A Bit of the Old Run-Walk

Well, I did run the Portland Marathon barefoot. All went well at the beginning. Did not go well at the end. I had been doing my long (19+ mile) training runs at right about 10 minutes per mile. I finished the marathon in 4:26:49, a 10:11/mile pace, so it was a little slower than my training runs, but not a complete disaster.

Unless you look at the last 4.4 miles. The last 4.4 miles took me 58:40. That translates to 13:20/mile pace, and trust me, it felt slower than that. That was a complete disaster. (Other depressing stat: after the 20 mile mark I passed 34 runners...but 512 passed me.)

The reason I know my pace for the last 4.4 miles is that there were several timing mats along the course. Some of them were for common distances (10K, 1/2 marathon), some were at odd distances, just to make sure people weren't cutting the course. My splits were:

Distance   Total Time Interval Pace Total Pace

10 km         55:32       8:57         8:57

8.6 mi      1:17:38       9:12         9:02 

Half        1:57:17       8:49         8:57

17.5 mi     2:41:42      10:06         9:15

20 mi       3:11:16      11:50         9:34

21.8 mi     3:28:09       9:23         9:33

Full        4:26:49      13:20        10:11

I ran with the 3:55 (~9 min/mile) pace group for the first 15 miles, but couldn't hold the pace after that. The highest point on the course is midway across the St. John's bridge at 17 miles. The approach to the bridge is the only steep climb of the course, and I was still doing okay at that point, but after I crossed the bridge - BAM! - I was toast.

I had seen this kind of pattern in my training runs, too. I was hoping that on race day the adrenaline and the fellow runners and the cheering throngs (including the folks of Occupy Portland) would pull me let me extend my 9 minute miles beyond the 16 mile point, but it was not to be.

I don't usually time my runs. For the longer (19+) runs I'd just check the clock in my car before and after for a rough idea of how long it took, but for shorter ones I did wear a watch a few times. I didn't write the times down, but I do know my best times this year for a few distances:

5K: 21:56 (7:05/mile at the Fall City Days 5K)

11 miles: 1:28 (~ 8 minutes/mile)

13.1 miles: 1:50:28 (8:26/mile at the Labor Day Half)

16 miles: 2:25 (~9 minutes/mile)

22 miles: 3:37 (just under 10 minutes/mile)

25 miles: 4:10-ish (~10 minutes/mile)

Looking at these times, my Portland results are depressingly in line with them. My problem is how to maintain pace beyond that 16 mile mark. There is no shortcut, of course, I have to take it out beyond 16 miles and push the pace. I know that. It's obvious. Obvious, but easier said than done.

Going longer is probably not going to help me. First off, how much farther can I really go on a weekly run? I'm already doing a 20+ miler most weeks. I need to raise the intensity at the end of my long runs somehow.

Today, 12 days post-marathon, was my first long run. I've run most of the days since the marathon, including three 11 milers, the last one two days ago. (NOTE: yeah, I thought about backing off my mileage to recover after the marathon, but then I realized that it was no faster and not much farther than my weekly training runs, so I'm just treating it like a normal week.)

But I needed to do something different.

If you read my previous post, you know that I met Jeff Galloway at the Portland Marathon expo. He is a big proponent of doing a run-walk mix for distance runs rather than trying to push all the way through without stopping, so I thought I'd give it a try. I figured that, though my run will be a little slower over all, I will have some higher intensity miles at the end. It's basically just a long interval workout.

I picked a 4:1 ratio of running to walking. I opted to make it 20 minutes of running followed by 5 minutes of walking.  I pulled those numbers out of a hat and reserve to change them in the future.

So this morning I woke up and it was raining. Bleah. Not cold (low to mid 50's), but 4 hours in the rain did not sound inviting. Still, I forced myself to drive down to the trail, forced myself to get out of the car and over to the 5.5 mile post, and forced myself to take those first few steps south towards Marymoor Park.

Knowing that I would get to rest 20 minutes in I set out at a pretty brisk pace (for me). I hit the first mile about 7:25 and 2 miles at about 15 minutes. Not the way I normally start out on my long runs, but rest was coming!

The first rest seemed odd. My brain was still stuck on the idea of a long run, and my legs still felt quite fresh. But walk I did, then set out again. I hit the 5.5 mile turnaround at Marymoor in just under 45 minutes, only a minute slower than my best 11 mile pace in spite of walking for 5 minutes. Interesting. Time to walk again as I turned back towards Bothell.

I got back to my start point (now the 11 mile mark) at 1:33:24,  about a 9 minute mile pace, only 5 1/2 minutes off my fastest 11 miler this year - and I had walked for 15 minutes of it.

I kept heading north. Blew by the 13 mile mark at 1:53 and dug deep but couldn't quite get to the 14 mile mark before it was time to walk again; I passed it walking at about 2:03. The next 20 minute run took me to within about 50 meters of the 16.5 mile (turnaround) mark. Hit it under 2:26.

I want to pause here for a minute. I'm doing intervals. Everyone knows that interval training is slower than running a steady pace, right? Except at the marathon I hit 17.5 at 2:41. Even if I stood stock still for 4 minutes at the turnaround I would still have 11 minutes to get to 17.5 miles in my marathon time, and at this point my running miles are still sub-9 minutes. Huh?

And look at my best 16 mile training run: 2:25. When I hit the turnaround I'm almost half a mile ahead of my best 16 mile training run! With no rest, no taper, no special diet. Running in rain that makes my shorts wrap themselves around my legs and chafe. Not ideal weather or diet or rest, yet I am beating my best time by half a mile. And I've walked 26 minutes of the workout.

I'm definitely slowing down on my way back, but I'm not dying, not by any means. I hit 20 miles at 3:03 (yeah, 8 minutes faster than the marathon), and stop to take my first drink of water - not the brightest way to run, but I didn't need it before then - and still get well beyond 21 miles before it's time for the last walk at 3:15.

I hit 3:20 with a little more than half a mile to go, push myself and finish 22 miles in 3:24:37. That would be about 5 minutes ahead of where I was in the marathon, and more than 12 minutes faster than my fastest 22 mile training run. And I walked 40 minutes of it.

And here's the kicker: I feel fine. After the marathon all I could do was lay in bed the whole afternoon. I was so stiff I could barely walk downstairs that evening to get food. I won't say I'm not sore (I am - hell, I just went 22 hard miles!), but I could run again. Right now. Three hours after that workout. The first half mile would be tough, but after warming up I could go on to do an easy five miles, no problem.

So my interest is piqued. I ran faster and recovered more quickly than doing a long, slow 22 miler. The farther out I went, the better this method worked for me today.

This could be an outlier, though. Today could have just been a good day for me. I might have done well, maybe even better had I run straight through at a slower pace. It will take a few weeks to see if this really does work for me.

If it does, it might be enough to get me under 4 hours for a marathon, something I haven't done for more than 25 years. That would be really cool, and certainly enough reason to give this run-walk stuff a try for a while.

The Old Guard

I am in Portland for my first barefoot marathon - and first marathon of any kind in nearly a decade. I'm not concerned about finishing. I put in over 300 miles in the six weeks before this one, with one long (19+ mile) run each week, with a long of 25 miles. The distance doesn't intimidate me.

Or it didn't.

At the expo I met three American distance legends: Bill Rodgers, Jeff Galloway, and Frank Shorter. They each signed my number. Kinda cool.

All three spoke before an audience giving out anecdotes of their running experiences and giving advice about running in general.

And got the chance to ask each of them about barefoot running.

Bill Rodgers was the first. I got to talk to him down on the expo floor where he was signing books and posters. I almost walked past him. There was one woman and her son talking to him but no one else was there (I think I just hit a lull because there was a big line there a few minutes later).

Rodgers listened, said he knew people who run barefoot, but was genuinely surprised when I said I was running barefoot tomorrow. He even gave me his business card and asked me to look him up if I ran Boston. Pretty cool.

I then went up to the room where they were going to give the talk. Galloway was already up there talking to people about his run-walk philosophy, nutrition, and such. His individual talk ended and I spoke with him briefly before the joint talk with Shorter and Rodgers.

I asked him what he thought of barefoot running, and Galloway said, "I think it's a great thing...for podiatrists and chiropractors." The line generated a laugh later when a similar question came out of the audience. He went on to say that he's heard from thousands of runners who have gotten injured doing minimalist running, some who did it for a long time, but then had a catastrophic breakdown that caused them to miss months of training. Clearly, Galloway is not a fan.

I also got to briefly speak with Shorter after the joint talk. When I mentioned that tomorrow would be my first barefoot marathon, he responded with a non-English verbalization closer to a grunt than anything else. He was somewhat less enthused than Galloway.

So now I'm nervous. Though I really shouldn't be. I've trained on pavement, and the cool damp weather predicted for tomorrow morning suits me well.

And I've also been thinking about the other things they said during the talk. Galloway talked about how he was constantly injured when he was running competitively, rarely putting together more than 3 week without getting hurt. Could his shoes have had something to do with that?

Galloway also preaches the run-walk method for working up to long distance running, allowing your body time to adjust to the distance. Listening to your body and being cautious with your distance is also a tenet of barefooting. Is Galloway really that different from Barefoot Ted in that respect?

And Frank Shorter. Goodness. Two things he said make me think barefooting is nearly what he did anyway. First, the question came up, what kind of shoes did he wear in his first marathon. Turns out he used a pair of track spikes that had the plate removed and sole put on. Sounds pretty minimalist to me.

And then there is this: Frank Shorter has lousy feet. Because of his lousy feet he had to run lightly, generating very little friction as he touched the ground. Honestly, I wanted to jump up and down and say: but that's exactly what experienced barefoot runners do! I didn't. He had pretty much dismissed minimalist running out of hand during the talk and I didn't want to be confrontational, but it sure sounds like he used a barefoot philosophy when he ran, not because he chose to, but because it was the only way he could run.

If only I could have a disability like Frank Shorter.

It's interesting to me. These are the guys who really brought distance running into the American mainstream. They were the different guys of their era. They were the ones who changed and we followed. Is their way the best way? Or have they just stopped experimenting? Are minimalists leaving them behind the way they left their predecessors?

Doesn't matter much, I suppose. Tomorrow I will run my first barefoot marathon. We'll see how it goes.

Barefoot Half-Marathon

Yesterday I did my first barefoot half-marathon. I hadn't done a half for several years, so I was a little nervous about it. The weather was cool, upper 40s, about what it has been all spring. Rained all night the night before the race and a heavy shower came through just before the start, but the race itself was pretty much rain-free. I broke two hours, which was my goal, but did not break 1:45, which is the pace I need to hold if I want to qualify for the Boston Marathon.

The race was pretty tough on my feet. Being cool and damp (especially damp), it took a while for my feet to warm up, so for the first mile and half or so I felt everything. This was especially tough at the beginning because the streets were quite weathered, the surface pitted and uneven. The roads didn't improve much. They weren't in terrible shape for driving - no potholes to speak of or anything like that - but it would have been tough on a bike and was really hard on my feet. The space between the tires was usually smoother and I ran there when I could, but I really had to watch my foot placement and I never really got a relaxed, comfortable stride going, which made it tougher than I expected.

Still, it was faster than my training runs, and it was my quads tightening up at about nine miles that limited my performance more than my feet.

Afterwards: ouch. Fatigued legs and feet that stayed sensitive all the way to bedtime. The first time my feet have really hurt after a barefoot run.

I got up this morning and did an easy four miles. My feet warmed up in the first half mile, and my legs felt okay after a mile or so, but my shoulders hurt for two and half miles. No idea why my shoulders bothered me; that's a new one. But the last mile and a half it was all systems go with a good, moderately quick stride. I didn't push it, but I felt good, which for me is unusual on the day after a half marathon.

Now I just need to figure out how to shed 40 seconds a mile.

I'm Still Barefooting

It's been more than a year now since that first barefooting experience. In that time I've gotten into shape, slipped out of shape, and gotten going again. Most of my running was in the Vibram Five Finger KSOs, but I did some barefooting as well. After overdoing it and tearing up my feet, I was much more cautious. I never ran two days in a row barefoot, and never more than five miles. It worked okay.

My speed has fallen off a cliff compared to three or four years ago. I wanted to try to run in the Club Northwest All-Comers meets this year, so I started doing some track intervals in my VFFs in November. It was unpleasant. Trying to go fast used all sorts of muscles I hadn't used in many months, and the 30-ish degree weather didn't help. I struggled to do 400m in 90 seconds and regretted it afterwards, muscles strained, unable to recover between intervals.

I took January off.

Last year we had a very mild February. This year it stayed cold, most days staying below 40 degrees. I did some working out and kept waiting for it to warm up a little so I could start barefooting. Didn't happen. At the beginning of March I got tired of waiting, so on a 43 degree morning I took off the shoes and just started running.

I haven't worn shoes in a workout since then, not even my Five Fingers.

It turns out my feet don't get cold. The increased blood flow when I'm running? Maybe. My hands get cold, but not my feet.

My bare feet must look pretty silly when I'm wearing a hat, tights, and a long sleeve shirt, but it works for me. It's only been over 50 degrees three or four times when I've run, but my feet have never been a problem. I'm still doing track workouts, and in addition to my moderate 4-mile runs I have added one long run a week and even some trail running, all without shoes.

The trail running is still a challenge, especially when it gets rocky. The worst is crushed gravel which is just brutal on my feet, and sometimes I have to run on the side of the trail to get away from it. Downhill is worse than uphill because you land with extra force. I'm still learning how to trail run. I'm sure I'll get better.

The most important thing, I think, is that I've given up the idea that I can't run barefoot every day. That was a self-fulfilling prophecy in that I wasn't putting in enough miles to toughen up my feet, so my feet never got tough enough to take the mileage.

I started with shorter runs, nothing over 4 miles for several weeks. My barefoot track workouts were very short, too, so even though I was running five or six times a week, I was only covering maybe 15 miles. Now my feet have toughened up. Last year after my overzealous 11 mile run my feet were torn up and I did no barefooting at all for several weeks while they healed. Yesterday I ran 11 with no problems, and I'll be on the track again tonight.

My feet are strong. The pads on the outside of my feet and balls of my toes continue to toughen. It will take some really bad conditions to make me put on my Vibrams for a run now.

A few things I  have noticed:

• Yes, it still hurts when I step on a thorn or sharp rock, though I have a midfoot strike, so if it's on my heel it doesn't really affect me at all. Still, it can hurt, so I try to avoid them. I also avoid dog, horse, and goose poop. I'm not stupid.
• I usually run on pavement, but my favorite thing is a compact, rock-free dirt path that is still damp from the rain. Grass is okay, but it hides rocks and uneven ground, so it can be a challenge to run on. But don't fear the pavement; I especially like freshly laid asphalt: it feels great.
• Everything below your skull is just a giant spring. Don't run stiff. Relax, let your joints bend, and settle into your stride. Your joints, tendons, and muscles are made to trot, but you have to relax and let them do their work.
• My turnover has increased, and my stride has shortened.
• My endurance has improved. I attribute this largely to actively using my lower legs. When I ran in shoes I had a tendency to use my lower legs like inanimate pendulums, just throwing my feet out there and letting the shoes absorb the impact. That also meant that I was losing a lot of energy into the padding of the shoes. Now my lower legs are more involved and that energy is returned to my stride, making me more efficient. I'm no speed demon, but when I ran yesterday I had as much bounce in my 11th mile as I did in my first.
• Running barefoot is more pleasant than walking barefoot. I don't know if it's the increased blood flow or the endorphins or what, but many things that bother my feet walking around before or after a run I barely notice during the run. 

I love barefooting. I don't even like the idea of running in Vibrams anymore. A few words of caution, however, if you're starting out.

• You are developing two things: the pads on your feet, and the muscles in your legs and feet. Both those things require time and patience.
• Barefoot every day - as often as you can, anyway. That's how you'll build up the pads in your feet.
• Treat yourself like you're injured. The longer you've been running in padded shoes the more atrophied your lower legs will be. It took me months of minimalist running to getting my lower legs healthy again. Take your time. Don't rush.
• Drastically cut your mileage. One barefoot mile is a long way if you've never done it before. Start with one mile as a workout, and don't be embarrassed about stopping.
• Find a smooth, level place to run. You don't want to do hill work with atrophied legs. Artificial turf soccer fields are great. Natural grass, too, if they're not too rocky. A paved path, something smooth enough for rollerblading works well, too (that's what I started with).
• Check your ego at the door. You will slow down. If you overdo it you will get transition injuries. Barefooting is a lifestyle change, not a miracle cure.