Mileage Reporting 44th week 2013

Bare Lee

Barefooters
Jul 25, 2011
6,103
6,617
113
Saint Paul
Sunday, late morning/noon
6.5 mi / 10.5 km
48 F / 9C

I had been wanting to try a route extension on the Mississippi River, crossing over to historic Fort Snelling from a section on the East River Parkway that I had run just once before, to check out a trail that connects Fort Snelling Park with Minnehaha Falls Park. At first I was going to make it a long, 17-mile run-commute from my office home. But I ended up driving to work in the morning, so I had decided to just drive down to the river and do an 11-mile version, first a familiar section between Marshall and Ford Parkway bridges, and then the route extension. But as the morning wore on, I began to loose steam, still feeling the effects of my lingering sore throat/dry cough, so I ended up deciding to just do the new part, the extension, and so drove all the way down to Ford Parkway, and parked on a city street.

Ford Parkway-7th Street Brdg.jpg

I was a little nervous after five days off from running, and six days since my last mezzo run. I started out stiff, but I think this was mostly due to the lingering soreness of my squat/deadlift fest two days prior. I tried focusing on getting my left foot to land more like my right, with a slight forefoot landing, while running south on the east bank,

From East River Parkway.jpg
(looking northwest with downtown Minneapolis in the background)

and then crossed over the river on the 7th Street bridge,

7th Street Bridge.jpg 4.jpg 5.jpg

to Fort Snelling.

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I hadn't been to visit Fort Snelling in decades. It was the first European outpost in this area, strategically overlooking the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers. It was a common field trip when I was in school, with pretend soldiers and traders re-enacting precolonial life.

Then I circled around the fort on a descent to the trail I wanted to check out.

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It had pretty rough chipseal.

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Like Ken Bob says, harsh surfaces teach good form, and sure enough my left foot's forefoot landing became automatic at that point. It was pretty beautiful down there.

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The trail sits about halfway between the bluff and the bank. Then I resurfaced, in two senses, in Minnehaha park, ascending from the rough chipseal path to a nice smooth sidewalk up on the bluff, with Ford Parkway bridge and the lock and dam in the background.

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There were a lot of people checking out the falls and park on a magnificent autumn day.

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I felt guilty for enjoying it alone without my family. Barefoot and in my shorts and t-shirt, I felt like an alien and got a lot of looks and a few typical comments.

From there, I crossed over the Ford Parkway bridge, got back in my car and drove home. Towards the end my legs had begun to loosen up, and I thought about adding another five miles by going up to Marshall bridge, visible from Ford Parkway bridge.

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But I decided the mission had been accomplished, I was back running again and it felt great.
 
3.65 miles, very easy recovery type of pace, just to relax and enjoy one of the last evenings where the sun will stay up past 6 for some months to come.
 
12.4km/7.7mi today with Vivobarefoot Ultra (no socks). Not one toe without an open blister on top, but I still like the Vivo :D.

My only concern, is that Vivo reckons the soles are supposed to be relatively durable. I already see some signs of wear (so far only about 50-60km with them), not good....lucky I only paid 70$ for them

Also, I recall that for many years I needed 25-30minutes for my legs to feel warm enough to start pushing. I always thought it was because of the colder weather, this theory fell apart when I came to Australia.

I forgot about that rule when I started running barefoot

Now every time I put the VivoBF on, my calves are on fire for 25-30', and after that it is all good, so I guess the moral of the story, if you run shod, you really need longer warmups !!
 
3.45 miles today at avg 9:48 pace while pushing the stroller. Not sure the exact numbers, but the last 3/4 of a mile or so I would guess I was probably running low 8's to maybe even high 7's. Oh, and today I also signed up for the 15k Shamrock run in March. Really really really looking forward to that race. The 6.5 mile long hill is a challenge and this year I want to make it my b***h. ;) Actually, I am just gonna have to let myself go and not wait up for Mike because once we get going on the downhill side of it Mike will probably fly by me like a crazed out of control barefoot lunatic in a loincloth with a maniacal gleam in his eyes while giggling hysterically.
 
Ran 4 miles afterwork last night in the VFF's here in my neighborhood. Wanted to do more but just wasn't feeling it I guess. Leaves are really dropping from the trees now and the fall colors are vivid. Expect the trees to be leafless by the end of the week. Fall has always been my favorite time of year but not sure I'm ready to give up the barefootedness for winter yet.
 
I've been playing around some with the numbers since Sunday's 5K. Goes back to when I was a kid and was fascinated by baseball stats.

The first cool thing is that all the race time predictors I checked say that if I were to get fully trained for a half-marathon, I would be able to run it in under 2 hours. Woot. Of course, if I were to do the training for a half-marathon, I would probably get faster still during that training, so that pretty well tells me that sub 2 hour marathon is in the future for me if I stay healthy and keep running.

My previous 5K best had been 27:06 in April 2008. It had an age grade of 49.63% and gives an age-graded time of 26:00 for a 38 year old male. With Sunday's 5K, I'm improved to an age grade of 53.9% and an age-graded time of 23:56. I think that's a very significant difference, and attribute much of it to how barefoot running has improved my form. There might also be a confounding factor of how I think over the past 5 years the various exercise routines I've done have likely improved the strength, function, and activityu level of my hamstrings and glutes. I probably tap into a lot more power of those big muscles than I did back in 2008. But I also think it's somewhat impressive for how I did Sunday's 5K with a total, up til then, of about 155 miles of training. My 5K PR came after almost a year of running and 800 miles of running.

To be fair, that 5K PR was probably not a true measure of what could have been my best if I had found a 5K race to do in the late fall 2009 to January 2010. I probably could have beaten it with all the training I had done to prep me for a marathon.

All in all though, I think barefoot running is making a huge difference for me just in terms of speed and form. But that's not the best part of it. The best part is how much more enjoyable I find running to be. I love the sensation of the roads under my feet and how light the feet feel and the sense of being aware of how alive I am while I run barefoot.
 
sunday:8 miles again in am, slower,legs fine but lungs not so much. lots of wheezing. coughing. sneezing. fighting cooties.
evening: 2mile walk

monday: run, no idea time or distance, around campus, something like 5
lunch: half hour swim

monday evening: cooties suddenly took a turn for the worse. Achy soreness and inflamed lymph nodes in my hips, way painful to the touch: who ever had this? Thought I was injured. Dr Tuesday morning said it was no big deal and had to do with the virus.

tuesday: doing bedrest and sneezing and hacking. complaining too. like i'm getting paid to do it.
 
Only 1.5 miles yesterday, did not want to push to hard as I still felt stifness in the PF, Not pain, just stifness, mind you it was also -8C with the windchill which probably helped with the cooling of the inflamed area. :D


Dutchie, I guess I missed out that you are having problems with the dreaded PF. I feel for you, sorry to hear about it. Be very careful in the cold. It feels good, but might tighten it up worse. I ignored mine last year until bam!, something snapped. Just between you and me;), I'm not going to be much of a threat in the Winter challenge. Just can't take a chance of tearing those fibers again in cold conditions. Speedy recovery my friend.
 
Something already went snap in my ankle about 2 weeks ago. Doc figured it was a ligament in the cuboid region. I think it was just a orthopeadic adjustment done on the run. The ankle felt better within a week, but while I was rehabbing I noticed the PF was very tight. So stretching and rolling right now, I won't run till it gets sore as I stop when I feel it get stiffening up on me. I'm with Lee and you in that I will not push my winter challenge miles as to where I wind up risking injuries. It was fun last year as to how low one can go but now that I've been there, done that, I'll gladly don my min shoes for winter. As long as the streets remain snow free I find that I'm comfortable down to about -10C to -12C range, don't think I'll do anything lower than that this year.
 
Monday - pouring rain with strong winds. I opted for the spin bike and studied Chinese for part of the 75 minutes.
Tuesday - very nice 11.65 miles barefoot. The 45°F partially wet asphalt had my feet feeling pretty numb the first couple of miles and I was concerned. A combination of sun and total body heat made it a non-issue for the rest of the run.
 
Great 5 mile run this morning saw a opossum fell into the flow a few times. first run of week 11 training.
 
Yesterday had cold dreary weather. Heavey mist all day. Decided to ride the exercise bike. Started on it kinda late towards bed time and only rode it 30 min (was juicing some boughten fruit and greens from our garden, think I had too much green as the body had some trouble processing it just before bedtime). Better than nothing though. Todays forecast. Same as yesterdays. Might try to sneak in a run after work if the mist is light.
 
About 2.75 miles after work yesterday. Threw in 4x30s strides with 1.5m recoveries. Did it barefoot on the stretch of road that has a lot of that new sharp gravel from the shoulders collecting in some areas on the road. That made for some dancing at a couple of points. I just hope they don't start doing that along all the chipseal roads around here. It could make me paranoid that they're out to get me or something.
 
Monday am & pm
Two one-mile run-commutes.

Feet seem to have adapted pretty quickly this year to sub-freezing temps. No real transition necessary.

Monday afternoon.
Front ST.

I warmed up plenty good at 75 and 125 on the bench press, then put on 50lbs more, to 175, which is kind of my base before pyramiding up in smaller increments to my 1-rep max. Just a few inches coming down and I felt my left shoulder twang, so shut it down quick. Dang. I guess it needs a little more rest.

So what to do?

I thought about packing it in for the day, but then decided to see it some of the other chest exercises might be feasible, doubting that they would be. In fact, I was almost certain that dips would aggravate my left shoulder too, since they stretch out that area so much, but for some reason decided to try those next anyhow. First I did one a 1/4 of the way down. Everything felt solid. Then I did a half-dip. Still OK. Then a full dip, and I was off. I did 10 reps for many sets and then began pyramiding down, until I couldn't do any more. Wow, a dipfest. I didn't even have time leftover for my curls.

I think the niggle is in a muscle connecting the scapula to the shoulder joint, and not in the joint itself. That would explain why I can do most of my exercises without aggravating the joint. Probably a mild pull or something, so hopefully it'll be good to go in another week.

Tuesday am
One-mile run-commute.
32F / 0C
24 F /-4.44 WC
Wet pavement, just missed the rain.

Tuesday pm
11.39 mi / 18.33 km
39 F /3.9 C
35 /1.7 C WC
when I started, 41 F when I finished.
Sprinkles with some Drizzle.

Went down to the river again. For a 10+ mile run, there's basically two river route options, either go south from Marshall Avenue Bridge,

10.8  Off-Marshall-Ford Prkwy-Franklin.jpg

or go northwest.

11.4  Off-Marshall-Stone Arch-River path-Franklin.jpg

I chose northwest, which involves a variety of surfaces--smooth asphalt, mild chipseal, wood, gravel, & sidewalk--and is fairly hilly, descending down to the banks from the bluff and back again many times. The southern route, down to Ford Parkway Bridge, is mostly smooth asphalt and flat, as it stays up on the bluff the whole way.

I felt a little out of sorts for the whole run, but it wasn't difficult either. I guess it's a good sign that this distance feels routine now even when I'm having a so-so day. Just a few months ago it would've felt semi-epic. Towards the end, when the sprinkles had turned into light drizzle, just before ascending from a path along the banks to make a bee line home, an attractive, athletic-looking, late 30s/early 40s woman with short hair who was walking her dog with another woman and her dog said to me with a big, teasing grin,

"You're feet are going to get cold really soon."

I asked her, "How soon?"

She just replied, "Soon!"

I wasn't sure if she meant on that particular run, or later in the season, so I just said, turning my head slightly as they were behind me now,

"Well, I've already been out going on two hours." (It had actually been closer to 90 minutes at that point, but 'two hours' is what rolled off the tongue.)

I then wanted to say, "Heck, I'm good down to 15-20 degrees (F)," in a fit of barefooter's pride, but that woulda been overkill. I guess it was fitting that on the day I decided to sign up for the Winter Challenge, I should get my first cold feet comment. This year I'm running longer and in more public areas, particularly the river paths, so I should be hearing more of those as the season progresses.
 
So good to be back to my bare feet.

Yesterday - 3 mile walk - soft tilled ground with debris to condition the arches. A good foot massage.

Today - 7 miles. Very easy run. First 2 miles sub-freezing temp. Rough conditions with a cold front coming through and 60 mph winds stripping away all the soft dirt 2 days ago. My choice was gravel or field stubble. I mostly chose the field stubble with occasional run-able dirt.

Excuse my narcissism, but a 3 day recovery after a rugged Ultra distance! I continue to be impressed with my progress considering 3 years ago a half marathon would put me out for a week and 2 years ago to last year a marathon or even a 20 miler might put me out for 1 to 2 weeks. Have I finally figured things out? Hopefully not just a fluke. Thanks for letting me pat myself on my back. Ego deflating now.:)
 
Excuse my narcissism, but a 3 day recovery after a rugged Ultra distance! I continue to be impressed with my progress considering 3 years ago a half marathon would put me out for a week and 2 years ago to last year a marathon or even a 20 miler might put me out for 1 to 2 weeks. Have I finally figured things out? Hopefully not just a fluke. Thanks for letting me pat myself on my back. Ego deflating now.:)
I think we are allowed to be happy with our progress!