First Half Marathon in DSM and Ran it Barefoot

Ran in the Des Moines, Iowa Half Marathon yesterday. This was my longest reace ever as I had only ran in 5 and 8k's before. I started out sticking with the 2:10 pacer for quite a while and realized that wasn't going to work for me after about 4 or 5 miles and began backing off to get my reart rate down a bit. I ended up taking 2:32 by my watch but the timing chip on my ankle didn't register except for at the starting line.
I spoke with the timing technitians and tey said those chips need to be horizontal and that being vertical makes them harder to read. There was another barefoot runner in the Half and his worked but he had his on top of his foot with a string going around two toes and his ankle.... will try that next time. The other BFR was Jaymon from the BRS Iowa chapter and he did really well! There was also a barefoot runner in the full marathon who was from the BRS chapter too so I was running in good company! I'll update more later.

 

Thanks! Here's a link to my

Thanks! Here's a link to my garmin connect info: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/122360431#.TpwZ1Ob4QFk.email

 

Thanks... yeah... I was

Thanks... yeah... I was staggering after I stopped running and started walking though. Took a while for the legs to adapt to walking again. But other than muscle tightness I was doing quite well really. There were many others in far worse shape without a doubt...

So... now that I have time to post more...
I left the hotel in the dark to head to the starting line area. I looked for people I knew who were going to be there but never did find any of them. I got a glimpse of one freind from Cedar Rapids but he was too far from me to shout to and we were already packed tight within about 10 minutes to go before the start.



Marshal Ulrich was there and spoke from the podium along with a woman from season 8 of Biggest Loser who was from Des Moines. I wasn't able to see them from where I was staged but could hear them.

I wore thick black sport socks before the race started... I had a few people around me asking about me running barefoot... then with 5 minutes to go I took off the socks and tucked them in my waistband. One of the people who had been talking to me just then realized I was going to run completely barefoot and got a kick out of that.

Early on in the race we went through an area of road construction and half of the road was torn up asphalt with loose bits all over it. This was before the pack had spread out and it was hard to know what was coming next. I was already on the good side of the road and so I didn't have to run through that junk. There was a bit of stuff on my side too but didn't even notice it on the feet.

Most of the race is on streets with one portion going on some cement paved trails around a park/lake area. The whole race was quite pleasant as far as surfaces and scenery went. I can't complain. The organization of the race was quite impressive too although this was my first large event. We did the packet pickup the night before and that went without a hitch. My heart was really racing that night but it had calmed down by the time the gun went off on race day.

The first 8 miles were my best ones... which makes sense. That's a distance I've run multiple times. After 8 miles I bumped into distances that I'd done only recently and without frequency. Prior to the race, I'd only run 12.6 miles and for the week leading up to the race I hadn't ran at all. I was taking it easy as my left foot and knee were still showing signs of discomfort from my trail race a couple of weeks back. I did swimming/elliptical training instead for much of my last two weeks of training for this half marathon. I tried to match workout times to the time it would take me to do my scheduled distances just to make sure my cardio was being worked the same but with swimming I don't think my heart rate ever got up to target... I always feel like I'm working hard than I am when swimming laps... not sure why.

I got a lot of comments about running barefoot and none of them were rude or insulting. I had a couple people say "hope you don't step on a sharp rock" but of course those people are just expressing their own fears. I had a lot of people shouting encouraging things like "way to go barefoot guy!" or "now that's the way you do it!" and the like. I had several people ask how my feet were holding up. I was quite pleased with how good my feet felt. When I did my 12.6 mile training run my feet were getting quite tender towards the end but they never did get tender yesterday during the race.

I was also pleased to find that my foot and knee were completely pain free during the entire race. Even afterwards and today they are fine. So I can continue training now without the cross training stuff which is a relief.

I have to say though that yesterday led me to believe I'm not a cold weather barefoot runner. It was in the 50's and I never warmed up. I was wearing UA coldgear with full length fitted pants and a long sleeve fitted top. I'd trained in these but never with this ground temperature I guess... it was never painful or a problem but very unpleasant and I was looking foward to getting warmed up after the race. Could be that I just needed to be running faster though.

The crowd support was quite nice too. There were people nearly everywhere along the route cheering the runners on and I had a few peoeple encourage me by name which was fun... they put my first name on my bib. The first person who said my name startled me a bit and I looked back at them to see if I should recognize them before remembering I had a name tag. lol...

I wanted to push harder at the end but only managed to pick up my pace. My heart rate never did get above 190 even though I hit 200 with some 5k's. I was just plain tired though by the end of the race and had little left to give. I was also nervous about injuring myself by pushing too hard while my legs were so tired as I might blow my form and do damage... so I didn't want to push harder than I felt able to do safely. I had a guaranteed PR regardless as this was my first so there was little to lose at that point.

 

Thanks! Yeah Nick, I was

Thanks! Yeah Nick, I was wondering about that. The main chill that was bothering me was the running in a wet shirt part. I suppose trapping that moisture so close to the skin had a key role in the problem. I must say though that it felt too cold to be wearing just a t-shirt too but perhaps a loser long sleeve running shirt would've been better with standard wicking material instead.

 

Barefoot TJ

I was using the little orange card they provided and zip tied it to my road-id ankle strap. I wasn't aware of there being options.

 

Thanks for the clothing tips

Thanks for the clothing tips you two. Gives me more ideas to work with and try out.

 

It looked like this (Jaymon

It looked like this (Jaymon wore his this way and his worked.)

 

Well, I'd done 2 races (5k &

Well, I'd done 2 races (5k & 8k trail race) with it on my ankle without a problem but clearly it's not ideal.