When You're Green, You're Growing

I started running seriously about 2.5 years ago, which has essentially been all minimalist running. When I started minimalist, or barefoot, or natural, running, I was hard pressed to find resources about the subject online. Today there's a lot of quality information available about the subject, but with it has come an ever increasing white noise generated by people talking about the subject and passing themselves off as experts. As this noise has gotten louder, I've found I'm just not as interested reading about the subject as I once was. In fact, I can remember the last time I was really excited about a new barefoot running resource.

A couple of days ago my friend Alan T. posted a video title The Principles of Natural Running, by Dr. Mark Cucuzzella on Daily Mile, which is available from Dr. Cucuzzella's website Natural Running Center and is embedded below. After watching this video of Doc Mark running barefoot, I felt like a klutz, this guy is amazing, but more than that, he explains some of the things that have been sussed out by barefoot running guru, Barefoot Ken Bob (BKB) and many others. For example, the 180 steps per minute cadence, this is a principle that BKB discussed well before barefoot running got the attention it currently has. In this video, Doc Mark explains this as being our natural rhythm, one that can be seen repeated in many activities that we do, such as jumping rope. I found this video to be very informative. It reiterated things I've known, reminded me of things I've forgotten, introduced things I didn't know or really understand, and made me aware of several flaws within my own form. This is the first running resource I've been excited about in awhile and I plan on making use of the source website to improve my running, which I believe will result in making me a faster more efficient runner.

Update 2/11/12:
I ran another three miles today and I tried to apply some of the principles discussed in the above video. During both of these runs I've felt as though my lungs were the limiting factor, which I mentioned on Daily Mile for both of these runs. Not knowing what I was talking about, I thought I needed to increase my lung capacity, but, thanks again to Alan T. who pointed me in the right direction, it looks like it's a diaphragm strengthening related issue. During both of these runs I felt a slight pain in my right side under my ribcage, which I just assumed was a cramp, but was actually a stitch, which I found some information about here: http://www.brianmac.co.uk/articles/scni10a1.htm

I wanted to add this bit to this post because I feel it's related to the above. I have a sense of being ready to advance to the next step, one I don't think I was really aware of other than having a desire to reach what I believe is my potential, which in simplistic terms would translate to a faster pace. Until know, however, the way hasn't been clear.

Update on Foot Injury and Road to Hyannis Marathon

My foot is doing fine.  By Tuesday morning, that bright reddish spot, shown in the previous post, seemed to have dissipate across the top of my foot and the color was close to my natural skin color.  By Wednesday, unless I pointed it out to you, you would not have noticed it at all.  There was some tightness in the foot, which I only really noticed when I flexed my foot.

I saw my bone doctor this morning for a follow up.  He did his exam and he thinks it is/was a bone bruise and he said I should build up the running slowly and at a slow pace (he knows I'm running a marathon at the end of February).  I did some more internet searching this morning and I'm not convinced it is a bone bruise (though it could be).  From what I found online, I think it could be Bursitis, and I think the same treatment recommended by my doctor for a bone bruise applies.

I'm not sure what the cause was in either case.  I've been running minimalist/barefoot for 2.5 years and this has never come up.  I have a suspicion that it might be related to doing some of my running in Merrell Sonic Glove trail shoes this winter, which are a minimalist shoe, but unlike the Vibram Fivefingers, which are best described as a foot-glove, the Merrells are definitely shoes.  While my injury occurred while wearing my V5F Speeds, I can't help but wonder if my form had gotten a little sloppy as a result of wearing the Merrells.  Specifically, I'm wondering if, without the feedback I get while running barefoot and in V5Fs, was somewhat muted and started to land harder on my forefoot.  I did actually notice a similar pain at the same location while wearing the Merrells on a run weeks before, but that pain seemed to go away by the time I reached the end of that run.  I should also point out that I really only suspect that running in the Merrells as the cause as it's the only thing I've been doing different recently.  It could also be that the cold has something to do with it (as indicated in the "Who is at Risk" on the Bursitis Page).

I don't have another follow up with my doctor and the pain is gone.  I have about 40 days before the Hyannis Marathon.  I have a 20 mile run scheduled for this Sunday.  In fact the remainder of my training schedule looks like this:

Monday  |  Tuesday  |  Wednesday  |  Thursday  |  Friday  |  Saturday  |  Sunday  
Cross      |  5 miles    |   10 miles       |  5 miles      |  Rest     |  10 miles   | 20 miles -1/22
Cross      |  5 miles    |   6 miles         |  5 miles      |  Rest     |  6 miles     | 12 miles -1/29
Cross      |  5 miles    |   10 miles       |  5 miles      |  Rest     |  10 miles   | 20 miles -2/5

Cross      |  5 miles    |   8 miles         |  5 miles      |  Rest     |  4 miles     | 12 miles -2/12
Cross      |  4 miles    |   6 miles         |  4 miles      |  Rest     |  4 miles     | 8 miles   -2/29
Cross      |  3 miles    |   4 miles         |  Rest          |  Rest     |  2 miles     | Marathon-26th

Right now, I believe my biggest challenge will be to completed the remainder of my training and make sure I can run on the 26th.  That means that if I need to reduce milage or even eliminate runs from my training schedule, then that's what I'll do.  What I don't want to eliminate is the two remaining 20 mile runs as I feel more than anything else, it's these runs that get me ready for running a marathon.  I may have to shift things around to get these done.  Tomorrow I'll attempt to run the scheduled 5 miles, what happens on the following day that will depend on how that goes, and so on.

UPDATE!
1/17/12
I successfully completed my 5 mile run today (Tuesday) - no issues what so ever.  Ironically, I actually ran in my Merrell Sonic Gloves, but I focused 100% on form.  I had to make several corrections to my form several times during my run, even as I attempted to maintain a constant state of awareness regarding my form - if that makes any sense ;)  I discovered three key deficiencies in my form that I believe snuck into my running form due to a muting of the sensory feedback I get when running barefoot or in V5Fs.  Once I ponder it some more I'll write up a post about it.

Longest Barefoot Run to Date - 12 Miles

One of my goals this year was to increase my barefoot milage, which I've done.  Today I ran 12 miles barefoot making this the furthest distance barefoot I've run to date.  I'm not planning on topping that this year, but hopefully I'll get a few more barefoot 12-milers in before it getts too cold.

Twelve miles is the distance I've had in the back of my mind as a good finale to my barefoot running ambitions for the year.  This distance is covered a few times in the latter part of my marathon schedule so it fit in very well.  That being the case, I've had my eye on today as "longest barefoot run day".  Unfortunately this weekend has turned out to be a little warmer than the past several days and yesterday and today are probably two of the most humid days we've had all summer, which made today's run something of a challenge in general, much less running it barefoot.

From the start of my run, the temperature just kept creeping up and I tried to adjust for this by slowing down.  I was also paying extra attention to my running form, which is one of the first things to go as fatigue begins to set in.  As I continued to run, my pace got slower and slower, I was struggling.  I've covered 10 miles barefoot several times now, and it's not been a issue for me, of course the weather on those days were more ideal.

My feet started to feel tender sometime before 10 miles, perhaps even as far back as 8 miles, but I'm not quite sure.  It was at  around 10 miles I definitely noticed it, but I was on the home stretch and on a newly paved road, which is heavenly to run barefoot on.  My stride was extreme short at this point, I was just crawling along, and while my cadence was much less that the 180 beats/minute, I was focusing at least maintaining an ideal barefoot running form.

The last mile was undoubtedly the hardest.  At the 11 mile mark my route took me off the heavenly road onto a road that, while actually in great shape, is probably the roughest on my feet.

This rougher road did me in earlier in the year when I attempted my first barefoot 10 miler, which only ended up being 9 miles (I did that last mile in my V5Fs).  That first 10 mile attempt was also run during a very hot day, one one on which the asphalt got particularly hot.  That first attempt got me to 9 miles, which, even though I did not get to my intended 10, was still the furthest barefoot distance I'd run up to that point.  I also got two small blisters on two of my toes that day, which was probably, in part, due to the hot road surface.

Fortunately on today's run, despite being very hot and humid, the sun hadn't heated up the pavement as it did before.  So I transitioned to the rough paved road, with one mile to go, I was fatigued and my feet were tender.  I managed to get down this road perhaps a quarter mile before I started to think about stopping and putting on my V5F, which I had packed in my hydration vest.  At about a half mile I was real close to doing it.  Having a goal in mind and being so close to it, definitely contributed to working through it mentally to get me to 12 barefoot miles.  But the largest part that got me through was a quick sensory assessment of my feet.  Attempting to reach this goal at the risk of injury would have just been stupid.

Awareness of my body, being smart about training, and not over doing it were probably among the hardest lessons I had to learn when I first started running again two years ago.  I had several injuries early on that could easily been avoided and consequently I was forced me to take weeks off from running.

So I assessed my feet: I had no indications of blisters and there were no punctures, which I chalk up to an overall improvement to my running form this year and also understanding that as I get fatigued my form often begins to fall apart.  Knowing this, I continually checked my form and made adjustments as needed.  So, with everything checking out as OK, I pushed through and finished my intended run.

I know that had the weather been a little more ideal today, my first 12 mile barefoot run would have been something of a more upbeat story.  Bad runs in warm weather is nothing new for me, and had this just been another run, I would have grumbled about it, cursed the heat and moved on, but instead, a milestone has been reached, which makes this a good run in the end.

There are 28 days left before my next marathon.  I've been considering limiting my barefoot running in the two weeks of training before the marathon to get a few more miles in with the V5F Speeds, which I'll be running the marathon with.  Before then, there'll be several more 10 mile barefoot runs and hopefully one more 12 mile run.  After the marathon it'd be nice to get in at least one more barefoot 12 miler, but that well be dependent on the temperatures.  Next spring I'll begin training to run the Toronto Waterfront Marathon barefoot.

Freedom!

I just completed my 9th week of marathon training with a 19 mile run today.  My run wasn't pretty, my pace was erratic, and I was struggling.  Heat seems to affect all runners, some more so that other, but from what I've read about it online, even top athletes take a performance hit.  Sure, there are some people that don't seem adversely affected by heat.  Take my friend Alan T. for example, he reveals in the heat, but there's some strong evidence that his DNA has some lizard DNA in it (check out his Barefoot Journey blog - link in the Blog Roll).

With today's scheduled long-run and the forecasted humidity, I knew today's run was going to be a tough one.  One way to get through these warm days is to start out early to get your run done before the day's heat start picking up, but I seem to be having some difficultly getting out of bed early on Sundays, plus yesterday was an exceptionally long day for me.  So I didn't get to my route's starting point until 10:30AM today.  The temperature was 72°F when I started and it was very humidity, I was soaked within the first two miles.  Another way to get through the warm weather is to slow your pace - one online resource I read was to adjust your pace by 30 seconds for every 5 degrees above 60°F.  I have a tendency to start out to fast, even this morning when I was trying to go slow, I found myself having to pull back several times, at least until around mile 7, where I was just slowing down.  In addition to adjusting my pace dur to the heat, my long-run-day pace is also suppose to be slower than my  intended marathon pace, but again, this will depend on the temperature on race day.  So as I felt myself slipping in my pace mile by mile, I wasn't too upset about it.  I kept reminding myself, or at least I kept trying to remind myself, that with the heat adjustment AND the training pace, I was alright, but a part of my was telling me that would be fine, if I was running this slow on purpose.  In truth, it actually is alright, the heat does and did beat me down, and I know what my performance looks like when temps are below 70°F and lower.  So what gives.

If you've ever run a long distance you already know this.  It's mind games, it's your body trying to convince your brain to quit, it's your own personal expectations, it's your brain trying to think when your muscles are bogarting all the oxygen in your body.  You need to mentally overcome these obstacles.  It's as much of marathon training as logging lots of miles.  I was struggling, which is not unusual for me on my long-run under less than ideal conditions (i.e. hot and humid 0_o).

But something else happened today.  I wore my Bikila LS Vibram Fivefingers today.  Somewhere around 12 miles, my feet were starting to feel "tired".  As the miles went on, my feet just started to feel more and more tired, and my body brought this complaint up with my brain.  Now at no point did I ever consciously think, 'my feet are tired, I should stop', but it was, I think, an added stress on my brain, which was just trying to keep everything together and keep me moving forward.  At around 14 miles I stopped for the first time, I was HOT.  I took off my running hat then stopped to pack it away in my running vest.  I drank down some water, fueled, and took some electrolytes.  I stopped three more times with the last one being around 17 miles - 2 miles left to go.  I was spent and my feet just weren't happy, I was at that point where I knew I only had two miles left to go, and, at the rate I was going, I knew it was just going to take forever with a combination of slow runs and walking.  Things were looking grim in Mudsville.

A little background:
This year I've really worked on improving my barefoot running, both form and distance.  It's been a great year.  So far my max barefoot distance runs have been 9 miles and I'll be hitting 10 miles for the first time this coming week.  There is no better way to improve your minimalist form than kicking off your shoes and running barefoot.  (Caution: if you've always walked around in shoes, the epidermis on the bottom of your feet is probably really thin, start slow, walk around barefoot as much as possible.)  I'm at the point in my form where I can comfortably run the above distances without damage to my feet, at least on hard surfaces.  I think I could probably get away with doing a half marathon distance barefoot now, but that would be on pavement.  My form is not at the point where I feel I could go further than that and I'm a long way off from where I can run on, say, a gravelly dirt road.  Nonetheless, for the distances I'm running, my feet feel great.

Back to my run:
So there I am, facing two more miles with dread.  Somewhere before 17 miles I started to think about taking off my shoes.  (When I've run barefoot on one road surface with a consistent texture for a couple of miles, and then another road surface with a different texture, my feet seem to feel reinvigorated.)  A voice in my brain was telling me that this was a stupid idea, my feet were soaked, I had sweat frothing out of the side of one of my Bikilas.  At the same time, I kept thinking about how much better my feet would feel, to, well, feel that road.  I took off my Bikila's strapped them to my vest, and started running.

I could feel the wariness of my feet begin to fade, I was flexing my toes between strides, I was, wait, I was, that can't be right, I was actually starting to pick up my pace a bit!  My cadence had increased!  Short rapid steps, my feet were talking directly to my brain.  This was so bizarre, never had I thought of taking my V5Fs off toward the end of a long-run.  I ran the rest of the route, a little less than two miles, without anymore stops.  Somehow, it wasn't just my feet that were reinvigorated, it was my whole body.  I'm not 100% what happened, but I think what it might be, or at least in part, is that as the heat and distance started to take their toll, my form just started to fall apart, (although I didn't think it was), and that in turn further taxed my body.  As great as minimalist shoes are at sensory feedback, they, obviously, aren't barefoot.  But that's why we stick a thin layer of something between us and the ground, so when we just don't see that rock, or that very rare piece of glass, there's something between you and it.  And, having thought about today's lesson, that piece of "something", is also there because, as far as I've come with my minimalist form, I still have a very long way to go.  On today's run, my body was taxed and I got sloppy, and didn't realize it, so today, my minimalist shoes, in a sense, failed me.  At the same time, however, I've run long distances under far cooler conditions, which I would not have been able to run without them.  There's probably a lot more too all this, things that I may or may not discover as I move along, but today I learned something new, and that is, perhaps, what all of this is really about anyways.