After a time trial of just under 5 miles on the Tuesday, the feet felt ready for another barefoot run.
The main exercise of the the day was 50 mins on the bike to the nearest all-weather running track.
I’ve run regularly on this track before but it was only when I ventured on it with no shoes that I realised how abrasive and coarse the surface. I only managed a mile before the hot-spots returned. The last 400m was run at a pace I often run my 400m reps in (1.30). This seemed to warm the feet up even quicker and I’m glad I didn’t do another lap barefoot.
I am surprised that the feet are still getting sore so quickly. I think there must be some sort of twisting action whilst my feet are in contact with the ground which I can hopefully address as I progress.
I took the opportunity to try out my new cheaper-than-cheap running shoes; the aqua shoes bought from Tesco a few days ago. I kept the slightly cushioned insoles in the shoes and ran another mile. They felt pretty good, my feet didn’t slide about in them as much as I thought they might. I bought the size 8 (my usual shoe size is 8.5-9), and there’s plenty of room in them — I could probably get away with 7, but will learn more when I’ve run slightly further in them. Here’s a picture that shows just how flexible they are.
They are quite stylish, don’t you think?
I’m not sure the other guy at the track could work me out; first running barefoot and then putting these things on.
The red tint on the soles is from the all-weather track.
I think that these shoes will be very useful in helping to keep the blisters to a minimum, whilst still offering many of the attributes of barefoot running. They will also be handy when running over slightly more ‘testing’ ground.
By the end of that short session my feet were pretty sore again and some rudimentary surgery was needed on the blisters (again!).
On each of the occasions that I’ve run barefoot the feet have actually ended up much more sore than I thought they would whilst I was running. So my advice is: as soon as the feet feel sore, it’s probably time to stop.
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