1087 miles: my 2011 in running shoes

What started with a broken promise ended with mixed emotions. I knew that my 2011 in running shoes would be the biggest, toughest and hopefully the most rewarding yet, but I wasn’t ready for how it would finish.

Pivoting on the San Francisco Marathon, all my training, racing and writing was focussed on getting into the best possible shape to run one of the most brutal road marathons in the world. My madly overambitious plans to start with the Lochaber Marathon were sensibly sidelined in favour of the usual crop of half-marathons and parkruns in the first half of the year, including a brilliant weekend in Campbeltown for the MoKRun.

My annual tradition of PB’ing in Alloa despite (or perhaps because of) being violently sick entered its third year, modified only slightly this year by a rather more exciting end to the day. But before both of those was the last-minute slapdash effort at the Meadows ‘Marathon’ in Edinburgh, which of course was only really a half marathon, run over seven laps of the Meadows in Edinburgh.  It may interest you to know that the organisers are planning a full length-marathon for 2012, covering a soul-sucking fourteen lap course (details here). You won’t be seeing me there.

San Francisco loomed large and arrived on my doorstep at the end of July. With the miles in the bank, hills in my legs and a Union Jack on my chest I was ready to run the best race of my life, and was rewarded with a hugely satisfying 3:49 PB. I’ve wasted enough of your time already on eulogising about this incredible race – go back and read it all again if you’re interested.

I came back from the USA with an enormous medal and two more goals on the horizon. My commitment to run the Great North Run for the Alzheimer’s Society, coupled with my wild over-commitment to run it barefoot, made for a superb combination of a world-class event and another tough challenge complete. Two weeks later I toed my final start-line of the year, accompanying the one and only Ben A. Nicholson around the Loch Ness Marathon, to complete my fourth lifetime 26.2.

 It was a good year for meeting heroes. I met round-the-world runner and adventurer Rosie Swale Pope in Campbeltown before the MokRun, then elite ultramarathoner Michael Wardian and prolific marathoner Dane Rauschenberg in San Francisco, and finally world 5,000m champion and British Olympic hopeful Mo Farah in Newcastle before the Great North Run.  If you’re interested, Michael and Dane were the friendliest. Rosie was busy at a book signing but very kind. I think I might have annoyed Mo – he was out for a drink with some mates. Sorry Mo.

Mike Wardian (after winning the SF Marathon)

Mo Farah

I was delighted to publish articles in Runner’s World UK again this year, reviewing the Alloa Half Marathon, the MoKRun and the San Francisco Marathon.  RW has a readership of almost 400,000, which, as I’ve said before, is almost as many people as read this blog (pfft!).  I very much look forward to publishing more in future. It was also a joy to watch this blog's readership grow and diversify - thank you for sharing it as widely as you have, it means a great deal to me.

Perhaps best of all was watching others achieve and succeed. It was a pleasure to run with my brother the day of his wedding, a delight to see that my sister completed her first 10k, an honour to accompany (and eventually be beaten by) Ben Nicholson in his first marathon. I took a Dalmatian and her owner to the top of Arthur’s Seat. I trained with future marathon world champ Megan Crawford, when she slowed down enough for me to keep up. I even coaxed the Crew Chief out on one or two occasions. I ran in Scotland, England, Portugal, California and New York, covering a total of 1087 miles and wearing out two-and-a-half pairs of running shoes. Here are the final stats:

miles run: 1087, parkruns: 6, races: 6, 

miles biked: 159, metres swum: 1225

I had a great year.

Except the hernia bit. That was shit, and still is.  Not long after the Loch Ness Marathon I started experiencing a great deal of pain whilst running.  By early November it had become unbearable, so I hastened to my GP. She thought it was probably a hernia, and ordered a surgical consultation (which still hasn’t happened, by the way).  In the meantime my running has dwindled to almost nothing, and at times it seems genuinely impossible to think that I have trained for and completed two marathons and four half marathons this year, as well as a few hundred miles on the bike. At times, genuinely, I can barely walk.

Swings and roundabouts, eh?

Happy New Year

Dave

2012 to date: miles - 3 (painfully)

Race Report - Great North Run 2011 (aka The Ballad of Barefoot Dave part 4)

I don’t think I have ever been so nervous before a race.

The night before had put me at ease. By a strange series of events we ended up staying in the Gateshead Hilton, which (unbeknownst to us) happens to be the official race hotel. We mixed with the elite athletes at mealtimes and in the bar, the whole place seemingly given over to the event. I even had the opportunity to meet Mo Farah and bother him for a photograph. I never feel particularly comfortable interrupting celebrities when I see them in a private context, but I just couldn’t resist talking to the newly-crowned 5,000m world champ and getting him to autograph my race number. Evidence:

We swapped tips

But I woke up on race morning with ultimate fear. I’m pretty sure I would have been nervous anyway. The incredible anticipation of finally running the Great North Run, an iconic, aspirational event which I’ve watched on TV for years, was enough to make me jittery with excitement in the days and hours running up to it. But something about the barefoot plan was making me even more nervous. I felt like I had agreed to a duel but left my pistols at home, constantly troubled by that feeling of dread when you get off a train or a bus and realise you’ve left your bag on your seat. Essentially, I spent the race morning observing that to run a half marathon, you need to wear shoes, and I was definitely not...

Then again, I was wearing shoes, of sorts. I went for the Vibrams in the end, and I’m so glad I did. As we shall see.

I decided to walk from the hotel to the start line, a distance of probably about 2.5 miles once I’d got to my starting zone. I needed the time to relax, loosen up, get my head in the game and feel comfortable in the Vibrams. The short walk in the cool morning air was ideal and definitely represented the calm before the storm.

I had hoped to meet Aye Aye Jenny Mackay at the start so we could run together, but our poorly-planned rendez-vous never materialised and sadly we didn’t manage to see each other at all. The crowds were just too enormous. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen so many people, ever. With 54,000 runners, the GNR is unfathomably massive in every way, and there was simply no hope of us catching one another. Such is life. I did have the privilege of watching the elite women warm up (in what seemed like a bizarre zoo-like enclosure, athletes pacing like caged lions and us plebs peering in through the bars), and particularly pleased to see the British trio of Clitheroe, Pavey and Yamauchi. After the ubiquitous bag check, queue for the loo and hunt for my starting zone, I was in and ready for the off.

After the sad passing of Flt. Lt. Egging of the Red Arrows a few weeks ago, there had been murmurings that the team might not make an appearance at this year’s GNR. The image of the Red Arrows’ flypast over the Tyne Bridge is a huge part of the GNR’s identity, so it would have been a very sad loss if they weren't able to attend. But rather than pack it in they went one better and made an additional, early flypast over the starting line – flying in the ‘Missing Man’ formation, Red 4 (Flt Lt Egging’s position) trailing red smoke and creating an image of fond remembrance. An inspiring moment.

Ten minutes after the gun fired, I was over the line, and within half a mile I was having to consciously alter my stride to accommodate for the rough, broken road surface and try to protect my ruined ankles. Early twinges in my ankles and the balls of my feet made me nervous, but the atmosphere made it almost impossible to think of anything but utter, unconfined running joy. The runners, the crowds, the Red Arrows, the shouts of ‘Oggy Oggy Oggy’ in tunnels and the sheer scale of the whole mad shebang are indescribable. I can’t tell you – you’ll just have to run this race.

I made it onto the Tyne Bridge just before the Red Arrows got there, crossing the structure with the red, white and blue smoke streaming out overhead. The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco was humbling, the Forth Road Bridge during the Scotland Kilomathon was majestic, but the Tyne Bridge, with those pilots overhead, there, then, was a moment that will stay with me for a very long time indeed. I knew Linds would be stationed at the ‘third, no the second, no the third lamppost after the pillar. Or the third one after the bridge. I’ll be next to a lamppost anyway’, toting a camera and ready to snap a great picture. Unfortunately, I am a prat and was a bit overexcited by the whole experience, so I look like this:

From here it was business as usual, with the focus on keeping my poor feet from too much abuse. The miles ticked along at a relatively relaxed pace, averaging 8:45 minutes/mile, roughly the same speed as those around me. And with quite so many people around me, I had very little choice. This race is so densely-packed with runners that you would struggle to break free from the zone you started in, unless you were prepared to invest a lot of time and energy in weaving between other runners. Thank goodness there are so many others, though. The course itself is less-than inspiring for the majority of it, passing through industrial areas, motorway overpasses and repetitive housing estates for miles. However, the riot of colour, noise and passion from the runners brings this fairly drab landscape to life and makes the race all the more amazing. Setting a big race in London or Paris or San Francisco is one thing, because the scenery does most of the work. Here the race is self-affirming; it just works because it’s always been here, not because here is somewhere particularly special. What an amazing achievement.

With a vastly varied road surface I was struggling to find rhythm and comfort in the Vibrams, at some points resorting to running on the white lines in search of something a little softer than the nasty road. I struggled with everything from rough tarmac to concrete to areas where the rain had washed grit onto the road. But I was managing the pain and discomfort relatively well.

Until the heavens opened.

I’ve blogged before about how well the Vibrams work in the dry, but in the wet the thick rubber lives up to its name and rubs, viciously, all the way down to the bone and out the other side, then several inches into the road, too. It’s agony. The rain started as just a thin, welcome drizzle, then proceeded into a crescendo of massive, heavy rainfall that sent spectators scurrying to bus shelters and elicited a range of impassioned responses from runners.

I was probably 9 miles in when the rain really kicked in, and I knew that I really didn’t have far to go. Based on the time-honoured maxim that if you run faster it’s over quicker, I picked up the pace and started an overtaking campaign. There are some nasty hills in the GNR, but nothing compared to San Francisco or my months of training in Edinburgh, so I felt confident in pushing up the hills and planning to cruise down, a strategy which worked reasonably well until the very last descent to the seafront. In the wet, the Vibrams become slick and unpredictable, and I came off the crest of the last hill at full whack, only to find myself hurtling down the other side and very, very close to falling over onto my face. After some manic arm-waving I managed to slow down and take the sharp turn at the bottom without incident, but it put the fear of God into me and I took a few moments to recover.

Some distance before I reached the sea, a spectator had shouted ‘only a mile to go!’ and I had got rather excited and sped up. If pushed, I could have summoned my knowledge of the course which would have told me that the 12 mile marker was still some way off, but I wanted to believe him and allowed my feet to think about some respite. When the 12 mile point did finally arrive it really was all over bar the shouting and I joined in with a few others who had picked up the pace for the final furlong.

800 to go, 400 to go, 200 to go, finish. A last-gasp sprint for the camera to finish in 1:54:44 and then a slow, laboured walk to collect a medal, t-shirt and eventually be released back into society. Linds was waiting for me at our agreed RV where we eventually managed to meet up with Louise and swap a few war stories, me hobbling around trying to adjust to the incredible pain in my feet. I wasn’t brave enough to take off the Vibrams for some time, knowing that a combination of the ache from the impact, blisters from the sore spots and probably some skin missing from the rubbing points would be pretty awful to witness. They were better than I thought, in the end. But not much. My toes ache. My calves are very tight. My feet basically feel like I ran a half marathon barefoot yesterday...

Even with my leisurely pace I came in 9,169^th place from a field of 37,491 finishers, which puts me in the top 24%. This is definitely more of an indication of the slow average finish time rather than my own impressive performance, as the race is clearly popular with beginners, and it was a shame to see so many ambulances tending to those who probably hadn’t respected the challenge they were undertaking. The drop-out rate is enormous: 54k places for 37k finishers.

Would I run another road race in the Vibrams? Probably not. But I am glad that I ran this race at a necessarily slower pace, purely to soak up the atmosphere and enjoy the company of so many other runners. And it was a pleasure and an honour to run for the Alzheimer’s Society. Thank you for your support, I am delighted to see that after a flurry of last-minute donations (possibly from people hedging their bets?) that I have reached my £500 target. You could still help me surpass it if you felt really cool and groovy – check out www.justgiving.com/barefootdave. Thanks so much, it’s been immense.

Happy running

Dave

2011 to date - miles: 940.95, parkruns: 6, races: 5, miles biked: 83.24, metres swum: 1225 

The Ballad of Barefoot Dave - part three

I have had blisters before. I am a runner, it comes with the territory. I’ve had huge, bulbous ones on the balls of my feet, weird tiny ones underneath my toes, nasty blood-filled ones on my insteps and bizarre pointy ones on my big and smallest toes. I’ve got rather good at managing them; I lance them without a thought, drain the nasty fluids as a matter of course and clean them up, tape them down and generally keep my feet in as good a condition as possible given the circumstances. In fact I’m so good at managing them that I almost look forward to getting them.

Until I started the barefoot challenge, which is now just ten days away...

It wasn’t until I started running barefoot that I learnt the true misery of having blisters on my heels. Huge, deep and angry blisters, sitting proud of the wide, fleshy part of the underside of both heels, slightly towards the outside and unbelievably uncomfortable. I first felt them developing on a short, 4 mile barefoot run in the Vibrams, when I thought I had a pebble lodged under my left foot. When I peeled the Vibrams off, there was no pebble. And in places, no heel either. I don’t know what Trench Foot looks like, but I suspect it’s not dissimilar to what’s currently brewing at the bottom of my legs.

In a cruel twist of fate, the barefoot adventure is otherwise going rather well. The enormous strain on my calves is reducing, and I’m very quickly improving my speed as a result. If it weren’t for the blisters, my confidence levels for Barefoot Dave’s Great North Run would be sky-high. As it is I am getting increasingly afraid...

That said, I have to admit: I am loving this challenge. It feels like I’m revisiting the early part of my running journey, learning loads and improving relatively quickly. Everything is new again and yet strangely familiar. It’s like wandering around a house you used to live in. However, I can guarantee that there’ll be no PB chalked up in South Shields. I can just about manage to maintain 9 minute miles in the Vibrams, which means there is a real chance that I might not even break two hours. And looking at these blisters, I should probably call myself lucky to finish at all.

Once the main trial in Newcastle is over, I’ll definitely be reducing my barefoot road mileage, as the strain is really too much for me at the moment and probably isn’t helping my long-term racing prospects. I was struck by this thought on my latest barefoot jaunt. I am fortunate in that I can easily remove the aggravating factor in my life and return to comfort and normality. This brings into sharp relief the fact that the opposite is true for sufferers of Alzheimer’s Disease. Whose suffering is daily, degenerative and incurable. Whose only hope for relief is high quality care for themselves and support for their loved ones. Who have no escape from the aggravating factor of their lives.

I am humbled and delighted that so many of you have put your hands in your pockets for this cause (even though most have come with an impressive supply of abuse). If you haven't already, please help me make a small difference to a big problem.  Donate even a few pounds online at www.justgiving.com/barefootdave

Thank you.

Dave

2011 to date - miles: 907.78, parkruns: 6, races: 4, miles biked: 83.24, metres swum: 1225 

Best run of the year

At less than two miles, it was the shortest run of the year. Before breakfast, barely awake, with my shoes landing lazily on the stone pavement, it was probably also one of the slowest. There was no music, no crowd, no medal, no PB, no watch and no pressure.

In six hours’ time, my brother would be getting married. The day would be hectic and wonderful and joyously good fun, with an almost unavoidable undercurrent of stress and pressure for those of us entrusted with wedding-related responsibility.

But right now, at 8am and in the warm, dappled, early morning sun, my brother and I are jogging lightly through the streets of north Oxford; chatting about this and that, pointing out interesting cars, and running.  Same as always.

It was the best run of the year.

Happy days.

Dave

2011 to date - miles: 853.49*, parkruns: 6, races: 4, miles biked: 78.47, metres swum: 1225 

*I have now surpassed my 2010 total of 851 miles. Crikey.

The Ballad of Barefoot Dave - part two

Ow. Why am I doing this?

I am tempted to leave this post at that. I believe it covers most of the bases.

My strategy for simultaneously approaching Barefoot Dave’s Great North Run and the Loch Ness Marathon seemed logical: my midweek miles would be relatively short and barefoot, leaving my weekend runs to be long and in shoes. This way I could build up just about enough experience to make it through the barefoot adventure whilst maintaining my distance discipline in preparation for Loch Ness. Genius.

As usual, not genius. Just as happened after I ran 1:34 in Alloa, the sheer effort of running a big PB in San Francisco has taken a lot out of me. Things just don’t seem to click when I go out running at the moment. Except my ankles, which click a lot. It’s hard to tell whether the enormous pain in my calves is due to the barefoot training or a full-body marathon hangover from SF. Or indeed due to an ordinary hangover, as I am allowing myself occasional drinks again. I went for a 5-miler in the Vibrams last week and I stepped in a huge puddle hidden from view – four steps later they began to rub excruciatingly, grating away the skin on the top of a right foot-knuckle (probably not the correct term but you get the idea). Obviously, this happened when I was furthest from home and I had several more painful miles to cover before gaining any relief. My chest is still weird, my stomach’s still weird and do I really have to go back to work every day!? I’m all over the place and rapidly running out of time. I’m starting to wonder if this challenge is a run too far.

Just yesterday, however, I realised that I’ve been seeking answers without understanding the question. I’ve been approaching this from a running perspective, which is of course trivial and egotistical. Walking home from work, in a moment of absolute clarity, I finally stumbled across the perspective that a lot of charity runners are able to gain. How stupid and callous of me to be worrying about a clicking ankle or a little ache in my muscles. How petty to be complaining that I’m finding it difficult to run nine miles at 8 minutes/mile. How insensitive to call these problems.

Dementia is a problem. An incurable, degenerative, life-altering problem. This isn’t a run too far, it’s just a tiny step in the right direction. You can help make things better for sufferers, right now.

www.justgiving.com/barefootdave

Thanks folks, you’re the best.

Dave

2011 to date - miles: 845.28, parkruns: 6, races: 4, miles biked: 78.47, metres swum: 1225 (dangerously on track to record my first zero-mile week since January 2010! Busy busy busy!)

P.S. If you missed part one, it's here.

The Ballad of Barefoot Dave - part one

I should start with the terms & conditions of this blog post.  It's a fundraising post for the Alzheimer's Society, care of Barefoot Dave's Great North Run.

If you’ve already made a donation on my justgiving page, then hello! Come on in! Put your feet up! Would you like a drink? There’s wine in the fridge. If not then, you may continue reading, but only if you promise to donate some money sooner or later. Maybe after payday? Or if you find some money on the street. Up to you. But please think about putting something towards the fight against dementia. 

So –onto the new paid-for-by-an-honour-system content...

Barefoot Dave’s Great North Run is currently looking like it could turn into Barefoot Dave’s Big Broken Bones or Big Damaged Ankles or Big Ruined Calf Muscles. Increasing the barefoot mileage has been really, really tough going. When I decided on this challenge I had only really experienced barefoot running off-road, on surfaces with at least a little ‘give’, like mud, grass, and dirt tracks. However, the Great North Run is entirely on tarmac, and tarmac is well known for not giving very much at all...

So I’ve been braving the roads in my Vibrams, with mixed results. On the one hand (foot?), running without shoes is a new challenge and is testing different muscles.  This can only be a good thing, as I’m toning all the muscles in my legs instead of just my thighs, which will have positive benefits for my ‘normal’ running too. Similarly I’m enjoying the new technical challenge, thinking consciously about my stride, how I place my foot on the ground, and learning how the different parts of my foot contribute to running.  I feel like I’m evolving at an outrageously fast pace. Even if I'm running quite slowly.

Hazards. Particularly for barefoot crazies.

On the other foot, it all hurts like hell. I’m going through the same painful learning curve that I overcame for ‘normal’ running almost 3 years ago. The undersides of my toes, which are absorbing a lot of impact, are blistering badly. My ankles, adapted due to years of running fully supported, aren’t up to the job of properly holding my stride – such that I have to experiment with the way I place each footstep to avoid hurting them.  I have to look very carefully at where I’m stepping – loose litter or branches, even a pile of wet leaves becomes a potential hazard without the comfortingly enormous support of a pair of trainers. It is a constant mental and physical workout, and I am knackered after even short training runs. Since I reckon that I’ll be taking around 22,000 steps in the Great North Run, I’m a little worried that I might go insane trying to summon the required brain power to keep myself on track...

Compound this with the natural hazards of a big road race: congestion, discarded bottles to trip over, energy gel wrappers to slip on, amusing costumes to be distracted by... I'm getting a little bit frightened. Oh and one more thing. Two weeks before the barefoot Great North Run, I'm running the Loch Ness Marathon, which is going to be a painful experience in itself. Fear. The enormity of this challenge is starting to dawn on me.

All this, and I still haven’t run more than 5 miles in the Vibrams.  I have an awful long way to go before managing a half marathon barefoot.

Fear. Happy fear.

Dave

2011 to date - miles: 414.48, parkruns: 4, races: 2, miles biked: 16.85

Barefoot Dave's Great North Run

I have run many half-marathons, and I have run a few miles barefoot, in my crazy Vibram FiveFinger shoes. But the 2011 Great North Run will be my first barefoot half marathon; a test of endurance, perseverance and my skills in emergency blister management. Like Barefoot Ted and Barefoot Ken Bob before him, I will be exploring the mysterious and marvellous world of naked-footed running and, unusually, this particular mad project actually has a solid basis of motivation...

Caught between the excitement of running the world’s biggest half marathon and the fear of running a very long way without any cushioning or support, I am absolutely, ridiculously excited about the prospect of reaching South Shields after 13.1 miles of serious barefoot ground pounding. Even more dramatic, of all the races I’ve entered in recent years, this is the only one –to my mind- where just finishing is going to be a genuine trial...

54,000 runners, the Red Arrows and no shoes...

...sounds like an adventure to me.

As you’ll know from the time I ruined more or less all of my toes, I’ve had a crack at barefoot racing before. It went very well on the face of it – a fast time, good feelings in my legs and general excitement all round. But a more pressing issue was the catastrophic blistering of my toes, and later the incredible pain in my calves. Barefoot running means using different muscle groups to running in shoes – in the absence of a thick layer of cushioning and shoe science, your body has to learn to run in a more natural, organic way, tending to land on the midsole rather than the heel. It's a completely different kettle of fish.

And yes, you’ve guessed it – I’ve decided that this is going to be my charity race. I'll be suffering my barefoot half marathon for the sake of the Alzheimer's Society. I've written in a little more detail about my motivation and excitement to be fundraising for the Alzheimer's Society on my justgiving page. Please do take a minute to have a read and think about donating whatever you can.

So what I’m saying is that there’s going to be a lot of training to fit in before I’m ready to toe the line in Newcastle. That barefoot-specific training is going to have to fit in between high-mileage work for San Francisco, hill and mountain work for the Seven Hills and next year’s mad plans, and then some more high-mileage weeks for the next marathon. But it will be worth it if I can know I've made a small difference to a big problem - here's looking forward to the next seven months...

Happy running.

Dave


2011 to date - miles: 188.44, parkruns: 3, races: 0

How I ruined more or less all of my toes

Good news! On Thursday, on a whim, I called my GP's surgery to ask whether my X-ray results were available. I only had the scan on Monday, and everyone had insisted it would take 7-10 days before they would have any news for me, but I thought I'd give them a call on the off-chance and it paid off. The result - 'normal'. One word.

'Does this mean I don't have pleuirsy?' ... 'You have pleuritic symptoms.' Right.

Annoyed at the inefficacy of the health service, whose crowning achievement in treating me was an instruction to take a lot of painkillers and wait until I was better, I did what I always do when I need to let off some steam and do some thinking. I went for a run.

Yeah, yeah, I should have been resting and relaxing and waiting until I got better, but that just doesn't seem to work for me. I took four days off running and whilst the pain in my chest was fairly constant, I was getting grumpy, lethargic and cramp because I wasn't running. So I went for a run. There's still a little pain in my chest, but to be honest, otherwise I feel fantastic.

A short outing on Friday night after work, then a well overdue return to parkrun on Saturday morning. Then another run on Saturday afternoon. And a long run this morning (Sunday). OK, might have overdone it slightly.

There are two main indicators that I ran too much in too short a time this weekend - first, my calves are tight and tough, and second, I've ruined most of my toes. This is because, on a whim, I decided that yesterday's parkrun was going to be my first 'barefoot' race. Barefoot in inverted commas, because I ran in my Vibram FiveFinger shoes, which look like this:

My Vibram FiveFingers, which evoke an interesting range of responses, from fear and distrust to a weird state of near-arousal...

I went for the Vibrams over my normal road shoes because the Sauconys I usually run in are on their last legs - after 551 miles they're ready to be replaced, and there's so little cushioning left in them that I may as well be running barefoot anyway. So I thought I'd use the Vibrams, guarantee myself a new, barefoot PB, and I ended up having a fantastic race.

I ran much of the course on the soft grass verges rather than the tarmac, and apart from the pain of stepping on a few broken sea shells which had washed up on Cramond promenade, I had a great race. Conscious of the dodgy state of my respiratory system, I wasn't gunning for a particular or fast time, but when I glanced at my watch at the 2km mark I was amazed to see it showing just over 8 minutes. Feeling on top of the world, I pushed on and overtook a ton of people, much more aware of the optimum racing line as I was looking for the soft verges to run on. I finished in 20:34, just 5 seconds off my shoe-wearing PB, looking rather like this:

Photo credit (and with apologies to!) Ron Russell. I'm not on the grass because I'm just about to enter the finish 'chute'.

As you can see from the photo, the barefoot experience doesn't seem to be improving my running style - I'm still a heavy heel striker. When I got home and peeled off the Vibrams, I discovered the full horror caused by my indiscipline: two major blisters on the underside of both big toes. I lanced them, then patched my feet up as best I could, but really I was just wildly delighted with the endorphin hit that I've been missing this week.

Since my barefoot parkrun I've run 12 miles in my knackered Sauconys, and the blisters have got much worse, as well as having been joined by new ones on both little toes as well. The worst one, under the big toe of my left foot, has been drained four times already. Meanwhile, the pain in my calves is a bit of a disaster, and there's an interesting complaint coming from my hip. I can barely walk.

I am a runner again.

Dave

2011 to date - miles: 136.46, parkruns: 2, races: 0