Did it - Finished first 10k competition barefoot!

Over the course of the last 12 month I moved from heavily cushioned shoes over Fivefingers (Finished Amsterdam Half Marathon last October with my KSOs) over to full barefoot since this March.

So far it was a great journey with limited amount of problems on the way. After doing occasional less than 6k training runs (temperature permitting, freezing feet do not help) without shoes i'd moved to a little higher distances and so far the max was 15k on a mix of concrete and gravel. I do not like gravel by the way - guess that is true for all of us here.

Last week I finally became self assured enough about my tolerance for different ground and the abillity to maintain concentration on running form as well as the avoiding of obstacles on the ground to actually sign up to a formal competion and be there actually barefoot. On the 30th of April in Warnemünde, Germany (on the baltic sea) there was the Küstenwaldlauf (www.kuestenwaldlauf.de), a 10k race with approx 500 total runners. I was the only one without any shoes and I also haven't seen anyone in VFFs or similar.

The ground was a mix of concrete, sand and gravel as well as asphalt. Not too bad. I wasn't there to get a new PR in a 10k but to actually try this barefoot and did come out at 51:30, which is not a great 10k time and 9 minutes behind my PR but it was a very worthwhile experience and gave me great comfort for this to actually work.

People around were mostly positive about somebody doing this without shoes, nobody was negative - the bigger part was surprised that this is possible.

So, changing the world one odd look at a time.

Just thought i'd share the experience :)

Comments

What a great story... thanks for sharing it! Congratulations on the milestone! I can't wait (well, I CAN) until I'm running longer distances where I can participate (notice, I didn't say 'compete') in road and trail races.

Keep up the great work!
 
I don't think about my shod pr's anymore, they are from a different person. I only count injury-free, full barefoot runs as PR's. So congrats on your PR of 51:30! I'll bet you can set another PR at your next race! Nice job!!
 
Thanks for the good report on an exceptional run. After 1 year of BF / Min running I have yet to strut my stuff BF in a race. You inspire me! Next race I'll leave my Viibrams at home unless I know the course is miserable
 

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