Barefoot Half-Marathon tomorrow! Easy yesterday.

This will be short. I'm studying for the LSAT to take it next year on top of everything else--You may be wondering why am I doing a half-marathon tomorrow then, well 1. I love to run and 2. I feel an obligation to keep my body healthy.

Yesterday I went easy testing out a GPS watch I'm borrowing from Tristan, my new best friend, jk but we are friends...I don't know if we've hit "best" yet, that's a big step. So the watch works great and it's what I'm be using tomorrow. I did a loop I had mapped in my car. The car said it was about 1.1 miles and I had 1 mile exactly on the watch so it should be right on the money.

I ran for about 30 minutes yesterday and it felt good. I don't know how the half-marathon will go tomorrow. We'll see, but I think it'll be cool and I think you'll enjoy watching the video I take.

Run fearless forever and ever.

Barefoot Running: Is it safe?

I think so. Today I ran for 1 hour and 23 minutes. Next week I will run a half-marathon barefoot. I think it's like do anything hard and challenging--It's going to be painful when your first doing it and then it will get easier.

I'm not going to lie. Today I went up into a neighborhood without any sidewalks, forcing me to run on the asphalt which was old so it hurt. No blisters, just sensitive and sore feet.

I made two mistakes today and both a regret and one I'm embarrassed to share, but I'll share it anyways:

1. I ate a hefty hot-dog for lunch and it came back to bite me when I was running. I didn't feel good and the run wasn't as enjoyable as it could have been.
2. As I was running on the sidewalk 3 kids on bikes came from behind on the opposite side of the road. One yelled, "Put some shoes on!" Well, I regret to say I chose to be a little ticked by this and I turned around and yelled, "Why? Why?" The kid questioned back, "Why?" because he obviously didn't have an answer. I continued to attack him with my words, "Why should I? Tell me why? Don't you have an answer?" And they just rode off.

If I could go back I would have done things differently. I would have responded in a funny way instead of a mean way. I would have tried to respond more in a way that I could be friends with that kid instead of enemies. He probably hates me because I made him look dumb. If you're out there kid, I'm sorry.

Run fearless.

8 Miles (1 hour 10 minutes) Barefoot on Cement and Asphalt

Yesterday I ran 3.4 miles from my house to the end of Timpview Drive, then 3.4 miles back where I dropped the baby off at home and finished up with a 1.1 mile loop. So I kind of lied in the title when I said 8 miles because technically it was 7.9, but at least I confessed and it's out there in the open.

As far as my feet went it was wonderful. Not bad throughout the run and not bad afterward either. I was pleasantly surprised at how GOOD it felt.

I did however get sore from the run itself--in my legs; calves, groin etc. But it was cool.

It rained lightly and I started worrying that my son would get wet and sick etc. but it was just a light couple drops, quite pleasant actually. Tomorrow I'm going 1 hour 20 minutes. At least that's the plan and that's how I run fearless...at this point in my life.

My First Huarache Adventure

Okay, so my posts are a day later than the actual day. All this happened yesterday, Monday, and I'll tell you about today tomorrow! This one goes out to you Mr. Stock!

The sandals that I'm wearing are made out of two things: rubber and rope. After my barefoot half-marathon (Thursday of next week, at least that's the plan) I'll start running in those bad boys. I'll also experiment with other styles.

My buddy Brant, who lives in Portland, made them for me and then mailed them to me. Thank you!!!

This is how I will be running fearless in the near future. Run it and run fearless!

Running Barefoot on Cement and Asphalt: 60 minutes with Tristan

There was a pretty big article in the paper today about barefoot running. Pretty cool. I think it was in the Daily Herald. Saturday my goal was to run 60 minutes barefoot on cement and asphalt. I did it.

For those of you who haven’t been reading my previous posts this is why I’m doing this. About a year and four months ago ish, there was a book that came out, Born to Run, that challenged traditional shoe-wearing running. I was given this book by a friend and started running barefoot at parks and on grass. I got a lot of remarks that I was crazy or that it was all good unless I wanted to run on cement and asphalt; if I wanted to do that then it would be impossible.

I distinctly remember a comment on Facebook where a friend of a friend wrote that he “highly doubted anyone could do high-mileage barefoot on the hard stuff”. So this year, about a month ago, when running wasn’t going how I had planned I decided that since I didn’t have anything to lose I would test that out.

Just like new runners have to build up to long distances when they first start running, that’s how it is with barefoot running and this was kind of the approach I used. I started running 3 times a week. Day 1 was 5 minutes, Day 2 10, Day 3 15 and so on until this past Saturday I did 60 minutes barefoot around town here in Provo, UT with a buddy named Tristan. (If you know Provo from the Creamery on 9th, down to Center Street, over to 500 West, up to Bulldog, over to Canyon, over to University Parkway, up that to 9th, back down and a little extra at Kiwanis Park) Thank you Tristan for running with me. I’ve definitely had blood blisters, regular-type blisters, sore feet etc. but I love it! It feels liberating and enjoyable. I’m not running as fast as I would normallly run, but that’s okay with me. I'm taking it nice and easy, sometimes hard when I get ambitious.

I'm planning on running a half-marathon down the Provo River Trail. You can join me and you don't have to run barefoot. Does anyone have a GPS watch I can borrow? That's how I'm running fearless nowadays: Using body as an experiment for science. Run fearless!