DAY 15 - Barefoot Masochism

Sunset in Rocklin, California.
I ran at sunset last night. Perfect weather and my longest barefoot run so far at 3.91 miles. Did another mile in my VFFs once it got dark and to make sure I didn't overdo it. The run was a success, albeit a bit tortuous.

I picked a new route just for giggles. The newly-laid-looks-smooth-but-oh-hell-its-not! road route. I learned that newly paved roads look nice, but if you don't have impeccable form that shit will slice your feet up. Well at least that's what it felt like. My plan? To tough it out to keep my form consistent. You see, I'm trying to fix a strange habit I have of curling my toes when running. I often end up with these freaky blood blisters that wrap around the top of my middle toe. Just weird. I guess there's such a thing as relaxing too much when you run barefoot. To correct this, I have to think hard. So hard you can probably hear the cogs and wheels squeeking in my head. I literally have to flex my toes to keep them from getting in the way of my landings. 

So here I am, my masochistic tendencies at their peak, running on this razor sharp asphalt and I'm thinking, 'Man, that sidewalk looks nice." Well, the sidewalk had a few round thingys on it, but those looked harmless compared to the suffering I was enduring on the asphalt. So I jumped up to the sidewalk. After running a few steps..."OW" Some of those round thingys had some serious spikes on them! Hmmmmm. Razor sharp asphalt or annoying spiky balls? I looked behind me. I had already ran about 300 yards on the asphalt so I wasn't going to turn back at this point. I hopped a few times to brush the embedded bits from my soles and sidestepped back over to the asphalt. Guess this will be a serious lesson in form. And it was. Once I hit the part of the road where it transitioned back to the old stuff my form was locked in. It felt good and strong. 

About five minutes later the sun was starting to fall past the horizon and I decided to pull over to take a peek at the bottoms of my soles and put my VFFs on. I was amazed. No blisters. No hot spots. My achilles was a bit sore but I think that was due to all the flexing I was doing to keep from landing on the tips of my toes. But other than that, quite a successful run, I thought.
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Comments

  1. Some asphalt surfaces are evil but I am noticing that my feet are much less sensitive now than they used to be except for when they are cold.

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  2. Ewa - I'm thankful I didn't find this asphalt until I was 8+ weeks into barefoot running. Apparently, my feet were tough enough for it. It was definitely an "instant feedback" run for me.

    BTW - I just checked out your blog and have been enjoying reading it. Thanks for the visit!

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