I had to participate in a military formation run this morning. It was three miles in relativedarknessand I ran in myVFFs.There were three things I learned.
1. Running with a barefoot running style is definitely not conducive to running in a military formation. The 180+ steps per minute that I've been conditioning myself to do for the past five months is way faster than the cadence set by the cadence callers. The long strides and slow cadence make you try to heel strike. Fortunately I was able to get in the back of the formation and run at my own pace even though I called cadence with everyone else.
2. My TOFP is definitely not gone. I have been taking it easy the last couple of weeks. Everywhere I go I wear my big cushioned running shoes to prevent the foot pain in hopes that my foot would heal faster. About a mile and a half into the run today it started hurting and got worse the longer the run went on. Unfortunately the run took a while because we were only running at a 9:45 pace. Excruciatingly slow. Time to ice it and take somemotrin.
3. Despite my TOFP I can at least do three miles in my VFFs for my physical fitness test in a few weeks even though I'll pay for it later. At least now I know I can do it for my PFT. I was worried that I would have to run the physical fitness test in my running shoes and have to deal with the knee pain. After not running in running shoes for the past five months I wasn't relishing that thought.
1. Running with a barefoot running style is definitely not conducive to running in a military formation. The 180+ steps per minute that I've been conditioning myself to do for the past five months is way faster than the cadence set by the cadence callers. The long strides and slow cadence make you try to heel strike. Fortunately I was able to get in the back of the formation and run at my own pace even though I called cadence with everyone else.
2. My TOFP is definitely not gone. I have been taking it easy the last couple of weeks. Everywhere I go I wear my big cushioned running shoes to prevent the foot pain in hopes that my foot would heal faster. About a mile and a half into the run today it started hurting and got worse the longer the run went on. Unfortunately the run took a while because we were only running at a 9:45 pace. Excruciatingly slow. Time to ice it and take somemotrin.
3. Despite my TOFP I can at least do three miles in my VFFs for my physical fitness test in a few weeks even though I'll pay for it later. At least now I know I can do it for my PFT. I was worried that I would have to run the physical fitness test in my running shoes and have to deal with the knee pain. After not running in running shoes for the past five months I wasn't relishing that thought.
