the transitionist

Since I just started barefooting, and blogging, thought maybe I could share my stories about making the transition from shoes to bare feet.

A brief history...

I did expirement a little in high school with barefoot running over 20 years ago, the year Zola Bud took center stage at theSummer Olymics.When my racing flats started giving me terrible blisters and I tired of super gluing my feet back together, I trained barefoot. My XC coach hated it. The only way I could race was to start with spikes on, then clame they came untied or I lost one in the mud or some other such crazy excuse. He resorted to taping my shoes on before each race, and the expirement was over. Eventually my feet toughened up and my unremarkable high school XC career went on.

Fast foward twenty-some years. I started running again, conquered 5k and 10k goals, and ran my first marathon. Called my son who was running at the college level in Colorado after finishing my first marathon in 4:06. He said, "That's great Dad. Now, when are you going to run an ultra?"

Damn kids anyway. They have no sense of what it's like to be older and injury prone. No concept of how hard it is to carve time out of your day to train. But, I took him up on the challenge.

I began searching for a suitable Ultra. In my internet hunt for a race, I stumbled across the barefoot university web site. I was still wrapping my head around the idea of going farther than a marathon, and here is some guy running 100 milers barefoot!!! What the hell?!

Well, I found my race, the 72 mile Midnight Express, a single loop race around Lake Tahoe...at night!...unsupported for the first 46 miles!...at 6200 to 7200 feet above sea level! The perfect race for a first timer andflatlander. I got so caught up in training that I forgot about that cray barefoot guy.

After training for 10 months, traveling 2200 miles and spending too much money, the race got cancelled after I got there. Being ultra runners, we of course, ran anyway. I failed in spectacualr fashion 41 miles in. I limped back home beaten, batterred and bruised.

next time...how do you start barefooting in the middle of a Northern Michigan winter...

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dirtdemon77
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