Count Down

So I have 3 more days before my first half marathon. This week I only have 3 two mile runs before the big race early Sunday morning. I am pretty certain that my hamstring is 90% recovered, just hoping that 10% is not going to be an issue.

Once this half marathon is over I am going to start training barefoot in earnest with a view to doing a barefoot 5k in a month or two. It will be an interesting experiment to compare how my body feels after a long run barefoot than with shoes.

One Week To Go...

So, the barefoot running has taken a back seat for the time being. About 3 weeks ago I pulled the hamstring in my left leg and have been having physical therapy and slowly, very slowly getting back to running.

I have one week left before my first half marathon and today did a 9 mile run. The good news is that my hamstring held out, so I am hopeful that I should be able to complete the necessary 13.1 miles next week.

The bad news, is that based on my interval times from today's run I will complete the race next week in 2 hours 1 minute and 30 seconds.

Will I get under 2 hours ? Will my hamstring hold out ?

Falling Apart

Well, last Thursday I felt a sharp pain in my left leg and had to stop 2 miles into a short 4 mile run with a pulled hamstring.

Did some light treadmill work on Sunday and then Tuesday went out for an easy 5 mile run. 4.79 miles into the run with the locker room in sight "twang" re-pulled the same hamstring. Not happy.

I only have 4 weeks until the half marathon and I have to balance recovery with keeping up my conditioning.

Looks like my first challenge of this half marathon is going to be getting to the starting line.

Warm Weather ...

Getting back into my running routine whilst still recovering from lasts weeks bout of a cold. I have been fortunate that the weather here has been really mild recently and I was able to go running at 9pm in shorts and t-shirt at 9pm at night.

Just had to run 4 miles tonight with some aerobic intervals tonight which didn't take long. Finished up with half a mile barefoot. It felt so good running without any shoes that I ended up significantly increasing my speed for the last quarter of a mile just to see how it felt. What continues to surprise me is how light the running feels when running without shoes.

Next run is scheduled for Thursday and so is some rain unfortunately.

Knackered ...

Had a cold this last week, and didn't get to running until yesterday. I managed 5 miles yesterday with half a mile barefoot and today 8 miles and an additional three quarters of a mile barefoot.

Now, the last couple of days have been down into the 30's and very windy so the runs have been hard work. That being said, although I only ran for barefoot around 10 minutes my feet were surprisingly warm.

Naked Feet

I want to run bare foot !! There, I said it !! I don't know if it is good or bad for you and from the research I can find on the internet there is no definitive, or should I say reliable, information out there about the benefits or risks.

This blog is going to record my venture into bare foot running, so it may be short. Even if the information is not useful to anyone else it will be a useful method my progress or perhaps my lack of progress.

Here goes ...