I'm spending a couple of days at my ancestral home of Ballarat, so today I tried a lap of Lake Wendouree, which is the track that everybody in Ballarat runs around. 6km barefoot on a mixture of asphalt, fine gravel, and the grassy bit at the edge of the track when my feet needed a rest from the gravel. Ran it a few seconds quicker than my shod time from last year, which was nice. Still a whole lot slower than what I used to do it in when I was young and fit though.
I got plenty of funny looks - Ballarat is a pretty conservative place, and I find that people are less likely to say hi to you when you run past down here. That said, I did meet one friendly fisherman at the start. I saw a pelican on the lake, and I can't recall ever seeing that when I lived here, so I asked him about that and he told me they have always been around and they are 'bastards'.
I also caught up to a guy who said "That's hardcore" and chatted for a bit before he got near his start/finish point and surged away from me.
I got plenty of funny looks - Ballarat is a pretty conservative place, and I find that people are less likely to say hi to you when you run past down here. That said, I did meet one friendly fisherman at the start. I saw a pelican on the lake, and I can't recall ever seeing that when I lived here, so I asked him about that and he told me they have always been around and they are 'bastards'.
I also caught up to a guy who said "That's hardcore" and chatted for a bit before he got near his start/finish point and surged away from me.