I decided to give cement a try tonight... waited till the sun was getting ready to go down to let things cool off and headed out to a nice wide sidewalk system over by a financial park and college campus. As it turned out, the sidewalk ended just shy of 1 mile from where the cement started and so I ended up shorter than I was hoping for but it felt great.
I was putting to practice some tips I learned from our Iowa Chapter meeting this weekend and my speed was up slightly. I wore a cadence monitor on a rubber band around my ankle and clocked in at an average of 164 so I'm still slower than my goal of 180. Back in my shod running days I was down around 140 so I am improving.
I noticed tonight that as I control and slow my breathing my cadence slows too. I have to work at maintaining a high cadence while keeping my breathing controlled. I'm sure this is just conditioning for the most part as I was averaging 84% actual max heart rate. I also noticed tonight that the faster cadence felt lighter on my feet... nice motivation.
I'm planning on running on chip/seal again Wednesday. I'll probably do another invisible shoe run tomorrow. I'm at the point now where my barefoot distance training and my cardio training are coming together. I can't run too much further with invisible shoes without needing to slow down and bring my heart rate down... so my bare feet aren't limiting my training anymore which is great... too bad I let my cardio fall apart this year to focus on weight training.
I'm bound and determined to find a balance someday but for now the pendulum has swung back to running and this time without shoes!
Happy running!
--John
I was putting to practice some tips I learned from our Iowa Chapter meeting this weekend and my speed was up slightly. I wore a cadence monitor on a rubber band around my ankle and clocked in at an average of 164 so I'm still slower than my goal of 180. Back in my shod running days I was down around 140 so I am improving.
I noticed tonight that as I control and slow my breathing my cadence slows too. I have to work at maintaining a high cadence while keeping my breathing controlled. I'm sure this is just conditioning for the most part as I was averaging 84% actual max heart rate. I also noticed tonight that the faster cadence felt lighter on my feet... nice motivation.
I'm planning on running on chip/seal again Wednesday. I'll probably do another invisible shoe run tomorrow. I'm at the point now where my barefoot distance training and my cardio training are coming together. I can't run too much further with invisible shoes without needing to slow down and bring my heart rate down... so my bare feet aren't limiting my training anymore which is great... too bad I let my cardio fall apart this year to focus on weight training.
I'm bound and determined to find a balance someday but for now the pendulum has swung back to running and this time without shoes!
Happy running!
--John