I'm writing this post a few weeks later, so I'll just mention some of the highlights and post a couple of pics.
So I had to do my long (14km) run up at the cottage. The hills are insane and I planned on keeping my HR under 143 which meant having to walk up many hills. This is hard for me to do because I like attacking hills, but when you've put on an extra 30 lbs and let yourself get out of shape from September to May this is the punishment.
About 2-3km's into the run my lower calf started to hurt, and by 5km or so in it was almost unbearable. I looked down and noticed that my right foot was rolling over towards the inside so I suspected it could be a problem with my shoes. I've always heard barefoot running was good to prevent injuries, so I was curious how it would feel when I was in pain.
I kicked off my shoes and tried 100m or so on the crushed/packed gravel road in my socks (not quite nice ash-fault pavement). To my amazement my calved didn't hurt at all, but the little stones didn't feel the greatest. I then thought of something, in my desperation not to turn around and have to walk home. I would take out the insoles of my shoes and put them in my socks.
It actually worked! No pain! Crazy, stupid - Yes, but pain - No. That's all I needed at that point a way to keep going. It was totally comfortable and a very enjoyable experience. Yes, I knew the socks could end up being thrown away but I was determined to get this long run completed since I was already behind in the 1/2 marathon clinic since I started 5 weeks into it.
There was one issue though, my speed & distance sensor was on my shoes that I was no longer wearing so I ended up doing 16km instead of 14km.
Here are a couple of pics of me strolling in my socks back up to the cottage and the newest creation in minimalist foot-ware, the Sock-Shoe
My son pointing at daddy's new 'Sock-shoe'
Before any of you go out and try this (not that any rational person would, I was a crazed lunatic at the time), know this... The next 2 days I could barely walk, not from the original injury but from all the stabilizer muscles that got a rude awakening.
I learned after the fact when I actually looked up barefoot running, that you have to ease into it SLOWLY! :D LOL
Oh well, till next time.
cool on the barefoot running. I liked the soles in the socks idea.
Posted by: [email protected] | Sep 06, 2010 at 11:19 PM