In cruise control mode!

I have run 14mi so far this week with 22mi to go. Second week of training and the mileage already feels heavy though the legs are fine. But I cut my skin above ankle due to biking somehow. I hope it does not interfer with the long run coming up this weekend.

I intend to run 14mi+ this Sunday with maybe last 6mi or more barefoot. Its been rainy most days so if I decide to do trail long run it could get a bit muddy. Alternatively there is the 6mi race this weekend. I ran 8mi today but near end the big toe of one of the foot (I forget which one) started hurting. It almost felt like it was swollen due to ant bite but it was nothing really. But lesson learnt is that I can't take longer distance runs for granted.

One more thing about yesterday's run. I varied the surface quite a bit over the run which was a lot of fun. So there was about 2mi of sidewalk, about 1mi of asphalt road in the park, 1mi of grass, 1mi of fine gravel surface of reservoir loop, 1mi of rough bridal path, half a mile of soft sand and small stretches of heavy industrial gravel. I could easily get used to this. The high point was the run down the Harlem hill grass I discovered last time.

BF in NY for 191mi

First "official" long group run for the marathon in vibrams

Today I did my first "official" long run with Flyers.  Besides being longest barefoot run (half vibram but more on that later), this was also my first group run outside NYRR organized long runs. Of course, 12mi is not 20mi but the run went very quickly with other runners. Flyer group is pretty diverse and its fun to chat with a few in the run. Also the runners from my Thursday morning group were also in my pace group which was nice.

The run itself was little over 12mi at about 10:10mim/mi pace. First 7miles were about 11min/mi while last 5mi were closer to 9:30mi. Ironically 3+ out of those 5 were barefoot (as opposed to vibram). Also this speeding was not really intentional though the surface was much easier (inner reservior loop) as opposed to very uneven bridal path for first 7mi. Legs felt pretty strong despite the long run with fast finish and I could have easily continued for few more miles. Thats encouraging given that long runs will only get longer. Also this run makes this week total at 34mi, just above last week's 33mi. Thats nice. All thats left now is to pushing pure barefoot mileage in 10+mi range. Perhaps after 3 more weeks on building the mileage???

BF in NY for 177mi

Another 7.75mi added

Mile count for the week is at 22mi ahead of first LONG run of 8-12mi. No injuries etc so first week of training is starting pretty good. Today's run was fastish at sub10min/mi pace. Also I discovered a grassy route down the Harlem hill. It was so nice that I peaked at 7min/mi pace at the bottom. Also it started raining during the run lightly increasing abrasion but its nothing that won't get fixed in a day.

First week of marathon training schedule

The first week of july is here and its time to start the 4 months marathon training program. Technically time to experimenting is over and I should stop barefoot training but obviously that's not happening. In fact, I am going into training in best preconditioning including last four months with approx 20mi/week and last two weeks at about 30mi. More over I am already qualified for 2009 marathon with 10 races even before I start training this year which is kind of cool.

On barefooting front, I ran two longish runs this week 6.5 and 7.5mi and should finish week with 30mi as expected in the flyers training program. I am still doing Thursday run early in the morning in vibram partly because I want to overly conservative while I am ramping up milage past 30mi. I don't really think conditioning of the sole is an issue any more for small run and I am now experienting with rough off-pavement running paths. I suspect even 4mi training on such surface should improve conditioning than longer runs on pavement. Of course, soon I will have to hear up for long runs barefoot which I haven't done yet and am a bit nervous about. Hopefully shorter runs on trails is good training for long runs.

Finally I may try some barefoot hiking this week. No idea how barefoot running translates into barefoot hiking but I think I can handle part of it.

BF for 157mi

First Barefoot run in real rain and also on rough bridal path

As I had mentioned earlier, I had been dying to do for a run in the rain. And then I saw this quick rainy storm heading for Manhattan on weather.com radar. Despite a bit of soreness due to fast race yesterday, I decided to go for the run. Moreover, I decided to run on bridal path (meant as a horse path) which is substantially rougher than the reservoir loop. Funny how one never almost notice this difference in shoes but for barefooter this can make a big difference.

Anyway, the portion of the bridal path with dry water channel and portion regularly used by cops cars was full of these large stones which was kinda painful. Rest wasn't so bad. In fact, I discovered the longest stretch of pristine grass field I have seen in the park just at the north end of bridal path which was just heavenly to run on. After two loops on bridal path, it started raining and I just could not run on it so I moved to reservoir path for my third loop. 

The rain just kept getting harder and the reservoir path turned into a giant channel of water. I tried to avoid it for few minutes but then gave up quickly. It was so much fun running straight through it. It was also fun watching runners with shoes jumping around avoiding water. It was slightly painful but I dont think I got blisters at all. I would do it in a heartbeat again. The rain turned a slow 4miler recovery run into fun 7mile run at 10:30 pace. Mileage for this week now stands at 33mi which is not bad at all. Also having done 4mi on the tough bridal path, I think I am prepared to do part of the 8mi long run next week (with the flyers marathon team) on bridal path. 

BF for 143mi

Forth 5miler in four weeks

I ran my third barefoot race. Since last two went pretty well, I ran it less conservatively and managed to shred 20sec per mile. The splits were 8:57, 8:43, 8:30, 9:03, 7:52

 The weather was hot and humid and it was hard running on abrasive central park loop in heat. Also the "showers" set up by nyrr every mile were great but made it easy for foot get blisters. I was lucky that the race was just 5miles otherwise I could have had blister problem.

As usual, it was a negative split race. Also I got more questions about my vibrams after the race than barefooting. I also realized that now I have learnt which parts of central park loop have grass or dirt walkpath next to it which I can run for a while. Also there were no aches after the race...at all. This is in stark contrast with pretty much every race I have run before with shoes. I continue to believe that this is primarily because I am running the races very conservatively when barefoot. The primary focus for me is to build barefoot mileage per week at this point up to say 40mi/week including long runs. So speed takes a backseat. 

But I am very optimistic about running fast miles after running a sub-8min mile today. In fact the speed at finish-line was incredible 6:30min/mile and it did not feel too hard. Interestingly enough I was just 40sec behind the exact same race last year in shoes in similar hot weather (which was technically a PR for 5mi distance though I have faster PRs at longer distances) . So I am looking forward to beating my previous year's race timings later in the season.

BF for 136mi

I spent some time going through websites which talk about how keyboard is dirtier than toilet. The stats suggest that public restrooms (incl gym showers) floors roughly have about 2million/Sq inch bacteria. As one can imagine, if a public place has a lot of people walking in with shoes and have damp, dark and warm-enough floor, the bacteria will multiply within minutes. Compared to this, the kitchen floor next to sink has about 500bacteria/sq inch as this part of floor does get wet every now and then but does not see too many of shoes. The outdoor road, especially one which is typically dry and sees sunlight regularly is likely to have 200bacteria/sq inch bacteria as bacteria just cannot multiply without water and in direct sunlight. This is especially true if the surroundings gets a clean slate start every year after brutal winter (for them!) like the one we have in New York city.

So doing simple math, for every barefoot step I take in gym shower room exposes me to  roughly same number of bacteria as 10,000 steps on outdoor roads. With 200 steps per minutes thats about 50min of running. So if a walk from lockers to shower and back is 30 steps, thats amounts to 25 hours of running outside. Since I never run more than 10hrs in any one week, I conclude that I just need to avoid one visit to Gym to make up for exposure to bacteria. (And all this doesnt even correct for me going through three rounds of scrubbing with antibaterical soap when I get home)

Mile count for the year is 300mi and about 700mi to go in 6months. That's about 27mi a week. My last week was 29mi and this week is 13mu ahead of about 12mi weekend runs. So I am right on target and likely to put extra miles "in the bank" with the marathon training coming up.
Hemant
BF for 135Mi

Rest day after a long barefoot running week

Last week was pretty productive with about 30mi of running including a 11miler fun run and a 5mi race. The sprained ankle did show some life during both these runs so its best to give it a rest for a day.

But truthfully, I could not keep myself inside today. The legs really feel strong despite all this beating last week. The ground was cooling off from a hot day due to a quick shower and I was curious how it would feel running on steamy clean sidewalks and running path. Something I would almost wont even think about with shoes on. I am dying to run in a real rain ever since I had the race last week on wet surface. It just adds so much more fun to the run. There is 30% chance of rain at 6am tomorrow morning so I will keep my fingers crossed.

Oh, I also read first half of the book barefoot hiker yesterday. Its a fun to read a hiker's perspective on the barefoot experiment. I especially liked the phony straps on feet which fool people's peripheral vision into believing that you are wearing flip-flops. I should try it sometime. Of course running in flip-flops would be frowned up on as well which is a different story.

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)

Back into training

After the race last weekend, this week has been very fruitful in training. Mile count for the week is about 21mi with a 5mi race tomorrow still to go.  After a recovery from the ankle sprain, this week I got a tiny splinter. Just like the sprain, the I am not sure if the splinter happened during the run as I didn't feel anything during the run at all. But due to the splinter and related opening, I thought it was prudent to stick to "vibram fivefinger" for few runs. So I did a 5mi training run and a 10.5mi today in vibram as well. Ironically I am now terrified to running in vibram because I get blisters in them due to the tight fit. Running barefoot seems to much free of head ache. 

Today's run was interesting for couple of reasons. It was my first group run with the flyers which was fun. Secondly the run had a theme of arches in bridges in central park and I visited parts of central parks which I didn't even know existed. The flyers are fun group and were asking me a lot of questions about the vibram shoes. It was also a lot of fun running in vibrams on some of the very uneven trails in central park. 

Finally, I have another 5miler coming up tomorrow. And just like last week, tomorrow is supposed to be a rainy day. But I feel much better running the race tomorrow. I am a bit sore from the 10.5mi run today which was by far the longest (albeit with a lot of breaks) run barefoot to date. So I will be taking it easy tomorrow.

Day after race

The race felt really good but in retrospect, I probably ran too fast. The ankle sprain from two weeks is showing signs of a come back. I cannot afford to loose another week on this. Also interestingly enough the calfs are in a funny sort of pain. Its not DOMS but just lack of control on balance. I almost felt like a baby trying to balance on leg without support. Makes me wonder how much we take for granted the natural solid base shoes provides. Balancing is very complex and with those tiny muscules around ankle weakened, calfs were having hard time compensating. Very very wierd feeling. Fear of unknown injury will keep me from training today but I will start running in couple of days.

My First Barefoot Race

Today was a big day. I ran my first barefoot race. It was a five miler which I ran at about 9mi/mile pace. Here are the splits with the usual negative split: 9:25, 9:10, 9:34, 8:35, 8:17

I have never ran in rainy wet weather. I seriously considered running the race in vibram given that I had never run on wet surface before, let alone wet humid and hot weather. Theory is that wet surface makes the sole soft making it to much more suseptible to friction and blisters. But there was no problem at all. In fact now I am starting to think that running fast barefoot may be less likelily to cause blister than slow running.

The race itself was a lot of fun. Right before the finshline a cute girl made some complimentary remarks about running barefoot in the race while passing me. I picked up my pace to 7min/mile pace party due to that and, yes, partly due to her PASSING me. But she was pretty fast and I only saw her after finishline. She said something to the effect that there should be a separate category for barefoot running. Now wouldnt that be nice.

Also it was just devine running through rain water puddles and moist cool grass. There was even some guilty pleasure in stepping in the mud. But right around the corner near E95th st, I almost slipped on mud. That would have been a disaster. I must have looked pretty funny trying to balance myself running in dirty muddy surface. But, all in all, my soles were pristinely clean at finishline due to all the water which was pleasant. Everytime I train barefeet I get greyish soles. I put on my vibrams after the race for my bike ride back. I got questions about them which I thought was funny since I didnt run in them. I took the easy path out and mentioned that they are great to run on wet surface since they are designed for kayaking. I think its too early for me to get into serious dialogs about barefooting with other running while I am still experimenting.

Back in training and racing

After over a week of break due to twisted ankle, I made a come in a big way last weekend. I ran a relay with a flyer team up in Westchester. As such 50mi relay in mountainous region is pretty adventurous. The near 100 degree temperature definitely pushed it into borderline insanity. Fortunately my team kept its "cool" and we had a lot of fun. Frankly I had a pretty hard time even to avoid walking for 5mile leg and I was amazed at rest of the teammates running much longer distances in such conditions.

Unfortunately the race got canceled right after my leg just about 40miles into the run which kindda sucked but by 3pm it was getting pretty toasty running on streets and perhaps it was for the best.

Anyway, there was no way I could have run barefoot on concrete sidewalk in such heat so I ran in my frees. I even managed to get a small blister running in shoes on such a small run which I thought was funny. But I am now fully recovered from all injuries and squeezed in two 5mi barefeet runs in 80 degree heat this week.

Today is another big day. I am seriously considering running my 5mi fathers day race today barefoot. I did do a 5mi run yesterday on hot rough surface so I am a bit concerned about getting a blister today. So maybe I might carry my vibram 5fingers shoes in hands just in case. It is also a bit intimidating running barefeet among five thousand shodded runners stomping the ground. Not to mention facing variety of reactions from such a large group. I wonder if I am ready yet to defend barefoot adventure to those who think its taboo to get out of shoes in public. Sometimes its good to be in this crazy town full of nuts as pretty much anything goes in nyc. So there is good chance I can get away with barefoot running in the race. Certainly nonbody has bothered me so far on my training runs. But let's see how it goes.

Cheers
Barefoot mile count 76mi

NYTimes article on Barefoot in NYC parks

Another interesting article about going barefoot in New York City parks. The article talks about specific health hazards and also touches on why it might be worth the risk.

Barefoot in the Park? Watch Your Step
By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS
People have walked barefoot in the grass for thousands of years, and barefoot in New York City’s parks at least since the days of Olmsted and Vaux. Neil Simon wrote a play about it, and Robert Redford and Jane Fonda starred in the movie.
As sun blankets the city, many people hardly think twice before shedding their inhibitions — and their shoes. Neither New York’s health department nor the parks department has any rules against going barefoot on the city’s streets or in its parks, officials said.
But while many doctors say there is nothing wrong with walking barefoot in New York, some see small but definite risks. They range from the obvious, like contracting tetanus from stepping on a rusty nail, to the invisible, like developing athlete’s foot from walking in wet grass.
“When something doesn’t happen to you, you don’t consider yourself lucky,” said Dr. Judith Hellman, a Manhattan dermatologist and assistant professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. “But when you go barefoot, you are exposing yourself beyond what you really need to.”
Don’t tell Thao Le, a business development coordinator who, if not for a drizzle, might have been among the regulars going shoeless in the emerald green of Bryant Park in Midtown the other day.
“You take off your shoes, it’s the best,” said Ms. Le, 40. “You’re in tune with Mother Nature.”
But, the experts say, it is the grass in many city parks, so innocent-looking, so tempting, so redolent of the free-spirited days of childhood, that may pose the most unexpected risks, because unlike a rusty nail, they are invisible to the naked eye.
Bacteria are everywhere, from the sidewalks to the subway, and normally, the skin forms a fairly good barrier to infection, doctors said. In general, people with cuts or cracks on their feet or people with compromised immune systems are more likely to pick up an infection from walking barefoot. But getting wet feet by walking barefoot in damp grass can damage the skin’s natural barrier, allowing infections to take hold, said Dr. Giuseppe Militello, an assistant professor of clinical dermatology at Columbia University.
People could be vulnerable to infection from three main types of organism from going barefoot in the grass, he said, including pseudomonas bacteria, the type of fungus that causes athlete’s foot, and the virus that causes plantar warts.
“These organisms are found in the common environment,” Dr. Militello said, “and you need to give them the right conditions to infect you.”
The right conditions can be found in many manicured city parks, he said, where the grass is moist and shaded, well-watered by automatic sprinkler systems, and well-trampled by thousands of feet, shod and unshod, human and animal, carrying countless infectious organisms.
“It resides in the grass and earth, you pick it up and it festers in your shoes,” Dr. Militello said. “I think the best thing to do is to wear sandals or flip-flops or to just not get your feet wet. And when you do get your feet wet, thoroughly dry them before putting your shoes back on.”
Dr. Jessica Sessions, a pediatrician at the William F. Ryan Community Health Center on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, said she hated to be a spoilsport, but nonetheless recommended that her patients wear shoes outdoors. “At least if it’s on your shoe, you take your shoes off at the door,” she said. “If it’s on your feet, you bring it all into the apartment.”
Adrian Benepe, the city’s parks commissioner, reacted warily at first when asked for his recommendation about going barefoot in the park. “My official view is there’s no rules against it,” he said. “However, in certain areas, like playgrounds, we do advise people to wear shoes, particularly children.”
The black rubber surface of some playgrounds can get burning hot, he said, and people could stub their toes or step on broken glass.
But Mr. Benepe admitted that he allowed his own children, now 17 and 21, to go barefoot outdoors, “and they managed to survive.”
He even confessed to having done it himself on many a beautiful summer day. Mr. Benepe said that doctors, knowing the worst that can happen, “are going to be cautious; that’s the nature of doctors.”
Jerome Barth, the operations director at Bryant Park, works hard to keep his grass looking pristine. It is an acre and a quarter of Kentucky bluegrass, the strips of turf unfurled on top of six inches of sand and replaced twice a year.
It is picked clean of litter three to four times daily; trod by about 1,200 pairs of feet on a typical warm sunny afternoon at 1:15, its busiest time; watered at night; and photographed daily from the 31st floor of a nearby building to detect imperfections that cannot be seen at ground level.
Yes, Mr. Barth has shed his shoes outdoors — “mostly on weekends when I have brought my little girls to the park,” he said — with no ill effects.
“It is pleasant,” he said in an e-mail message. “Do you recall that scene in ‘Pretty Woman’ where Richard Gere walks barefoot on the grass? The imagery suggests that he does so to reconnect to his premogul persona. Well, I think there is a bit of that in every ‘barefoot walk,’ one feels a touch closer to nature.”
Too close to nature, according to Dr. Militello.
He said he never touched bare toe to public parkland. “If I’m in the park, I put a blanket down, and I’m on that blanket and I don’t venture off,” he said. “The only place I go barefoot is on the beach.”
In the worst case, pseudomonas bacteria — which Dr. Militello says has a “very pungent, vinegary smell”— can be fatal if it gets into the lungs or bloodstream, as it sometimes does when it is contracted at hospitals. (Such a serious consequence, he said, is an unlikely outcome of a skin infection, whose symptoms would typically be limited to redness, pain and pus.)
A parasite like hookworm, carried in dog or cat feces, could also be picked up in a sandbox or dirt, though it is more common in the warmer Southeast, doctors said. Hookworm can cause a rash, or more seriously, anemia.
Dr. Mitchell Greenbaum, a podiatrist affiliated with St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn, on Long Island, says he has seen more sprained ankles and stubbed toes than infections from bare feet.
Diabetics are more prone to foot injuries, he said, because they tend to have limited sensation in their feet and may unwittingly step on hot surfaces or sharp objects.
But Dr. Hellman, the dermatologist, said that outside of the obvious hazards, danger could lurk in even the most innocuous places, like a rose or a lawn.
Grass can be sharp enough to cut, she said, allowing bacteria or parasites to enter the skin. Rose bushes can transmit a fungal infection called sporotrichosis. The fungus could be injected into the body, she said, just by stepping on a thorn.
But for many people, the joy of feeling the cool grass underfoot may outweigh one of its consequences, bromhidrosis, known colloquially as stinky feet, which is caused by bacteria that thrive in moist places — and thus is a risk of putting wet feet back into shoes and free spirits under wraps again.

Interesting article about barefooting in nyc

I am still injured so I decided to spend sometime doing internet research instead. I saw this interesting article about barefooting in NYC. The author stopped short of actually going barefoot but talks about experience of transition to minimalist shoes.

http://www.malepatternfitness.com/story/2008/5/8/92812/66193

This story ran a couple of weeks ago in New York magazine, but I just got around to reading it today. The big idea:

Shoes are bad. I don't just mean stiletto heels, or cowboy boots, or tottering espadrilles, or any of the other fairly obvious foot-torture devices into which we wincingly jam our feet. I mean all shoes. Shoes hurt your feet. They change how you walk. In fact, your feet -- your poor, tender, abused, ignored, maligned, misunderstood feet -- are getting trounced in a war that's been raging for roughly a thousand years: the battle of shoes versus feet.

Last year, researchers at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, published a study titled "Shod Versus Unshod: The Emergence of Forefoot Pathology in Modern Humans?" in the podiatry journal The Foot. The study examined 180 modern humans from three different population groups (Sotho, Zulu, and European), comparing their feet to one another's, as well as to the feet of 2,000-year-old skeletons. The researchers concluded that, prior to the invention of shoes, people had healthier feet. Among the modern subjects, the Zulu population, which often goes barefoot, had the healthiest feet while the Europeans -- i.e., the habitual shoe-wearers -- had the unhealthiest. One of the lead researchers, Dr. Bernhard Zipfel, when commenting on his findings, lamented that the American Podiatric Medical Association does not "actively encourage outdoor barefoot walking for healthy individuals. This flies in the face of the increasing scientific evidence, including our study, that most of the commercially available footwear is not good for the feet." ...

"Natural gait is biomechanically impossible for any shoe-wearing person," wrote Dr. William A. Rossi in a 1999 article in Podiatry Management. "It took 4 million years to develop our unique human foot and our consequent distinctive form of gait, a remarkable feat of bioengineering. Yet, in only a few thousand years, and with one carelessly designed instrument, our shoes, we have warped the pure anatomical form of human gait, obstructing its engineering efficiency, afflicting it with strains and stresses and denying it its natural grace of form and ease of movement head to foot."

If we just accept the premise here -- and frankly, I can't think of any reason not to -- the big question is, what the hell can we do about it? The author, Adam Sternbergh, tried out some shoes that were designed to allow a completely natural gait. Here's his reaction to the Vivo Barefoot:

The Vivos are a totally different experience, since they're as close to going barefoot in the city as you can get. Barefoot walking should be easy to master, in theory, and Clark assured me that I won't need any special instruction. The first thing I noticed while wearing the Vivos is that each heel-strike on the pavement was painful. Soon, though, I naturally adjusted my stride to more of a mid-foot strike, so I was rolling flexibly through each step--but then I noticed my feet were getting really tired. My foot muscles weren't used to working this hard.

After wearing the Barefoots for a while, though, I found I really liked them, precisely because you can feel the ground -- you can tell if you're walking on cobblestones, asphalt, a manhole, or a subway grate. (Striding along that nubby yellow warning strip on the subway platform feels like a foot massage.) Of course, it's not often that you walk around New York, see something on the ground, and think, I wish I could feel that with my foot. But this kind of walking is a revelation. Not only does it change your step, but it changes your perceptions. As you stroll, your perception stops being so horizontal -- i.e., confined more or less to eye level -- and starts feeling vertical or, better yet, 360 degrees. You have a new sense of what's all around you, including underneath.

Later in the story, he points out that you can't wear shoes like this in the rain or snow. You'll get soaked or frozen. But I think there's another, simpler alternative: Keep wearing your worn-out sneaks.

Sternbergh mentions some research suggesting that runners' injury rates are much higher when they're wearing new shoes than when they're wearing older ones. I've mentioned this in a couple of the presentations I've given about how the media covers fitness-related issues. My big point was that magazines can't tell you about research like this because they get so much advertising revenue from Nike and Reebok. You, however, are a free agent; you don't have to do what magazines or shoe companies tell you to do.

I have a really old pair of cross-trainers that I wear to run sprints or play soccer with my kids. The rubber on the soles is worn down, and whatever padding it once had on the inside has been pounded into oblivion. And nothing ever hurts after I wear those, despite my lifelong history of foot, ankle, and knee pain.

I also have a pair of hiking boots that must be 15 years old now. I might wear them once a year. I went on a camping trip with my son's Boy Scout troop last weekend. We didn't do a hike, but there was a lot of walking and brush-clearing-type work. I was expecting to pay a price and be sore as hell by Sunday, but again, I had no foot, ankle, or knee pain.

So what's your experience? Have you tried any of the minimalist training shoes, like the Nike Free?

Injured!!!

First injury of the season is keeping me from running. Its just a little ankle sprain. I should be up and running after 3-4 days of break. I also tried a experimental inflammation treatment for the heck of it. I found it funny that DR sells Espom salt in milk cartoons.

I did have to do a 7mi run with shoes due to this injury just to be safe. I may use shoes for few more runs before going back to barefoot training.

Picture of my Sole

My sole after 66 miles and 1 month of training.

Transition to barefooting

I am changing the blog from nyrun to barefootinNY. I have started training I barefoot over last month or so and thought nyrun doesn't do justice to the blog anymore!

The marathon eve

Ah...14 hours to go. Still feeling less than 100% with a bit of headache due to the untimely cold last weekend. But with weather looking great, I am going for it. Perhaps I should pare down the goal to 4:15 from 4:00.

Plan of action:
Wake up at 5am
Leave home at 5:30am
On Bus at 5:50am
Reach staging at 7:00am
Waste time doing nothing: 7:00 am to 9:30am
Line up at 9:30am
First coral start at 10:10
My coral #7 so start time 10:19(@1:30 per coral)