Haloween costume?

HAPPY HALOWEEN!!!

This is the first Haloween out of the 26 Ive experienced that Ive found the need for a costume that incorporates being barefoot. Im not sure that I had ever even thought about famous barefoot people in the past, or the present, so it took me awhile to decide on a good costume that made sense to be Barefoot with.

Heres a quick rundown of the few ideas I had for good Barefoot Haloween costumes... Unless your up to date on the "Who's Who" of the barefoot culture most of these wont make sense, but Ill ATTEMPT to include links to those that I can...


My first idea was to go as my hero Patrick Sweeny (www.bourbonfeet.blogspot.com). Unfortunatley Im no where near skinny enough, and Im hairless thanks to my Native American ancestery, so theres no way I could have pulled it off....

My second thought was to go as Christian (dont know last name) AKA "The Maple Grove Barefoot Guy" (www.maplegrovebarefootguy.com). A few problems arose here... First off, Im only a mere mortal, so I dont possess any super human abilities. Secondly, I stand at a heigth of 5'10.597662" tall. This puts me about 3 feet away from achieving true MGBG status. So going as MGBG would necessitate stilts of some manner, which totally kills going BF. Third, umm... Ok, there really isnt a third reason.

Another Barefooting master I had thought about going as was Barefoot Ken Bob (www.therunningbarefoot.com) as hes the man! Many people look at BF Ken Bob as being the yoda of the barefoot world. His spoken name is often followed by a breif thumbs up or a peace sign. How could a little confused Padawan such as myself attempt to immitate a Jedi master? Plus the lack of hair thing got in the way again... That, and I dont own a tie-dye T shirt...

I could have gone as Jason Robilard, (www.barefootrunninguniversity.com). Once again, it would have taken me YEARS upon YEARS to grow a beard as masculine as his. Plus I dont like beer, so there goes any chance of attempting to immitate either Jason or Patrick.

I could have gone as Barefoot Ted (www.lunasandals.com) since were both bald and have similar type bodys. Unfortunatley I couldnt manage to keep that crazy looking posture thing he holds all the time for more than just a few nano seconds.

Then I had a few ideas for non-barefoot runner themed costumes...

I do have a full sized Tigger costume I could have worn, but thats been my costune several times before, so I wanted something new.

The usual barefoot costumes are over done in my opinion. The flinstones, other types of cavemen and those kinds of things just dont do anything for me.

Then I hit me as I was walking through my garage. I noticed a pair of brown overalls in a storage box. I quickly threw them on and grabbed a long weed from the back yard.

PERFECT!!!

This year for Haloween I am a hillbilly!!! It fits me perfectly! With my high percentage of white trash DNA it wasnt hard to pull it all together. Suprisingly enough, no one even though I had dressed up in a costume when we went out Saturday night! I think I was the only barefoot person at the bar too...

Published with Blogger-droid v1.7.4

One year down!

First off, before I even start, I want to send a HUGE Thank You to my wonderfull, amazing, beautiful wife for not only putting up with my ass, but for supporting me as well! Thanks honey, I couldnt have made it here without your support!


Well, today, October the 14th, I celebrate as my one year anniversary of running Barefoot! Thats right! A year ago today I ditched the shoes and rid myself of all types of aches and pains such as;

-Cronic Shin Splints!
I had been trying to get back into running again in 2010 since I finally had a job that would allow it. Unfortunatley I only ran for about 5 out of 10 months due to shin splints. They were so.bad that I would take a month off at a time with constant icing, stretching, and massaging and yet as soon as I ran again they would come right back. I finally went and saw a Dr and he just told me the usual bullshit of "take a month off and these anti inflamatory pills, then start back slowly..." Needless to say, that didnt help matters any.

-Constant lower back pain.
I felt like I was always suffering from a pinched nerve in my lower back. Like I had lifted something the wrong way or something and whenever I would bend over I would get these sharp stabbing pains in my lower back approximatley where my love handles are.

-Stiff ankles
My ankles always felt stiff in the mornings. It would hurt to walk for a few minutes untill they loosened up some.

-Fatigue.
I would only run 2~3 miles per run, but I always felt tired afterwards. It would take me an hour or two before I felt "recovered" from my runs.

-Ingrown Toenails.
I suffered from CONSTANT ingrown toenails. Both big toes and on occasion on my little toes as well. Since going BF Ive only had one ingrown toenail, and that was from running in my Vibrams, which isnt running barefoot.


Now thats all behind me!!! I can run without feeling any discomfort, and I can also go about the rest of my day feeling fine with no aches or pains!

Ive been through several stages and tried a few different training methods. Ive ran fast and hard for all my training runs, Ive been a vegatarian, Ive used compression sleeves, eaten while running, ran while fasted, done speed work, and now Im using a lot of these things in conjunction with the Maffetone method of running slow (and I like it the best so far!).

Ive ran on Asphalt, grass, dirt, cement, chip seal, concrete, crushed lime stone, synthetic tracks, brick roads, side walks, country roads, trails, and sand. Ive stepped on amd in a large assortment of dead animals. Ive also ran through large areas that were covered in broken glass. Yet Ive never seen any hypodermic needles....

So heres my PR's for my first full year of BFR. Keep in mind I only ever really "trained" for a half marathon...
Mile - 6:23
5k - 20:42
Half Marathon - 1:42:37

Ive only ran 1 5k race and 4 half marathons. In my next year I hope to drop all 3 of those times along with adding a PR for a 50 Mile for sure, and hopefully a few other distances as well!

Oh, my total mileage for my first year is 743.89 WONDERFULL miles. I feel like I have fallen in love with running all over again and I very seldomly ever have a bad run anymore.

So heres to a great first year!!! I hope for many many more!!!

Published with Blogger-droid v1.7.4

The Maffetone Method!

There are a lot of different thought processes in the running world on how to become a faster and more efficient runner. One of the more commonly accepted is the "No pain, No gain" philosophy, which really just says you have to run hard and fast during your training in order to run fast in a race. I havent found this to be entirely true...

When I started running barefoot I was doing short runs at very slow speeds at first, steadily building onto my distances little by little but never doing any type of speed work. I was very surprised when I timed my first "fast" BF mile at 6:37. The best I had managed the year before running shod was a 7:14, and I was dead afterwards. Here I was now, almost 45 seconds FASTER without any proper "training" do get this result.

Fastforward a few months and Im running half marathons on no speed work, just easy runs, and I managed to run a 1:42 as a PR. Then I had a few months breal untill my next half marathon, so I started focusing on speed work, thinking it would be the key to get me into the 1:30's. Turns out it wasnt and I had the worst race of my life and had to walk a few times and finished with a 1:54 (my second slowest half marathon). So in search of an answer I came upon the discussion of the Maffetone Method on the Runners World Barefoot forum and became very intrigued. So I ordered the book online and am still in the process of reading it.

Maffetone suggests looking at training from a holistic approach in that one should be concerned formost on ones health, and not their physical fitness. In such he suggests a healthy diet, reducing stresses on oneself, and a good training regimen. His key thing on training is building an aerobic base, which is what I am currently in the process of attempting to do, and so far I am very pleased with the results!

Im order to build this base you have to run under your aerobic threshold, which is based on the heart rate at which your body stops burning stored fats for energy and starts burning eaten sugars instead. Maffetone has developed a formula for determining what your aerobic threshold HR is, mine is 152 but I keep it under 150 for all of my runs.

Theres a few ways to measure your progress while using the Maffetone method. The most obvious is to monitor your HR and how it corresponds with your pace. When I first started my pace at an avg HR of 150 for a 5 mile run was a little under 15 minutes per mile, with miles 4 and 5 closer to the mid 16's. To put this anoher way, it took me 1 hour and 14 minutes to run 5.5 miles, with several walk breaks because my HR would start climbing too high to continue running. Now Im running closer to 10:00~10:30 per mile pace for most of my runs.

The other way to check your progress is through a MAF test, which stands for Maximum Aerobic Function test. The way Maffetone suggests this test is by running 5 - 1 mile repeats at the same HR and the longer you train at this method you should notice 2 things start to change. The first is that your miles will get faster as your aerobic speed increases, but also your mile times in each session will get closer and closer as your aerobic conditioning improves.

I did a slightly different version thats reccomended by Hadd in the famous Hadd post. In this version you run 5 - 2 mile repeats at varying HRs. I have done this test twice and have seen pretty amazing results, which are listed below...

First Test

2 miles @ 139 avg HR = 27:26 (13:43 avg pace)
2 miles @ 147 avg HR = 28:06 (14:03 avg pace) not sure why I got slower here...?
2 miles @ 168 avg HR = 21:41 (10:49 avg pace)
2 miles @ 178 avg HR = 17:26 (8:43 avg pace)

I was running out of time, so I skipped the 160 HR cap run.

Second Test.

2 miles @ 135 avg HR = 23:21 (11:40 avg pace) 1:55 faster per mile
2 miles @ 146 avg HR = 20:56 (10:28 avg pace) 3:40 faster per mile
2 miles @ 155 avg HR = 18:33 (9:17 avg pace) no previous data to compare against... grrr....
2 miles @ 167 avg HR = 16:02 (8:01 avg pace) 2:48 faster per mile

Ran out of time (got kicked off the track) before I could attempt running 2 with a 180 HR cap, but I imagine it would have been quite a good bit faster than the previous tests results.

These tests were conducted roughly a month apart, one when I first started this method, and the second one about a month later. So in just a month Ive gotten around 2~3 minutes faster per mile at the same HR with no speed work type training.

Guess you could say that Im sold!

Published with Blogger-droid v1.7.4

Village Creek State Park's trails

So since my next race is going to be a 50 mile ultra marathon trail race I decided that I should start running on trails more since thats something that I barely ever do. The problem with this is that the city I normally run in has no trails that I know of, so Im stuck with running on roads or a track during the week...

Luckily there is a state park, Village Creek State Park, right by my house. Its literally a 3 mile drive, or I can go the back way and be at the maintenance gate in a little over a mile. Either way its very convonient for me when Im at home. Unfortunatley this means I can only run in them on my weekend long run...

So I hit them for the second time this Sunday (9-18-11) barefoot and managed to get in 11.5 miles, and plan to start running them instead of my long road runs as I can already tell that 50 miles on pavement will not equate to 50 miles on trails.

The trails are prety good quality. The longer trail of the group is big enough to drive a truck down and is an out and back with another loop trail branching off of it at around 3/4ths of the way down it. The rest of the trails are maybe big enough to run a 4 wheeler down and are surrounded by very thick vegatation which provides an excelent canopy of leaves to give shade. The only bad portion is a 1.10 mile loop that I would consider to be somewhat "technical" as it has alot of sharp turns and the path is covered with large exposed roots. But the rest of it is very pleasant with either compacted dirt or sand.

Ok. I cant figure out how to insert pics into the body of a post, or how to add comments to each pic, so heres a description of the pics...

1&2 are examples of the sections covered with roots. If you follow the trail back youll see that the roots continue the whole time. Being BF this makes for very slow going.

3,4&5 are pics of the better portion of the trails. This section runs right along the side of Village Creek and actually ends at the swimming area.

6 is a good example of some of the tougher parts of the good trail. Theres 3 or 4 areas where you drop straight down into a slough, or gully, or washout or whatever you want to call it. Its basically a 6~12 foot drop straight down followed by a 6~12 foot climb straight back up. I only got a pic of the smaller one as it started pouring rain shortly after taking this pic.

7 is just a random shot of the trail that I thought came out pretty cool looking! Makes it look like I was hauling ass!

8 is a pic of Village Creek. Weve been in a historic drought and are several FEET behind in rainfall for the year, along with a few feet behind from last year. So the creek is normally alot higher than this.

9 is a pic of a snake in a hollowed out tree. I saw him slither in there as I was coming up on it so I decided to take a pic. I think it was a Copper head, but Im not too sure...

Published with Blogger-droid v1.7.4

Weekly mileage updates for.... Geez... For a bunch of weeks where I sorta slacked off and didnt record anything...

Ok, well, This is my third attempt to finally get around to trying to update my backlog of weekly reports which requires a good bit of time to account for evey run. SO, instead, Ill just to a breif mentioning of what had been going on with my training...

Before the Hottest Half I was running a bunch of hard and fast miles. I had very few "easy" runs as I was attempting to increase speed and endurance at that speed. This led to me being burned out alot of the time, always dead dog tired, and seeing very little actual improvements...

BUT I have changed my way of thinking in regards to training, thanks to some of the guys over at the Barefoot Runners form at Runners World's website and had decided to try out the Maffetone method, IE lower HR and a more holistic approach to running.

I started this new method right after the Hottest half was over and I hope to try to document my journey through this new method (Im already seeing improvements!) Throug my blog. Hopefully I can manage to stay on top of it this time, lol.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.7.4

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!!

Published with Blogger-droid v1.7.4

My terrible, horrible, no good, very bad night.....

So, I just had one of the worst nights of my life. I would say it ranks in the top 5 worse nights of my life somewhere between the night I lost my virginity and that time I played the part of William Gacy in what was supposed to be a Sunday school play at a local church. Wish someone had given me prior instructions to each of the above listed activities that way I could have avoided that restraining order and the over abundance of scar tissue on my wrists from excessive rug burn....

So onto my story of last night.

My wife, a crazy coupon type lady, picked up some of those extreme 2 hour Crest white strips for a fraction of the normal retail price and we decided to try them out last night. So she applied hers while I was putting the kids to bed, and then I applied mine. 2 hours later she removes hers and I decide to remove mine too because their driving me crazy. Instantly I can tell that things are wrong. I dont normally have sensitive teeth, but as soon as I pulled those bad boys off my teeth felt like I was biting into a really cold popsicle. They hurt. So I brushed them with the special tooth paste and got in bed. I told my wife that my teeth were hurting and then we made love for the next 2~3 minutes (might have set a PR!) and then rolled over to go to sleep. The pain in my teeth had increased substantially and I tossed and turned for 30~45 minutes before falling asleep, which isnt normal for me as I normally pass out as Im crawling into bed. At this point its about 11:15 or so, which is late for me. I wake up in tears at 11:52 due to the intense pain coming from my mouth. It feels as if someone is sawing my teeth with razor blades very slowly. So I go to the kitchen in search if some type of extreme pain killer (think Heath Leger style here) and some Oragel.

Fast forward through a bottle of water and a handfull of assorted Tylenol, Asprin, Exedrin, and Aleeve and Im back in bed tossing and turning still in agonizing pain. Its now about 1 in the morning and my alarm is set to go off in 3 hours and Im running on only 40ish minutes of sleep.

1:40 now, still dying of pain and debating on going to the hospital. Desperate for a solution I start google searching and discover that the numbing agent in Oragel is "Benzocaine" which is also conviently the numbing agent in "Anal-Ease" which we just so happened to own a tube (my wife uses it to numb her eyebrows when she goes to wax them, nothing provacative here....)

So I grab the tube of Anal-Ease, squirt some on my finger, and go to town rubbing it all over my gums. WOW! Instantly my entire mouth was completely numb and I had Anal-Ease and drool dribbling down my chin. Numb and satisfied I lay back down in bed, only to discover that the amazing numbing powers of Anal-Ease is not a long lasting effect, but rather short lived. So now Im applying Anal-Ease to my gums every 5~10 minutes just so I can tolerate being awake. The time is now around 2:30.

Back to google I go in search of a better, longer lasting, less strange resolution. I read that raw garlic cloves have some type of anesthetic in it that works good for the nerves in the teeth. So I make the journey to the kitchen again and find that we do have some garlic by the banannas. YES!!! So I break a clove off, break it in half, and start rubbing violently against my teeth and gums. Three amazing things took place! First, the Anal-Ease induced drool looked silly compared to the gushing river of drool that was now literally pouring from my mouth in a steady stream and running down my hand and arm and chin and forming large saliva puddles in the kitchen sink. Second, the painfull razor blade in the teeth sensation was slowly starting to dissipate little by little. Lastly, that damn vampire that had been following me from the shadows for the past 2 weeks finally left me alone!

So its now 3:15. Im in much less pain than before, Im still looking like my mouth is the newest addition to the Niagra Falls, and Im getting delirious from the lack of sleep and the large quantity of pain killers (all OTC stuff by the way, were randomly drug tested at work often) So I journey back to the bedroom and get back in bed and lay there for a good 15 minutes before finally falling asleep for 30 minutes before my alarm goes off....

Waking up covered in drool with the combination of Anal-Ease and raw Garlic stuck in your teeth is never a good place to be, add the fact that your still covered in sticky drool and your mouth is still hurting like a somebeech and its a very bad place to be. So on the way to work this morning I stop by the Walmart and buy some "Severe Pain Formula Orajel" and start applying it like crazy. Much better than Anal-Ease, and I probablly wont get the funny questions from my wife when she sees this on the bedside table instead of a tube of Anal-Ease...





Long story, but theres a lesson to be learned from it! Im not sure what that lesson is exactly, I just know that I need to eat something because Im feeling very queasy and weak, and I still have a very strong hint of garlic and cherry flavored sexual numbing solution in my mouth.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.7.4