How many times in a day can i explain what my shoes are

It's a bit overdue, but sometimes i forget that i have a blog. However, this day was blogworthy. Not today perhaps, well maybe, hmm. Where do i start. Wednesday.

Wednesday

First Vibram 5 fingers race(s) ever. It was an all comers meet, thus i did all the events that i could. That ended up being 4 because the meet went really fast. First! Was the 4x800, ran a 2:09 800, which isn't bad, but tells me that i need more speed. Then came the mile, my debut event. Walked up to the line in my vibram five fingers, and boy did i get some looks. That was the last thing that anyone expected to be on my feet, and i definitely got a lot of comments. The CHSAA officials were chuckling to themselves, and i overheard them say that they were thinking of getting a pair themselves. The athletes next to me were stupified, and the coaches were convinced that i was running barefoot, and sought to dq me from the race. Nonetheless i won the race in 4:46, a new mile best, and first ever race "barefoot". The race unfolded pretty well, and my feet felt incredible. My first split was 1:10, followed by a 1:13, a 1:13 and a 1:10. Not too shabby for early season. I continued on the meet by racing the 300 meter hurdles, and ran a 46.3, getting me 4th place the first time i had ever ran that. I also wore my vibrams. Then i felt like jumping some more, so i did the triple jump, jumping 35-5, good enough for a 7th place finish in a field of 13 jumpers. I also jumped in my vibrams. Twas a good day, the next good as well.

Thursday

Thursday i decided to head into boulder before the weather took a turn for the worse. I strapped my bike to my car, drove up 4.5 miles up Magnolia road, stashed my bike, then drove down. I then proceeded to run up about 2300 feet in that 4.5 miles where my bike was quietly waiting to carry me back down. It was a leg burner, but felt really good, and i completed the route in 41 minutes. Just 3 more miles and 2000 more feet, and there's mount washington. Lovely.

Friday was my birthday, and it snowed all day which was nice. Saturday was nice as well, and Sunday i taught ski lessons up at Eldora. Good week, now its spring break. Today, i did a speed workout, consisting of 12x200 at 29-30 seconds each, followed by a tabatta workout which is 4 minutes of sprinting for 20 seconds, then walking for 10. Its pretty tough. I'm excited to say now that everything i do is barefoot and in the vibram 5 fingers, and i'm getting a pair of the vibram 5 KSO Treks, which i'm insanely excited for. Snowy trails, here i come!

Random quote of the day:

There is no such thing as a stupid question, just stupid people who ask questions.

And for kicks, a random picture

Bare Excitement

03/13/10

1600- 4:47

3200-10:15

Saturday was my first meet of the season, and my last meet wearing shoes. Even in racing flats, very light 5 ounce shoes, my legs didn't feel natural. I distinctly felt different from running barefoot, however, putting shoes back on defeats the purpose of running barefoot, and after losing a shoe on the 4th lap of the 2 mile, i came to a decision. And, being a little afraid to race in the vibrams, i did 400's on the track today. Ended up doing 8x400 at 1:08 pace, just shy of my target mile pace. Every one felt incredible, and i haven't yet done speed training in the vibrams. In short, it felt great, and provided i can run wednesday, i'm doing the mile in the vibrams. I am very excited. Also, before the 400's, i ran at the rec center for about 20 minutes total doing uphill intervals on the treadmille. Ended up doing 4 5 minute segments of running at a 12 percent grade at 6mph, which is a little slower than my goal pace for the mount washington race in june. Oh yeah, forgot to mention that. I'm running the Mt. Washington road race in june. It's 4500 feet up 7.6 miles. Pure bliss for uphill runners, but what i found out today, is that 12% average grade is pretty tough. Anyways, that race is the US Mountain running championships for this year, and i'll be there to destroy that wimpy 6000 foot mountain.

Here's a cool site i found on a more detailed study of sorts on barefoot running.

http://www.barefootrunning.fas.harvard.edu/1WhyConsiderFootStrike.html

The week thus far and some nostalgia

Howdy bloggers! Haven't blogged in a bit, but here's something. Thus far, I have run 8 miles barefoot on monday, did a workout tuesday, and did 6 today. Tomorrow i'm doing a hurdle workout (hurdles?) for the 300 hurdles. The coach thinks i might be good, so i'll try. I'm pretty excited though. It's like chasing down an animal or something, it's running in an oval shape, and is jumping over several objects that I also must jump over in order to catch the animal. Thats basically my thought process for a race. Set the scene in the woods, I'm chasing an animal for food or for a good challenge, and thats how i get a new best time.

Anyways, here's the nostalgia. I miss summer only because there isn't snow on my trails. Snow on ski trails, thats ok, but snow on mesa trail just freezes my toes. Yes, I realize that my feet were clothed at this time, but this was last year. Hence, nostalgia. It's long, but stick it out. It's worth it. Trust me

Whats fun about this video is that I filmed the entire thing. It was originally for a video contest which I will put that video up later. This one I put together after filming myself several times stealing my backpack. Basically, I would set up the camera, run off shot, run through the shot, run back and turn off the camera. For the multiple me shots, I left the camera in the exact same spot, and split the videos. It was incredibly awkward and funny when people walked by me on these shots, because I would be either talking to myself, or stealing a backpack. It was a good day.