Author Archives: kjkranz

Name: Kyle Kranz

Blog: RunningOnTheWhiteLine.com

Age: 22

Years Running: 3

Typical Weekly Mileage: (When not injured) 40-60

Running Terrain: Road. Out of town and in town.

Experience going barefoot not running: None

Pre-existing Injuries: Many, ITBS and PF. But I feel I am over PF and almost over ITBS at the moment.

Usual running footwear: VFF Classics

Foot Strike: Midfoot

Reasons for Running BF: The challenge

In high school I weighed 230 pounds my freshmen year. Now as a senior nutrition student in college I am 150 pounds. I began cycling my freshmen year, starting doing triathlons my second year, and my junior year I added in marathons and ultramarathons.

I have spent a lot of time injured with ITBS and PF. However after taking nearly the entire summer of 2009 off with PF I began running in Vibrams. When I started I still had a bit of PF pain but it eventually disappeared.

Currently I am coming off a ITBS problem from too much running on a short 9 lap track. Doing 10+ mile runs is a lot of corners and bad for the outside leg apparently. I focused more on low heart rate training. Keeping me slow which allowed me to increase my mileage slowly. I have now been running for about a month and feeling very well.

I would like to add BF running into my training to strengthen my self and for the challege. I cannot say I will do all my running or racing BF, but we’ll see.

Distance: 33.5

Sessions: 4

BF Sessions: 1

BF Miles: 2

Terrain: Road

BF Surface: Pavement out of town, clean road

Runs in VFF: 4

BF Weather: Clear, dry

Feet Condition: Some blisters, from VFF. No pain though.

Comments: Now that I have began running more outside, I have had three people ask me about the VFF/BF running just this week who have seen me out on the roads.

Nasting Things: The two miles I did were on a road out of town. Super clean, did not have any problems.

Injuries: One toe on my right foot must rub a bit when I run BF and did start to annoy me a little during the 2 BF miles. That night I checked it again and there was a pretty significant blister on the end/inside of it.

My fourth toe on the right side that was bothering me during the BF run a couple days ago has a pretty good blister on it that I had to pop. It’s bothering me during walking a bit since the bottom of the toe is a bit under the one next to it, so it’s getting pressed on each time I step.
I think it will be ok in Vibrams though, since the shoe separates the toes so it will not be getting pressed on all the time. I’ll find out today.

Well that toe issue I posted about is gone in the Vibrams. It really hurt walking the half mile to class and half mile back. Super annoying. But I got back home, popped, drained, and cleaned the blister again. After that it was totally fine. As predicted, the Vibrams were perfect for running in them. Unlike BF, when my toes are touching more and that one toe is slightly under the adjacent one, the VFF spread them out. Did 8 with no pain on that toe, or anywhere actually.

Distance: 38

Sessions: 4

BF Sessions: 1

BF Miles: 5

Terrain: Road

BF Surface: Pavement out of town, clean road

Runs in VFF: 4

BF Weather: Clear, dry

Feet Condition: Some blisters, from VFF. No pain though.

Comments: When I did a couple barefoot miles last week I noticed two things right away. First, I had a huge smile on my face. It was actually a lot of fun. There was no pain from running barefoot.The second was how great the road actually felt. The nice warm temperature felt good. It was interesting going from the grey pavement to the white or yellow lines and feeling the temperature differences. Or when you run over a shadow and it gets a little colder, but you look forward to getting past the shelter belt and into the sun again. Feels great, and I can’t wait to do it again.

Just before I get back into town the roads get pretty dirty again so I put the Vibrams back on. Putting the Vibrams on after running barefoot is like…taking a drag suit off in the pool or putting a set of race wheels on the bike. I am not at the point yet that I can run at the same pace BF as shod. So when I put the VFF back on I feel more swift then I already did in them, before running BF.

The ability of Vibrams to block sensory information is not something I like when on a training run out of town. However during a race it is actually beneficial. Running faster then I should really physically and naturally be able to, due to the sensory inhibition between my feet and the ground, is acceptable for a race. However over and over again I see older or more experienced runners say the main cause of probably 75% of running injuries is too much running too soon. This is another benefit of running barefoot. Doing so really prevents you from doing too much too soon. You cannot up the mileage until you are ready.

Nasting Things:

Injuries:  None

Distance: 43.5

Sessions: 4

BF Sessions: 1

BF Miles: 2

Terrain: Road

BF Surface: Pavement out of town, clean road

Runs in VFF:4

BF Weather: Clear, dry

Feet Condition: A couple healing blisters from the VFF, no pain while running.

Comments: I encountered some barriers to barefoot running this week. My Monday run started at about 10 or 11. I had a headlamp with me and was running out of town but did not want to go without the Vibrams. The barrier during this run was darkness.

Wednesday I did a 20 mile out and back. I would have liked to do some barefoot running but the road I was on had enough traffic that if a car was coming I got off to the side of the road. Most of time the only shoulder was about a foot of gravel and then the ditch. This would have made for some very uncomfortable barefoot running. The last mile of going out and the first mile of coming back I did take the shoes off, getting two BF miles in. The traffic obviously thinned out as I got farther from town. Lack of a shoulder and being forced to get off of the road on occasion due to traffic caused problems with going BF during this run.

Same as last week though. I loved the two barefoot miles I did manage to get in. They felt absolutely wonderful

Thursday I did 10 miles. The wind was from the West so I was forced to go out on the bypass. There is a very nice shoulder but it’s rather gravely, rocky, and honestly I hate to say it but there is broken glass every once in a while out there. On our group bike rides we do our best to avoid that stretch of road since if you get a flat it will almost always be there. I did the 10 in Vibrams.

Saturday I did 5 in town. I honestly could probably do just fine with running in town barefoot, I have done so once already for about a mile. However the roads going north out of town are very clean compared to in town still, and I would rather stick to running out there for a while still while I adjust.

More thoughts at www.RunningOnTheWhiteLine.com

Distance: 41.25

Sessions: 3

BF Sessions: 1

BF Miles: .5

Terrain: Road, gravel, bike path

BF Surface: Bike Path during heavy rain.

Runs in VFF:3

BF Weather: About 55 degrees, very wet and rainy

Feet Condition: Just fine

Comments:  I only got three runs in this week. One was a 20 miler in town, the other was a 6 miler that I did during a rain storm. I fit in only half a mile on the bike path during this run. The combo of it being a bit colder, pretty wet, and on a very rough bike path made the run somewhat uncomfortable.  The 15 mile run I did at the beginning of the week was also in town. As I have mentioned in previous posts I want to keep my in town BF running to a minimum until I am more comfortable with running on cleaner roads out of town first.