- Total weekly miles
3/4 of a mile.
- Number of running sessions
3.
- Total weekly barefoot miles
3/4 of a mile.
- Number of barefoot running sessions
3.
- Running terrain
Flat circuit outside my house on pavement.
- Ground surface of barefoot runs
A mix of smooth and rough pavement with some road too.
- Runs in minimalist shoes, e.g. Five Fingers.
None.
- Weather for barefoot runs (rain on road?)
Warm and dry.
- Condition of skin on feet — hotspots, blisters
Dirty, but no damage at the moment. I have a small blister below my third toe from walking barefoot, but that’s healing nicely and doesn’t affect my running.
- Interesting/amusing comments received during the week: e.g. ‘You’ve got no shoes on!’
None so far. A few funny looks though.
- Treading on nasty things: e.g. glass, thorns, poo — how you dealt with any.
Pavement has been clean so far this week so no need to deal with any nasty things!
- Changes in your running style that you’ve noticed.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I land on my forefoot instinctively when running barefoot. I’m trying to put into practice all the other changes in form that are recommended for barefoot running (short strides, high cadence, bent knees etc.), but it’s quite difficult to do on such short runs (all runs 1/4 mile this week) because by the time I feel I’m getting into a nice rhythm the run is over. Hopefully as I extend my mileage over the next few weeks this will get better.
- Injuries incurred, or reduction of existing symptoms.
No injuries. My feet feel a bit tired as I write this (although that’s more likely to be the 5 miles I walked barefoot yesterday!). No re-occurence of the TOFP I had before, thankfully.
- Useful tips and nuggets of info you’ve picked up along the way.
The most useful thing I’ve picked up is the idea of cross-training! I never really cross-trained before, apart from the occasional visit to the gym where I messed around with the weights and rowing machines for 30 minutes and then went home. Running was always my main form of exercise. Now I can’t do much running due to restricted mileage, I’m using a couple of cross-training ideas I’ve pinched from Jason Robillard’s book, the imaginatively titled “The Barefoot Running Book”.
My favourite one is as follows – get a pack of cards. Each suite has an associated exercise, so for example, hearts could be burpees, diamonds are crunches, clubs are press-ups, spades could be squats. The aces are 11, face cards are 10, the other cards are as numbered. Turn over the first card and do the exercise shown by the suite the number of times shown by the value of the card. Now try and get through the whole pack! You’ll be so tired by the end you won’t care that you’re only supposed to run 1/4 mile! You can vary the exercises as well and the random order and number from using the cards mean that it doesn’t get too boring.
So, week one is out of the way. I’m going to increase my mileage this coming week to around 1/2 mile per run for another 3 sessions and see how it goes.
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