Boston Bound: Training with the Shod

One of the biggest goals of my life was to qualify for Boston. I knew it was a long shot for me because I was just not blessed with the fast long distance lean bodies that I see acquire Boston qualifying times. I thought I might have a remote chance at qualifying at the San Diego RocknRoll marathon if I got bone skinny and trained very intensely with a good running coach. RnR San Diego is a tough Boston qualifier and now here I was attempting to do it as a first barefoot marathon as well. Was I insane? Langston Hughes wrote,



Hold fast to dreams

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly...



I've missed out on too many amazing opportunities in my life from thinking "I can't". Not this time. I was going for it.



So I enrolled in a training program that gave me great success in the past when I was shod, the San Diego Rock'n'Runners Training Program (RnRTP). Out of the 800 runners in this humungous training group that met every Saturday for long run and surprising squeezed around a track on Tuesday night for speed training, there we're only three that ran in VFFs or barefooted. I was the only exclusive bare footer in the group.



Training with 800 other shod runners in the RnRTP was both motivating and a challenge. Challenging in that the routes selected for training obviously did not have the barefoot runner in mind. I am grateful for this though because it forced me to learn to adjust to different terrain and condition my pads in the process. Motivating in that I was too proud to be caught looking like I was struggling through rough terrain by my running buddies. I remember one morning we we're on a warm-up run in San Marcos and the stretch coach led us through a gravel field. I had to suddenly slow down, while all 798 of them ran around me. Person 799 only slowed down because she was an old friend and was excited to finally bump into me and chose that time of all times to strike up conversation. But I persisted through months of running barefoot with my shod comrades on the eight worst county roads in the United States*.



My running coach, Paul Greer, is the most prominent running coach in San Diego. So it was obviously a god-send to me that he was very supportive of my barefoot running and my goals for the marathon. At one of the track workouts, he approached me sharing that the San Diego Union Tribune Newspaper wanted to do a story on barefoot running and he thought of me. So I hooked up with the reporter for an interview and had pictures taken. One thing led to another and all of a sudden I'm on various newspapers, a morning show, and other media. Being new to barefoot running and one of the sole few in San Diego, I never imagined I would become a media target during the later stages of our training and instantly assume the role as a disciple for the cause. It's a cause I believe in though. How do you argue with the amazingly beautiful and perfect bodies Mother Nature has bestowed on us? Any accessories added or changes risk the improper functioning of its perfect design. This last Halloween I ran barefoot in just a home-made loincloth, and I've got to admit I felt a certain wholeness and freedom with myself and everything around me. Ninety-nine percent of human history roamed the earth this way. Why should I feel 'unnatural'?



But now being in the media spotlight, I felt like there was even more pressure to succeed in my goal to both do my first barefoot marathon and to qualify for Boston at the same time. The 800 members in my running group, my work, family, and friends, and it seemed like all of San Diego was rooting for me. I realized it also sent a message to all of them – that I can run fast and injury free without shoes on. It's an important message, because it may be just enough to inspire other runners to google 'Barefoot Running' like I did. From that point on, their lives as runners may change forever. Or that wide-eyed little boy or girl who watches you from the sidelines as you smile and swoop past them in a race barefooted, prompting them to look up at their father and say, "Wow! Dad, can I run barefooted in a race when I grow up?"



After the race, my 800 shod friends and the San Diego Track Club accoladed me of my accomplishment in their newsletter. Someday though, the accolades may be reversed. That the accomplishment is not running without shoes, but with shoes.



* http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/sep/21/dubious-distinction-countys-roads-are-eighth-worst/

Comments

I am impressed! Maybe you had no real idea of what you were getting into, but you certainly did a fine job of running for yourself. Good for you!
 

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