Did a long run on the FATS 50k ultra course in South Carolina just north of Augusta Georgia. Wanted to see if it was barefoot friendly plus try some ultra style eating while running.
Started out well, I wore a Camelback pack loaded down with water/food options and road shoes just in case. Got going around 10:30 am, finished about 4 pm...needless to say it was a hot run with temps in the 80's...took it nice and slow a little under my Maff zone effort. Did do all 4 of the different mountain bike trail loops....I think the course for the race is a couple miles long also.
Barefooting went well for the first 13 miles then ran into some sections that had a little more rocks and gravel and by mile 14 had to put on shoes then ran another 5 or so miles. My Garmin battery ran down and I ran out of water the last 3 miles so walked it in from there. Ran a total of 19 miles and walked another 5 -6 total.
The FATS course is fairly easy course wearing shoes with no big climbs just small rolling ups and downs, very few bigger rocks mostly lots of smaller gravelly rocks and pebbles. The mountain bikers keep the bigger sticks/rocks etc pushed off to the sides.
This would be a good first Ultra and with some further barefoot trail practice I might be able do the whole course barefoot. Here is the link to the race site: http://ultrasontrails.com/fats50k.html
Started out well, I wore a Camelback pack loaded down with water/food options and road shoes just in case. Got going around 10:30 am, finished about 4 pm...needless to say it was a hot run with temps in the 80's...took it nice and slow a little under my Maff zone effort. Did do all 4 of the different mountain bike trail loops....I think the course for the race is a couple miles long also.
Barefooting went well for the first 13 miles then ran into some sections that had a little more rocks and gravel and by mile 14 had to put on shoes then ran another 5 or so miles. My Garmin battery ran down and I ran out of water the last 3 miles so walked it in from there. Ran a total of 19 miles and walked another 5 -6 total.
The FATS course is fairly easy course wearing shoes with no big climbs just small rolling ups and downs, very few bigger rocks mostly lots of smaller gravelly rocks and pebbles. The mountain bikers keep the bigger sticks/rocks etc pushed off to the sides.
This would be a good first Ultra and with some further barefoot trail practice I might be able do the whole course barefoot. Here is the link to the race site: http://ultrasontrails.com/fats50k.html
