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