OC Marathon
By Alan S
I did it! My first full marathon and barefoot as well. Happy IBRD 2016 to me. Also marking my one year anniversary since I ran for the first time barefoot with Ken Bob at the IBRD 2015.
The Orange County Marathon in sunny Southern California spans 10 miles of a water-lined route, passing some Orange county "landmarks" for the reminder.
Here I am posing with a few other "first-timers" at the start line. We had an hour to wait after we were dropped off by a shuttle. Everyone that talked to me was very shocked that I was planning on running barefoot. I did develop a 45 second "elevator pitch" for explaining why I run with out shoes. I always first quote Ken Bob by saying "it's fun".
People brave would ask me questions, but most made comments to their friends, that were just loud enough for me to hear, regarding how crazy I was. I even had a woman run up to me and ask if I trained barefooted.
If you have ran a distance race, marathon or shorter, there begins to be a point in the race where it becomes more work than fun, like some type of horrible graph from algebra class. For me, up to mile 18 was fun, 18-22 was work and 22-25 sucked, but it was that last magical mile (and after) that will cause me to sign up for another marathon.
My wife and kids came to celebrate at the finish line, which was the best.
My feet did fine. I did bring a pair of xero shoes just as a back up if the road got to rough, but I never needed them or wanted to not use them.
I also meet one other barefoot marathoner and saw and cheered one other. I lost count of the sandal runners. I also talked to a few of them as we ran.
Thank you for all of your support here and especially to Ken Bob for starting me off on the right path... A barefoot path!
