Weekly miles: 31
Barefoot miles: 1
I’m a bit disappointed to say that this week I’ve only run a mile with no shoes on. I raced on Saturday, and I’m not in any barefoot shape at the moment to race with no shoes (especially a fell race in Yorkshire), and I was going to do Sunday’s easy 10 miler in my Five Fingers but having broken my little toe it’s still not comfortable to squash it into its Five Finger home. I wanted to do a little bit in bare feet so took my shoes off for a mile in the middle of my 10 miles. I possibly should have done more, but a lot of the route was on stony track and I didn’t fancy that with my current novice level of barefoot preparedness, so I just did the mile when I was on grassy/peaty terrain, which was quite comfortable.
I hope I’m not just imagining it but I do feel that the arches on my feet are much springier after a combination of barefoot, Five Finger and forefoot running. On Sunday when I was jogging, in shoes or otherwise, I felt like I was getting much more propulsion through my midfoot and it made a big difference to how sprightly and light-footed I felt.
All in all I’ve done 31 miles this week, 30 of which were in my Inov-8 Roclite shoes, with all insoles stripped out, and then 1 mile with no shoes. I run in my Inov-8s with a forefoot strike now and it’s pretty comfy, although for some reason yesterday I felt a bit of pulling behind my right knee. I can’t quite figure out how – I didn’t have any pain running on Saturday or Sunday, then just swam and did circuits on Monday, but the pain came fairly early on in my run yesterday. It’s a problem I had throughout January, February and March and I’m not sure if I reactivated it yesterday by running almost straight after driving for 2 hours in heavy traffic or perhaps by slipping a bit on the very wet ground. I’d actually been planning to do my warm-up and warm-down for my run in bare feet yesterday, but the rain was so torrential I wimped out and put my shoes on. Perhaps I wouldn’t have had the problem if I’d warmed up in no shoes; I don’t know. I’ll go to the physio on Friday and I’m hoping it’s just a case of loosening off the tendon and then back to normal and getting a few more barefoot miles in.
Another note about switching to a forefoot strike: in the fell race I did on Saturday, by running with a forefoot strike on the downhill (not the aggressively steep downhill, in which a forefoot strike would presumably lead to me falling onto my face, but the more gradual downhill), simply by running on my forefeet I flew past several men (running with a heel strike), without feeling like I was exerting myself unduly. I’m well aware this is not due to my current level of fitness or athletic prowess, but more due to the difference in foot strike and due to the aforementioned springier arches in my feet.
If the physio gives me the go-ahead to keep running I’ll endeavour to get a few more barefoot miles in next week, and not to wimp out just because the rain is lashing down!
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