Monday, April 26, 2010

Why My Feet Hurt for Most of the Weekend

After breaking my streak of runless days last week, I ran again Friday night before Happy Hour beverages and burgers at Pub Bricco.

After pummeling my quads with the Memorial Parkway Hill, which made my thighs feel like three days after a marathon, Friday's run was supposed be recovery pace. To slow myself down, I decided to go for another barefoot run on the same route as my previous shodless outing.

My calves were bothering me most of Friday from the long climb the day before, but the muscles quickly eased as I started to run, concentrating on relaxing, quick foot turnover and touching the ground as little as possible.

My soles were feeling great, and I was starting to feel like a seasoned barefooter. By the halfway mark, I realized I was running sub-10-minute miles, which is faster than I've ever run without shoes. I decided to pick up the pace.

My watch hit 28 minutes with about 0.2 miles to go as I rounded the final corner, literally, the home stretch. I sprinted in to finish at 29:49. Almost immediately afterward, I discovered that my form must have been off, as my left big toe had some blistering and the outsides of my feet felt like ground beef. (Foot burger < Pub Bricco burger)

My feet were pretty sensitive the rest of the weekend. I skipped Saturday, but I was ready to run Sunday. I didn't go out though because of severe thunderstorm warnings.

Way back when, I picked this week to start building up for marathon training. It's time to get serious. I have a date with Akron, and I've got to be on time.

Have You Voted Today?
If you haven't already read today's earlier post, go blindly vote for my blog to win stuff. Please and thank you.

4 comments:

Jess said...

Great job being able to pick up the pace while running barefoot!

The Enthusiast said...

Jess, funny you should bring up foot rubs... to answer your question, no I don't fall for it - in fact, I'm usually the one getting foot rubs. Funny how that works out... :-)

B. Kramer said...

Yes. Hilarious.

Anonymous said...

I have found that running either shod or unshod that at times when I run faster form goes out the window.