Manitoba 2013 Half Marathon
By dutchie53
Well, on Sunday June 16th, 2013 I ran and completed the 2013 Manitoba Half Marathon barefoot while being cheered on by my youngest daughter who was there to cheer me on and take pictures.
The weather was perfect on this day clear, sunny and about 19 Celsius at the start. Rode my bike to the start of the race as it was only 2 miles from where I live, and arrived at 6:40 am for a 7:00 start. I was actually not planning on running the half on this day but to run the opening leg of the marathon relay for the team that we form at work every year. The opening leg is about 6 miles, and I was confident that I would have no problems doing this leg while running barefoot as I had ran this route the previous week without any problems.
The reason for just running the opening leg of the relay was that I felt that I had not prepared myself to do a half even though I had already signed for the half last January. I felt that completing a half with a weekly base of 15-20 miles and only having had 1 long run of 8 miles since last October was not enough, and only one 7-8 mile run a week ago was not a good idea.
Before I left the house I asked my wife to see if she could pick me up after the hand off for the relay team. The young lady who I was handing off to was a novice runner. She only started running 12 weeks ago, because as she informed that she was being bullied by someone at work to do this as we were one runner short. She was worried about starting too fast, so I had told her I would run with her to keep her pace down until the half marathon route split from the full marathon route. I had already decided that I was not bringing any backup footwear as I was feeling good about the opening leg of the relay being barefoot friendly.
Before the starters gun even went off I was already answering questions about " Are you really running without shoes".
Then we started, I soon found someone who was running his 7th full marathon of the year already and seem to be running at my pace. So we struck up a pleasant conversation for the first 5 miles or so. During this stretch my feet felt great, running form was good and I felt even better. Then I arrived at the relay change area, where the second runner for our team was waiting apprehensively. I give her the bib with the timing chip and ran with her until the route split. That is where my plans changed, I felt so good that I thought I can do this half. So after we split I decided to keep going with my half. I was getting lots of comments from other runners for being barefoot but it was all positive. When I hit the 8 mile mark I noticed that even though I felt great that I would have benefited from longer training runs. Feet and legs felt good though I found myself having to concentrate on my running form. Had to keep my stride short and made sure that my forward lean did not turn into a bend from the hips. At about the 11 mile mark I noticed I was feeling a little tired but not fatigued, feet and legs were still feeling good. By the time I hit the last mile my feet and legs were still feeling good although I could feel a hot spot starting on the outside of the ball of my left foot.
The last 100 yards going into the stadium for the finish was rough gravel and did not feel good. The area was already roped for the funneling into the stadium so there was no escape to avoid the gravel.
Then the finish was finally there, I had just run my first barefoot marathon and my legs and feet felt great. My time was 2 hours and 37 minutes and 47 seconds.
As my daughter and I were leaving a thought just hit me, other then being pleasantly tired, I did not hurt. The last 5 or 6 half marathons that I had run in shoes always left me hurting when I was done. By maintaining my form my discomfort was next to nothing.
So would I recommend running a half with very little preparation? The answer is no, I did get tired even though I felt great body wise. The one thing going in my favor I would think is that have ran for 35 years or more, and I have run fulls and many a half previously while shod. With that in mind I think that perhaps this is what got me through this half with very little preparation.
Will try to add pics when I can wind a way to shrink them. Meanwhile here is a link to race pics which I could not copy and paste here.
http://www.marathon-photos.com/scripts/event.py?new_search=1&event=Sports/STCA/2013/Manitoba Marathon&match=7776