Road to Nowhere

No worries, Mark. You did the absolute right thing - and something that I wished I would do more often when I know it isn't right.

Michele "1L" Keane wrote:No worries, Mark. You did the absolute right thing - and something that I wished I would do more often when I know it isn't right.

Thanks, Michele. It's not that I really had much choice in the matter. My body rebelled. It would have preferred that I didn't walk the four miles home, but there was no one to call for a pick-up. So I guess that was what constituted "gutting it out" for me. Sheesh.

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I'm less wrung-out this morning, but I am definitely feeling the effects of the past two days. I'm sore in all sorts of unusual places.

I have been trying to deconstruct what happened. I think it's probably because I did back-to-back runs, the first day barefoot, the second day in zero-drops. I have tried to avoid running barefoot two days in a row, and maybe the zero drops are so close to barefoot in terms of mechanics that I simply overdid it. The other possibility was that I crammed in 35 miles in the previous week, up significantly from previous, and my body was still recovering.

Either way, it seems I need to be careful about ramping it up if I'm going to keep working on my mechanics. Part of me wonders if it'd be better if I stayed barefoot all the time to make sure the skin on the soles of my feet kept me from cooking my feet and legs with too much, too soon. Hm...

Walk: 2.2 miles

Weather: Partly cloudy, cool, breezy (pretty, too!). 55 degrees.

Lunchtime walk along the Columbia River, hoping a walk would help work out some tightness and soreness in my left foot and lower leg. Didn't help, but it didn't seem to make it worse, either. I guess I really did push it too hard with those back-to-back barefoot/zero drop runs. Drat. Here's hoping it settles down soon.

I must note that, if I was still aiming at starting a 50-miler training plan next week, I'd be in a panic right now. As it is, I am simply annoyed and a little worried. #@$% shoes! Maybe if the distance can't be run barefoot, it shouldn't be run at all...

Mark B wrote:Maybe if the distance can't be run barefoot, it shouldn't be run at all...

Heh. That quieted 'em down.

Anyway, today would normally be a running day, but I'm so bizarrely sore that I decided to take it easy until things get back to normal. (Well, as normal as they get for me.) It was difficult to do, because it was a gorgeous cool fall day. Trees in full color. Cool air. No rain. Sigh.

I ended up doing errands, like picking up a prescription (Not-so-quick aside: Did you know that a month's worth of medication that costs insurers ~$535 when it requires 90 capsules of 10 mg each to reach a single 30 mg dose only costs ~$204 when it takes 30 capsules of 40 mg each per month? Yep. Increase the dose by 1/3 and the insurer is charged about $300 less. Yes, you read that right. More medicine, significantly lower cost. Why? It's because the pharmaceutical giant that manufactures this drug pegs its price to providers more by the capsule than the volume of medicine inside those capsules. Yet the company holds a patent - and thereby exclusivity - on the medicine that's inside the capsule, not the capsules, so it's really quite illustrative of ... well... something.)

If that wasn't enough aggravation for one day, I also decided to see if I could balance a checkbook that had gone unreconciled since 2008. Yeah. I gave up and just started fresh, but it took me until well beyond when I was supposed to go to work. Oops.

Nice and relaxing, huh? When can I run again?

I've been trying to go more towards the minimal side of things, but my Achilles tendons have screamed back at me, so I needed to back it up a little & do more runs again in regular running shoes. I hope to try to do more post NYC recovery.

Dave P wrote:I've been trying to go more towards the minimal side of things, but my Achilles tendons have screamed back at me, so I needed to back it up a little & do more runs again in regular running shoes. I hope to try to do more post NYC recovery.

Hey Dave! Good luck in NYC!

In my exploration of barefoot running and form, I've read that a big key to learning barefoot/minimal form is learning how to relax your lower legs and feet. A common error when running barefoot or in minimalist footwear is to run *only* on your forefoot, never allowing the heel to come into contact with the ground, never allowing your achilles and calf muscles to relax and greatly increasing the chance of injury.

The proper touchdown pattern, says Barefoot Ken Bob is ball of foot, toes, then heel. It's worked well for me when running barefoot, though I am having a devil of a time making it work even in huraches or zero drop shoes. It seems I need the more blatant (ie skin to ground) biofeedback to do it right.

Barefoot Run: 4.35 miles on wet track

Weather: A little chilly and damp. 43 degrees, 97% humidity. Gear: Bare feet, tights, T, pullover, jacket, hat, gloves. Fuel: Oatmeal and coffee before. Nothing during.

It's been six days since I irritated my left foot, so this morning seemed like a good time to test it out at the local track - where I could bail out immediately if problems developed. I thought about doing it as a MAF test but decided to not worry about it and just run easy and chat with my training partner. I hadn't seen him since his sister died of an out-of-nowhere heart attack a couple of weeks ago, so it was good to just spend a little time together.

It was 43 degrees, dark and chilly and damp, so it seemed logical (?) to make this a barefoot run. I brought some shoes along with me in the car in case it was colder than I could handle. The first lap was pretty uncomfortable but it got better as time went on. It probably helped that I slightly overdressed for the conditions, which let my feet serve as cooling fins.

Running barefoot in the dark is quite the experience. It forces you to relax even more, because you never know what you're going to land on! I didn't hit anything in the dark, but after it got light we found a chunk of broken glass and a mechanical pencil on the track. Neither would have been fun to step on.

We took it easy, and I didn't pay much heed to my heart rate (other than noticing it was 2-5 bpm below my target range) or speed (between 10:30 and 11). I just relaxed into it. The part of my foot that had been sore had no problem, which was encouraging. The part of my foot that blistered a month ago started to get irritated after a few miles, so I worked to adjust my touchdown and the irritation faded. We decided to wrap it up at about 4 miles, which seemed right, and we walked another lap to cool down.

Average HR for entire run: 127

A run with a friend, especially one that could use a good friend to talk to is awesome! Glad you rearranged things. So, 127 bpm sounds pretty darn good. Glad to see running barefoot was on the menu today.

dot520 wrote:A run with a friend, especially one that could use a good friend to talk to is awesome! Glad you rearranged things. So, 127 bpm sounds pretty darn good. Glad to see running barefoot was on the menu today.

Hi Dot! Hope it's been going well for you. Done the MAF test yet? I wish you'd blog so we could see what you're doing day to day.

Yeah, barefoot was definitely in the cards for me today, despite the fall weather. I realized, driving home last night, that I'm too far into this whole barefoot transition to back out now. I'm not yet fully adapted to barefoot form, and I can't go back to running the way I used to. The only option now is to see it through, no matter where it takes me. It's a thought that's at the same time both terrifying and exhilarating.

Yep....blog coming soon and yes, I did my MAF the week after Chicago (not sure that was a great idea) and subsequently have been leaning toward HADD and may redo the test. Explanation to come in the upcoming blog.

I'm still amazed that you are running so far barefoot!

dot520 wrote:Yep....blog coming soon and yes, I did my MAF the week after Chicago (not sure that was a great idea) and subsequently have been leaning toward HADD and may redo the test. Explanation to come in the upcoming blog.

I'm still amazed that you are running so far barefoot!

Ooo. The nice thing about doing a MAF test so soon after a marathon is it gives you an even lower baseline by which you can track your progress. Don't discount the power of continued improvement to keep you motivated!

Four miles barefoot wasn't too bad, but it took a while to work up to that distance. I've gone as far as 10 miles barefoot, though that's definitely pushing my limits. I need to keep building up slowly to let my body adapt.

You'd think running on a slightly bouncy rubberized track would be easier than asphalt, but not necessarily. When I go barefoot on the track is that I end up doing something to the skin on the ball of my left foot - I have even ended up blistering there. I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong so I can adjust my form to prevent it. I think I might be landing too far in front of my center of gravity on that foot, which might pull on the skin and cause some internal layers to delaminate. Maybe. I find it interesting that it shows up only on the track. On a harder road surface, it's not an issue.

Nike Testing: 27 x 160 meter repeats

Weather: Cold (44), breezy and rainy Gear: Varied prototypes, shorts, long-sleeved T. Fuel: Post breakfast.

A trip to the Nike Sport Research Lab today, which meant providing feedback after a more than two dozen short repeats in different prototypes, changing shoes after every repeat. It was a good chance to work on good form, when I wasn't thinking about the things on which I was supposed to be providing feedback. Which took a lot of concentration.

It was a cold, rainy day in the Pacific Northwest. It's as if we bypassed autumn completely and went straight to winter! Luckily for me, they set up the route under a covered walkway on the Nike HQ campus. It made it much more pleasant.

Sorry about the weather. It is in Indian summer here in NE Ohio, but that is supposed to change this weekend and it will be cold, cold, cold after that. So has the Lance building been renamed? They were still selling Livestrong stuff at Niketown Boston, but it was no longer right in the front as you enter the store.

Michele "1L" Keane wrote:Sorry about the weather. It is in Indian summer here in NE Ohio, but that is supposed to change this weekend and it will be cold, cold, cold after that. So has the Lance building been renamed? They were still selling Livestrong stuff at Niketown Boston, but it was no longer right in the front as you enter the store.

Hi Michele! We slipped into a winter-like pattern of wet, gray and chilly... but at least it's not frigid. The snow is where it belongs this time of year: in the mountains.

I'm not sure what Nike is going to do about the Lance Armstrong Fitness Center. It's one thing to change the building's name, but when Nike dedicates a building to an athlete, they decorate it with a lot of memorabilia of the athlete in question, and they engrave quotes on the wall, floor, etc. (If you just flashed on the old pharaoh Sethi's quote in "The Ten Commandments," then you spent too many hours watching that movie as a kid, too.) It'll be interesting to see how far they go. I have a session there on Wednesday, and they're still telling us to meet at the Lance.

For the younger among us, here's the quote, imagine heavy emphasis on the name "MO-ses," and big orchestral *thud* at the end of every phrase:
Sethi: Let the name of Moses be stricken from every book and tablet, (thud) stricken from all pylons and obelisks, (thud) stricken from every monument of Egypt (bigger thud). Let the name of Moses be unheard and unspoken, (thud) erased from the memory of men for all time. (grand thud-thud-thud)

Time will tell if it all ends up better for Nike than it did for

Now I'm imagining Lance Armstrong parting the Red Sea and leading a haggard group of ex/current dopers to the promised land... Isn't that what Landis did with his team Rock Racing? I wonder if the two of them will buddy up again.

Been following along all the same, just haven't found any opportunity to jump in with a semi-related but entirely non-helpful discussion point. I guess I could mention how we're having similar weather patterns to you - looks like we just had our last 80+ day of the year last week. Might get one more a week and a half from now, but yep, things are definitely cooling down.

How's Alita's job working out?

Now I'm picturing Yul Brenner and Charlton Heston in full regalia. Thanks for the flashback.

Mike MacLellan wrote:Now I'm imagining Lance Armstrong parting the Red Sea and leading a haggard group of ex/current dopers to the promised land... Isn't that what Landis did with his team Rock Racing? I wonder if the two of them will buddy up again.

Been following along all the same, just haven't found any opportunity to jump in with a semi-related but entirely non-helpful discussion point. I guess I could mention how we're having similar weather patterns to you - looks like we just had our last 80+ day of the year last week. Might get one more a week and a half from now, but yep, things are definitely cooling down.

How's Alita's job working out?

"Let my dopers go!" Would the yellow jersey be the substitute for the golden calf? Hm...

Anyway...

I appreciate your following along, even as a lurker. Don't hesitate to jump in with something random, because that's when this blog usually gets the most interesting.

Alita's job is quite challenging. She works one-on-one with a student in what they call a structured communications program, a special education program that focuses on students who have communication/social/behavioral problems so significant that they have to be kept in a self-contained setting separate from the school population, and even other special needs kids. Kids can act out in wildly inappropriate ways, and can sometimes even become violent. Alita's very good at what she does, but the job is physically challenging and emotionally taxing. She's a saint. I don't think I could ever do that job.

Michele "1L" Keane wrote:Now I'm picturing Yul Brenner and Charlton Heston in full regalia. Thanks for the flashback.

My pleasure! Did you ever manage to make it all the way through that movie, from beginning to end? I don't think I ever managed to. It's so l-o-o-n-g!

One last "Commandments" thought: I remember being very impressed with the movie when I was a kid. When I happened upon it a couple of years ago, though, I realized what an epic cheese-fest is was. Ah, Hollywood.

Mark B wrote:
One last "Commandments" thought: I remember being very impressed with the movie when I was a kid. When I happened upon it a couple of years ago, though, I realized what an epic cheese-fest is was. Ah, Hollywood.

Don't think I ever watched the whole thing as it was usually two night. Like you, I did come across it maybe last year while travelling and watched some of it - unbelievably cheesy! I then went home and caught a televising of Cleopatra - as cheesy!

Walk: 2.2 miles

Weather: Mostly cloudy, breezy. 50, but it felt colder.

A lunchtime walk along the Columbia River. I can tell I'm unaccustomed to autumn weather - it was 50 outside, but I was cold even with a sweater and GoreTex shell! (Makes me feel like a total wimp!) It was a nice walk, though, and it definitely beat sitting at my desk through the second half of my lunch break.

Wow, you definitely need some acclimation there. I spent the afternoon playing hookie and doing yard work in the Indian summer 78 degrees! These lunch time walks, are you barefoot or are you 'civilized' according to your peers?

dot520 wrote:Wow, you definitely need some acclimation there. I spent the afternoon playing hookie and doing yard work in the Indian summer 78 degrees! These lunch time walks, are you barefoot or are you 'civilized' according to your peers?

"Civilized," I'm afraid. Normal office attire (Dockers and a nice sweater) with bare feet would be nutty even by my standards.

I have thought about sneaking in a short barefoot run at work, but it's such a hassle to squeeze a run in with a shower, etc., in the time I have available. If I did, there'd be a better-than-average chance I wouldn't be wearing shoes.

Ah, gotta appreciate those witty synapses to give you the yellow jesery/golden calf comparison.

W/r/t Alita's job... I agree. Saint is probably the only word that can describe it. I can't even imagine dealing with that as a parent - I assume there'd be an inherent connection there - much less an outsider trying to play the role of authority figure.

I hear you about the whole 50-and-cold thing, too. I'm shivering at the beginning of my runs... in 55 degrees. I was running mid-30s in shorts and a tee last winter. Wat?

Mike MacLellan wrote:Ah, gotta appreciate those witty synapses to give you the yellow jesery/golden calf comparison.

W/r/t Alita's job... I agree. Saint is probably the only word that can describe it. I can't even imagine dealing with that as a parent - I assume there'd be an inherent connection there - much less an outsider trying to play the role of authority figure.

I hear you about the whole 50-and-cold thing, too. I'm shivering at the beginning of my runs... in 55 degrees. I was running mid-30s in shorts and a tee last winter. Wat?

I can't imagine being the parent of a kid who is, say, severely autistic and can only communicate by pinching or grabbing and dragging people around. My only guess is that you have to quickly accept that your life as you knew it is irrevocably gone, and you can only make the best of the situation you've been given.

Don't worry about being a wimp. I'm sure we'll both adapt soon enough. But boy, this was an abrupt transition!

Speedwork! (aka Dynamic Testing at Nike): 7 x 0.38 miles, or 2.66 miles total

Weather: Overcast, cool, some rain. Gear: Testers, shorts, long-sleeved T. Fuel: Post lunch.

I've always said that dynamic testing sessions at Nike is what I use for speedwork, usually because I can't help but run faster there. This time, there was no choice, as our directions were to run circuits of what they call "The Racetrack" route through campus, first time at 60% of maximum effort (a decent clip), the second time at 75% of maximum effort (tempo pace) and a third time alternating between 60% and 75% to see how the shoes responded to acceleration.

Then, a lap on the grass around the Ronaldo soccer field complex (running past Alberto Salazar as he coached some young runner) to clear out our perceptions, then a repeat of the three-lap cycle on sidewalks and cobblestone with a different pair of shoes.

Holy VOMax! How did I get lumped in with the fast guys? Anyway, I hung with the group on the slightly slower pace, then did my best to not fall too far behind when they dropped the hammer. By the time I finished the first three laps, my chest was on fire. We had a break while we provided feedback on the first shoes, then they sent us out to clear out our perceptions in the shoes we brought with us -- except I had work shoes and ended up doing it barefoot -- before we did a second cycle. I either slowed down, or my lungs got used to the higher effort level.

Alberto and another coach there saw myself and another tester (who also came with only work shoes) running barefoot past them. They smiled.

At any rate, this was a heck of a workout. I brought my Garmin but didn't use it during the runs. I wish I had, because I'd really like to know just how fast I actually went. As if "sucking wind" fast isn't precise enough.

Average HR: Who knows? But I bet it was up there.

Aw, do I sense a bit of external validation going on? Remember, you're only a nutcase until you have your first follower. Then you're a prophet. Or something like that. Right?