The Barefoot Mile

Declaring Chapter 11 Bankruptcy

2011-03-13T22:06:46Z

I’m declaring Chapter 11 bankruptcy on the barefoot mile.

As it’s been over a year since my last post, it must be pretty clear that I have abandoned my goal. What was killing me though, was that I still thought I’d get back to it at some point. Once the weather got nicer! After training for the Pittsburgh Marathon Relay!

Well, it didn’t happen. And it’s been hanging over my head ever since.

Today, I ran my first training run for the 2011 Pittsburgh Marathon Relay (in my Vibram Five Fingers, of course). I thought it would be a good opportunity to let myself off the hook for running a barefoot mile under 5:00. This doesn’t mean that I won’t make another attempt in the future. I’ve just made a conscious decision to defer this particular goal until later. I’m reorganizing and reprioritizing my goals.

So, what’s next? I have a few non-athletic things in the works and you can read more about it on my main blog, andrewcox.org. Thanks for reading!

Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T20:52:50Z

It’s a new year and time to reassess my goals and priorities. Since we returned from our mini-retirement in Buenos Aires, I have done very little physical activity, let alone running. I think it’s safe to say that I’ll be pretty much starting over with my mile training once I get back into a training routine.

Jingle Bell Jog

I did, however, run in the 8th annual Greater Blain Jingle Bell Jog 5K at my wife’s house in Blain, PA. For the last 8 years, on Christmas Eve, her family and friends gather at their house to run in a fun 5K. The rules are:

You must wear jingle bells on your shoes
You must yell “Merry Christmas” to everyone you pass on the run

Though the thermometer read just barely 20 degrees for the race, the sun came out for us and made for an excellent run. The next few days were full of clouds and freezing rain, so we definitely lucked out. I think this may have been a record attendance at 12.

And here’s a close-up of B and me after the race:

The Future

With the lack of sunlight during the short winter days and the general unfriendliness of running on snowy/icy sidewalks in Pittsburgh winter, I don’t plan on getting many quality running workouts in until early Spring. Instead, I’ll be spending more time in the rock climbing gym and planning a concrete training plan for when the weather improves and the daylight gets longer.

Until then, I wish you good luck on your own New Years’ goals and resolutions!

Urban Running in Buenos Aires

2009-09-19T01:33:58Z

B is in the midst of training for her second marathon, so she had to figure out how to get in some long runs while in Buenos Aires (she’ll be up to an 18 mile run this month). After searching the web a bit, she ran across Urban Running Tours which offers a guided running tour of Buenos Aires.

Urban Running Tours’ main objective is to show you the city in a dynamic way, having fun, by starting or ending your day exercising during your leisure or business trip to Buenos Aires.

Essentially, you get an extremely friendly and knowledgeable Buenos Aires runner that takes you on a 10K run (a little over 6 miles) from wherever you happen to be staying. In our case, we were greeted by Juan, the founder of URT, at 8:00am in front of our apartment. From there, we ran about a half mile through the city blocks outside of our apartment until we emerged onto a much more runner-friendly road with a groomed running trail.

Two days before our urban running tour, we had gone for a 3-mile run around our apartment confined mostly to the city sidewalks and it was not a real pleasant experience. In addition to the cold and rainy conditions, it does not appear that porteños expect people to be running down their city sidewalks. Couple that with the ubiquitous dog walkers that don’t think they should have to pick up after the dogs they walk, and you have a pretty inhospitable running environment.

Having Juan show us an accessible, runner-friendly area of the city has made a huge difference in our running enjoyment in the city. He took us on a beautiful run through the Palermo Lakes area (sort of like a smaller version of New York’s Central Park) and told Beth how to easily extend the route to get up to her max of 18 miles while we’re in Buenos Aires. He even offered to draw up specific routes with Google Maps in advance of her bigger runs if she wanted.

For $50 a person (or $90 for two people), you get the 10K guided run which includes:

A history of the city along with notable landmarks and places of interest
An insider view of where the best running routes are in the city
A dry-fit running T-shirt
Digital photos of your run
5% of the cost will be donated to the Buenos Aires Cardiovascular Foundation

I know that my non-running friends are thinking, “You paid $90 to get up at 8:00am to run 6 miles on a vacation? Are you nuts?!” But, just like our visits to New York and Chicago this summer, I think the run may end up being one of our favorite activities, and the guided tour at the beginning of our month-long vacation was well worth it. You can read B’s review of Urban Running Tours at TripAdvisor. They also do urban running tours in a number of other cities through Global Running Tours (including 10 major cities in the U.S.), so if you’re in one of these cities for a vacation, I strongly recommend that you check them out!

Here are the pics from our run:

On Focus

2009-09-05T17:21:21Z

Focus. That’s been on my mind a lot lately and at least in part over the last couple years.

My pursuit of a sub-5:00 mile got sidetracked a little bit as my Ultimate (frisbee) Summer League came to an end at the beginning of August. On top of Summer League, my day job started to intensify a bit. I also thought, what the heck, I might as well also take on a secret side project for work! Oh yeah, and then there was that other side project that I’d already committed to. So I had a lot on my mind. I think I was suffering more from mental overload than anything else.

The good news is that our Summer League team dominated the finals and I had the opportunity to be on my first winning Summer League team ever.

Having read Born to Run, which emphasizes the spirit of running, one thing that I definitely did not want was to feel guilty about not running or missing workouts. Running should be an enjoyable, rewarding, stress-relieving activity - even if it does tax you physically and mentally during hard workouts. If you have to take time off from running, whether due to injury or other circumstances, consider it an opportunity for your muscles and brain to recover. When you get back to running, you’ll be refreshed both physically and mentally.

So now I’m back to running consistently and have been running every other day for the past 2 weeks. I have renewed focus and I’m putting running first. I believe that you can only be really successful at something if you make it a priority. You can be kinda good at a lot of things, but you won’t excel in all of them at the same time.

Over the last two years or more, I’ve been trying to get better at the art of single tasking. Multi-tasking was glorified during the rise of the web and the ever-increasing digital distractions in our lives, but there’s been a noticeable backlash over the last few years as we realize that it’s not actually a good thing to divide your attention across many things. This applies both to working at a computer as well as with the greater whole of your life. It’s simply not effective to try to crank out a new feature on a web application while instant messaging and responding to emails. Similarly, you can’t divide your focus across multiple different athletic endeavors while trying to put in extra hours at your job. Something’s gotta give.

In the past 3 weeks, I read 3 really great books that I think will help direct me towards my goal:

The Primal Blueprint prescribes a total lifestyle that takes advantage of 2 million years of human evolution (give or take). It provides 10 simple rules covering everything from the proper diet and exercise to sleep and preventing stress. I’m gradually trying to incorporate elements of the blueprint into my daily life. You can read daily articles and advice at Mark’s Daily Apple.

The Power of Now is a book about applying the principles of mindfulness to every day life. It is clearly written with language that is easy to understand - which is difficult when you’re talking about Zen Buddhism. The Power of Now definitely emphasizes focus. The big challenge is to try to stop the running commentary in your head of everything that you’re worried about or need to do and focus on the present. It’s clearly something that’s going to take a lot of practice.

And finally, I decided that I needed to add a little structure to my training, so I bought the most recommended book on training for competitive running. Daniels’ Running Formula gets down into the specifics of training for races. The most important message in the book is that when you’re training, you should know the purpose of each workout. Why are you running a long run today? Why intervals instead of repeats? Should you rest one minute or five minutes between reps? I think I learned more about running while reading this book than I did in 4 years of high school running. To be fair to my high school coach (who was the best coach I’ve ever had in any sport) the book did trigger a lot of flashbacks about specific workouts we did at various points of the season - I just didn’t know exactly why we were doing them at the time.

So what’s next? I’m just about to leave for the airport to take my first mini-retirement in Buenos Aires. B and I will be renting an apartment in Buenos Aires for a month. I’ll be working remotely part-time during the middle two weeks, but will be taking the opportunity to get my mind and priorities in order. I’ll be taking lots of pictures and laying out my training plan in more detail over the coming months, so stay tuned!

Second time trial

2009-07-01T11:51:48Z

I had two short runs last week (13min and 15min), leading up to a time trial on Sunday. I’ve made the switch to running in the mornings before work which is definitely the way to go. It is too hot to run comfortably after work and the morning exercise is definitely a nice way to start the day.

The Time Trial

I wasn’t super excited about getting up and doing the time trial on Sunday, but I got out there and did it. According to Alexander Faleev on Tim Ferris’ blog, you have to train hard and compete often. I think this is definitely true.

Competition is different from your regular training - even if you’re just competing against a watch. You have to mentally prepare for the exertion and raise the intensity level. This gets you ready both mentally and physically for the real event. You’ll know what it feels like when the lactic acid starts to build up on the 3rd lap or when your arms start to get tired on the gun lap. I usually try to run on my workouts so I get used to the feeling of finishing strong while I’m at my most tired.

So, all that said, I didn’t run a great mile on Sunday. I ran in my Vibram Five Fingers and was shooting for 5:40 to improve on my first recorded time of 5:46, but shot out real fast on the first 100m and then backed off too much. My splits were:

1:28.44
1:28.68
1:28.97
1:24.91

… for a total of 5:51.00. Not a great time, but I’m okay with it. I probably fell into a pace that was a little too comfortable and never really got out of it. I also haven’t logged too many miles yet in my training as I’m focusing more on natural running form with forefoot striking and not getting injured.

That said, I definitely feel like I should be able to run faster right now, so I ordered Daniels’ Running Formula to get some specific training plans for racing the mile. I do want to remain cautious, however, and stay patient with my progress. The important part is enjoying the journey.

Fartlek run on Sunday in my VFFs

2009-06-23T01:37:38Z

I was considering doing another mile time trial this past weekend, but ended up just doing a fartlek run with B instead. She downloaded a training podcast from Nike’s “Sport Music” series called My Best 10K: Beginner by former college coach Jay Johnson. It was a 30-minute workout that included 2 speed sessions of 2 and 5 minutes intermixed with a more relaxed running pace and a short break for some lunges. B listened to the music and told me when to pick it up and when to slow it down. It was probably about 3 miles in total.

Overall it was a good run, but I did feel a slight twinge in my right knee (possibly my IT band - but I’ve never hurt that before, so I’m not really familiar with IT band pain). It was very mild, but thought I should mention it so I can monitor any little aches or pains I feel along the way. My achilles and calves are still pretty sore today, so I definitely haven’t made it past the initial achilles/calf soreness of forefoot striking.

I still get a lot of questions about why you’d want to run in a barefoot style, so I’ll add a few more specific reasons with some videos in a future post. Stay tuned.

Short run today, no tornadoes

2009-06-19T01:10:07Z

So we had some tornadoes yesterday in the evening which made running less desirable. Today I just went out for a 13 minute run with B (probably a little less than 2 miles) and we walked back.

B is trying to run with her VFFs as well, but had a bit of a bad start today that was a little ominous … after the first few steps, she had some arch pain. She’s never had plantar fasciitis before, but arch pain is rarely anything else. She went back inside and put on her regular running shoes and was able to do the short run with the extra arch support. We’ll see if this continues to be a problem. Hopefully we didn’t overdue it too soon.

Running in Central Park

2009-06-16T12:01:29Z

I was in New York City this weekend for a wedding and had the opportunity to go for a really nice run in Central Park with a friend who is training for her first half marathon. I’d only been to New York City once before and it was a very brief 1-day business trip, so I was pretty excited to see Central Park amongst other sites.

Although the longest I’d previously run in my VFFs had been less than 2 miles, I thought I’d give it a shot and run a 5 mile workout with B and our New York friend. The pace was going to be slower than I’ve been used to (about a 12-minute pace), so I thought it would be a good opportunity to see if I could handle a longer amount of time on my feet with the barefoot style.

I had a little bit of tightness in my Achilles almost from the start (my left moreso than my right), but I kept running anyway and felt great at the end. I ended up breaking loose a bit for the last mile and ran that closer to a 7:30 pace. The run was really great with perfect, cool weather and the scenery was awesome (lots of people watching!).

I was quite sore that night (Friday) and I’m still fairly sore in my Achilles right now, but no blisters at all! I had a lot of fun going a little longer and I’m glad I did it. I took yesterday off and just went out for a quick 15 minute run this evening to try to shake out. My plan is to get another couple of short runs in this week and try to do another mile time trial on the weekend.

If you ever get a chance to spend some time in New York City, you definitely ought to try to make it out for a run in Central Park. Aside from the wedding itself, it was the highlight of our weekend. It’s a toss-up between the run in Central Park and the pizza we had at Lombardi’s:

Lombardi's Pizza

Second run in my Vibrams

2009-06-11T02:15:12Z

I just did another quick run after work today. We had to run out to the mall right after dinner, so I didn’t have much time, but you can always squeeze 10 minutes in, right?

I was just looking for 10 minutes with the goal of keeping it as light as possible. I also tried to keep the pace a little slower than yesterday, while still maintaining a quick turnover. I felt pretty good, so decided to stretch it to 12 minutes. I thought I succeeded on running a slower pace (though I definitely picked it up a bit on the back half), but I just punched my route into MapMyRun.com and I ended up covering 1.67 miles in 12:30, which puts me at a 7:30 mile pace. Definitely quicker than I was shooting for!

I think the Vibrams definitely allow me to be a little sloppier than I would be if I were completely barefoot, so I may need to mix it up a little bit with some pure barefoot runs while I work on my form.

First run in my new Vibram Five Fingers

2009-06-16T17:38:54Z

I was in bed most of the day yesterday with a 24-hour stomach bug, so no running or walking of any sort for me.

On Sunday, I wanted to be a little cautious with my hint of arch pain on Saturday, so I decided to just go for a long walk in my VFFs. I’ve been wearing my pedometer almost full time now to make sure I don’t overdo it with total steps barefoot (or in minimal shoes). Saturday I totaled over 16,000 steps, which is roughly equivalent to 8 miles for me - all with the VFFs. The best part - no arch pain whatsoever.

So, having walked 8 miles with no signs of plantar fasciitis, I decided to do a short run after work to break in my new VFFs. I just went out for 10 minutes at a pretty brisk pace around the neighborhood. I estimate that I probably ended up doing 1.25 miles. It wasn’t an easy run for me (I tried to keep a brisk pace), but it felt pretty good all around. I tried to focus on “light” and “easy” while maintaining quick turnover. I feel like my form is pretty good, but I’d like to get a video so I can analyze it or at least use as a benchmark to see how much my form changes as I run more in the barefoot style.

After my 8 miles walking on Saturday and my little run today, I did notice some mini blisters on the insides of my big toes. I’m getting just a little bit of rubbing there (that isn’t really noticeable just walking around) that leads to small blisters over time. I’m not sure if these can be avoided with better form, or if it’s the best I can expect with the VFFs.

My steps for today are over 11,000 which is roughly 5.5 miles. With my built-in 2 mile walk to work each day (1 mile each way), just an extra 10 minute run is enough to get me over the 10,000 step benchmark, which is nice.

As I’m focusing more on getting into running shape, I definitely feel the urge to eat better to fuel my body. I’m a firm believer that good exercise triggers good eating habits and not the other way around. If you’re already convinced that barefoot running is the “right way”, then you may also already be into a pre-agricultural diet for the same reasons. I’ll be going into this more later, but if you’re interested in reading up on a diet based on anthropology and science, I wholeheartedly recommend Dr. Michael Eades Protein Power Blog.