Catching up the last few weeks

Quick overview of the last few weeks. The weekend after the Canton Fall Classic, and the very next day after the aforementioned 10-miler discouragingly reminded me what a breakable human being I am, I set out to the local track and ran two miles barefoot on the infield, dodging the ropes, cones and assorted debris left over from most recent football game. It felt great. There's really no other way to run barefoot but on your toes. You don't even have to try--your body just does it. In retrospect it's weird to me that I've never run two barefoot miles before. It seems like such a natural thing, but once I started running seriously, it was shoes shoes shoes all the way.

I got a pair of Vibram FiveFingers and started longer runs on pavement (and one brave excursion into the network of trails that runs outside my house). My calves were soon immensely sore, and it was pretty clear that if I seriously wanted to stick with this minimalism thing, it would be a long, slow hall cranking my mileage back up to what it used to be. In many respects it was like learning to run all over again: I was hurting in unexpected places, uncertain of how much and how hard I should be running, and even unsure of exactly how I should be running. Minor questions of form pestered me: how much should the ball of my foot precede the heel? Should my heel be taking any weight, or should it barely kiss the asphalt before springing up again? How much should I let my feet roll with each foot-strike? It was a lot easier when I just ran, without thinking about it.

Something else rapidly became clear as well: running in naked feet, or close to it, is great. It is, quite surprisingly, as good or perhaps even better than running in trainers. But it has its own limitations. Descending a steep grade is tricky--you have to extend your forefoot quite far to make leading contact with the ground, and then the braking motion as your leg slows the trunk of your body against the force of gravity seems less natural. Longer runs are difficult. After a recent 8 miler on pavement I felt like a car with a reamed-out suspension, absolutely no bounce left in my ankles and calves. And the knee pain is not gone entirely, though it has abated somewhat.

A recent run in Vibrams last Thursday made me pull back and reevaluate. It was hill repeats with the club, which meant a bright and early start (up at 5am and running by 5:10). The uphills felt grand, my feet flickering upwards like butterflies. It seemed to me I was blowing less wind and recovering faster at the top. But the downhills...hmm. The downhills weren't so good. It was that braking motion I mentioned earlier. My knee definitely let me know about that. Maybe I'm doing it wrong? Maybe I should be sprinting down the hill, so I don't have to brake so much? Maybe I could jog down backwards! Don't know, but the way I was doing it was certainly not working.

Later that day I thought of a tentative plan: VFFs for short runs and speed work. A lightweight trainer with a low profile outsole for long runs. I could alternate back and forth and get some benefits from both worlds. Of course I actually needed a trainer that fit that description, and I wasn't feeling too keen on going back to the Kayanos.

The next post has a write-up about the new shoes I picked up, and my first 12-miler in them.