Thursday, May 14, 2009

This morning was cool and sunny, perfect running weather at 6am. I went out for a little 5 miler. In the middle of my run I slipped off my running shoes and socks and did about 1 mile barefoot. It didn't feel all that odd to me because I walk around barefoot most of the day anyway. I've also been running as if I were barefoot for a while now, thinking about skimming the ground and running lightly.

I loved the sensation of the ground on my feet, and I did notice that I did have to adjust a bit more to reduce impact. I noticed that I use more of my leg and feel the springy cushioning in my muscles that I have to employ while running barefoot all the way up my body. But not in a bad way. I don't feel any jarring, I just feel that my entire body is controlling the landing and absorbing of impact in the proper manner. I could've run further but I felt that the bottoms of my feet were getting roughed up a bit; they aren't tough enough yet. I don't want to get big 'ole blisters on the bottoms of my feet right before the Reno-Tahoe Odessey. I didn't get sore calves either, maybe because I've been running softly already.

+++++++++++++

I'm almost done with Born to Run. I'll be sad when it's finished! It's an excellent read for all you runners out there, I highly recommend it. I love that the book starts out with the question - "Why does my foot hurt?" I think that it's symbolic of a bigger question - "Why does my life hurt?" Because in getting rid of the shoes that are hindering us we have to ask what are the other modern things that are hindering us? Too much car driving? Excess "stuff" in our lives? It's freeing to find out that we are just fine, even better, without a lot of this stuff that we thought we couldn't live without.

1 comments:

Ace said...

Your descriptions make this BF running thing sound like heaven...

Glad its going so well.