In the meantime, we can still be doing a little training, can’t we?   It’s important in these down-times to try to avoid loss of conditioning so any indoor training you can do is going to help a lot when you can finally get back outside.

Here’s a little video of a training/conditioning drill that will help maintain your fitness and improve you form:

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Or not.

My morning runs have been pretty crappy lately.  I feel heavy and fatigued, like I can barely lift my legs to put one foot in front of the other.

For awhile I wasn’t sure why.  I’d go out on a weekend and feel like I could run all day and then, come Monday morning, I’d be struggling to make it the 4 miles to work.

I think I’ve figured it out, though.  There are 2 differences between my morning runs to work and my weekend runs.  First, I never eat breakfast before I run to work.  That means my body is running on empty, especially if I didn’t eat much the night before.  Last night we had smoothies for dinner…very yummy and healthy, but they don’t stick with you long.  On the weekend I usually run sometime during the day after breakfast or lunch which gives me something to burn.

The second difference is that when I run to work I wear a backpack full of my work clothes for the day and sometimes my lunch.  I’ve never weighed it, but my guess is that it comes in at around 10 pounds, give or take.  On the upside, when I run without the extra weight, I feel like I have wings!

My average pace today was 8:38 which is pretty good to maintain over the miles.  My stride felt pretty good and everything was working like it should.  My Achilles seems almost back to normal, although I did feel it a time or two.  Overall, it felt very good!

Which brings us to the Lesson of the Week:  If you’re going to take time off from your workouts, limit it to a maximum of 2 days in a row.  It is amazing how quickly your body regresses from a state of fitness (or at least of improving fitness) to one of stiffness and soreness.  Two days isn’t too bad, but 1 day is probably even better.

So how do you deal with soreness and aches like my Achilles?  These will naturally occur as you build the strength in your lower legs, ankles and feet so don’t get too stressed out about it.  You can do a few things:

1. Evaluate your stride.  There’s a high probability that, if you’re experiencing some pain, it’s due to you’re stride not being correct.  For my Achilles tendon there are 2 things wrong with my stride.  First, I have a bad habit of trying to run further forward on my foot than I should initially.  When my foot and ankle strength is built up this will be fine, but for now it puts too much strain on my tendons.  Secondly, over my last few runs I’ve noticed that I have a tendency to tweak my left foot in right before it hits the ground.  By not keeping it in a vertical plane with my hip and knee I’m putting added strain on the Achilles.  If I correct these two things, the pain goes away.
2. Cool it.  Run slower and focus on your stride.  Don’t run as far if you can.  Shorten your stride.  Sometimes just by reducing the intensity of your workouts you can keep running while your body heals itself.
3. If all else fails, take a day or two (MAXIMUM!) off.  It’s probably preferable to take a single day off, then do #2 above.  Repeat as necessary.

The important thing to remember is to keep running.  By running BFM it’s pretty unlikely that you’ll sustain an injury as severe as you would running shod, but slow down.  Those pains are there to tell you something!

If you’ve been watching my workouts on MapMyRun, you’ll have seen that I did a 6 mile run yesterday.  My goal is to do at least that far on the weekend.  Most workout/training regimes have you doing 3 or 4 miles a day through the week and then a long run on the weekend, so I’m going to try to adhere to that.

My run yesterday was great!  I felt good and could have run another 6 miles I think.  That may have been due to the fact that I wasn’t running with a backpack.  Typically I’m running with a backpack full of clothes and (often) my lunch which probably varies anywhere from 5 to 10 pounds.  Take that off and I feel light as a feather!

After running the 6 miles I swam a few laps at the YMCA with T-Dawg.  So, between the laps and the run, I’m guessing that’s why I had such a difficult time of it this morning.  That’s the feel of my body getting stronger!

Finally, here’s another great training video.  I had the privilege of running with Eric Orton when he and Christopher McDougall where here in Boise for the Naked Tour 2011.  For those of you who haven’t ready the book “Born to Run” (which I highly recommend), Eric is the trainer that helped Chris prepare for “… a fifty-mile race through the heart of Tarahumara country pitting the tribe against an odd band of Americans, including a star ultramarathoner, a beautiful young surfer, and a barefoot wonder.”  The book is a great read and I’m sure will inspire you the same way it did me.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

First, let me say that the most common cause of aches and pains is what the experts refer to as TMTS…Too Much, Too Soon.  New converts to MBR fall prey to this, especially experienced runners.  It feels so easy and natural that it’s very tempting to go out and run 4 or 5 miles right away.  I would advise you not to, however!

Think about it:  You’re learning to run in a completely different way than your body is use to.  You’re using different muscles and putting strain on parts that have never been strained before…I mean NEVER.  Not to mention that, if you’re going 100% barefoot, you’re going to need to build up some callouses.

So what hurts and why?  Right now my left achilles is sore and was sore while I was running my 4 miles this morning.  That tells me that I’m putting more strain on it than it is ready to handle by landing to far forward on my foot.  How will I fix it?  I’ll back off on my intensity a bit and land further back on the ball of my foot…closer to flat-footed.  Once the soreness is gone, I’ll start moving further forward on the ball of my foot again.

Occasionally, my heels will be sore after a run.  Obviously, that tells me I’m landing too far back on my foot, to the point of heel striking.

My calves are a little sore.  That tells me that I’m building muscles there that I haven’t used before.  By landing on your forefoot, the impact is absorbed by the muscles and connective tissue in your foot, ankle and calves so your calves are going to get big…and sore!

Other things that get sore that you can’t really do anything about except run through it (like the calves) are thighs (typically the Vastus muscle group, as well as the Quadricepts tendon), the Glutes, lower back and sometimes your neck and shoulders.  Most of these will pass in time.  The only one you might want to back off on is the Quadricepts tendon.

Foot soreness is another pain that you will experience.  There are 26 bones, 33 joints, 20 muscles and 100 ligaments in each foot, all of which are not use to being used because they’ve been cooped up in a “supportive” shoe for most of their lives.  Early on my feet would be so sore in the morning I could barely walk.  But that, too, passes and you just have to keep moving through it.

Some people will experience blisters.  I have a blister on the tip of my second toe on my right foot.  Blisters let you know that either you’re falling prey to TMTS or that your technique needs some tweaking.  My blister is due to pushing off too much with my toes so I need to work on modifying my technique a bit.

Here’s a pretty good video for people just getting started:

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Oh…and happy Solstice everyone!

*** To save typing (cause I’m lazy), I’m going to shorten this to MBR in the future.

I’m always looking for training tips and/or videos about barefoot running and will try to share the good ones as I find them.  If you run across any good ones, let me know!

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

But, as you have probably noticed, I’m not using RA.  I’ve elected to go with MapMyRun (MMR) instead.  Why?  Not for any good reason, let me assure you!

They’re both free (though MMR has ads if you don’t pay for the premium memberships), they both allow you to map routes and they both have mobile apps to log your workouts.  The only differences I can find are that MMR has a nicer user interface and allows you to log food you eat, whereas RA has a feature that allows you to enter equipment (i.e. running shoes) and log miles on it.

I haven’t tried the Android app for RA, but the one for MMR is pretty cool.  We’re too cheap to pay for a data plan on our smartphone so I can’t use MMR’s live workout feed feature, but it does allow me to record the workout and then upload when I’m back on a wifi network.  Supposedly they’re working on updating it so you can save several workouts before uploading, but right now you can only do one.

So, I think what won me over is the user interface of MMR.  It’s just nicer to look at!  It’s pretty easy to use and I can live with the ads for now.  It also has a social networking feature, so if you’re a member let me know and I can add you as a friend!  :)

So, ran to work this morning following my usual route.  It was pretty darn cold but I just picked up some nice SUGOi running tights from our local running shop which kept me comfortable.  The front of my thighs got a little coolish after awhile and where quite red when I changed, but I think they’ll do the trick.

I’m still not back up to the same speed I was a month ago.  Did the 4 miles in about 38 minutes today, but I still have about 6 minutes to take off before I’m happy about it.

My Vivobarefoot shoots are awesome!  I’m loving them.  My toes stay warm and they give me excellent traction.

As you may have noticed, I’m trying to get back in the game. I have been quite lazy the last several weeks…ever since Ann and T came back from their road trip. While they were away I ran everywhere, including a grand 18 mile run to downtown and back. But since then it’s gotten quite cold and I haven’t been that motivated.

Now, I’ve been running in Vibram Five Fingers (KSO TrekSports exactly like those to the left) for about a year now and I love them. But for those of you who run in VFFs, you know how cold your toes can get. I’ve read that some people can run in them okay, or just add finger socks and are fine. But I didn’t think I’d be able to do that so decided to get a new pair of winter runners.  But what to get?

After some research I settled on the Vivobarefoot Neo Trails (see to the right) due to the outstanding reviews I read.  I got them a little large so that I can wear some heavy socks with them.

I received them in the mail just  a few days ago and have done 2 runs in them of 4 miles each.  So far, I’m pretty happy with them.  They’re thin, flexible, supposedly pretty water resistant (good for if we get snow) and so far they’ve kept my feet warm down to 17 degrees when I’m running to work in the morning.

You may have noticed that my last post was password protected.  I’ll be doing that on occasion to make sure that not just everybody can access information that I feel may be…well, too close to home.  If you want the password, shoot me an email and I’ll give it to you.  If you don’t know my email address, then you probably shouldn’t have the password either! 

In the next post I’m going to talk about tracking/logging runs and apps that can help.  So stay tuned and keep running!