Brutal change of best laid plans

My plan for today was 5x12 minutes in zone 4.  I made it through one.

This week I just haven't been feeling the run.  Little motivation for much of anything and when I get out, not much motivation to keep moving.  Yesterday once out, I was ok - not great, but ok.  Today???

I warmed up for 20 minutes or so and hit my lap button.  I was actually going pretty good, but by the end of the twelve minutes my fingertips were feeling tingly and somewhat numb and I was kind of light headed.  Couple that with the fact that my water bottle jumped out of it's holster and landed in a sand pile of suspect cleanliness, and I canned the remainder of my work intervals choosing instead to just run out the remaining time I had scheduled for today.

Anyway, I choose to blame my mediocrity on the weather.  It's again windy - 46 km/h gusting to 70, but add to that 35C temps.  In case you're metrically impaired, that's 28.5 mph with gusts at 43 and 95 degrees F.  Not ideal conditions.  Check out what the wind did to my hat and extrapolate that to the rest of my corpse - ugh...

I realized I was looking at a pretty significant positive split and turned around at something like 55 minutes for a 2 hour run and headed back.  Initially it wasn't too bad, but my gut started complaining after a bit.  Eventually it suggested to me that I might want to find a bathroom, but there are none on my run and few places secluded enough to drop and deuce.  I did consider ducking under a bridge, but I had no TP so every time the urge got strong, I slowed to a walk and gritted my teeth.

Eventually even my shoes started pissing me off.  I actually took them off and logged my first barefoot miles in Bolivia because I couldn't stand the soupy mess inside my Vibrams anymore.  For the record, I studiously avoided any obvious cow leftovers.

Miracuously enough, I made it home without any horror stories, and "sprinted" to the bathroom just in time to...

Thanks for reading and be grateful of your potty training.
J

On injuries and barefoot running (Part 2)

What went before.  Short recap:  I ran in normal shoes with orthotics and my feet hurt.  I tried Vibram Five Fingers as an alternative to surgery.

Anyway, after my first several runs in my Vibrams, I realized that it was going to be a process transitioning into the new footwear.  I had more than slight difficulty climbing stairs after a run of anything more than 2 miles and my calves would hurt for days afterwards.

But it wasn't all bad.  Something else was going on.  The pain in my foot (self diagnosed as Plantar Fasciitis) started going away.  In fact, within 2 months of twice per week runs of 3 miles, the pain in my foot disappeared in it's entirety.  I was convinced.  Minimal footwear was the way to go.

Then I read Born to Run.

I was even more convinced.

I pretty much resolved myself to becoming a fully minimal runner.  I understood the challenge, given the problems I'd experienced initially, but I thought everything would be fine.

For a while I logged several miles per week actually barefoot.  Why?  I ran Homey to far one day and he shredded his paws.  I decided, "He doesn't wear shoes, so..."

Our next run together was something like three miles bare.  Cool experience.  My feet chaffed a bit on the concrete sidewalk, but overall I enjoyed myself.  I think our longest barefoot run together was in the neighborhood of 6 miles. Several times during these runs with Homey, I got the "look." The "Wait!  That dude isn't wearing any shoes!" look.

After the Steamboat 50 I had nothing more on my schedule for the forseable future.  A sort of ambiguous feeling I might do the Desert RATS trail running festival in Fruita, but no real plans.  I started really ramping my minimal miles.

I remember a run in VT around Thanksgiving.  In fact, I believe it was on Thanksgiving Day itself.  I got out and ran 11 miles in my Vibrams on icy roads.  It was a good run, but the next day I had extreme difficulty going down the stairs due to the pain in my achilles-s.

I backed off my minimal miles and backed off my miles in total really until January when I started logging virtually all of my runs in my Five Fingers.  I developed chronic Achilles Tendonitis.  I still have it actually, though it's improving.  I hope.

I also experienced something else this year.  "Pain in the top of the foot."  I read up on that and quickly decided to take a couple of days off.  That's gone now and doesn't seem to be coming back so we're good on that front.

I'm a habitually shod runner and I've been running as such for the better part of 25 years.  For me the transition to minimal style has taken 2+ years and is still ongoing.  Since April, I log my 2 longest runs in any given week in the NB Minimus.  There isn't a lot to that shoe, but it's a hell of a lot more shoe-like than any of my Vibrams.

One thing that's different recently is that I've really started adding form drills to my workout repertoire.  I run barefoot around the house with my son using a ridiculously high cadence, or ridiculously high knee lift, or kicking myself in the butt, or skipping.  He thinks it's great fun.

I run a mantra through my head while running out on the roads.  Lift up, don't push off; lift up, don't push off; lift up... This is resulting in improvements in my achilles, but a slight tap on the back of my left heel is enough to make me shudder in pain.

The point of all this is that NYT article seems to be dead on in my case.  There's good that can be had from running in normal shoes and good that can be had from running minimally, but there's bad to be had from both too.  If anybody wonders why I don't run barefoot here in Bolivia, take a look at this post.  There are many, many perfectly good reasons to wear shoes while running.

While all isn't roses in this minimal runner's garden, I am going to continue with the experiment until something forces me to stop or I can run pain free.  My hope/goal is to run the Space Coast Marathon in November in my Bikilas and set a worthy marathon PR in the process.

Anyway, thanks for reading and be careful out there.
J

On injuries and barefoot running (Part 1)

Money, it's gotta be the shoes!

So, I've been an advocate of minimally clad running for some time now.  I can often sound like some kind of evangelical preacher when talking about footwear, but the truth of the matter is there are a bunch of pluses and minuses to running with less on your feet.

The blog post "Are we built to run barefoot?" in yesterday's New York Times "Phys Ed" section highlights some of my personal experiences with barefoot and minimal running.  The article is interesting and worth the read.

I started running more minimal when I realized that the custom fit orthotics I purchased while still a member of the CU Cycling team were actually doing more harm than good when running.  I got 2 pairs back then.  One pair was for my cycling shoes.  They locked my feet in place on the pedal and actually provided a noticeable increase in my pedaling efficiency (power output at a given heart rate).

The other pair I got because they were supposed to be good for you; they would help me with my back pain; the IT band issue I was having thanks to the 20 hour weeks on the bike would likely go away.  I wore them alot when I first had them.  Sliding them into every pair of shoes I had.  Back then, I was running during the offseason to stay in shape for the upcoming racing year.  I didn't race much, but when I did, I wanted to be happy with the way I performed.

After a year or two...

During my offseason, I started noticing pain in the bottom of my right foot, especially when I woke up and first stepped out of bed in the morning.  A few times the pain was so sharp I darn near fell over it hurt so much.  A search like this one (keywords: morning, pain, foot, bottom) revealed I probably had Plantar Fasciitis.  Reading the articles, I became even more religious about wearing my orthotics, and even purchased "motion control" shoes:  the Nike Structure Triax.  It took some time, but my foot pain got worse.

I started thinking that the problem was with my orthotics.  The pain felt almost like bruising and the only thing I could think would be bruising my foot were my orthotics. They had almost as pronounced an under arch structure as a pair of Birkenstocks.  I took them out of my shoe.  My pain improved, my miles increased and my pain became more pronounced again.

I decided to repeat the process.  I stripped down my shoes, not the way Anton did with his NB's, but by repeatedly buying shoes more meant for someone fleet of foot.  I eventually got down to the Nike Free 5.0.  Every time I tried a less structured shoe, I found my pain would diminish for a while and then come back.  I was running out of ways to get less shoe.

Much of my migration from a maximal shoe to a minimal shoe was a hesitant acceptance of the stuff I'd read about barefoot running.  I however wasn't ready to go all in and ditch my shoes entirely.  I started considering surgery.

I read about this: Extracorporeal Shock Wave Therapy.  Google it for more, but here's a link to an abstract from a paper published in '96.  A key phrase from the abstract:

Each time 1000 impulses of 0.06 mJ/mm2 were given around the heel spur.

What does that mean?  Well a millijoule is one-thousandth of a joule and a joule represents the energy necessary to accelerate a 1 kilogram block through a distance of one meter.  When boiled all the way down to it's most dangerous don't try this down at home essentials, this article suggests, that as an alternative to surgery, try hitting your foot repeatedly with a hammer.

Well after reading that, I looked at myself in the mirror and said, "I'm already running."

Barefoot wasn't going to happen right away, I had a race to train for and couldn't afford to slack off in the volume, but I Googled barefoot running shoes, and guess what I found.

I bought my first pair of Vibram Five Fingers in the summer of 2009.  My first run in them was 2 miles long and didn't feel too bad.  My second was 3 miles and I could barely climb the stairs at home for 3 days afterward.

I've got what feels like a lot more to say on this subject so I'll cut this off here and come back with part 2 tomorrow or Monday (or Thursday go to Part 2).  This weekend, I'm heading to a land where the internet is nonexistent, but the hills are magnificent.

Thanks for reading.
Jay

Somebody's apparently pissed at Boulder.

So there's another fire close to town.  I had actually planned to run right through the evacuation area today, now I've got to find someplace smoke free.  The thing is, it seems to be very (very) close to Mount Sanitas.

View Boulderfire Domefire BoulderCanyonFire in a larger map
Depending on the wind direction, I wouldn't be surprised if the summit of Sanitas burns today.  Here's hoping that firefighters can get this sucker contained before it becomes a really bad situation.

Anyway.  I've gotten a couple of shorter runs in in the last couple of days and today I was hoping to do something longer and easier, but now with the smoke?...

---

After Tuesday's windy jaunt, I ran around the Boulder Reservoir Wednesday evening.  I was crunched so I went really pretty hard, regularly pushing the pace into the upper 6's.  I'm starting to wonder if I can break 21 minutes in a 5k.

Tomorrow I'll be running in the Louisville Monster Dash 5k and pushing my son in his carriage.  Considering the added load, I won't be getting 21 minutes tomorrow, but I think it can be accomplished soon.  We'll see.  May have to give it a go over at McIntosh Lake in training...  Nataly will be running also and I'm going to see about entering D into his first race too - a 100 meter dash.  Big family outing.

Yesterday, Homey, Deneb and I logged 4 barefoot miles around the neighborhood.  Deneb was in an absolutely foul mood when we left, but his mood perked up once we were moving and he became absolutely chatty after a quarter mile.  He had all kinds of comments to share, too bad I don't speak babble.  Need one of those fish from Hitchhiker's Guide....

Thank for reading
J

Week in review.

So, last week was a waste.  On Saturday some Enanitos Verdes* moved into my chest.

I only wish they serenaded me with something more than a percussive cough.  A year or two ago, I developed pneumonia because I went too hard when I was developing what I thought was a minor cold.  Will never do that again.  Pneumonia is no joke.  Sucked.

I didn't run from Sunday through Wednesday.  Finally on Thursday I had to grab the Beanery from his school and I ran over there with Jackson and the Chariot.  I was still coughing up stuff, but it was a nice frothy white rather than rather dense green.  Friday I was off again, but that was mostly caution and Saturday and Sunday I ran the same 4 mile loop each day.  Today I'll be back at it full time.

One thing I did to mitigate the temptation to go hard on my runs was to run barefoot when I did get out.  Those 4 milers were longer than any previous barefoot run and now the balls of my feet are a bit chaffed.  I'll be running in my Vibrams today to allow for some healing.

Another weird injury occurred because I wear a belt leash around my waist so that I have both hands free when running with Homey.  I have always had a "sensitive" lower back.  It'll go out for little to no good reason and for a week or so I have trouble bending over and picking something up.  I'd never had a problem with the dog around my waist before, but this weekend he was pulling pretty good and I noticed it occasionally messing with my form by rotating my hips forward at the top.  Jackson isn't typically a puller, but he was hyped for the running Saturday for sure, probably because we hadn't been out because I was sick.

Otherwise, I've gotta praise my Eagles for their really nice win yesterday.  They played seemingly well in all phases of the game, and MV7 wasn't the quarterback meaning I could cheer the plays and the players.  Why do I bring this up?  Well, first off, I've been an Eagle fan since before their first super bowl appearance and second, because I was one productive house husband this weekend.  During the game, I baked bread and did laundry and after the game I made dough for pizza.  That was a score!

Thanks for reading.
J

*Enanitos Verdes = Little Green Men (or Green Dwarves)...

Beautiful day.

Today was pretty darn remarkable weatherwise.  Not sure how warm it was, but at lunch it was absolutely perfect for running.  I knocked out 7:  work to NCAR and back by way of the Mesa Trail.

Not much else to report.  I ran in my Cascadias in large part because in 2 weeks I'll be putting 50 into them and I haven't used them much recently.

Did 2 more when I got home.  Barefoot with Homey.  He's quite content and relaxed lying on the floor in the living room.

Thanks for reading.

J

And then there were 2...

Days off that is.

After running 47 miles this past weekend, I had thought I'd go running yesterday, 7 miles at lunch.
And then...
My office mate suggested we go get some lunch at...
Larkburger.
"Dude, I've gotta get a run in errr... Larkburger?  I haven't eaten there yet."
Lunch run could wait.

Image courtesy of Royce Bair

On the drive home, I started thinking about how much I ran this weekend and started thinking a second day off might not actually be a bad thing.  I logged a ton of mileage last week and think some of my trouble sleeping last week was directly related to my exercise.  I've got 2 races coming up.  This is supposed to be a rest/taper week, therefore:
DAY OFF!

Three days in a row though wasn't going to happen.

After a back and forth with my wife via skype chat about moving or not moving.  Moving in country or moving out of country.  Making decisions or not making decisions.  Applying for jobs or not applying for jobs.  Eating grapes or raisins.  Wearing Crocs or blah blah blah...  I took the afternoon off to get my resume in shape.

That done,  I headed out the door in my Bikilas for 4 miles.  I felt remarkably loose and smooth.  I kept looking at my GPS and dialing back the speed.  I really wanted today's workout to be easy.  Recovery.

After 4 in my five fingers, I got home and grabbed Homey for 3 more.  I took off my shoes.  He doesn't run in them, so until he's got tough pads again, neither will I.  It's really easy to stay easy running with a dog.  They've got lots to do while you're out.  Sniff.  Mark.  Pee.  Poop.   Repeat.  For me and Holmes it works out to:  run 1/4 mile stand for 20 seconds.  At least for the first mile and a half.  Then he settles into a travelling mode which is almost metronomic (new word: root metronome)...

Anyway.  Today I got my resume in shape (it's pretty obnoxious, but doesn't look like yours), I ran 4 miles in VFFs and 3 barefoot with the dog, and I had an argument with my wife.  Hopefully, tomorrow doesn't include door number 3.

Sunday review and a needed day off.

So today I took the day off.  This past weekend I knocked out 47 miles in essentially 4 workouts.

I'm tired, but not overly sore.  That's pleasantly surprising.  It leaves me feeling encouraged that I can cover 50 miles in under 15 hours.  Still not entirely convinced, but if I knew I could do it, I'm not sure I'd be all that motivated to...

Saturday was obviously the big effort, but just getting out of bed yesterday was a fair effort in itself.  Once I did, I discovered that the coffee I'd picked up at Target was decaf.  Why on Earth would anyone want decaffeinated coffee?  Ugh.  I sat on the couch for a while feeling sorry for myself and attempting to rally to go running, all without caffeine.

Finally around 10, I managed to muster enough "I must go running" mantras to actually get out the door.  I ran one of my pretty standard routes.  East along the powerlines, east along the North shore of union resevoir and out to Mead HS (I think that's the school), then south and back to home.  It's almost exactly 14 miles.

Saw some notable things while I was out.  An American White Pelican, and some folks in a field with a freaking trebuchet.  They launched it while I was standing there watching.  Cool.  Seriously.  I don't know what precisely the payload was, but it sure went a long way.

I spent a fair bit of time watching random crap on this run so I didn't get home until almost 1.  I went directly for burrito.  Brought it home and watched Man v Food for a while as the burrito digested and mustered up another trip out the door.

This time I slipped on my Bikilas and ran my most standard route, the 8.5 mile lariat around McIntosh Lake.  McIntosh is a really enjoyable circuit.  There is often cool birdlife out there.  I've seen egrets, coots, pelicans and yesterday a Great Blue Heron buzzed me.  It's crazy to me that Colorado has so many birds so commonly associated with coastal wetlands.  They're migratory of course, but still crazy.  Pelicans for frak sake!

I wasn't done when I got home though, I wanted to get 10 miles for my evening workout so I slipped off my vibrams, grabbed the leash and Homey and I ran the 2 miles out and back on the Rough and Ready bike path with a brief visit to say Happy Birthday to my friend Anya and her sister Reese.  I was offered a slice of cake, but I didn't my stomach would be stoked with all that sugar.  I tried to decline politely, but  it came out, "I don't think it'll stay down."  That's pretty random, and probably not all that polite.  Oh well, Liz and Will are at least familiar with me.

I guess that's it.  I'm still working up the video from Saturday.  I wasn't happy with the DivX conversion so I am looking for a codec which will let me import the video directly into Vegas.  Think I found it tonight, but left my laptop at work so the test will have to wait until tomorrow.

Thanks for reading.
J

Today's "Run"...

Went out with the goal of completing the Boulder Skyline Traverse today, but ran out of water.  That made things a bit tough, especially as I was coming down off of Green Mtn. with a virtually empty 100oz bladder.

My route took me from 19th and the Creek path South via Benson Earth Sciences (for a pee stop) to the Mesa Trail.  Felt pretty good along this portion of the (still) run and really I really enjoyed the views once up on Mesa. Took Mesa to Shadow Canyon and up.  That sucker is a straight up slog.  Steep, technical.   Not much running for a 210 lb dude.  Took 55 minutes.

South from the Shadow Canyon to South Boulder Peak where I forgot to hit my lap button, but it was about 12 minutes and then back north to Bear.

Bear is a treat.  It's bald.  Requires some scrambling to get the summit, but once there you've got 360 degrees of unobstructed view.  On a clear, haze free day, you could probably see Wyoming.  Coming down off of Bear, a dude (Kevin?) and I chatted for a bit and he noted an air show going on down in the Centennial Airport area.  That was sweet, I had been wondering, "What the heck is that weird pillar of smoke over there?" for a while.

The trek from Bear north to Green Mountain went not so well, I'd been not enjoying the sun too much and it was  giving me a bit of tough time.  Combine that with a rocky, technical descent and I found myself not hammering like I would have liked.  Keep the ankles happy - race coming up.  Once the trail turned up though, the wheels almost popped off.  My Camelback got a workout.  I hiked an awful lot of the trail, ran when I could, but that wasn't often.

Up, up, up - to Green.  Not my favorite summit in Boulder.  Too crowded, lots of trees.  Vistas are nice, but Bear is way better.  At this point, people were starting to look at me, perhaps wondering if I was ok.  I'd been conserving water and was really feeling it at this point.  I think I hit the summit of Green in about 4 hours, maybe a little more.  The real relief there was:  It's almost all downhill from here.  Unfortunately, there are still tough technical bits before you get to the nice, wide open, Ranger Trail.

My brain was really starting to fade at this point.  I was able to run most of the way to the Tenderfoot Trail on Flagstaff (it's all downhill), but I wasn't digging it.  At some point before crossing Flagstaff Road, I ran out of Heed (stuff is good btw, sweetened with Maltose and Sugar - not HFCS - Mild Mellon in my pack today).  Got to the ranger station on Flagstaff and discovered that the water fountain was broken and not to be repaired.  Vandals.  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Fortunately this was a weekend and the ranger cottage was actually open.  I'd've been hitch hiking otherwise. Gentleman inside (had a couple of gallons of water - I took a pint) and I chatted for a while.  Turns out his son had ridden the LT100 mountain bike version a 2 weeks ago.  10 hours or something like that.  Cool.

All the rest was down hill.  I hit a trail I'd never been on before that pops out right at Eben G. Fine Park where I expected to have some water, but the fountain was pathetic.  Seriously.  Thought I'd get some water for my pack, but I got water for my mouth and that was all.

Sucked a bunch down and took off for the car, after about 25 meters on the creek path I could no longer take my shoes going "shshshshshshsh" and I took them off.  The last 1.5 miles or so of my run today was barefoot.  Set a couple of folks aback by that - "That guy is running barefoot?!" and another "Dude!  Barefoot!  Hard core man!"

Anyway.  I've got some video from today's "run" and I'll post it later.  Boulder is sweet.
Thanks for reading,
J

P.S.
When I got home I'd come around far enough that Homey and I went out for 3 more miles.  Me in VFF and he barefoot (surprise).  Total for today 22 miles in less than 7 hours.
J