Road surface is my major obstacle right now ...

Marco1971

Barefooters
Jun 24, 2010
20
3
3
52
Glen Ridge NJ
So, since April I built up BFR conditioning and I'm now running 10Ks on a regular basis without any issues.

Just to be clear: I did run barefoot for a year a couple of years ago and then stopped and started running shod again.

My knees started to have problems lately as I was pushing my speed and distance lately (was running 10ks almost every day and trying to keep it under 55 minutes or so).

So I decided (back in April) to go back to BFR and in fact after about a month I was back to BFR without really any issues.

Had a few blisters initially, but they are all gone and for the past month I've been running an average of 25-30 miles a week, barefoot, shaving off a good 30 seconds from my shod minutes per mile performance to boot.

Although ... I almost feel that I am cheating: I found this GORGEOUS park near my house. The bike path is asphalt but it's smooth and kept religiously clean. 4 laps are exactly 6 and 1/4 miles (10 kms).

There are trees that cover the path so that even in the middle of a hot day, the road surface is mild and covered from the sun.

So ... no problem there, except that if I try to run on any other road surface, other than this park ... it HURTS.

Rough concrete or rough sidewalks or asphalt, is a real challenge.

I have to confess that even back in the day (a couple of years ago) I was running on mostly smooth surface roads but I moved to another town since then and other than this park (which I have to drive to), roads around my new place are rough and a bit messy.

First off, are you guys able to run on rough surfaces?

Second, if you are able to, what is the best way to get to a point where rough surface doesn't bother you anymore? Just do it? Do it until your feet get tough enough and hard enough that it doesn't bother you anymore?

Thanks!!
 
Yep, basically you have to just do it. You'll get used to it, I find I like the textured roads better.
 
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You know I've been told that the best way is to just run on those rough surfaces. Me personally, seems in the last year my feet have gotten more sensitive to pain on rough stuff. Not sure why that is but it sucks and has me wanting to run in minshoes on the rough stuff now a days.
 
I think gravel is relative. At a recent 5 miler the first mile was crushed gravel, I didn't have any issues with it, problems come up when the gravel is in bigger chunks.
 
I think gravel is relative. At a recent 5 miler the first mile was crushed gravel, I didn't have any issues with it, problems come up when the gravel is in bigger chunks.
Yah, there's a cline, I have a definite kind of gravel in mind when I say 'serious gravel' but I don't have the vocabulary to describe it any better than that. On one of the trails I do, there's a couple of longish sections I would describe as easy gravel, and there's only one 20-30 foot section within that where I have to slow down to virtually walking.
 
Yah, there's a cline, I have a definite kind of gravel in mind when I say 'serious gravel' but I don't have the vocabulary to describe it any better than that. On one of the trails I do, there's a couple of longish sections I would describe as easy gravel, and there's only one 20-30 foot section within that where I have to slow down to virtually walking.
Here's some images although I wasn't able to find a good pic of 2" gravel in a hand so you could have a good comparison. gravel-3-4-gray-crushed.jpg2b clean gravel.JPG
 
wow ... you guys are talking about stuff I can't even think about walking over barefoot ... let alone running on it.

my meager ambition was just to be able to run over "rough" asphalt ... as opposed to smooth asphalt. That's really all I aspired to.

100% gravel is just not in my realm of possibilities right now.

I did run on trails at some point and I'd like to do that again ... but trails are different than the stuff NickW is displaying pictures of.

I'm not even CLOSE to running on that. I can't even imagine what your feet need to look like in order to be able to deal with that ... Frodo feet?
 
Here in OR when maintaining a trail they seem to think they need to lay this stuff down. Some here are really good at running some of it (paraganek), I am not so much (kind of a big wussy). In my experience the bigger stuff is easier as long as I watch my foot placement and the little stuff hurt's like hell as I have a ton of little pointy pieces of gravel poking my feet.
 
Also, I hear a lot of people say they run on chip seal. Now, if you can't run on that image of 3/4" above you probably can't run on true chip seal (see image below). I grew up in a state (Montana) that still uses the true chip seal method. This is literally where they lay down hot tar and then spread 3/4" cleaned gravel over it. How many of you consider just rough blacktop chip seal? Is it this stuff below? If it is I give you mad props because I could not run on that stuff without some sort of footwear. (This is not meant to sound rude, I am just really curious how many actually run on real chip seal)
Chip seal.jpgtrans_sm_chipcloseup.jpg
 
Also, I hear a lot of people say they run on chip seal. Now, if you can't run on that image of 3/4" above you probably can't run on true chip seal (see image below). I grew up in a state (Montana) that still uses the true chip seal method. This is literally where they lay down hot tar and then spread 3/4" cleaned gravel over it. How many of you consider just rough blacktop chip seal? Is it this stuff below? If it is I give you mad props because I could not run on that stuff without some sort of footwear. (This is not meant to sound rude, I am just really curious how many actually run on real chip seal)
View attachment 535View attachment 536
I always thought chipseal is what you're showing PLUS a seal of some kind of tar or asphalt, such that the stones are still part of the surface, but the gaps between them have been filled in a bit, but not so much as to render a completely smooth surface. A quick google search showed surfaces like that.
What you're showing looks more like crushed gravel to me, but I really don't know anything about this stuff.
 
Ouch this hurts just looking at pictures of it :eek: My attitude right now
is that some surfaces are just not challenges I want to take, kind of like
the whole hot asphalt in the summer thing... Never had a desire to
challenge a bed of hot coals either :)
 
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