August 21, 2010 at 12:54 pm · Filed under Barefoot, Running
Given that my route was going to take me along the dried river bed that forms part of the Diktamos Gorge, the Vibrams were never going to be an entirely sensible choice. Still, if I’m going to do a crazy run in the 42 degree blazing sun just to fetch breakfast I may as well go the whole hog.
I was quick to regret my shoe choice. I had to run most of the 4km route with a large pebble sized, hollow, impression in my right heel but at least it encouraged me to run up on my toes.
When I arrived at the village I slowed down to a nonchalant saunter hoping I could cool off and not look like a crazy dying thing in front if the locals. The air in the little shop was furnace like. I stepped in and immediately a gallon of sweat made it’s escape from my body. My hands were dripping as I selected the tomatoes.
After the tomatoes my purchases went downhill a bit. I was scavenging for breakfast but couldn’t find eggs, yoghurt or cheese. In the end I came back with the heaviest products on offer – home made honey, a bag of flour and a bottle of dubious looking brown liquid.
I’m hoping it’s the famed Cretan wine and not some DIY plant fertiliser. I’ll have to wait til lunchtime to find out.
Now to bake some honey bread…..
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Tags: Crete, Diktamos Gorge, minimal running shoes, Running, Vibram Five Finger
August 6, 2010 at 10:36 pm · Filed under Barefoot, Running
I’m taking the direct skin on tarmac approach very slowly but after managing a 300m true barefoot dash last week I thought it was time to go out again.
I don’t recommend late night, barefoot runs on rainy nights. For one thing the gravel sticks more persistently but more importantly the damp attracts soft squishy critters with hard shells and the darkness means you can’t see them.
You can feel them squelching between your toes though.
I ridded myself of the slime after 330m and put the mocassins back on for the remaining 2 miles.
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Tags: barefoot, Barefoot, Running, snails
July 23, 2010 at 12:48 am · Filed under Barefoot, Running
I was using Lynn as my sacrificial canary, she was running far ahead but everytime she wailed and started hopping from foot to foot I knew to make ever such a slight detour.
Not that it worked very well, we hopped and squealed almost evenly.
So marked the start of our true barefoot experience.
I’ve been trying out the minimal footwear such as Vibram Five Fingers and Soft Star RunAmoc for a few weeks but yesterday I was inspired to try running completely unshod. I had been listening to the rather excellent Living Barefoot Podcast which featured an interview with Michael Sandler. Michael is a hugely enthusiastic barefoot runner with a fantastic story to tell. I’ve heard other barefoot officianados’ say that you should really start barefoot before transitioning to a minimal shoe but that just sounded counter intuitive to me. Michael spoke at length in the interview and was incredibly infectious, so much so that today I managed to persuade Lynn to venture out of the door with me clutching our shoes in our hands.
We ran tentatively but were definitely up on our toes. With gritty tarmac roads for our debut attempt we wanted to ensure that our feet had only the tiniest contact with the ground. I was the slowest to become accustomed to the feeling but I developed a rhythm of two steps followed by a medial swipe down my inside leg – to dislodge embedded gravel.
We made it 300m before deciding enough was enough and we finished the rest of the mile – me in my RunAmocs and Lynn in my Nike Frees.
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Tags: barefoot, michael sandler, podcast, Running, tarmac, toes, vibram five fingers
March 11, 2009 at 8:52 pm · Filed under Commuting, Running
The new accessible job arrived and sucked away all my handy exercise avoidance excuses…..time to resurrect the running commute.
My first attempt was an unwelcome struggle, my head was in a seriously moany place and my feet were doing that teenage scuffing thing. I made it past two commons lurching in a stop go fashion and finally quit at Somerfield in order to replenish the Stella supplies.
Today’s run was a bit more exciting, I’d heard a rumour that the non runner may be catching the 5:18 train. Thereby giving me approximately 25 minutes to hot foot it down the high street and nonchalently drape my sweating being across the bonnet of her car to ensure a lift half the way home.
Needless to say I made it. Amazing what you can pull out of the bag for an easy ride.
I got an iPhone recently which has proved mighty useful for navigating me through some commutimg crises but will unfortunately result in a decline in photo quality for my blog.
I’ve been checking out the promisingly named “50 Awesome iPhone Apps for Runners” blog post, they don’t all have very good reviews on iTunes but I may check a few out. High on my list will be True Weight – 3 months of idleness has not done me any sartorial favours and I need to get back in control.
In the spirit of
1. getting back into the swing of things
2. jumping in at the deep end, and
3. acquiring more t-shirts
I’ve signed myself up for an assortment of events.
First on the list is the London to Brighton bike ride which has been on my wishlist for some time.
Then it’s time for a re-run of the British London 5k which promises to be particularly exciting – at least in terms of the location of it’s post race champagne reception. Stay tuned.
Finally (at least for now), I’ve gone and signed myself up the scary Great North Swim. I’m hoping to be able to finish it without the asthma attack this time, which probably means a little more training…
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Tags: commute, Running, Stella
Given that my route was going to take me along the dried river bed that forms part of the Diktamos Gorge, the Vibrams were never going to be an entirely sensible choice. Still, if I’m going to do a crazy run in the 42 degree blazing sun just to fetch breakfast I may as well go the whole hog.
After the tomatoes my purchases went downhill a bit. I was scavenging for breakfast but couldn’t find eggs, yoghurt or cheese. In the end I came back with the heaviest products on offer – home made honey, a bag of flour and a bottle of dubious looking brown liquid.
