DAY 11 - Barefoot Running Breathrough 5.43 miles!

Fake barefoot running on the Obsidian Flow.

I could totally scream like a girl! Ok. I know what you're thinking. But, Krista. You are a girl. Well, I'm not the kind of girl that screams all high and screechy when something exciting happens. Anyone who has teenage daughters will know exactly what I'm talking about. No. I'm a little more... simmered down. A simple "Awwwwwyeah." will suffice. Screeching is like nails on the chalkboard for me. But today, I could totally screech in that giddy, teenage high pitched kind of a way. Why? You ask. Because I finally ran my long run, completely sans my old motion control blocks of shoes. 5.43 miles. Beautiful. I did it. 3.14 miles of that was completely barefoot and the rest was in my VFFs. I think I probably could have gone further completely barefoot, but I didn't want to push it. It felt so good. 

This morning was much cooler than most. The ground was a bit chilled. Starting out barefoot, I immediately felt pins and needles in the bottoms of my feet. Every little bump was uber sharp and jabby for some weird reason. Kind of like I was running on little bits of sharp, pointy obsidian rock. Not that I know what its like to run on sharp, pointy obsidian rock, but I did pose for a couple "fake" running shots while we were hiking the Obsidian Flow up at Newberry Caldera in Oregon this last week. So I know what its like to "fake" run on it. That stuff looked gnarly.

At any rate, this pins and needles sensation was actually a good thing. Ok. I know what you're thinking again. I'm a masochistic, crazy, shodless runner who enjoys the feeling of embedded little pokey bits on the delicate soles of my feet. First of all, lets get one thing straight. The soles of my feet certainly aren't delicate and yes... I am a little masochistic, but only insomuch as it is going to benefit me in the end game. So, that being said, I actually picked up my feet today and kept doing it over and over. I know when I've been pushing off because I will end up with those nasty little bloody friction blisters (which are minmal at this point) on the bottoms of a few of my toes. But normally, I will try to pick up my feet and then get lazy and forget and start pushing off again. Today, whenever I got lazy my feet would feel a little pain and I would fix it immediately. So the feedback worked. And before I knew it, that was just how I was running. At least until I put my VFFs on at which point I cut out all sensation and started pushing off again. At least a lesson was learned today and I'm hoping that the repetition will pay off for me on my next run.
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