One month of barefoot running!

[miker]

Lavarunner, I was reading

Lavarunner, I was reading about your foot fetish, and even though I don't think I'm there yet, this morning @ the 1/4 marathon/5K I was running in, I spent all my time looking @ people's feet!

When I got home, my wife asked if I had seen anyone I knew in the race. I said how would I know unless I recognized their feet. So maybe not a foot fetish, but definitely a "foot watcher".

And Beth...wonderful original post...I can totally relate. One of the hardest things for me (and it would appear others) is to take it slow. But I'm trying...main problem is that when part of my legs/feet are sore, I don't know if I'm not doing something right (form) or just overdoing.

 

[miker]

Lavarunner, I was reading

Lavarunner, I was reading about your foot fetish, and even though I don't think I'm there yet, this morning @ the 1/4 marathon/5K I was running in, I spent all my time looking @ people's feet!

When I got home, my wife asked if I had seen anyone I knew in the race. I said how would I know unless I recognized their feet. So maybe not a foot fetish, but definitely a "foot watcher".

And Beth...wonderful original post...I can totally relate. One of the hardest things for me (and it would appear others) is to take it slow. But I'm trying...main problem is that when part of my legs/feet are sore, I don't know if I'm not doing something right (form) or just overdoing.

 

[C. Beth Run.]

Mike--Besides those two

Mike--Besides those two options (bad form, or overdoing it), there's the third option--that it's just a "good" soreness from muscles and tendons getting strong, stretching, etc. It's hard to know! One thing I'm trying to do is not freak out so much about the aches and pains. Of course I want to listen to my body.... But I think many of our "ouch" spots just go away and leave us stronger.

 

[miker]

Beth,My dogs agree w/you!

Beth,

My dogs agree w/you! They say c'mon Mike, let's go run!! Of course, it's about 5:30 in the morning when they want to go. And they are "definitely" more excited than I am when the running clothes start going on...

I hope you are right about the 3rd option. I guess time will tell...

 

[C. Beth Run.]

Mike--I should clarify--I

Mike--I should clarify--I don't think that pain should be ignored. But I tend to overanalyze it so much and am realizing it tends to just go away. I'm having to trust my training plan (which is fairly conservative) and also trust that if I REALLY get injured, it'll become apparent that it's an injury, not just a short-lived ache.

 

[LavaRunner]

mikerives wrote:Lavarunner, I

Lavarunner, I was reading about your foot fetish, and even though I don't think I'm there yet, this morning @ the 1/4 marathon/5K I was running in, I spent all my time looking @ people's feet! When I got home, my wife asked if I had seen anyone I knew in the race. I said how would I know unless I recognized their feet. So maybe not a foot fetish, but definitely a "foot watcher".

Fetish is probably a strong word but I do check out peoples feet. There are some really sad cases out there and some really fine healthy feet too

 

[Matt]

Blind Boy wrote:Babysteps:

Babysteps: I'll see if I can take care of that later on today. I've come across both Hadd and Maffetone, I've read some things by Hadd and had people explain Maffetone's ideas to me. In short, Hadd and Lydiard are very similar, Hadd being the more scientific since most of Lydiard's work is from the 50's and 60's so he didn't have access to the same amount of research. Most of what he said has been proven by science by now though. Maffetone on the other hand, the way I've understood it, is quite different. He says you should always keep your heart rate low in training. But, as you say, let's not derail this. I'll write something more thorough later. Beth: I forgot to say this before but congrats on your first month! I agree with the others, if you can get through the first month without doing something stupid, you'll most likely keep on running.

I've read a little bit about Maffetone, but am not familiar with Hadd. I'll have to do some googling on him. I'm not sure that all running should be at really low heart rates, but I think it's good to have a good bulk of it there. Kind of like what McDougall said about Caballo Blanco's advice about starting "easy", and if that's all you get, it's still pretty good.

 

[Blind Boy]

Hadd:

Hadd: http://www.counterpartcoaching.com/hadd.pdf

I don't think all running should be done at low heart rates and neither do the people I referred to. Lydiard says you should go all the way up to your lactate threshold and stay there for an hour each week, with two more runs of an hour each at marathon pace. The four remaining days are all bulk miles at an easy pace though.

 

[Matt]

Blind Boy wrote:Hadd:

Hadd: http://www.counterpartcoaching.com/hadd.pdfI don't think all running should be done at low heart rates and neither do the people I referred to. Lydiard says you should go all the way up to your lactate threshold and stay there for an hour each week, with two more runs of an hour each at marathon pace. The four remaining days are all bulk miles at an easy pace though.

Thanks BB. I'm going to check that out. While I was Googling, I found the following article, which talks about finding the "joy" of running and talks about how too slow can be just as bad as too fast. http://fitnessintuition.com/2009/05/29/how-to-increase-your-mileage-pleasantly/

 

[Phil Maffetone]

Hi there,actually, I never

Hi there,

actually, I never suggested people always train with a low heart rate. There's a time for building a great aerobic base, where you teach your body to burn more fat, get faster at the same heart rate, and improve overall health. Then there's a time to train anaerobically (at higher heart rates). If you're barefoot too, it's a recipe for greatness!

Phil Maffetone

 

[Phil Maffetone]

For those who read the book,

For those who read the book, McDougall's story about Caballo Blanco's advice (starting "easy" and going from there) could not have been told better. Thanks for the reference.

Phil Maffetone

 

[Shacky]

Dang, we get all sorts of

Dang, we get all sorts of celebrities popping up around here don't we? (Hi Phil!)

I have Maffetone's book and think it's pretty sound. I keep starting it up but then have to bail on it for one reason or another. I have made some progress even in the short periods I followed it and someday would love to follow through with the whole basebuilding process. Kinda hard to do if you are doing hilly trail runs all the time though.

 

[Matt]

Phil Maffetone wrote:For

For those who read the book, McDougall's story about Caballo Blanco's advice (starting "easy" and going from there) could not have been told better. Thanks for the reference.Phil Maffetone

I haven't read any of your books, but came across your technique on the Yahoo barefoot running forum a few years ago. When I read the part about Caballo Blanco's advice, I thought about your method (or at least my fuzzy idea of what your method is).

I think this is kind of like the issue of overstriding. Barefoot running encourages, short, strides, but also can help us to go slower and not "over stride" in the cardio-vascular sense. I like the Zen-ness of going easy to go fast.

 

[Barefoot TJ]

Welcome, Dr. Phil! 

Welcome, Dr. Phil! ;-)

 

[Phil Maffetone]

Matt wrote:I think this is

I think this is kind of like the issue of overstriding. Barefoot running encourages, short, strides, but also can help us to go slower and not "over stride" in the cardio-vascular sense. I like the Zen-ness of going easy to go fast.

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Good points (and I like the notion of Zen-ness). I’m just writing an article about some of these issues. Too long or too short a stride is unnatural, and both mechanically and metabolically stressful. In between is the ideal stride length range for your body--your own personal gait. Being barefoot encourages the rest of the body to immediately get into the best running gait, then maintains it. If you wear a heart monitor, you’ll see that over-, and under-striding both raise the heart rate (and make you “feel” that something isn’t right). Finding your most relaxed gait will also produce the lowest heart rate, all while maintaining the same pace.

This discussion often leads to the issue of tempo. Humans move in an incredibly similar fashion regarding tempo. All our runs are “tempo” runs, at about 180 steps per minute (usually within a range of 170-190 steps). We also all walk at a basic pace of about 120 steps per minute. (The exception is on a treadmill, which poses a particular stress due to its unnatural circumstance--the brain senses the body movement but the body remains in one place. In this case there’s a much wider variation in tempo.)

To run faster, runners only slightly increase their stride length, with only a minimal increase in stride frequency. But these changes are within the limits of your optimal gait.

Phil

PS Well, I tried editing out the computer jibberish above. Now I know there's a bug here somewhere.

 

[Blind Boy]

Well, that should teach me to

Well, that should teach me to shut up about things I don't know anything about. Welcome, Phil! I've actually thought of buying your new book, the "big" one, and after this I'll pretty much have to, no?