My Running Journal, 030410

Today was day 2 of running in my VFFs. 1.97 miles (my “2” mile loop) was completed at an average pace of 10:55 min/mile. My first mile averaged to 11:00 minutes a mile, and the second half of the run averaged to 10:49. Which is both faster and farther than yesterday, but I am sort of paying the price for it – my calves are intensely sore – but it isn’t a feeling of anything other than overuse – no sharp pains, no sensation of weakness or imminent tearing of anything. If nothing else, I felt light on my feet for most of the run this morning. Overall, at least yesterday and today, I felt like I was using far less energy to run. Whether that is the change in running style, or just that I had a week-long rest, remains to be seen. But my body feels different at the end of these runs – beside sore calves, I don’t feel any tightness in my hips or hamstrings, and I feel more energetic at the end of the runs.

This morning I actually got off pace several times – I was striding faster than the metronome was counting. When I caught myself doing that, and eased back, I felt a little disappointed. I felt like I could run faster. But the trick right now is to keep it nice and easy, and not overload my legs and feet.

When I initially got them a couple of years ago, I tried out running in them, as I was training for a Half-Marathon and was wondering if I could pull off the near barefoot stride. After trying to run around the block a couple of times, I relegated to wearing the VFFs on hikes, and while playing in and around water. And then I shelved them altogether, for a variety of reasons (the primary one being that I was headed to China, and didn’t really want another reason for people to stare at me).

So why didn’t I stick with the VFFs to start with? It was my stride, and the nature of my footfall. Or I should say foot strike. I had been training in a really nice pair of Brooks Cascadia trail shoes, as the half marathon (the Haulin’ Aspen) is a trail run. And almost all of the training runs that I was going on were on the trail… and I was being really lazy, and training minimally. Running on concrete and asphalt is different from running on a gravel, dirt, mud and stony trail. I was just at the beginning of understanding how to run properly – I was still in the mindset of striking with the heel, and then rolling forward along the bottom of the foot to the toe, and then pushing off with the toe. Needless to say, heel striking for any length of time while barefoot or close to barefoot isn’t the best idea, and I realized that within a couple of seconds of trying to run in the VFFs.

Running barefoot or near barefoot really requires a different stride than what you can do in a running shoe. Running shoes, because of the padding and support, allow your feet to be protected, but there is not real demand to have a natural, careful stride. You can heel strike all you want (okay, not true, since that leads inevitably to injury). We weren’t born with shoes on, but, to steal a line from The Boss and Christopher McDougall, we are born to run. McDougall summarizes a brilliant bit of science that explores the anatomy of a human, and how we have structures in our body that only benefit us (from an evolutionary standpoint) when we run – such as our Achilles tendons, nuchal membrane, and ability to separate our breathing from our stride. All of the little bones, crisscrossing ligaments, muscles, tendons and joints in our feet serve a purpose, and the theory is that they are an energy return system – springs and tensegrity networks that assist us.

The only reason to wear shoes, arguably, is to provide protection from the elements.

I stopped trying to run in my VFFs back then because I wasn’t ready, mentally, to allow for that. I had repeated the mantra in my head that I hated running, the injuries to my feet and ankles that I sustained doing Gymnastics in High School kept me from having strong ankles and feet, and I felt like I was wasting energy running up on the ball of my foot.

All of which were self perpetuated lies. There is nothing, physically, holding me back from doing this.