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