Week 2 of running some barefoot miles went well. Minimal soreness in my calves migrated gradually down towards my feet. Out of 22 total miles, 4.4 were barefoot. I keep wiggling my feet (not while I’m running) to see if they look more bony – I’ve always admired bony feet and never had them, and hope the barefoot running will help them look more muscular and bony.
I run on my treadmill, very early in the morning, listening to music on my Ipod. On Thursday of week 3, after stopping briefly during my run to go to the bathroom, in the dark and with the Ipod blaring, I stepped back onto the treadmill which was, though I didn’t know it, still running. I flew off the side of it, bruising my shins and upper arm and hitting my side. Well I’ve always been careful operating this machine and have always been respectful of its potential to injure – really don’t know how I steppped off of it without realizing it hadn’t stopped and then stepped back onto it without realizing it was still running. I finished running in spite of the pain in my side, which lasted for several days and slowed my running times considerably (each breath hurt!). I ran 4.4 of my total 22 miles barefoot, same as previous week. I was pleased with how it’s going, though I was having minor pain in my right heel and a little pain across the top of my left foot.
I HATE running in the warm weather. No matter what I do to try to make myself as comfortable as possible while running, it’s still torture for me. Running barefoot seems a natural progression of my attempts to keep cool in warm weather – what pure joy to take off those hot, heavy shoes and socks! Week 4 of my barefoot progression included the warm weather I dread as well as the pain in my side and the minor foot pains as described above. While my side improved over the course of the week, and the heel pain did also, the top of foot pain in my other foot didn’t. It hurt to run barefoot, though I stuck it out for a few days. It got to the point, however, that it hurt too much to run barefoot, and I finished the week shod. Total barefoot miles were only 3.
I’ve read over and over again to progress slowly while transitioning to barefoot running, and I thought I was doing just that. But the pain in my foot increased over the course of the next week, and though I ended up running almost as many miles as usual, none were barefoot because of the pain. Putting any pressure on the ball of my left foot hurt, as did going downstairs. I was obviously limping all the time. One thing I think really made it worse was not being able to rest it on my non-running days – I was helping my son to move, and all that moving around exacerbated the injury. At one point I considered asking my doctor if I could get an XRay to rule out a stress fracture, but after reading up on it realized that 1. an XRay might not show a stress fracture, and 2. some doctors don’t “treat” a stress fracture anyway, except to advise resting the foot. I can’t rest. So the whole thing just seemed futile to me and I decided to wait a while longer to see what developed. Today, after 2 days of not running, it did feel a little better, though mowing the lawn aggravated it a little. One would think this mother wouldn’t have to mow her own lawn on Mother’s Day, but it didn’t work out that way.
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