Barefoot Running - The First Five Miles

So this morning I decide to try running barefoot. It's been on my mind to do it for some time now but today when I wake up I feel really up for it.
I do a bit of googling to see what I should do to get started but I am in the mood for running, not browsing, so I'm not taking much in.
There is, though, a clear message coming through about taking it easy to start with so I reckon, OK, I won't go for a ten miler, I'll just do a quick five.
I get up and dress for running, except my feet of course, put my Mizuno shoes and a pair of socks in my Salomon back pack and go out the door.
Ouch. Now I know what tenderfoot means. My plantar nerve endings seem to be feeling every speck on the gritty tarmac. Hell with it. I start running.
Interesting. My natural, barefoot, instinct is to avoid striking the ground with my heel. I am running on the outside and front of my foot. This is not a conscious choice, I am going with the flow here.
I am feeling socially exposed in my barefoot eccentricity but the guy around the corner spraying wax on his car through the smoke of his lip-dangled cigarette doesn't give me a second glance. Or a first one for that matter.
The surface of the sidewalk varies in its grittiness. Sometimes it is really ooo-oooh-ouch and I walk for a bit. Walking doesn't really help much because your foot is in contact with the surface for longer at a time. I run again remembering to look out for broken glass. There isn't any.
It takes me about fifteen minutes to get to the Roehampton Gate entrance to the park. This is about twice as long as usual.
But when I get into the park I pick up speed. The surface is lovely. The well-worn trail is surfaced with broken stones and packed sandy earth. It is damp and cool. My feet feel wonderful. Oh yes, this is the real thing.
I pick up speed. My stride is shorter that usual and, as I said, the footfall more to the front of the foot. Despite my tender feet I am running pretty fast. I overtake a couple of runners.
A passing cyclist shouts, 'Barefoot!', at me as he passes and gives me a grinning thumbs-up. Thanks, mate.
I am really enjoying this and am momentarily tempted to do a full circuit of the park. But there is a definite muscle ache at my right hip and stress signals from my ankles and lower calf which I put down to my unaccustomed gait. Best not push it.
I turn back at the fallen tree before I get to the first big hill and head for home.
The soles of my feet feel somewhat tenderised but they do seem to be coping with it all very well.
Oops, I stub my right toe. Ouch. Seems OK, though.
A South African cyclist passes me shouting, 'Hey, there's Zola Budd. How you doin', Zola?' Whatever.
Out of the park and back onto the pavement and the little stones and grit are really irritating.
For the first time I see some broken glass. A busted beer bottle. I dance around the shards and congratulate myself on getting through uninjured until I realise that a sharp irritation on my right sole might not be a stone.
I stop and find a little piece of glass stuck to my right foot. It's not very big, maybe an eighth of an inch long. I pick it out with my thumbnail. There's a bit of blood but not much. I continue running wondering what toxic substances and misanthropic life forms are getting into the wound.
But, you know, all in all I'm feeling pretty psyched. This has been a good experience.
Nearer home the guy is still out washing his car, buffing it now, wish a fresh cigarette on the go.
I unlock the door and step into my flip-flops which I left waiting there.
And then the pain starts. Oh dear. Now that I am not running the blood is pooling in my feet and, ooh ooooh oooooh dear. And there's blood. Not from the little bit of glass, but that time I stubbed my toe I tore a flap of skin off a blood blister and there's blood dripping onto my sandal.
I sit down and look at my feet. Jeez. I mean, what the....! Through the mud and the grit I can see that my feet are extensively blistered. About a fifth to a quarter of the surface of the sole of each foot, mostly at the side and the front, is covered in blood filled blisters.
And they hurt. Oh dear. Oh dear. There's a good reason torturers beat the soles of your feet. Because it hurts.
Somehow I haul myself all the way upstairs to my room for my first aid kit. I grab a towel and crawl back downstairs and fill a bath. There is a certain amount of groaning and some howling. And most definitely a whole bunch of whining.
In the bath there is whimpering as I clean and dress my feet. I have to keep my feet raised or else they fill up with blood and HURT!
Now here's a thing. Have you ever tried to get out of a bath and get yourself toweled dry without putting your feet on the floor? Ain't easy.
In conclusion, I really need to start taking seriously those warnings to start out easy. But, pain and mashed-up feet aside, it was a wonderful experiment. And as soon as I'm healed up I'm out there again. Without shoes.

Ten Saturday Morning Miles

Yesterday evening a three mile struggle home from work, still digesting my food from a late lunch.
But now it is The Saturday Morning Miles. The sweetest miles of the week.
This is my ten mile run. From the house to the park by way of a shortcut through the hospital and down Clarence Lane to Roehampton Gate, left into the park and then a complete circuit, the longest way around, out the way I came in and back home.
It's busy today as it is every Saturday, walkers, runners and cyclists, alone and in groups, the groups on the go already or gathering by gates, at the cafe, in the car parks.
This morning my first few minutes out the door I feel like a dead man running. I don't feel like I have ten miles in me. But going down the long slope of Clarence Lane I somehow loosen up and my breathing comes easier.
There are three and a half hills on the run and it is the hills which tell how fit I am. The first hill about twenty minutes into the run comes not far beyond Robin Hood Gate. This morning it feels tough but nicely manageable. I reach halfway a couple of minutes quicker than I expect and when I reach the second hill, the toughest of all, I am looking forward to it. I run the long flat section towards Pembroke Gate and then instead of going out of the gate turn right up the hill. It is a long, winding, rough slope, more or less muddy except in the driest of weather. When I am out of condition I can be close to puking before I am half way up. Today I reach the top tolerably short of a full-on stroke.
Beyond that second hill and an hour into the run I am feeling pretty good and really pushing the pace. Fantastic. The rest of the run is just perfect.

Another Morning Run

Just a lazy three miles home from work yesterday. But this morning I'm out for five miles before breakfast again.
The clearer sky, oddly, means it is darker in the park. No cloud cover to reflect the not yet risen sun. The stars are brilliant white points on a dirty blue blanket. No one about except a couple of distant cyclists and the power walking lady.
Lying on my bed after a quick bath and a quick breakfast I long to go back to sleep.
Drag myself up and out for the bus.

Early Morning Richmond Park

After Ten Mile Sunday and Recovery Monday it's out at 6 am this Tuesday morning for a quick five miles of scaring rabbits and deer in Richmond Park. No other runners around. I am sooooo special.
I am thinking that when my contract ends at the end of March I will go up to Scotland for a couple of months of full-on running around the hills before running across Europe.
It would be an opportunity to test things out. I have a lightweight bivvy bag which I am keen to test. It is a great deal lighter than the tent. But would I be able to sleep in it night after night for an extended period? That is something that would be worth an experiment before heading off to the Baltic.
If I could do a thousand miles of Scotland before heading off there might be a book in that. I have lots of ideas for a book about Scotland. When would I have time to write it, though? I could draft it as I go and finish it when I get back from Europe later in the summer. A lot depends on how long I can make my money last, I suppose.
Any way it plays out I have a feeling this is going to be a great year.