A.M. Jeff and I paced Ben Crozier through the Uneventful Half in 1:32:45. At first we were going sub-7:00, then Ben started to fade, so we gradually slowed down all the way to 7:40 pace on the uphill section. Then in the last mile he recovered and sped up to 6:40. Then we turned around and started the tempo. I did notice something wrong during the Uneventful Half. For some reason HR was too high. I thought I was dehydrated. Due to the cardio power to muscle power discrepancy (the cardio is much stronger), I can be lightly dehydrated and not notice it other than HR being a bit high.
Then there was another sign of trouble. I was not feeling bad, legs actually felt strong, the fuel seemed OK, the head was working, so no blood sugar problems, but for some odd reason 6:00 pace was barely manageable. It took me 5.5 miles into the tempo to understand what was wrong. Last Monday after the hill sprints in Five Fingers on aslphalt the top of my right foot was irritated. Since then I felt uncomfortable in the first mile or so of my runs, but then the increased circulation would remove most of the discomort. Most, but not all. There was a problem. I was dealing with it by slightly altering the form, which was killing the economy. Around 4.4 into the tempo Jeff was neighing to go after the bikers, and he could no longer control himself, and just went. I coasted at a bit slower than 6:00, then finally at 5.5 I understood the problem and took measures slowing down to a jog. 5.5 time was 33:00, exactly 6:00 pace.
During the cool down I noticed that I felt a whole lot more comfortable on grass than I did on aslphat. Bad sign. Total time for 20.11 miles was 2:18:36. So from now on I need to take some measures. No more Five Fingers or barefoot on asphalt. Yes, I can, but I need to practice what I preach: "Just because you can does not mean you should!" I do not want to go back to a whole lot of shod running, though, so I am going to measure out a big grass loop and do a good portion of my mileage there. Need to figure out what to do for the shoes on the road - how to get the right amount of cushioning without messing up the form. So far Crocs sound promising, but they last only 500 miles, and they do have issues on turns. Maybe with some clever modifications they could be OK. P.M. The foot was still sore, so I decided to ride the bike for the kids' run. Benjamin ran 2 in 15:55, Julia 1.5 in 14:52, Jenny 2 in 18:18. Joseph ran 0.5 with Sarah in 5:02.
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