Whispering Pines 50K

OH SNAP!

I just registered for the Whispering Pines 50K in Tyler Tx!!!

Never raced a 50K before (although i dont think that the death march thats bound to happen could really be considered much of a "race"...), but I have ran a 50 mile ultra at Rocky Racoon back in 2012! And then just recently I've ran a 30 mile solo run to celebrate my 30th birthday, so I'm not to taunted by the distance. I've still got something like 60 days to train my mind, body, and soles (get it?, soles instead of soul.... ehhh...) to take a 32 mile beating.

But I am worried about the challenges that the course may bring.

I've been reading a lot on a blog Ive found just recently by a guy named Dat. Dat is a minimalist ultra marathoner (Vibrams) that has ran both the 50K and 20 mile at Whispering Pines before. He took a lot of excelent pictures of the course and the trails, so thanks to Dat I feel confident about going into this race barefoot. After seeing how big of a help his blog was, I will be sure to do the same and take lots of pictures on my journey come race day.
My newly aquired running buddy Jesse signed up for the 20 miler. This is his first trail race, and he signed up with his longest run ever only being 13 miles. So hes got a good challenge ahead of him as well.

Let the training begin!!!

Rocky Raccoon race report.

Ok, well, I had a nice, loooong, descriptive narrative of a race report written out, and then my phone decided that it sucked and deleted it for me.... So heres an abridged version because, honestly, the other one kind of sucked anyways. Too many words, and once that picture to word ratio gets too low, most of my target audience gets lost (ok, maybe I'm the only one, but its my damn blog!)

So, without further interruption I present to you....

CHASER WILLIAMS RECORD SETTING PERFORMANCE AT THE 20TH ANNUAL ROCKY RACOON 50 MILE ULTRA MARATHON!!!!!!

Ok, so maybe it wasnt really "record setting" per say, but I have been told that I'm the first to ever complete a Rocky Raccoon race fully unshod... So I did set a barefoot course record! How about them apples?

The lead up...

I felt unprepared for this race. My longest run had been 26 on streets, and that was many months ago. Plus with the seismoiditis the last 2 months were pretty much shot.

The drive up to Huntsville (for the race, not the prison...) proved eventfull to say the least. I got to see the elusive Rocky Racoon himself outside of a CVS hitting up a Red Box...


(notice the defined colors in his coat.)

And it was POURING rain the entire time...


(Its raining and the sun is shining. That means the devils beating his wife!)

We made it to the camp site and set up our tent at "Camp Barefoot" and met up with David, Robert, and Jim and went to go grab dinner at some Mexican joint.

Its funny meeting people that you've known only over internet forums for the first time... I thought Robert was some long haired surfer hippy kind of guy. Instead, hes the Brawny man with a beard...



Luckily the resturant even had a chair for people like David so that his feet weren't dangling from his chair...



While we ate we talked about race prep and what not and I believe Davids exact quote was "I plan on being lubed up slicker than a baby seal!" Which loosely translated in my head to a fun day!

After which we made it back to the tent and bedded down for the night, ready to get the race started!

Race Day!!!

I woke up at 3:15 wide awake and wondering who was shining a strobe light at our tent. Turns out it was a crazy storm rolling through.



Yay! More rain! I heard surrounding areas got up to 3 inches of rain between Friday and Saturday, and I believe it! Robert and I headed to packet pickup during the worst of it and got soaked, which was nice.

7:00... And were off!!!

It had dropped to around 60 by the time we made it to the starting line, and it was still raining. Between shot nerves, and being cold and wet I probablly looked like a nervous chihuahua on crack as much as I was shivering.

First loop! Miles 0 to 16.67

The pace for the first few miles were dictated by whoever was in front of you, so we were really putt putting along, but that was ok as we weren't in any hurry.

During the first loop David, Rob, and myself pretty much hung with each other with the exception of Rob getting out a few people ahead of us, slipping and falling down, then hanging with us awhile longer until repeating the process again. This is no reflection on Roberts running ability, or agility, but more on the slick and muddy conditions the course presented to us.

The first lap felt great! We played leap frog with lots of other runners, many of them running either their first ultra or100. The feedback I got for running barefoot was awesome! Everyone that commented were more than positive about it, and alot of people were very interested in it!


(here we are around mile 12, notice were dirty, but but covered in mud yet... Yet...)

I think we came in from the first loop in around 3:15, which was about where we wanted to be.


(33% done and feeling unstoppable!)

Loop 2! Miles 16.67 to 33.34


(heading back out, around mile 17... I think...)

Loop 2 presented some new obstacles. The mud combined with general fatigue resulted in me falling. I was still running with David, but Robert had left us towards the end of the first lap.

It seemed I had to take a leak every half mile, and after leaving the DamNation aid station I stepped off in the erotica to do just that and stepped right in something squishy, stinky, and warm... Yes, poop. I stepped in a pile of poop. I was hoping it was from some cute woodland critter, but the wadded up soiled napkins next to my foot led me to believe otherwise... Mr Pruisitis (race director extraordinaire) clearly asked everyone to leave no trash on the trails, and I think this is why. Its not the first time I've stepped in human feces barefoot at a race, but it still wasnt very pleasant. Luckily there was some young bamboo shoots nearby that I used to floss my toes with. Shortly after this I stopped to pee again, only this time I came across a young woman pooping. Talk about akward... Geez... When we stopped again we were back at the DamNation station, and this time David knee locked up on him. It took awhile for him to get it working again, and he kept telling me that I could go on without him if I needed to. I didnt. Having David there with me was more than helpful, it was fun! We talked about everything, aside from running, that we could think of. I think that the distraction we created for each other helped out immensely in the long run (no pun intended) and played a big part in getting me through the race.


(_here we are somewhere around mile 30)

I think it was during this lap that my nipples started chafing a little bit. Luckily my wife got me some bandaids and fixed that problem right up!

I think we finished this lap way behind where w wanted to finish it, although I can't remember the times...


(end of second loop, 16.67 more miles to go!)

Loop 3! Miles 33.34 to 50!!!

My legs were toast going into the 3rd and final lap. I was already pretty deep into uncharted territory being 7 miles over my longest run, and plenty more still to go.



I had begun getting a little pain in the muscles and tendons on the top of my left foot from having to lift my toes up through the mud and water for 30+ mikes at this point, but I tried to block it out as best as I could. At this point in the race lots of other runners were still amazed that I was barefoot. I think the most common question I was asked was "How them feet holding up?" Oddly enough, the soles of my feet felt better than the rest of my body, so thats what I would tell them. Then I would ask how their feet were holding up, to which I always got the same answer... "Their killing me...."

Around mile 35 I started hitting that mental block. It seemed as if we would never make it to mile 40. So I asked for a bandaid at an aid station and used it to cover the screen of my Gamin so that I couldn't see the miles passing as time seemed to slow to a halt (theres a picture of this floating around somewhere on facebook).

After leaving the DamNation station for the last time the muscles ontop of my left foot hurt so bad I had to stop and attempt to massage them out while David continued jogging in circles around me to keep his knee from locking up. At some point he asked me how my nipples were feeling, I found it to be the funniest thing I've ever been asked and couldnt stop laughing.

At some point my wife met me and handed me my head lamp, although I can't say that I remember that, or do I? Most of the last lap is kind of a blur.


(Court snapped this pic of me as I took off with the headlamp in hand__)

Running barefoot in the dark is a little troubling since you can't see. Throw in the fact that your on trails with lots of roots and mud, and then put 40 miles before all of that and things can get a little tricky...

At the last aid station I decided to down about a dozen cups of a Mountain Dew. A little back story here, I haven't drank a caffinated drink in about 10 years, do the Mountain Dew REALLY had a good effect of my energy level, cause I ran probablly 95% of the remaining 5 miles. Granted some of the uphill runs were the same speed as Davids uphill speed walks, but going from walking to running hurt too bad to continue doing it, so I kept running along.

As I neared the finish line I realized that I had felt better for the last 5 miles than I had for any of the previous 35. I felt amazing! Like I could have kept going for a good 15 more miles, although I realized that would probablly change as soon as I crossed the line.

And then there it was. The finnish line! I crossed in 12:15:42!

50 barefoot miles behind me!

posted from Bloggeroid

T minus 34 hours....

Holy rusted metal Batman, Rocky Raccoon is less than one and a half days away... Am I ready? What have I gotten myself into? Can I double my longest run to date, even though it was ran months ago? Will the fact that the past 2 months have been total flops in term of running hold me down? What if the course isn't as barefoot friendly as im thinking HOPING it is? What if I need to poop, and I'm nowhere near a bathroom?



Do I have this kind of determination? What if Mr Rocky Raccoon laughs at me?



I can't handle that type of degradation. What if he attacks me in the car on the way up there?



I would probablly end up pooping my pants before the race even started if that happened...

But what if, by some strange chance, this race is my guiding light. My beacon, calling me to the ways of the Ultra Marathon. What if this race its my hero?



... Yeah, probablly not... I'm sure it will be more liken to the following picture.



Yep, screwin the pooch....

Ill admit, I have been a little nervous about this race the past few days. I have only one goal, and that is...

FINISH.... AND DON'T DIE!

In order to prepare I've made a few purchases, and prepared a few things...

For starters, we bought a nice tent. We even camped out in it one night!



Im using the little schwag bag from the Hermann Memorial Sugarland Half Marathon (which is about a 4th the distance of this race...) as my drop bag.



And ive amassed a nice quantity of Honey Chia waters. 8 of them to be exact!



And my lovely wife picked up 3 large bags of Almond M&Ms (i didn't know these even existed until just a few days ago!) Thanks baby! Your the greatest!



I also hit up Academy after work today to see what I could find in the way of a replacement for my Spi Belt that has gone MIA. I lucked out and found this gem!



Another Spi Belt! Oh happy day! The sun had peeked out from behind the rain drenched clouds and shone itself upon me. I also picked up some "Body Glide".



I've never used Body Glide before, but I figure it can't hurt! Hopefully I can convince my awesome wifey to help me apply it before the race! Thats true love when your partner will apply Body Glide to your nether regions before your big race!

This will probablly be my last post before the race. It might also be my last post ever, as I might not make it through.

So, heres to you Rocky Raccoon! I'm going to make you my bitch Saturday!*

*I'm about 99.9% sure I'll be eating those words come Sunday when I wake up in the medic tent bleeding from multiple orifices

posted from Bloggeroid

Hottest Half race report, 8-14-11

So everyone has their good races and their bad races. Today was a BAD race for me.

With a name like "The Hottest Half" and my love of punishment one would imagine that this would be a great race for me. WRONG!!!! To start with, it was in the upper 80's and maybe lower 90's during the race, it started at 7:30 so the sun wasnt beaming down on the course, there was actually a little light breeze, and the course was a nice smooth barefoot friendly cement pathway with a few gentle elevation changes. So conditions were perfect for me to set a good PR around 1:35 or so....

Before the race I met up with 2 fellow barefoot runners from the Runners World barefoot forum (TalonRaid and Pilot Runner) which are the other 2 goons in the pics with me (Im the one in blue, Talon in grey, and Pilot in red) and we hung out for a few minutes before the start of the race.

As usual I mosey'd on up the the back of the pack at the starting line just as the gun went off. So after a minute or so I make it to the starting line, hit start on the Garmin, and take off only to apply the brakes. The first mile to mile and a half were just a huge conglomerate clusterfuck of people running all different paces and directions. Since its a public park there were cyclist and runners out and about coming the opposite direction of the race traffic, most were courteous and friendly,but I almost caught my left elbow on some fat bitches handle bars.

After fighting my way through the throng of people I tried to pick the pace up some and came across the first 5k mark around 22:30ish, which is where I wanted to be. I wanted to hold as close to a 7 minute mile pace, so I was doing good. The course ran on a cement path around some lake, which made for a pretty course with a little breeze coming off the water. There were a few bridges that were either worn down wooden planks, or cement suspension type bridge which would bounce up and down and totally throw you off as well as make you trip out because you couldnt visually see the movement, just feel the bridge either dip down or rise up and slam into your feet unexpectedly. Running around this lake also made for some quality scents, like dead fish, through some parts of the course. Somewhere around mile 5.25 the first place guy came flying past on his way back in (he finished in 1:07:54 gun time, WOW!!!) And at about this time I started to hit the wall. No biggie, I thought, second wind will kick in here in a few minutes and Ill be good to go. WRONG! I made it to the 6 mile water table and grabbed some water for the first time and ended up snorting half of the cup up my nose. So I stopped running to try to avoid drowning mid run (funny, "man drowns in biggest drought in history" sounds like a good headline) and I found that I couldnt make myself start running again, so I walked for the first time ever in a race. I only walked for about 50 feet then took back off hoping that it would be enough to feel revived. Wrong yet again....

I made it to the turnaround point and the guy working there said I was the first barefoot runner he had seen yet! Great, I get to be the example everyone sees first! Sorry fellow BFRs for giving you a bad reputation. I dont remember my exact time at the turn around, but I do remember thinking I was behind and that a PR probablly was not in the works. On the return leg I see another BFR a good ways behind me, some little Asian guy, no clue who he was. Then I saw David Repp sportin some fancy lookin huaraches, and PilotRunner lookin like a stud. Shortly after that, around mile 9 I had to stop and walk again. I tried to keep it short and sweet, so after a hundred feet or so I take off. At this point I see TalonRaid, so we cheer for each other as we pass, and after a little bit Im back walking again and wondering if Ill be able to finish. I just felt like I had no energy left in me to burn, but after walking for a quarter mile or so I started mile 10 at a 9:30 pace determined to run the rest of the race and finish under 1:57 since thats what I ran my first half marathon in.

The last 3.1 miles sucked! I was suffering through alot of mental anguish from having to walk, and now I was struggling to keep a 9:15 pace for 3 measley miles. Needless to say, it wasnt a pretty place inside my head at this point. I rounded the last corner and saw the finish chute up ahead and heard my wife yell my name. Apparently I gave her a bad look based off her reaction, lol. I hit the stop button on the Garmin as the announcer calls my name and I step on the timing mat, but dont lool at it at first cause Im sure it will just make things worse. I see a bunch of kids handing out cups of water, so I go and down about 10 of them all while feeling like Im going to fall flat on my face, which would have been perfectly fine at the time since it felt like I was floating in the air about 3 feet off the ground and spinning around like crazy as if I was in one of those gyroscope rides at a carnival. My wife finally makes it over to me and asks what my time was, so I finally look at my Garmin as I go to show her what it says. 1:54:49... Well, not my worst, but still very dissapointing. So we walk over to the free stuff tents and some girl hands me a chochlate Muscle Milk. I drank half and remembered that I hate those things so I threw it away and went off in search of water. We find little kiddy pools full of the little 8 oz bottles of Ozarka. I bent over to grab 2 of then and when I stood up everything was much brighter than I had remembered it being. I opened a bottle, closed my eyes, and downed it. When I opened my eyes I was facing the ground, which was a strange mixture of floating silver sparkles and bright yellows and oranges. Thats strange... Another bottle chugged, more silver specks and brighter yellows, but oddly enough duller oranges. Not sure exactly what was going on I decided to just keep walking to the car. After what felt like 15 minutes of staggering around I am finally sitting in the passenger seat of the car with the AC blowing full blast and heading back to the hotel to shower and change before hitting up good old IHOP!!!

So Im not 100% certain of the direct cause of my poor performance, but heres a few ideas of what I think could have caused it....

Firstly, and I think this is probablly 90% of what went wrong. Nutrition. The night before I had some shitty fast food burger and fries and a bunch of water. Then for brekky I had a bananna and some more water. I dont think I had any fuel for the fire and thats why I bombed so early.

Secondly, Ive taken the last 3 weeks off from any real training. Where Ive been averaging 25~30 miles per week I maybe ran 30 in the past 3 weeks combined. I felt like I had the speed in my legs as the first 4 or 5 miles felt fine at just a hair over 7 minutes per mile.


So what lessons I learned from this experience.

1) Nutrition, nutrition, nutrition!!!! I need better meals the day before and the morning of the race. Ive heard many times that input = output, so if Im using shitty fuel then Ill have shitty performance.

2) 3 weeks for a taper is waaay too long. I usually do a week of taperage, and maybe 2 weeks would work well too, but 3 weeks is not going to cut it.

3) Hydration. After the race I had orange piss. That is not a good thing since all I had drank was water. I need to learn how to drink on the run without drowning myself....

I had planned on this being my last race for the year, but I cant end the year like this, so Ill do the last race of the 4 seasons of texas which will be in the fall. Hopefully it goes better for me!!

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So Saturday I went for a nice 13 miler early in the morning so as to avoid burning the soles of my feet off and I made several keen observations during my run. I drove down to the far end of my new favorite running road (FM 421) and parked my truck. I started off at about 5:55 and headed back the 13 miles to town. 421 is a back road thats PERFECT for barefoot running, its 2 lane with a good sized sholder, slight rolling hills, some good sweeping curves, lots of farm land type scenery, and the biggest plus is that its very seldomly traveled. Its the perfect road to haul ass down in a sports car or motorcycle. Being that the road is really in the middle of nowhere, I get to enjoy the wildlife that runs rampant in the area. On this particular run I saw a few deet and was accompanied by 2 little stray puppies for a few miles.

Anyways, it was a great run and heres a few interesting discoveries I made that I thought might be of value or interest to others...

1) Since Ive started running barefoot Ive noticed a trend forming where I have an uncanny ability to unintentionally step in dead animals. It seems that the smaller the animal, the more likely I am to feel its carcass fill up the spaces between my toes. In the case of this run it seemed that small squashed toads were my foot cushion of choice. I have a pretty in depth theory and explination on this subject that I will discuss more thoroughly in the future via a seperate entry.

2) Horses give me the strangest looks when I run by them. Ive gotten plenty of strange looks in my lifetime, but these take the cake! I always talk to them after staring back for a few minutes. Ill usually try to come up with something a little edgy and original with a slight aftertaste of disrespect like "Why the long face?". But it usually backfires into something more along the lines of "I bet your staring at me cause you want a horsey back ride, well not today pancho!" then I realize it is I who is supposed to ride the horse, so I try to recounter my previous statement with "I mean, you wish I was on your back, cause then it would be you doing the work and me looking at you doing the work and laughing to myself.." and at this point Im talking to myself because Ive already passed the horses, so I feel like a bigger fool... Damn horses and their mind games...

3) Goats, Cows, Sheep, and Rams dont seem to give 2 shits about me. While horses show vauge interest, sort of like when you see a cactus outside of a mexican resturant although cacti (is that right?) arent native to your area. But cows and other farmland animals (with the exception of bird-esque animals like roosters amd ducks) dont even take notice of me. It was suggested that I start carrying a pitchfork and bar-b-que sauce with me on my long runs, but none of these animals have opposable thumbs, so I dont see how these items would spark interest either. I guess they know Im of no danger to them because A) their not dead, so Im not going to step on them or B) Im not currently eating meat. Either way they need to realize that I am an attention whore and I demand some attention!!!

3) I forgot #3...

4) Snakes are awesome! I knew this waaaaaaay before I even started running, but I saw a little copper head crossing the road and it reminded me of their sheer awesomeness! Id like to imagine that he was trying desperatley to flee from the oncoming awesomeness that is myself, but Im sure he was just trying to cross the road before it became too hot. Oddly enough I was doing the same thing, so I guess in a way the snake and myself are like one mystical being on a path through life destined to cross roads when cool.

5) Dogs make the best running buddies. They dont complain when I fart, blow snot rockets, sing off key, tell them to slow down cause I cant keep up, and they dont require conversation. I havent ran with a dog in a long long time, but I do miss it. My last running dogs name was "Newton" and his back right hip was bad, so he couldnt put pressure on his back right leg. To conpensate for this he would hop on his back left leg and pull himself forward with his 2 front legs. He was an awesome dog and was right by my side no matter how fast or long I was running for.

6) If I got into a place where I doubted myself or felt like stopping or started feeling "off" in any way, taking off in a sprint or any increased pace for 100-400 meters would bring me right out of it in a snap. Even picking up the pace slightly for a mile or so would help out alot. Not sure if it was the increased adrendaline or what, but it worked nicely!

8) I think of the strangest shit when Im out on long runs. The most pointless, unimportant, rediculous thoughts come to mind. Really, how important is it for me to figure out how to breed giraffes down to a max heigth of 5'5"? Please dont mistake this for those retarted Direct TV ads with the supposed "Minature Lap Giraffes" that really dont exist, and would be pointless if they did. This is the real deal here! Genuine household sized giraffes. Another pointless thought, what would you see if you made your way inside a perfect sphere made of a mirrored surface? I would bet that your life would seem dull after that, kind of like how regular ice cream tastes after youve had Blue Bell.... Nothing really lives up after that ya know? I really think it would ruin a person. That said, what would happen if you set a red laser light inside of this life destroying sphere and turned it on? Would it open a portal to another world where people are born with shoes on their feet and teeth on their fingers? I sure as hell DONT want to find that out...



These are all just small examples of how my typical long runs go. I actually wore my "SPI Belt" on this run since I had to carry my phone to call the wifey, so I plan on writing my first product review over the "SPI Belt" as I was actually quite pleased with its performance!!

The False ideas about barefoot running.

As a member of the Barefoot Running board on the Runners World forums I get the honor of helping direct runners new to barefoot running, minimalist running, and running in general. There seem to be lots of misconceptions regarding barefoot running, so hopefully I can help to clear some of these nonsensicle notions for those of you who are interested in coverting to barefoot running or have never ran before period.

False thought #1
Modern surfaces (Ie concrete, cement, asphalt, ect...) arent natural and are too hard to run on barefoot, so I should start on grass or dirt.

Truth
The harder surfaces are ideal for learning how to run barefoot.

The whole concept / reason for running barefoot is to A) improve form and B) strengthen unused muscles in the feet and lower legs. So for this misconception we will focus on the form perspective.

Running in conventional marshmallow overly cushioned running shoes allows the use of poor form. The extra padding absorbs impact and kills the feedback that your body needs in order to react accordingly. This allows you to reach out way in front of your center of gravity with your legs and land on your heels with your legs typically straight. This has several negative side effects. Lots of the impact forces generated by landing infront of your center of gravity and sent through your body, this is primarially felt in the joints. Hence why lots of people dont enjoy runnig because its too "jarring" and hurts their joints. This also halts your momentum and slows you down, thus killing your effenciency and causing you to tire out quicker.

Running on grass, dirt, sand, or any other soft and forgiving surfaces allow you to mimic the same actions mentioned above. These surfaces allow sloppy form and dont really do anything to improve your form, so its somewhat pointless.

Now if you were to remove these cushionings from under your feet and continue running in this manner it would hurt and you wouldnt make it more than 5 or 6 strides before you started to make corrections. This is why hard surfaces are best to start on, they do not allow for sloppy form. When you have to rely on your bodys natural ability to absorb impact your body will start to make the necessary adjustments almost instantly without you even noticing. Your feet will make contact with the ground either directly under your center of gravity, or just a tad bit ahead of it so your not working against yourself by creating a braking effect. Your knees will bend them selves a little so that the impact generated is absorbed via muscles like the quads and calves instead of your joints. Your shorter stride will result in an increased cadence to maintain your speed. And you wont be landing directly on your heels anymore. Instead it should be a more midfoot to forefoot landing to allow your calves and achillies to absord the impact.

So the truth is that soft surfaces will hide faults. When learning how to run Barefoot, the harder surfaces will give you honest feedback.

Falsity #2)
The ground is covered in glass shards, nails, bits if sharp metal, poop, rocks, and hypodermic needles. Im sure to step on something and cut my foot wide open and bleed to death, or at least surely get a bad infection and / or virus.

Truth)
Yes. This stuff is out there, no denying that. Luckily your just barefoot, not blind.... Over the last 8 months of my barefootedness Ive never cut my foot open, and Ive only seen 2 cases where someone has.

I will admit that I have stepped in some gross things. The worst of which was a freshly ran over Opossum. I stepped right smack dab in the brains. I imagine if I ever step in a bowl of warm jello it would be very similiar. Ive also stepped in lots of poopy of various type, mainly bird poop. Yet Im still here!

Falsity #3)
Your feet will become nothing but a giant calluses.

Truth)
Not so. When I used to run shod my feet were giant calluses, now their nice and smooth and leathery, much like the palms of my hands but thicker. There is a slight amount of abrasion and friction that tale place while running bare, and that removes most of the dead skin cells and builds up the plantar skin. Think of each step as a minature pedicure!

Falsity #4)
I need to slowly transition from my conventional marshmallow running shoes, to a reduced running shoe, then to a minimalist shoe, then finally barefoot.

Truth)
You dont have to.

You can do this if you like, theres nothing "wrong" with it. Its just sort of pointless and costly. If you want to run barefoot, then you dont need shoes. Hence it being called "Barefoot".

Falsity #5)
Man hasnt evolved to run barefoot.

Truth)
What? Really? So the thousands upon thousands of years before shoes man never once ran anywhere? It wasnt untill the invention of shoes that man realized he could move faster than a walk? Really? This idea boggles my mind. How can the last 40 years of marshmallow shoes erase the thousands of years of evolution before it? And if man wasnt intended to run barefoot, then how can myself and hundreds of other people do it every day with no issues?


Hopefully this has cleared up some confusion for someone out there. I plan to add to this as more comes to mind.

The beginnings.

Hello,

First off, if your reading this, then thank you. I mean that. Thank you even more if you continue reading to the end...

A little about myself. Im currently 26 years of age, have been married to the most wonderfull woman in the entire world for 5 years, and have had 2 awesome offspring with her. My family really is my life, everything else is just filler. I spend most of my time in a chemical plant working and inhaling toxic fumes, which could explain a whole lot of things. My hobbies include running, cycling, swimming, and automobiles but running takes up 99% of my hobby time. As with every other runner thats currently taking up blogging, I run barefoot. This leads into my first official blogging rant...

Barefoot running is a form of minimalist running, but minimalist running is not necessarily barefoot. It really irks me when people say their barefoot runners, but their feet have never made contact with any surface outside of a shoe. If you have anything on your feet, your are NOT barefoot, you are shod. Some shoe companies have taken advantage of the barefoot phenomenom and labled their shoes as "Barefoot Shoes" which is an oxymoron in itself. Granted these shoes might be a great product, but they are shoes and not being barefoot.

These are known as "Minimalist Shoes" and I personally think its great that the industry is heading in the right direction and away from the conventional built up, overly cushioned, non flexible foot coffins that have been in production for the last 40 or so years. I currently own 1 pair of minimalist shoes and their the Vibram Five Finger "KSO". I hope to add onto my collection of minimalist shoes as its starting to get very very VERY hot here in southeast Texas (Greatest state in the world!) and the roads are too hot to run barefoot on with out burning, scorching, and blistering .

Thus is one of my intentions with this blog. A) Spread the good word of Minimalist and Barefoot running, and B) Become a swag ninja and give good honest reviews of the products Ive tested for others to read and evaluate for them selves.