Running to not Grow Old

Well, I got a little lazy there for a while with my blogging. Let's just say that over the last two weeks I've had some great runs, and most of them in ff's.

Today I ran 15 miles at about an 8:15 average pace, and it felt great. I had a slight twinge in my left ankle and a little soreness in my right foot, but nothing really bad. And my legs felt great! One unfortunate incident was that I lost the foot pod for my iPod Nike Plus pedometer thingy. I was bombing down a dirt trail and really opened up my pace. I was dodging puddles and having a great time when my iPod told me that there was an error with the Nike Plus. I guess I kicked off the foot pod and sent it flying into the trees. I searched for a few minutes, then gave up. Oh, well, who needs technology anyway, right?

So, not sure that this was exactly a threshold run. but it was a little faster than easy. My friend calls this type of run a Kenyan workout, not sure if that's ethnically correct or not. Here's the splits:

Mile 1 - 07:41.23

Mile 2 - 07:31.48

Ran the usual 5 mile lunchtime route, nice and easy to recover from going a little faster yesterday. I wore my normal shoes to give my feet a rest, but in hindsight it wasn't very fun. Just felt like I was strapping on big chunks of rubber that didn't really help much.

Another easy five in the VFFs at lunch. Just enjoyed the beautiful 50 degree weather here in Seattle and actually saw some sunshine! 

Another 5 miles on the waterfront, pretty casual with a little kick at the end. Felt pretty good.

So, interesting run today. It was good and bad. I started off on an 18 mile route in my five fingers. I was feeling a little sore right from the start, mostly in my ankles. I think maybe I pushed the pace a little fast this week. Anyway, I had some issues with blisters, which started to really worry me around mile 7. By mile 9 the combination of sore ankles and blisters forced me to call Jenni and have her bring me a pair of regular shoes. This allowed me to finish out the run, and even enjoy some of the later parts of it. I'm still a little sore in the ankles the day after, so I think I'll run in my regular shoes for a bit.

 Besides the minor setbacks, it was a beautiful run and fun to go far. I tested out a portion of the route I will be running on my birthday. Lots of water views. Gotta love Seattle.

5 miles in my Sauconys today. Ankle a little sore from Saturday.

I bought some New  Balance 790's yesterday and tested them out on today's run. I think I like them a lot. You have to use decent form in them because of the lack of padding. I'm excited to try them out more.

Beautiful 58 degree day on the waterfront. The only downside is that I wore my Saucony cushioned shoes to allow my sore ankle to "rest", and I ended up with a sore knee. I have come to the conclusion that it's just about impossible to run with correct form in a super cushioned shoe. I try to maintain the form I've developed with my barefooting, but I end up reverting to poor form because of the thick heel. I bought some injinji socks today on the way home from work, so hopefully that solves my blister issues so I can get back to good form

Approximately 16 miles this morning in my New Balance 790s. I think I'm in love! These shoes gave me the little bit of extra support I needed for my damaged ankles while still letting me run with good form. I thought they have just the right amount of cushioning. I could have run longer, but had to get back home to family obligations. I think these will be the shoes for my 30 mile run.

5 easy miles during lunch. Just nice and slow to work the kinks out from my weekend long run.

Awesome run home from work today. I took the long way home around the west side of Queen Anne hill. The hill was a great workout and it was good way to wind down from a stressful day.

I took the last few days off because I was sick and my kids were sick and needy. Nothing too bad, just an annoying cold with sore throat and cough. Mainly, I didn't want it to linger and turn into something that would last through my birthday run. I did do some good strength training over the last few days, so I'm not totally lame.

 Today's run was great. I ran a 10 mile out and back to work out another unknown part of my birthday route. On the way back I had lots of energy and ran really fast up the hill to our house. It was really fun. I'm still loving my 790s and feel like they are still strengthening my feet, even though they are shoes. Very excited to run 30 miles next weekend!

5 easy miles during lunch in my five fingers! This was the first run in a while in them, as I have been letting my ankle rest. It was still a little tender after the run, so I don't think I'll do much more in the VFFs until after this weekend. It was really refreshing to be running in them, and I realized that I really missed it. It somehow feels much more awesome to run in them.

Another beautiful day on the waterfront.

Last run before the 30 miler this weekend. All systems feeling good!

This was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. Here are a few highlights:

The night before the run Jenni said she had to go run a last minute birthday errand. She was gone for about an hour, and came back empty handed. My mind was on my run the next day, so I didn't think much of it. Then there was a knock at the door. I opened it and stood there very confused for a few minutes. Standing on my doorstep was Aaron Kennard. This was strange because he lives in Colorado. Didn't make any sense. Turns out Jenni had arranged for him to come out and run with me for a birthday present. Aaron announced that he would run along with me for as long as he could, and if all went well, he would go the distance. What a great birthday present!

We went to sleep at a decent hour that night, and planned to get a good long night sleep, but it was not meant to be. My son Milo woke up at 5:00 am bright-eyed and ready to party. Luckily I was so wired that I was also ready to start the day. After a good breakfast of oatmeal and a packet of some wasp extract secret formula that Aaron provided me with, we headed off to start the adventure.

The start of the race was at Green Lake. (To be continued...)

I've been very slacker about blogging for a long time now, but I have indeed been running. And mostly in my VFFs to boot. In fact, I'm falling in love with them all over again and considering doing my next marathon in them.

 Today's pace run was done slightly faster than my marathon pace, because it felt good: 5 miles in 32 minutes, 6:24 average pace. Ahh... I like going fast in the VFF.

Just got the new Five Fingers "Bikilas" this weekend. I haven't tested them on a run yet, but wearing them around the house they're pretty sweet. I have been out of commission for the last week with a bad cough, but other than that I'm on track for the marathon June 26. I might not meet break three hours, but I'm sure to have a good time and be wearing some sweet shoes. 

Ran for about two hours after work and ended at a Volunteer park. It was a beautiful evening. We had a picnic dinned and watched Shakespeare in the Park, a local outdoor theater production. All in all, a great evening.

Today I ran up (and down) Mt Si with my brother in law, AJ. This is a popular Seattle area hike with 3000 ft elevation gain in the 4 miles. It was quite a workout. And it was my first really rocky run in the five fingers bikilas. They worked great on the way up, and for the first two miles of the way down. Then my feet got sick of being poked by sharp rocks. 

For labor day weekend we went to visit my Grandma in Cashmere, WA. She lives up a canyon outside of town and near some pretty sweet trails. On the way to her house Friday after work, I had Jenni drop me off on the other side of the mountains from their canyon. The plan was to run the 8 miles up over a pass into their canyon, but I added 2 miles to the route by getting lost. There was about 1500 ft of ascent and descent on this route.

Saturday I was hanging out with family who were all very interested in barefoot/minimalist running. Even my dad (age 62) has recently read Born to Run, studied Chi Running and is running every day in water socks! We went out and ran on a trail near my grandma's place (0.5 mile) but it was too overgrown, so we headed out onto the road where I ran barefoot for one mile. My brother Tommy used my ff's and I believe is hooked. 

Today was truly a stellar running day. I wanted to go do some distance on trails, but decided it would be unwise to head off too far into the woods by myself. So I did 1 hour on a rolling single track that was BEAUTIFUL! Then I headed down into town and ran on the roads for two more hours where I had cell phone reception in case anything went wrong. By this point I was feeling like my feet needed liberating, so I ran back to my car and ditched the shoes. I ran for another hour barefoot on the sidewalks around town and loved every minute of it. I'm not sure exactly how many miles I did, but it was four solid hours of running, and it felt great.

My 295's came, and I was super excited to try them out. I didn't have time until about 8:30 after the kids were in bed, but I headed out for a little 3 mile jog around the neighborhood.