Two years and two/four months of barefoot running for me!

Two years and two four months of barefoot running for me!
By Barefoot Walker


Since I last posted, I have participated in a number of races. The longest ones were a 10K in Earlham on 10/20/2012 (and to which town I biked to pay the entry fee in person!) and reached my goal of 10K in under an hour, and the Sycamore 8 on 12/01, which was around 13K. I also did a forest/field race called the Run the Woods in November, for which the food at the end was beef stew.

When winter came, though, I cut back a lot. I just found it impossible to get motivated on those cold days, and so remained indoors most of the time. (I have yet to find an indoor track that allows bare feet).

My race times this year reflected that; they are considerably longer.

One different event I did this one was the RaceFight for Air Climb™ put on by the ALA. That was a 66-story stair climb in three buildings downtown. I was the only barefoot one.

I also ran the Grand Blue Mile, and while I finished poorly (I never learned the pace for a mile race.), I did get a television interview because I had my feet painted blue and the event was held in freezing temps!

Repeats this year were the AIDS 5K, the Bishop FIT (which was moved into the sky walk as it was raining then), the Optimists, and the Flapjack (which I did not write up last year but did well in my AG; that was a hellacious day which saw me bike to it, run the race, eat the pancakes and sausage, bike to church, get a ride to a chess tournament, win that, get a ride back, and bike home!). I unfortunately missed the Bare to Breakers as I tried to drive more than my body would allow, so have that planned for next year (05/18).

I will run the D. M. Marathon 5K (and this time will get the tag to work!) in two weeks, and the Race for the Cure™ in three. (I might enter the Run the Woods again also.)

Just one point of curiosity: Are there any new barefoot runners in the area?

****

Now it has been two years and four months!

I should add that I did the two listed before, and another on November 02 called the Red Kettle Run which benefited our local Salvation Army and for which entry was $10 or five personal items and I gave five bars of soap. For this I tried to paint red kettles on my feet but the result was a flop.

The unusual thing about the last one was that the course, a bike/walking trail around a lake, was gravel for about ¾ of its length! That of course caused more eyebrows to go up when my bare feet raced by! I came in around a half hour for that too.

The Komen® race went well; I had trained extensively therefor though not as much as I did for the D. M. Marathon 5K. For the former, I painted my feet pink to match the theme color; for the latter, they were bright blue, and this time I bought body paint instead of house paint! I bought some pink body paint too, but it disappeared just before race day so I used nail polish. My training paid off though as I came in under a half hour on a fairly hilly course, and the end goes up a significant hill and saw me breeze by many who had to slow to walk! The D. M. Marathon one was good though they sent us 400m too far and my time suffered some because of that. Pictures of both events follow.

In November, I embarked on a new challenge on Dailymile to bike 400 miles or 644k. I completed it on the last day with a massive ride that took me through six counties and about 173k.

Nothing much since as it has been too snowy to bike anywhere, and running in it is not easy either.


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[FONT=arial][B]Barefoot [I]Walker[/I] is now a [I]runner[/I] too![/B][/FONT][B][FONT=Helvetica]☻[/FONT][/B] [FONT=arial]As of 07/31/2011, I started running as well, and now make about a half hour per day.[/FONT] [FONT=arial]I participated in my...
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Congrats Barefoot Walker, if I haven't said it before I think we started running barefoot at the same time!

What area are you from? Sorry I can't tell how to look it up.
Just click on a persons avatar. If they have entered their location, it will show up underneath their name on the pop-up. And BTW, like the Hobbit avatar!
 
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Congrats Barefoot Walker, if I haven't said it before I think we started running barefoot at the same time!


Just click on a persons avatar. If they have entered their location, it will show up underneath their name on the pop-up. And BTW, like the Hobbit avatar!

Thanks but technically I stole it from elsewhere on the internet (reddit.com/r/barefoot to be exact)

Edit: Oh and thanks for explaining how to see where people are from.