The barefoot professor

Heres a good interview with the barefoot professor Daniel Lieberman.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beJA2So4Zio

Mid-foot strike questions

I had to take the week off after running city to surf. It’s 6 days now and my calves are still hurting. After nearly 4 months, I still haven’t adjusted fully to mid-foot/barefoot running. I’m starting to understand why Nike invented the modern running shoe. I mean, the average person would find the whole adjustment process way too tedious and probably give up running. Nike gave these people an alternative option that doesn’t require months of adjustment. They got the average person running, be it with the risk of knee and hip injuries.

I’m also seriously questioning whether it will be possible for me to run a marathon distance with a mid-foot strike? A 15km run blasted my calves away. What’s going to happen after 42? Will I even make it, or will everything fall apart? Is it idiotic to attempt it in 5 fingers? Should I run in Nike frees so that I have more mid-foot cushioning and (dare I say it) a heal strike fallback option? These are the question I’m hoping to answer over the next few months as I attempt to increase my running mileage and frequency.

Update on my barefoot and minimal shoe running experience

It’s been just over 3 months since I embarked on this journey. I must say, it has been an interesting balancing act. On the one side I have a bunch of enthusiasm to get back to running and good cardio from my cycling. On the other hand, I have a history of running and cycling injuries which I have to stay really conscious of. At age 44 I have to be even more careful, because it takes me so much longer to get over injuries.

My approach was to run only on soft sand for a month to build calf and foot strength. I love the sand because even though it’s tough on the legs, it’s really forgiving on the knees due to the softness. It also teaches you land on the forefoot because you have to dig in and grip with your toes.

I had done some soft sand running prior to May, mainly as cross training for my cycling. The longest run I had done was 10km. Since May, I have managed to build up my distances to 18km (20 lengths of Bondi beach) over a period of 2 months.

In June a bought a pair of 5 fingers and set off on the road. Prior to this, I did a thorough study of barefoot running technique but ignored one important rule: doing too much too soon! I think my eagerness to reach my goal of running to work pushed me to do 10km runs right from the start. I started to get pain between my ankle and my arch. It got progressively worse. I also had the City2Surf coming up in 2 months so I was eager keep running, but I realised I had to cut back to 1 short run a week on grass. At least I was still getting cardio training from my cycling.

My foot healed up well and, even though I did the city2surf with little running preparation, I came away with a good time and no injuries! It’s really starting to look like barefoot is the way to go, for me anyway.

I just looked up my prev time in 2003. It was 80 min so I smashed it by 19 min! Totally stoked!

City 2 Surf

I ran the city 2 surf today

It was great to meet some DailyMilers today and a fun day it was. We’ll done for doing the C2S. I didn’t really know what to expect because it’s been 7 years since I did the last one. I've run very little since then, just cycled really. I was hoping for a sub 70, banking on my cycling cardio. I totally got caught up in the adrenalin rush at the start. Somewhere in Double Bay I looked at my garmin and I was averaging 4:15. That’s my 4 km pace! I know my cardio is good, so I was hoping the legs would hold out. The last 4 km were really though and now I know why. I was running at a HR avg over 180! Anyway, I’m over the moon with my 61.

Split Time Avg Pace Avg HR

1 0:03:58 3:58 168

2 0:04:19 4:19 168

3 0:04:21 4:21 171

4 0:04:16 4:16 177

5 0:04:06 4:06 173

6 0:04:13 4:13 176

7 0:04:50 4:50 180

8 0:04:34 4:34 182

9 0:04:10 4:10 181

10 0:04:22 4:22 183

11 0:04:33 4:33 182

12 0:04:12 4:12 182

13 0:03:59 3:59 181

14 0:04:13 4:13 184

15 0:00:49 4:21 187

Tot 1:01:02 4:18 178

Daily mile

I've been logging my training on dailymile . I guess you can you can call it facebook for athletes. There's a great community of like minded people with their individual training goals. From weight loss, general fitness, BP and distance goals and serious competitors. The support you get is excellent encouragement and the transparency of your training is a good motivator to keep it up.