smooth soles after shower, its hard to believe that there was any abrasion. 

BF in NY for 787mi

4mi race PR at 7:21 pace!

Mission accomplished! I broke probably the hardest shod PR I had left. I ran the 4mi race today at 7:21min/mi beating my previous PR of 7:29min/mi. Percentile at 57.3%

Shod PRs Broken by running barefoot: 

1mi (5:52min/mi), 

4mi (7:21min/mi)

PRs yet to be broken:

2.5mi (7:10mi/min)

5mi (8:34min/mi)

10K (8:24mi/min)

Half Marathon (8:35min/mi)

Marathon (9:27min/mi)

I didnt run very hard first three miles and just pushed in the last mile making it a very exhilarating last mile sprint. Plan was to run first two miles at 7:50 so I can be sure that I improve my corral standing. So I ran relatively conservative first three miles at 7:34 (184bpm), 7:27(187bpm), 7:43(188bpm) and then ran all out in the last mile which also happens to be all downhill. The last mile must have been close to 6:50 with average HR reaching 194bpm. 

Overall average HR was 188bpm, significantly lower than 191bpm in the previous PR 4mi race. Those  few bpms make a huge difference since jumping from 188bpm to 194bpm improved my last mile by almost 1mi/min. I did damage the NYC marathon related blister area by too much brushing on rough wet surface but no puncture. Either my form deteriorates at fast speeds or it is inherently hard to run fast without brushing toes and ball of the feet. Something to train for I guess. No other injury or aches of any kind yet. I am glad I decided to do this race. I am clearly not ready for ultras yet till I can finish a marathon strong. But in the meantime, its fun to compete barefoot against myself by breaking shod PRs.

A side note on the race statistics. Looks like out of 6000 racers, more than half (3200) were women. I dont think I have seen women majority before. Interesting! Next big race is three weeks from now. Its a 10K on Dec 7th. My 10K PR is an easy 52:08 (8:24min/mi). I will try to make it sub-8min/mi if I am in okay shape.

BF in NY for 779mi.

4mi race tomorrow

I had a nice 8mi run on Friday morning in wet conditions. I couldnt help but do a few sprint spoiling any chance of attempting a long run today in the 60K race today. So I will be running the 4mi race tomorrow morning.

The 8mi run was fun since the fall is at peak and the central park loop is coated with lots of leave turning the coarse surface into soft and smooth bed of leaves. It was so nice that I didnt have to jump on to grass I typically do usually. But the wet conditions made it a little scary running fast downhill and it almost felt like skiing down. I would think it would be just as slippery, if not more, in shoes but shoes just dont have the luxury to provide the runners with "scary" feedback till its too late! The run, however, did make the marathon blister areas a bit messy as I still havent taken off old skin. I am still reluctant to peel off old skin even though there new shiny skin has already formed underneath. I am thinking I will just let it scrap off while running. If barefoot running in wet conditions for 8miles doesn't scrap skin off then perhaps I have no business forcing it out either.

Anyway, I am having second thoughts about running tomorrows race at 100% as I think I over-did my sprints yesterday. I will try to upgrade my current "nyrr" official pace of 7:50 (the 7:30 pace race was technically older than 1yr now so doesn't count) and then push harder in secondhalf.

BF in NY for 773mi

Which race to run this weekend?

I have two options this weekend with two possible targets. First is 60k race on Saturday. With the blister disaster in marathon, my soles are not smoothened yet as the old dead skin peels off. So trying anything long distance could be disasterous, especially on wet coarse central park loop this weekend. However, it would be nice to beat just the marathon distance by running 27miles or something. I had thought about this before but now that the race is coming close, it feels like wishful thinking. The only evidence that I can do something ultra is really the back to back two 20mi runs I did in past. But that was a while back. Even though legs feel fresh they are not that fresh two weeks after the marathon. Moreover, I have never DNFed a race before and it would suck to start now, however crazy the race.

The other option is really basically "giving in" to temptation to race the way I had succumbed to doing a PR in the miler in September. After the two miler races, the fastest percentile PR race I have done is a 4miler at 7:29 pace all the way back in 2006. It would be fun to start post-marathon races with a bang and break the PR. Looking back at the logs, my average HR for that race over 30min was solid 191bpm which is insane. Barefoot running is nothing compared to the kind if toture that must have been. Funny how I don't remember it at all! Anyway, sometimes mile PRs do not translate to faster spped at longer distances. If beat this 4mi PR, I would know for sure that I can in fact translate the barefoot training to beat all shod PRs upto marathon distance. Marathon will have to wait for now.

Second option is tempting but not very smart. However, after the slow marathon, I could use a fast and stupid race. May be I will take it easy till weekend and see if 60k race makes sense for some kind of modified objective. If not then I will run the 4miler on Sunday.

BF in ny for 764mi

Getting back to normacy

I ran only couple of times this week. 5mi on thursday and 8mi today both at about 11min/mi pace. Legs are in great shape and the blisters are a history. Good that I didn't puncture them as that would have created unnessesary risk of infection on the runs.

However I can feel a bit of pain on the part behind the big toe on the foot with blisters. I wonder if symmetry of my stride is compromised somehow. I don't remember this part having any pain after the marathon. So it must be on the recent runs.

But in big scheme of things, I will probably take another week of break and then concentrate on speed for a while. It will be fun to pick one distance at a time and break my shod PR. Despite all this racing and barefoot training, the only race I beat shod PR was the miler. I can't wait to beat 4mi, 6mi and 13.1mi PRs. Also with overall mileage at 943mi and barefoot mileage at 764mi,1000mi for the year looks very feasible overall if not barefoot.

Finally on research front, I need to work on understanding exact mechanism of frost bite and other cold related skin/extremity conditions. Original plan was to let the foot adapt as weather gets colder. But thanks to marathon, I won't be training too much before it gets too cold so just for this season I need a compromise. It would be best if I can work out some way to warm up my foot before stepping out.

Of course the first priority is still to keep training through winter. I haven't been able to do that last three years but this year is going to be different. If it comes to it I will go back to shoes. Now I have options to run in vibrams, Nike frees, Adidas Supernovas or the snow shoes I bought last year. Thanks to barefoot conditioning, I don't think I will have a problem readapting to them as necessary.

BF in NY for 764mi

HR chart for NYC marathon

Here are my two marathon HR charts for this year's barefoot marathon compared to last year's shod marathon.

Note the steady and controlled HR till about mile 19 and then all the stops and slow downs this year!

BF in NY for 750mi

NYC marathon Barefoot!

I ran the NYC marathon barefoot! It felt as magical as my first marathon three years back. The support and encouragement from fellow marathoners for running barefoor was absolutely amazing... never mind the crazy nyc crowd. Ironically, running barefoot was so shocking to many in the crowd that they would *stop* shouting because they would be speechless about what to shout for me. I intentionally kept it low profile as I didnt want to get over excited but still had some moments. At mile 24, there was this young woman behind me who shouted "Oh my god" at least 20 times till I realized that she was referring to me and was repeating the same thing like a broken record. I just smiled at her. I cant believe I forgot how much fun it is to run NYC. 

The barefoot part of the race was picture perfect till about mile 18 and then it was pure meltdown. I finished the race in 4:15. I was on pace to finish below 3:50 with enough reserves to even speed up in last 6mi. But something happened at mile 18 which I had never even thought about training for. Mile 18 has a "Power gel" zone with thousands of runners ahead of me throwing half empty gel packs over next couple of miles. I didnt really felt very gross about it because I was careful not to step on any pack but by mile 19 I noticed that every step I took felt like step on a sticky tape. It, in fact, felt good and strange for a while. But by mile 20 it was clear that there was something wrong. The outer skin attachment was becoming weaker and it was becoming prone to blister. The best analogy would be skin of a bruised banana compared to fresh banana. To make things worse the "soft" carpet covering harsh metal mesh on the 1st/125th bridge caused a lot of overall bruising. To add salt to the injury (so to speak), the bridge back from Bronx to manhattan was like a torture maze designed specifically for barefoot runners (it was so bad, I remember thinking of the needle scene in Saw movie). 

I have run on rough surfaces before but already susceptible skin quickly deteriorated into multiple blisters within span 1.5mi after running a near perfect 19mi made me rethink the racing strategy. Despite being at 20mi, i did NOT hit the wall. I was in very good spirit just felt like car full of gas with flat tires. Since I never had a serious blister problem before, I didnt know how to deal with it. It feels idiotic now but given that I developed 4 deteriorating blisteres within 1.5mi and 5 more miles to go seemed like a hopeless situation... no matter how good rest of my body felt. In fact, typically such injuries quickly deteriorate into bigger issues including other damages caused by compensating movement legs made to minimize pain instead of maintaining right form.

By mile 21, I put a bandaid but with gatorade and water and more gels all over course, it wouldn't stick. I put a mega-bandaid on top of it but it still wouldnt stick. I ran out of bandaids after that. All this ultra-conservative steps slowed me down from 8:30min/mi pace to 13+min/mi pace (thats extra 5min per mile). Finally, I spotted a medical station and decided to tape up the worst of the 4 blisters on the ball of the right foot. For better or for worse, I didn't feel right occupying the station tapping up (never mind treating them) all the blisters. I thought there are probably other runners around at this distance who may have more serious needs. I guess, I also didnt want to gamble them noticing that I was running barefoot (they never did) in case they discourage me from finishing barefoot. I wasted another 4min in the station and then took off. 

Amazingly, the following 4miles were quite uneventful. I think the insanely loud crowd on fifth avenue had something to do with it. It is next to impossible to stop running with so much cheering and pressure not to quit from this crowd. The last 4miles since the aid station were 10:39, 10:21, 9:36 and 7:46 where 7:46 reflects the full realization that blister crisis is over and was the second fastest mile in whole race (fastest being run down queens borrow bridge into manhattan).

Punchline, however, is that I was carrying my vibram shoes and I never gave into temptation to put them on. I almost gave in before I saw the aid station but now I am sure I would have regretted it if I had put them on. All in the all, with three of the 4 blister well on way to heal, I don't expect any damage and good to go by the weekend. The forth is a blood blister on heel of the right foot. Ironically, barefoot running has strengthened the skin so much that the blister is well covered naturally and is less likely to puncture. 

On a more subtle point, all this barefoot running has made it possible to compensate for FOUR localized pain points and still run efficiently. This part would be hard to explain to non-barefoot runners but perhap a good analogy would be shopping cart with uneven wheel and alternating between two misaligned weels to minimize damage to those wheels. Its amazing to see the hyper-complex architecture of foot in *real* action for a change. I guess there is good reason why more than one in four bones in our body are in the foot. Perhaps next time (yes there will definitely be one) they will take me to the finishline in less than 4hrs.

BF in NY for 750mi

Two days before the day after marathon

Tomorrow is the big marathon day. I have been eating whole day today and already added 4pounds since yesterday.

I am also so relaxed that it's almost 11pm and I just googles checklist for marathon while I should be sleeping. HR is healthy 75-80 despiting all the digesting that's going on. May be I will keep the monitor on while sleepng just for fun.

If I am still relaxed tommorrow morning, I can take a nice nap in the bus an the pop open the sleeping bag at staten island and get some more comfy sleep/rest. I am thinking I probably don't need a lot of attention to my shoes (or there of) before the race and sleeping bag will take care of that.

As for the race itself, weather is perfect 45-50degrees. I all be running second wave front coral right behind the elites. The slowest pace group in the coral is 3:40 so I will have to let faster runners go ahead. I am still shooting for 2hr first half.

Also did I mention that Zola Budd is running tomorrow? She is multiple world record holding famous Olympian runner who ran all races barefoot on track. She won't be barefoot tomorrow but looking for her would be an excellent excuse to get out of the sleeping bag tomorrow.

I did a few experimental thing today which I may even regret tomorrow. No pasta today but only my favorite Khao Pahd Supparot (fried rice). Also lots of fruits, carrots, watermelon for water and complex carbs. Also eating extra salt whenever possible to improve water retention by raising salinity. But enough of the scientific training.

I went out today and checked out the first avenue and it already has the fresh crisp blue paint on it. The sidewalks also lined up with barricades. So very exciting. Rain few days back cleaned up the road so it will be nice. Ironically, city fills in all potholes on the route before the. Race which creates fine stone on streets which I will have to look out for.

BF in NY for 724mi