The Quest for Badassery

It has been way too long since I have posted in this blog.

So, here is what happened. After the horribly hot run that happened in the post titled "Scorcher" and then the second horribly hot run where I didn't run as far as I wanted to in the post ironically titled "Fitness works!", I kind of... crapped out with running. I had three factors contributing to this. The first (as you may have guessed from the descriptors "horribly hot" up there) was the fact that I am a baby, and running outside in 90+º temperatures with insane humidity is not really my cup of tea. The second, and most relevant to this blog, was that I was frustrated with my lack of progress with my foot. I suppose it isn't really fair to feel that because my foot wasn't "solved" after only two months of running, the running must not be helping... but I was frustrated by walking through the city on a nice day or standing in my kitchen to cook or socialize with friends and still being crippled for over a day afterwards. This issue is something to be discussed at a later date, because I am concerned that my foot problem is getting better instead of worse, but perhaps the Injinji's I bought to wear with my Vibrams in dry cooler temperatures will prolong the length of time that I can wear them.

The third reason I crapped out with running was that I started doing strength training instead. J and I did a body weight circuit for a little less than two weeks, before switching over to a strength training routine. One group of exercises were pushups, body weight squats, and plank. The second group of exercises were some kind of leading-up-to-pullup exercise (dumbbell rows, inverted body weight rows, or negatives), bodyweight lunges, and plank. For about a month, I did this exercise routine three days a week, fairly religiously. I made some pretty good progress:

Workout	Before	After
Pushups	0/0/0	5/3/0
Modified pushups	17/13/4	19/11/10
Bodyweight squat	40/23/18	45/28/21
Lunges	40/24/20	50/30/28
Negatives	5/3/3	7/4/1
Plank	1:13/0:41	2:11/1:01

Then, we renovated our kitchen in August and I crapped out on strength training too. (In my defense, ripping up an old sheet vinyl floor and being on your hands and knees for an entire week 8 hours a day relaying a vinyl tile floor is fricking exhausting... it took me over a week to recover). And then school started again, I was overloaded with nonsense, and I haven't worked out regularly since. Sigh.

The good news in all of this, is that J and I have a new heightened sense of enthusiasm for exercise. I have taken up a new hobby: flying trapeze. I absolutely love it; in fact, I had the best class I've ever had tonight, since the first class. I'm getting better and better at it. I love it because I have never had a physical hobby like this before, and surprise surprise, it makes me want to work out ALL THE TIME so I can get better and stronger. My latest motto is, "I got tired of being weak and decided to be awesome instead." I want to be strong, fit, and fricking awesome at trapeze, so I have started lifting weight. WEIGHT. This is only my first week, but I am very motivated and excited. On Tuesday, I did some negatives and a set of dumbbell dead lifts with both of J's 25 lb dead lifts... and I did TEN of them. Ten 50 lb deadlifts... that means I need more weight! Haha. Then, on Thursday, I did 5/4/4/4 of 50 lb squats. My legs are still killing me, but with every hobbling step I take, my body is singing because I am pushing it to its limits and I am going to get stronger. I have remembered why I love to run, and bemoan the fact that I ever stopped, so the current plan is to run and strength train as often as my body will let me, because I love both things very much.

J has lost 30 lbs since we have started this fitness journey together,  mainly with diet alone, and now that N is home from Iraq, J has started working out three times a week with N and our buddy R. J's current goal is to get down to 10% body fat by the wedding (essentially cutting his current body fat in half). My goal? BADASSERY. That's all.

Tune in next time to find out what other kind of crazy weights I'm lifting and awesome things I do while flying through the air. (Today it was back-half whip. Almost there for back-end whip...!)

Huge step in the wrong direction.

Well, THAT was the most pathetic run I've had in months. That's what I get for not running for two weeks.

J and I have been focusing on body weight strength training lately. It's been going well. But having exhausted legs from lunges and squats combined with the brutal heat we've had lately has made me very disinclined to run. It isn't even so much the running outside that is the problem... the problem was coming home to an oven. We now have an air conditioner so I am going to try to run on my off days from strength training. I'm also going to start doing the later weeks of the C25K program because I really want to be able to run 5k by my birthday in a month. Consider the fact that the last time I ran, I almost ran 2 miles without stopping, I still think it is doable.

I also have been feeling very discouraged by my lack of progress with my foot. The running doesn't seem to have made my foot worse... but it doesn't seem to be helping. I feel like I haven't left square one, and I don't know if my foot is going to be okay for the rest of my life. If my foot bothers me this much when I am walking around with a ten pound backpack on my back, how will it be able to support me when I'm carrying a baby? Perhaps after a year of wearing Vibrams, rather than a few months, things will feel different but I'm just not sure.

So, let's see. I ran two thirds of a mile tonight at a little under 6 minutes. Blech. Need to eat more, and run more.

Fitness works!

My latest body improvement is that I can touch my toes with my legs straight! I seriously don't remember the last time I was able to do this. My guess would be sometime during my childhood when I was taking ballet. I have always had impossibly tight hamstrings; I could never do the sit-and-reach at school and a lot of the ballet moves were just not happening for me. Fortunately my teacher wasn't terribly strict. I also developed a nasty habit of constantly sitting with my legs folded. Constantly. Whether I'm sitting in a desk with my knees folded up to my chest, or lying on a couch in the fetal position, or lying in bed with my knees half bent, my legs are never straight and I suspect that this has contributed to my hamstrings actually shortening even more. But, with all of this running and stretching after every workout, I seem to be reversing the damage! Granted, this is the bent-at-the-waist-while-standing sort of touching my toes, but small victories.

The run yesterday didn't go as well as I had hoped. We only logged in about a mile and a third before we both had to stop for different reasons. My legs hurt and J's lungs were toast. I also was aware of my foot for the first time while running. My foot was bothering me on Thursday night because I spent too much time standing when we had people over, so it's no surprise that it wasn't fully recovered yesterday when I went to run. It didn't hurt, and the sensation did work itself out, but I wasn't pleased to have any semblance of pain in my foot while I was running. We weren't too stressed, though, about not running as far as we had been. The new course that I had mapped out is all on pavement and largely in the sun, which makes it a lot less enjoyable than running through the trails in the park. I'm going to try to map out another route in the park that will take us the distance that we should be running. We will see how that goes.

The body weight circuit workout has also been going well. I did inverted dumbbell rows with twenty five pounds the last time I did it! It was certainly a struggle, and the rows are in the middle of the routine, but I did all three sets with 25 lbs. Huge, huge, huge improvement. The pull up how to guide says that when you can do the rows with 25 lbs, you are ready to move on to step 2, which is inverted body weight rows. Mwahahaha. I love improvements.

Last improvement to speak of? My arch! I have an arch in my foot now. I wish I had been taking pictures over the last two months, but I was stupid, and didn't. However, the arch is distinctly there, even when I'm standing up. Before, it just looked like there was nothing there. Hooray!

Scorcher.

Holy wowzers, it's hot outside. The temp is somewhere up near 90º and we just got back from our run. I've gotta say, it was pretty brutal. My side cramps returned early on in the run, so I pretty much ran the entire time with an ache in both of my sides. J was really struggling today; he had worked the past five nights and is working again tonight, so he was pretty wrecked physically already. We split up about .75 miles into the run; he stopped to walk and I kept on running.

I really missed having him on the run with me. Although we normally don't talk much during our run, it is reassuring to have him by my side. I wasn't sure that I was going to make it even to the same landmark that we ran to last time, but every time I really wanted to give up, I willed myself to keep going and just put one foot in front of the other. It got progressively harder and harder to breathe, though, and by the time I saw the intersection where we had stopped the last time up ahead I was gasping for breath and knew that I wouldn't make it any farther. I kept checking over my shoulder to look for J, but I figured that he had returned home rather than continue on the 3 mile loop. I walked by myself for quite a while, desperately switching sides of the street to find the shade. I surprised myself by running for two more intervals after the one long one.

It's interesting to me how my perception of distance has changed. I ran the first interval and it felt like I barely ran ten feet before I was exhausted, and I figured in my head that it probably would be around a tenth of a mile. I walked for a while longer, and when I started up again, I soon rounded a curve that put Main Street back in my view; I figured I would run to Main Street and then walk the rest of the way home, which was not far at all. Again, while I was running, I figured that the distance was slightly longer than the second interval, but not by much.

The only part that I was right about was the very last bit; the third interval was in fact slightly longer than the second interval. The distances were 0.21 miles and 0.29 miles respectively. I was rather surprised when I saw those distances on the map, only because it seemed like it was so short when I was running it. I really am improving! The other huge improvement this run was that I ran the 1.79 miles in 17:48, whereas last time I ran it in 19:16. That takes me from a 5.5 mph pace all the way up to a 6 mph pace! I was pretty excited when I saw that on my watch.

I walked proudly back to my house, but I could tell long before I got there that the door was closed and locked. My heart sank; I had assumed that J had returned to the house and would be waiting there for me to come home. He had the house key. I circled the house, even though I knew that both doors and all the windows were locked. I was ready to expire. I wanted a tall glass of ice water, a place to stretch, an ice cold shower, and a ton of protein. I wanted to tear my rotisserie chicken out of the kitchen and sit on the floor gnawing on it like a dog, I was so hungry and thirsty and hot all at the same time. Minutes ticked by. I thought about walking back and retracing the route, looking for J, but I knew I didn't have it in me. Fortunately, my land lord pulled in to the driveway and I begged him for the key. Just as he went upstairs to find the keys, I saw J walking down the street. Perfect timing.

The only thing on the aforementioned list that I didn't actually do upon entering my house was the gnawing on the chicken like a dog. I did however do an excellent stretch routine, drank a huge glass of ice water, and nearly gave myself a heart attack with a freezing cold shower. I could barely breathe, again, because the water was so cold. It felt really nice on my legs though.

I'm still not sure what is causing me to have side cramps. I thought it was the yogurt that I was eating before the runs, but a peach isn't yogurt. I'm thinking now that it's perhaps an air quality/hydration/heat issue. The last time I got side cramps was when I ran with my brother and that was a really hot day. Today was pretty hot also. We will see, I will have to investigate.

Moral of the day? Improvements are great, running in near 90º heat with ridiculous humidity is not so great.

I've finally become a woman.

I am 5' 4.5". (Seriously, every time I get measured, I am *right* in between 4" and 5".)

I weigh between 105 lbs and 107 lbs. (My weight has fluctuated between 107.6 and 105.4 in the past 24 hours.)

And yet, I somehow have 22.1% body fat, according to the body fat calipers that J and I bought two days ago.

This number in and of itself really doesn't bother me at all. Truthfully, I have always been quite a fan of the way that I look. I've got a decent figure for someone who was a twiggy bit of a thing growing up.

But in the past two days, that's changed a little bit. You measure body fat percentage with calipers by grabbing the fold of skin/fat on your stomach between your hip and belly button. And all of a sudden, I don't like that fold one bit. It isn't noticeable unless I am sitting, but I don't like it! I feel like it appeared overnight, which obviously can't be true, but I find it a little bit alarming. I have never been the least bit sensitive about my appearance, except when people used to make fun of me for being thin in high school (anorexia jokes really get old fast, in fact they are pretty much never funny). But now I want that fat to go away. I want what every woman wants... a flat, toned stomach, and no more bra bulge on my back. Sigh.

In other news, J and I did our second day of the body weight circuit. I managed to make some improvements. I lifted 25 lbs (!!!!!!) for the dumbbell rows in the first set and then switched down to 12 lbs for the second two sets. I also did the plank for 45 sec, 35 sec, and 40 sec instead of 30. I think next time we do it, I am going to kick my pushups up a notch. I know that you can't rush these things, just like with the running, but I want results!

Getting better all the time.

Originally J and I planned to go running yesterday, but we both were so wrecked from the circuit workout that we decided to take a day off. It was a good decision, because I could barely walk all day. I was pretty floored that my legs were so incredibly weak, with all the running that I have been doing, but I suppose your thighs really do get used less than you think when you barefoot run... it's the calves that do a ton of work. In lieu of exercise, I finished painting our new living room and moved all the furniture from the old living room to the new living room. I was joking with myself about how lifting and moving the television is like doing a dead lift! Only with a TV! Once everything was moved I pretty much collapsed on our couch and watched TV until J got home from work.

This morning we got up and we went running before the sun made everything too terribly hot. I mapped out a new course for us to run. Our goal is to run a 5k by the end of the summer, so J suggested that we actually start run/walking a 5k distance. I thought it was a good idea, and it's good to change things up, so I mapped out an all-street loop near our house that is a little bit more than 5k. It included the quarter mile walk to the park that we normally do as a warmup, so once we got there we started to run. The run was fairly flat for the most part, although there were a few parts that had some decent hills. There also was a fair mix of sun and shade. We made it to a street corner that marked 1.79 miles of actual running before we stopped and walked the rest of the way. I timed our running and, although I forgot to hit stop when we were finished, we were at about 19:16 for the entire run. It's about a 10:45 mile... slow, but not bad I think. I really am more focused on distance right now than time, so in that regard, I am very pleased with my progress:

Date	Initial Run	Total Run
5-31-11	0.29 miles	?
6-7-11	0.4 miles	1.04 miles
6-10-11	0.6 miles	1 mile
6-15-11	0.77 miles	1.12 miles
6-20-11	0.8 miles	1.15 miles
6-28-11	0.7 miles	1.12 miles
7-2-11	1.33 miles	1.33 miles
7-5-11	1.48 miles	1.48 miles
7-9-11	1.79 miles	1.79 miles

Basically, what everyone has told me so far is true. Once you get past your first mile, it becomes progressively easier to add on mileage. What was interesting for me today was that I have moved past my lung capacity being what slows me down. I could have kept running today; I wasn't out of breath when we stopped. J was quite out of breath, but what was bothering me were my calves. They were much more sore than they have been before. I need to make sure that I am careful, and don't overdo it with my legs now, since I've been so careful. I think once I can actually run 5k, I am going to try to improve my speed. Because after all, if I sign up for a 5k and do it, it's a race! So far today my foot doesn't hurt at all, but we will see how it feels later tonight after I start cleaning and washing dishes.

Beyond running.

Way back when, before I started running, I decided that my fitness goal for my wedding (since every bride has one!) is to have impeccable posture. At the time, I had 18 months to learn how to stand up straight without my shoulders hunching.

Exhibit A: Wearing a too-big strapless gown in my cousin's wedding.

This is an extreme case. The dress I was wearing didn't fit me properly, so my elbows were locked to my sides for the entire ceremony to hold it up. But regardless, this picture to me is the epitome of bad posture. My shoulders are hunched, my back is curved, my neck is sticking out. Bad, bad, bad. I do not want to look like a stunted flamingo on my wedding day.

I asked our friend N (the one who recommended Born To Run and In Defense of Food and really was a major catalyst for this entire life change) what I could do to improve my posture. He suggested pull ups. I scoffed and said that I could not do pull ups.

Fastforward four months. My recent running goal was to be able to run more than a mile. Now that I have achieved that, I have set my sights on other sorts of fitness. I had put my wedding fitness goal on hold for a while as I was building my running endurance, because running itself was actually improving my posture and I got a little bit sidetracked by how awesome running made me feel. I am not going to stop running, by any stretch of the imagination, but its time that I work in some other things to make my entire body strong and fit.

Like pull ups.

I find pull ups to be the epitome of badass. I find it ridiculously attractive when guys can do them, and ridiculously badass when girls can do them. Being able to lift up your entire body weight like that is pretty freaking cool. I know that it won't be easy, but that is what I've got my eyes set on. My brother flat out told me not to bother, since there are plenty of girls at the Air Force Academy who can't do a single pull up, but I know I can do it. I also like proving him wrong when it comes to my fitness. I discovered the excellent page on Nerd Fitness about how to learn how to do a pull up if you can't do any and I feel confident that eventually I will get there. I discovered last week that I can in fact do chin ups. Ridiculous! Scrawny toothpicks-for-arms me.

All that being said, today J and I started a new workout regimen. Nerd Fitness (which is one of my new favorite websites) has a detailed "Beginner Body Weight Circuit." Essentially, it consists of:
- 20 body weight squats
- 10 push ups
- 20 walking lunges
- 20 dumbbell rows
- plank
- 30 jumping jacks

Then repeat the circuit three times.

I really didn't think I would be able to do it three times, but I did. I used my six pound dive pocket for the dumbbell rows, which was not enough weight, and I did the pushups on my knees. My body was pretty wrecked afterwards, which actually felt pretty nice. J and I are trying to start a schedule of running, circuit workout, day off. Eventually we will fill the day off with something else, but for now, that body weight circuit workout is kicking our butt. Once I improve enough to be lifting 25 lb dumbbells on the rows, I'm going to start doing negatives or inverted rows. Then, someday, pull ups.

Foot fatigue.

I'm starting to worry that this experiment isn't actually helping. I feel like my foot is much more frequently on the edge of pain. For the past two nights, I've been too exhausted to help J do the dishes (though tonight I did put in a valiant effort) largely due to my foot threatening to not support me any longer. I did run yesterday, but otherwise my days have been largely sedentary. Today I went to the beach with J and his parents, and we didn't run or go to the gym like we had planned, but yet my foot still was completely fatigued by the end of the day.

The problem is that I have a newfound love for exercise and I'm very motivated to continue to get my body in shape. I want to be in shape for the rest of my life so that I can avoid injury in the future, and having my foot hold me back from that is going to be aggravating. I do not plan on stopping the experiment, largely because I have seen so much progress with my running and because I really do enjoy it very much, but I figured that writing about the pain and discomfort I've been feeling lately was necessary.

Military man.

My younger brother JH is in the Air Force. He came to visit me a few weeks ago, during the stretch of time where I didn't run for eight days because the weather was crummy. I was very disappointed in the weather because JH had bought himself a pair of Treksports while he was visiting me, and I was looking forward to the opportunity for J and I to show him how to properly run. When we were in the shoe store, he did a short run down the main aisle of the store and he was shaking the displays with each heel-stomping step. I then did the same run, to show him how lightly and easily I land when I run, but I never got the chance to really run with him because the weather was so crummy. J especially was disappointed because my brother is pretty scrawny, and J wanted to show JH that a guy much bigger than him can still land as silently as I can.

I was home with my family over the weekend celebrating the Fourth of July and when we finally arrived back at the house, I told my brother that we were definitely going to run this morning. We were ready to go at around 9am, and after helping my father briefly, we set off down my parents' street. I ran here before, a week and a half in to my experiment, and I ran for 0.6 miles without stopping and ended up running a total of 1 mile. I knew that it would be a different experience to run in the hot sun entirely on pavement, but I figured I would be in good enough shape to potentially run a mile and a half. As I mentioned the first time that I ran at my parents' house, my father walks a two mile loop every day. With the quarter mile warm up and cool down, if I managed to run the entire rest of the way, I would be running a total distance of a mile and a half.

We made it the two blocks and took off running. My brother is a chatty little fellow when he runs. Usually when J and I run, I talk fairly intermittently and he is breathing too hard to respond. My brother just likes to yak yak yak. I also made the critical error of eating a yogurt for breakfast before I ran, so I had a side cramp almost immediately. I also took note of the fact that my brother still was landing hard on his heels while he was running. Quite frankly, I don't know how he does it. It never occurred to me to even attempt landing on my heel when I run; I have never done a single stride that way and the idea of it seems completely unnatural to me. That said, he obviously had a lot more experience with running than I did and had quite a bit of training to unlearn.

We ran all the way down my parents' street and past the landmark where I had stopped running three weeks ago. Although I had a cramp in my side, I breezed right past and continued to run through the dead end circle street that my father uses as a turn-around. By this point, my brother caught on to the fact that I was slipping into a rhythmic breathing pattern and I wasn't able to carry on conversation as easily anymore. Even though he spent the past three weeks sitting on his butt and just hanging out with my family, he still is used to running at altitude in Colorado Springs, so he wasn't even winded by this point. We got back on my parents' street and kept going. I started scoping out how much farther I had to go, and trying to estimate whereabouts a mile and a third would have been so that I could tell how far I had run in the past. Once we saw the spot where we were going to finish, my brother encouraged me to sprint to the end. I told him flat out that I didn't have it in me, so we finished at the same jogging pace that we had kept up the whole time.

We walked back to my parents' house and I went inside and grabbed my video camera to video us both running. I was able to put the videos on the computer and show him in slow motion the differences in how our feet land, and since the videos of J running were still on the memory card, I showed him how perfectly J lands. Hopefully it made a difference in how he thinks about running in the Vibrams, because I still worry about him heel striking.

For myself, I am pretty freaking thrilled that I was able to run a mile and a half today and keep up with my military brother. I do wish that J had been with me, but the fact that I was able to do this today was pretty cool. I figure that as long as I keep running farther each time I go out, I will continue to improve.

A new milestone. Pun intended.

I nagged J to get out of bed this morning by reminding him that he had told me he would run with me yesterday, and we didn't ever go. I was planning on traveling home to Rhode Island to visit my family, and the train I was taking was leaving at around 2pm. I harassed him and reminded him that he promised we would go today and that we needed to go now.

As we walked to the park, J and I both felt some trepidation since the last run went so well. We both didn't want to crap out early on the run and feel like we hadn't improved. The weather was very comfortable, so we started to run. I knew in my head that I definitely could and wanted to run farther than I had last time, but as I was running down the trail I kept in my mind that if I ran all the way down the trail and back and made it to the middle of the parking lot, I would have run a mile. J and I ran side by side down the trail the entire time except where the trail was too narrow. J told me later that his goal for the day was simply to keep up with me the entire time I ran, but I had my mind set on making it to that parking lot. We made it to the fork in the trail where we started running our second interval the last time we went, and I commented out loud "If we make it to the parking lot, we will have run a mile." We were almost there; there was less than a quarter mile left to go. J nodded at me and we kept running. As we saw the opening to the end of the trail, a huge smile broke over my face, and as we sailed through the parking lot we gave each other a high five.

Then we kept running.

We ran back down the paved road through the park and grimaced at the hill in front of us. J said that it was going to be the hardest part of the day, and it was. It's not much of a hill, but it is enough to be a problem after you've run the first consecutive mile of your life. We both powered through, and continued to run back towards the entrance of the park. As we got closer and closer, I realized that we might maybe just maybe make it all the way back to the entrance. I said as much to J when we were about one curve away from the entrance. He shhed me, and we kept running.

When we finally made it to back to the entrance, we both were ecstatic and a little bit shocked. I was so impressed and pleased that J managed to keep with me the whole time. I couldn't believe that I was able to run as far as I did; the farthest I had ever run before was 0.8 miles, and this run was a grand total of one and one third miles. We did it together, encouraging each other, pacing each other. It was the most incredible feeling. We did a longer than normal cool down walk and I took a quick shower before I left for Rhode Island.

I can't believe we have come this far. On May 31, I did my first run of 0.29 miles. Today, thirty two days later, I ran 1.33 miles. In a little more than one month, I have added over a mile to the distance I can run. More specifically, J and I together have added over a mile to the distance we can run. I am so unbelievably proud of us.

More setbacks.

It is hard for me to tell if running is making my foot worse, or if my entire experiment is just not leading to any improvements.

I had a glorious run on Tuesday. My foot didn't bother me at all, and everything felt fine. On Wednesday, I went to a talk at MIT and when it was over, the weather was just so stunningly beautiful that I felt the urge to walk through my city. I walked across the Longfellow Bridge, and the sun was setting over the Charles. The skyline was lit up in the most magnificent shade of orange light, people from Community Boating were flitting across the water in sailboats and kayaks, and runners were jogging along the Esplanade enjoying the view as much as I was. I walked all the way from MIT to Park St station in the city, which is about two miles.

Yesterday, I decided that since I no longer have a monthly pass for the T and since I wanted to surprise J with some books from the BPL, I would walk to the library from BU and then get on the train at Back Bay. This also is about a two mile walk.

So in grand total, we have 1.2 miles of running and 1.1 miles of walking on Tuesday (holy crap, just realized we ran more than we walked! Awesome!), about 2 miles of walking on Wednesday, and 1.75 miles of walking on Thursday. Grand total? Whole lot of accessory navicular pain on Thursday night.

We had some friends over on Thursday night, and I was sitting pretty much all night long with an ice pack on my foot. It sucked. I felt like a jerk because I was fairly useless with helping J cook and clean and entertain our guests. I just sat in a chair with ice on my foot.

I really was hoping that running (which I now love and am loathe to stop) would somehow help, despite the fact that most people agree that all you can do for accessory navicular syndrome is be sedentary. Argh, I don't buy it! I'm going back to trying to walk with a forefoot strike, similar to how I run, since I didn't have any pain at all in the two weeks or so when I did that... we'll see how it goes.

Best Run Ever.

I am ashamed to admit that I haven't been running since my last entry eight days ago. I had planned on going last week on Thursday or Friday, because my brother was in town and he was going to go with me, mainly so I could show him how to properly run in Vibrams. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate, and for some reason I just couldn't get motivated to trail run in cold misty rainy weather.

Today, however, I harassed J into getting out of bed at a semi-decent hour. He had said yesterday that he wanted to run this morning, and since I was getting antsy about the fact that we hadn't been running in over a week, I held him to it. We decided that today would be a good test for the new bug spray that we bought. We are testing "natural" bug sprays for our outdoor wedding next summer... we want to supply something for our guests that won't be disgusting. I figured that spraying the stuff on before we go running through the woods would be a good test, since there are always mosquitos buzzing around regardless of the time of day.

We headed out and did our usual leisurely walk to the park. I was a little bit nervous, since I hadn't run in over a week, that I would have lost some of my endurance. We started to run, and I was very happy that J was able to keep up with me. The last time we ran, shortly after he was sick, his natural pace was dramatically slower than mine and I had to leave him behind very early on in the run. Today, however, we ran together and we made it to the end of the first trail (0.7 miles). By the end I was about twenty feet ahead, but I was so proud of him for running as far as he did. It was more than double the distance he had run the last two times we went out. I could have run farther, but since he was more than done, I stopped so that we could walk and recover together.

We decided to walk up a new trail today that I was told would lead to the top of a "mountain". More specifically, it is labelled on a map as Mount Such-and-such, and I was pretty skeptical about what exactly we would find. I was glad that we decided to walk, because the path was much more rigorous than any we had run on before, and not just because of the incline. There were a lot more rocks, so it would have been very difficult to run. All of the trails up the hill were connected in loops, so we just arbitrarily chose which ones we wanted until we made it to the top.

The view was magnificent. I wish that I had brought a camera and sunglasses so that I could have tolerated being up there longer. The entire Boston skyline was in perfect view. I had no idea that such a viewpoint existed, especially so close to our house. The drawback, of course, was all of the shattered glass and other garbage all over the place. Clearly, young hooligans had discovered this place long before we did, but the view was simply stunning.

We walked back down, taking a bunch of different trails on the way down. I asked J if he was planning on running again. He was hesitant, but said that I should just tell him when I was ready and that he would see how he felt. I was ready to go again once we made it back to the main trail, and told him so. He decided to give it a shot and we started off again. We ran down the hill, past the children eating freeze pops on the rugby field, through the parking lot, and all the way back down the paved road to the entrance of the park. J stayed by my side for the entire 0.5 mile run back to the park entrance. I was so excited and proud of him! We found a pace that was perfect for both of us, and we just ran.

It was really nice to having a running buddy, because we were able to motivate each other to keep on going. What they say about running being a mind game is so true. J said so himself during our walk up the hill. It really is amazing what you can push your body to do when you want to.

Our dear friend who was the catalyst for all of this running suggested that we all run a Tough Mudder together some day. I told him that if I ever build up the stamina to run 12 miles, I would totally be into it. Until then though, my goal is still to run a mile without stopping. I'm not sad that I didn't run as far on the first stretch today... I consider today to be the best run I've ever had. It was so unbelievably great to run the entire distance with J and have him feel as good afterwards as I do. We are hoping to go again on Friday... we will see what happens!

Pacing.

J and I went out for the first run since he's been sick. He had a nasty virus since a week from last Wednesday so he had been laying in bed for pretty much an entire week. I told him to take it easy since his chest and lungs still aren't completely perfect.

We started off in the usual way, but I noticed that the pace that we started off at was much slower than the pace I had been running. I know that they say that running slower can improve your endurance, but I think in this case it was past the point of efficiency for me. It's hard to know what is "right", since I've never been actually coached in running, but I could feel myself getting tired before we even hit a quarter mile, so I had to accelerate and leave J behind. I took off down the path that we normally go down, reached the end, and decided that I would try to run until I saw him again. I figured that even if he didn't start running again, I would probably be able to reach him before I got tired. I saw him sooner than I even expected, and was very pleased with myself that I was able to run that far. It wasn't much further than I had run the last time (only 0.8 miles), but it still was a slight improvement and I wasn't totally spent when I saw him either... I could have kept going if I wanted to. So that was good. We walked back down the path I had run down and then out of the woods. I ran from the edge of the parking lot all the way back to the entrance to the park, which is 0.35 miles. This is the longest I have ever run on a second interval of running, which is a pretty cool achievement. The total running amount is just slightly less than what I did last time, but the second interval I ran last time was a measly 0.12 miles or something like that. It's cool to see that I really am improving with very little "effort" on my part... I just go out and run every few days and go farther and farther. Still hoping to run a full mile within a week or so... we will see how it goes.

Back after a hiatus.

I went running today for the first time since Friday. I was ready to go yesterday, but the weather was particularly crummy. Overcast, wet, and chilly. Not interested. This morning it was still fairly cool, but in a comfortable way.

I decided that instead of altering anything about my running strategy, I was going to continue on with running as far as I could. My problem with this strategy remains the fact that it limits how far I can run afterwards. I suspect that if I ran shorter "do-able" intervals, and didn't run until I was completely spent, I would be able to be running a farther total distance. All that said, today I ran 0.77 miles without stopping today. I was pretty impressed with myself. I looked on mapmyrun to see how far 0.6 miles was on the trails, since that's how far I ran at my parents' house, and decided how far I was going to try to run today. Just like at my parents' house, though, I ran farther than I had planned.

An amazing thing I discovered today (that anyone who knows about running already knows, but which I discovered firsthand today) is that when you focus on your breathing, you can run farther. I prevented myself from gasping for breath for quite a while by just forcing myself to breathe in rhythm with my footsteps (four steps in, four steps out). I would have had to stop much sooner if I hadn't done this, but I just didn't allow myself to do it. A cool experience of mind over matter. I'm a big fan of those.

It took me a while of walking to recover from the 0.77 mile run, and when I started up again, I didn't make it very far. I walked a while further, and finished fairly strong with a 0.21 mile run to the entrance to the park before I walked home. All told today I ran 1.12 miles. I guess I'm selling myself a little short, because I did do more running today than I have before:

Date	Initial Run	Total Run
5-31-11	0.29 miles	?
6-7-11	0.4 miles	1.04 miles
6-10-11	0.6 miles	1 mile
6-15-11	0.77 miles	1.12 miles

I guess I shouldn't be complaining. That's a pretty good improvement rate I think... maybe in a week or so I'll actually be able to run a mile, oh my goodness!

One last note: at the last bit of running I did today, what was slowing me down was not my legs or my breathing. My breathing was slow and even. No, it was my sides! I had killer cramps in both sides in a particular abdominal muscle (no idea which one). It was a little bit frustrating, because my legs felt great and so did my breathing, but it hurt every single time I lifted my legs because of my sides. Hopefully that will solve itself.

New milestones. (Pun intended)

I got up this morning and looked outside and said, today is a good day for a run. The temp was in the low to mid 70s, there was a slight sea breeze coming in, it was perfect. My father does a two mile walk up and down his street every morning, so I decided to take his route since it's right about the same length that J and I have been walking in the park. I looked at mapmyrun to find a landmark to run to that was just farther than 0.4 miles, which is what I ran consecutively the last time I went with J on Tuesday. To my surprise, walking a quarter of a mile and then running all the way to the end of my parents' street along the water was 0.55 miles. I wasn't sure that I would be able to run that far, since tacking on 0.15 miles is a little bit much (seriously, I do know how pathetic that sounds) but I also figured that so much of running is mind over matter that I decided to give it a try.

I started out at a brisk walk for my quarter mile warm up. J and I both agree that the warm up and cool down is the most important part of our exercise regimen... they say that the best way to exercise your calves when they are sore from running is to walk, and walking after the run really prevents me from being in pain. It also prevents me from having a blackout like I did the very first time I tried to run.

In any case, I did my brisk walk, and then started off. I ran for a while and passed an older gentleman who was walking down the street on crutches (THAT is dedication!). He wished me good morning, and complimented me on my running style, which made me smile. I went on my merry way and did have one slightly demoralizing fakeout moment... I thought I saw the end of the street and got all excited, but it really was just a curve and the end was a little ways ahead. But! I made it! I ran the whole way and then a little further. That's what happens to me usually: when my goal is in sight, I don't just throw the rest of my energy into making the goal, my body says "Aha! We made it but we're not exhausted yet! Let's just go a liiiittle bit farther, aren't you proud of yourself?!" So! Today I ran 0.6 miles without stopping! I can now safely say that that is definitely the farthest I have ever run without stopping in my life. A little embarrassing, but I am proud of myself.

After the initial run, I did an interval of walking around a neighborhood loop. Once I finished the loop, I saw the man on crutches again and he asked me what kind of shoes I was wearing. When he saw them up close, he recognized them as being Vibrams, and he said that he didn't like Born To Run very much but he knew about the idea behind it. The funny thing is, he completely didn't believe me when I told him that I never ran before a month ago. He asked me three times how much I ran before I started with the barefoot shoes, and then he complimented me again on how light I am on my feet when I'm running. This made me very proud, because the whole point is to be light on your feet and not have a driving impact when you land, so it was cool to have a stranger point that out. Yay!

When I got back on to my parents' street, I decided to see how far I could run. Unfortunately the 0.6 mile run took a lot out of me and I didn't get very far... About 0.3 miles. I did walk again and then do a final stretch of 0.1 miles, but by then I was quite tired. It definitely is still my cardio that is holding me back, because even though my calves were in fact a little bit sore by the end, I was gasping for breath. The sports bra under the built-in shelf bra in the shirt I was wearing also didn't help... I don't think the sports bra is too tight on its own, but with this shirt, it was definitely compressing my rib cage too much. Hopefully it will be fine because I don't feel like hunting for new sports bras.

I did my cool down walk and got scolded by my father about how running is bad for your knees. This aggravates me because the man is a mechanical engineer. He swears by his chiropractor because it makes "engineering sense" to him to get his spine re-aligned, but he refuses to listen to how the mechanics of the foot make sense. I'll just have to send him the barefoot running Harvard professor's website and see what his says then. In the meantime, I am going to stretch my feet and my calves out and be quite content with how things are going for me.

I also am thinking about switching up my running plans and going to something more regimented like the Couch to 5K running plan... I don't know if running farther in the initial stretch every time I run is a good idea for improvement, or if I should be doing intervals that don't push me as hard individually but all together improve my cardio. We will see. I think I'll be ready soon to start running more frequently during the week because I'm a little frustrated at the fact that I pretty much max out after an mile of running total. I would have been hard pressed to go any farther today than I already did, and I want to be able to go farther! We'll see, research it is. Once J gets over whatever awful virus he has and we run together again, I want to do more video work so I can see if my stride has changed or improved.

Dressing up.

Yesterday, I tried on my favorite Nina heels. I'm going to a wedding next week, and I needed to be sure that the shoes were still comfortable. Here's the thing about my Nina heels. They are every bit of 4" heels but they are the most (and the only) comfortable pair of heels I have ever owned. I danced all day at my baby brother's bar mitzvah (oh my god that was six years ago) and only had to take them off because running in a circle to dance the horah was not a good choice for stilettos. In any case, I put the shoes on and walked around and my feet felt fine so hopefully they will be in good enough shape to support me next weekend.

Today, I wore my little heeled dress shoes. I dressed nicely for my oral exam that I had today and just figured that Vibrams were not exactly appropriate. To my pleasant surprise, my calves and feet did not complain at all. I know that the transition into wearing constricting heel-elevated shoes during the winter is going to be hard, but I'm a little optimistic that making my feet stronger all summer long is going to help, so long as I keep up their strength by being barefoot as often as possible in the house and continuing to run indoors.

In more related to running news, my calves have been very achy lately. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, since today marks one month into my foot experiment and I would say that my feet and legs are still transitioning. Shoot, I meant to take pictures of my feet today so that I can see if their shape actually changes month to month. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow. In any case, I have a new sub-hypothesis in this ongoing experiment. I think that part of the key of avoiding foot pain is forefoot striking when I walk. I went for about three weeks straight, concentrating on walking that way, and had no pain. Then there was the day that I walked in Converse and made my foot hurt. Ever since then, my calves have been too sore to walk with a forefoot strike, and my foot has had a dull persistent ache ever since. It has never crossed the threshold into actual pain, particularly not after I run (hint: forefoot striking), but it has been a constant ghostly reminder of what happens when I make mistakes. I'm going to continue to play around with the "right" way for me to walk and hopefully come to a consensus eventually.

Now, it's official.

Today when J and I went for our morning run, I was careful to make sure I paid attention to landmarks on the trails when I stopped and started running. My first bit of running took me quite a bit farther than I went last time; the last time I ran to the end of the paved road in the park and stopped, but this time I ran through the small parking lot and down a bit on the trail that we normally run down. Progress! I walked back a ways while I waited for J to catch up with me, and then we walked a little while before I started running again. I had made it to almost seven minutes of running by the time we finished that trail alone, which was a huge improvement over the last time. I obviously don't know if I was running the same pace, but I definitely was running much farther each time I ran, and thus had fewer total stretches of running. I only ran four times total this time, but I was running for a total of nine minutes even out of the little more than half an hour that we were out, and according to mapmyrun, I was running for 1.04 miles of the two miles that we walked and ran. It feels great to finally confirm that I ran that far, even if it wasn't consecutive. My first stretch of running was almost half of that time, too... I ran for almost four and a half minutes straight without stopping. I know that none of this really is that impressive, but I am very pleased with myself. The best part, I think, is that I was barely even tired when we left the park today. I definitely could have kept going for more than just the two miles that we walk/run. I wasn't pushing myself as hard today, either... I kept walking even when I could have been running to give myself longer times to rest. I feel like it will be sooner than I think that I will actually be able to run all the way through the park! Hooray!

On a side note, my calves have been sore for the past two days. Right now, their soreness is understandable, since I just ran, but I'm not quite sure what was making them all tense yesterday. I also got a small blister on the outside of my right foot from my KSOs yesterday. This makes me sad. But, I just covered it with a band-aid today and it was fine. I'm not sure why that seam is bothering my foot now all of a sudden, but hopefully it will stop.

Sandals?

As I may have mentioned in my first post, until last month, the most comfortable pair of shoes that I have ever owned are my Reef flip flops.

Look at that, the very first Google Images result for "Reef flip flops" are my exact pair!

Before I bought these sandals, I had never owned a pair of thong flip flops. I was a Tevas girl all the way... I had the coolest pair of Tevas with suns and moons on them and a nice cushy sole... and a perpetual horrendous Teva tan on the tops of my feet every summer. However, once I bought these Reefs, I was hooked. The fabric straps were very comfortable, even between my toes, and they were liberating. I would wear them everywhere I could; they were my warm weather footwear of choice. I even wore them to walk around Ayer's Rock in Australia, which was a nine kilometer walk, because my feet were so tired from the two hikes we had done the previous two days during which I was wearing supportive sneakers. When I went toAt this point my Reefs are pretty well molded to my feet and well loved.

The problem, of course, is that a flip flop is a thick piece of foam. As soon as I put them on, I noticed that my heel stomps into the ground when I land, and my toes claw at the rubber to keep the sandal on my foot. Sigh. Not ideal foot walking behavior. Not nearly as bad as the severe arch-walking that apparently happens to me when I'm walking in Converse, but still less than ideal. J loved his Birkenstock's before he started this endeavour, and now he can't enjoy his sandals of choice either because he finds that he walks on his arches due to the enormous arch support in those shoes.

In any case, I have been on the hunt for minimalist-style sandals. Fortunately for me, women's sandal styles right now are very predominantly minimalist! Flat, thin, flexible soles with straps that hold the foot onto the sole. Dare I say it, almost huarache-like. I have a few in mind that I like:

Reefachi

My current favorite is the Reefachi. Made by the same company as my beloved flip flops, these sandals look pretty curiously like huaraches in style. And, by gosh, their name even sounds like they are based on huaraches. I would have to try them on in person to make sure that they stay on my feet properly and have a flexible sole, but I like the look of these.

Staycation

Not quite as sassy is the Staycation, also made by Reef. I like these because the back part is adjustable, but I don't like the look of them quite as much. They also look like they have some sort of arch support, which is less than ideal.

Roxy Tuscany

Last and far from least are the Roxy Tusxany's. There is a little video of someone holding these shoes on zappos.com and it shows how flexible the sole is. It's also adjustable, which is nice. I would have to see them in person to really decide.

I can't figure out which one I want, but I am leaning towards those Reefachis. I like the look of them, and I have had a great experience with my other Reef sandals. Hopefully these will be as comfortable.

Reactions to VFFs.

The reason that I didn't wear my shoes of choice on Saturday was a little bit foolish. I was at the Special Olympics to watch my brother compete, and I didn't really feel like drawing any attention to myself, because the day was about him. In hindsight, it seems like a foolish way to feel, because what I have on my feet has absolutely nothing to do with anything, but wearing VFFs (if people notice them, which seems to inevitably happen) tends to be a conversation starter and I really only wanted to be talking about how proud I was of my brother. Of course, I paid the price and my foot was sore all night.

When I first started wearing the shoes, I was a little bit disappointed that no one noticed or commented on them right away. I was so excited and enthralled by my reasoning behind starting this experiment that I couldn't wait to share it with anyone who would listen, and when no one seemed interested, I was a little bit sad.

However, at this point, many people have commented. What I can report is that the feedback has generally been quite positive. J and I were bumming around the mall one day, waiting for his tire to get replaced, and two girls in one of the stores we were browsing through noticed the shoes and asked us all about them. One of the first things that they blurted out was, "I bet those are really comfortable!" This seems to be the most common reaction, actually. A general sense of "Wow, that is a really cool concept, I bet that feels great on your feet." This feeling has in fact influenced two of our close friends to purchase their own pairs (Bikilas and TrekSports respectively) and both seem to love them as much as we do.

Then, of course, you get the people who act like you're crazy. I wore my VFFs to the second day of the Special Olympics today because I couldn't afford to injure my foot any further. The only person who commented was the father of one of my brother's teammates. His tone was very "What the heck are those?" In fact, those may in fact have been the words that he used. My mother had given me advice the night before, when I confided in her why I didn't wear my "silly shoes", to just tell people that I have a foot problem and these help me, and leave it at that. Which is what I did when I was interrogated today. It went fairly well, but he definitely left the conversation thinking I was crazy. I don't really mind though, because today, my foot doesn't hurt.

I contemplated going on a run this evening because my roommate destroyed one of my towels (I should start a blog entirely dedicated to antics about him, seriously) and I was quite irate. However, the last time I ran because I was upset about something, I injured my calf for about a week, and since it was mosquito hour, I decided to forgo the run for today and listen to Chopin instead. I am sure I will have many opportunities in the future to use running as a catharsis, but tonight just wasn't the night.

Learning new things.

Today, I learned that while I can walk almost two miles and then walk/run a little over two miles on the same day while wearing my Vibrams, what I can't do is wear Converse while carrying a heavy backpack to go visit my parents and then walk around all day the next day also wearing Converse. My foot is bothering me more today than it has since the day I injured it.

Yesterday, I traveled on the train to visit my parents, walked the short distance to the bus station, and then walked the short distance to their house, all while carrying a heavy backpack. My foot was bothering me a little last night, but it subsided so I didn't worry about it.

I decided this morning that I wasn't going to wear my Vibrams today, because I didn't feel like drawing attention to myself. I figured that if I loosely laced my Converse in the toe box, I would be fine. I spent the day at Special Olympics Rhode Island to watch my brother compete, so I spent a fair portion of the day walking around URI's campus. I also ran/walked from the Keaney parking lot to Browning hall at one point. Really not a strenuous day by any means... I didn't have my wildly inaccurate pedometer on me or anything but it really wasn't all that much walking. I did spend some time on my feet when I got home, cleaning with my mother, but again... not all that strenuous.

Sure enough, my foot has been really bothering me for the past few hours. I'm a little aggravated about it. I haven't had any active pain for weeks now, and I wear "real" shoes for two days and suddenly I'm in agony again? I suppose it's vaguely reassuring that I seem to be doing the right thing by wearing minimalist shoes, but still aggravating (no pun intended).

Mapmyrun Discovery.

As it turns out, my pedometer continues to be wildly inaccurate. Today, J and I walked the same route that he and I ran last week and continued further on the second trail that we went down, only to find that it led right back to the paved road. Basically, we walked farther than we did the first time we went down these trails, and my pedometer counted more than a thousand steps fewer this time. This, despite the fact that the pedometer claims that my stride is the same when running as it is when walking. So silly.

However! I made an important discovery today. I had the brilliant idea of bringing my Sony GPS Geotagger with me so that it would log our route! I turned the little machine on, J tucked it in his pocket, and off we went. When we got back, I discovered to my frustration that since Sony's GPS logging uses a proprietary data type, the only program I own that can actually read the file is Aperture. I couldn't upload the file to mapmyrun no matter what I tried, so I settled with an ugly solution: I was going to stare at the GPS track in Aperture and painstakingly try to retrace it on the mapmyrun website.

Then, for some reason, I clicked the option called "OpenStreet" on the mapping view of mapmyrun. Et voilà! I magically could see where the trails were! I couldn't believe it. I don't know why I didn't think to click that option sooner, except for the fact that I just didn't know what it was. With this tool in hand, I was able to actually... map my run! I discovered that the route that J and I ran together, and that I ran by myself, is 2.18 miles and that the walk that we went on together up the hill was 1.27 miles. This is exciting knowledge, even though it still doesn't tell me exactly how far I have been running. However, I am content in my new knowledge. And the next time I go running, I am going to try to make careful note of what the shape of the trail is where I start and stop running so that I can attempt to log the distance.

Whew, my calves are sore!

I woke up this morning with distinctly sore calves. The good kind of sore, though. The kind that says "You used and stretched these muscles and now they are recovering, good job." Thankfully, absolutely zero pain from my foot! It's still rather early to tell, but I still feel very much like this experiment of mine is actually working.

Today J wanted to go for a run, since he didn't get to go with me yesterday. I felt fine enough to walk, so we went to the park. He ran almost all of the way to the parking lot on the paved road (like I did yesterday!) while I walked, and then he walked back towards me. Once he saw me, he took off running again and ran back to the beginning of the park. We walked a different route today, up by the pond, and saw some geese and ducks. We ended up going up the trail on the hill today, despite the fact that it rained this morning. It was a leisurely climb, but we ended up being at a pretty high vantage point, which was cool. We took an unconventional way down, which is to say we didn't take the wide trails... we forged our own way, sort of. It was fun.

Once we got to the bottom, we used the Kodak Playsport that I had brought with us to film me running so I can take a look at my stride and make changes. I had filmed J earlier when he was running back towards me. I wasn't up to really running today, but I certainly was okay to handle the ten seconds of footage that J took for me.

Watching yourself run in slow motion as actually pretty freaking cool. Turns out I have muscles in my toothpicks that I barely even knew existed. From looking at the frames above, I can see that I'm landing too far out in front of my body, and I'm landing squarely on my forefoot instead of the more ideal landing on the outside of the foot. Everyone's landing is different, of course, but I think that landing on the outside of the foot is more efficient because it better uses the arch. The other thing that I notice is that it looks like I push off with my toes an awful lot. I've been watching videos about Pose running as well as reading anecdotal evidence online which says that you should think about your foot being lifted before it even hits the ground, and that you should use your quads and hamstrings to lift your foot up rather than push off with your toes. I'll have to watch some more videos of people actually doing these things, but this was a good exercise for me to realize that my form isn't actually as awesome as I think that it is.

Also! I actually have a goal now. My goal is to be running enough to do the Freedom Trail Run at some point this summer! J thinks it's a little premature to be thinking about running 5k, but with all the stops in between and the longest straight running distance being only half a mile, I think that he and I will both be ready sooner than he thinks!

Potentially, my first mile.

Tragically my current methods of tracking my distance are rudimentary and inaccurate at best. My pedometer may or may not be wildly inaccurate, and the only gauge I have for how far I run is to assume that I always run at the same pace that I ran down the rugby field that day. All that said, however...

Today, I left my house at 6:24. I started walking towards the park in a mid-foot strike walking style, which has become my walking method of choice. There is debate among barefoot enthusiasts about the "correct" way to walk, but I prefer that way because to me the same principles should apply for walking... minimal impact feels better. In any case, I quickly switched to a heel strike walking style because my calves were already a little sore from walking two miles today. I was a little worried that maybe I'd be overdoing it by running (that of course remains to be seen) but I decided to see how it went.

First bit of progress: I ran all the way from the entry of the park to the end of the paved road. When I got home I realized that this is only about 1/3 of a mile (also an inaccurate measure using mapmyrun... can't exactly see the road through the trees), so not quite as impressive as I first thought, but this is good news because it means that the next time I go I can try to run farther on the first go and just add distance each time. Progress!

I ended up walk/running the same exact path that J and I went on the last time we were out, which my potentially inaccurate pedometer measured as being about two miles (including the walk to and from the house). Either way, I used my watch to time the amount of time that I ran while I was out. I logged a total of 7:22.71 of running time. Assuming that I ran at the same pace that I ran down the rugby field (which of course is a poor assumption... I tried to run at a leisurely pace on the rugby field, but today I got tired, I ran up and down hills, and I'm sure I was not at all running a consistent speed) then this works out to be...

... a total of 1.09 miles. Even assuming that this measure is too generous, I think it's safe to say that I ran pretty close to my first full mile today. I got back to the house exactly thirty minutes later, so if I did actually walk/run for two miles, that's about a fifteen minute mile. Slow, but not bad for someone who has never run before I would say! Progress!

When I got back to the house, it was the first time since the damaging run I did two days in to this experiment that my legs actually were sore. Whether this is damaging sore or good sore remains to be seen. I am mildly concerned that I overdid it with my foot, but I have been elevating and icing it for almost two hours now (and the icepack is not really all that cold anymore...) so hopefully it will be okay. We will know tomorrow for sure... but I feel so proud of myself that all I can think about is PROGRESS!

A fellow sufferer of Accessory Navicular Syndrome.

Today I met with a professor at school to discuss my upcoming oral qualifying exam and he immediately noticed my Vibrams (since I pretty much wear them everywhere). He asked me about them, and I gave him a cliffsnotes version of what the point of them is. As soon as I mentioned that I had an accessory navicular, he told me that he did also! We chatted about how I injured mine and how he discovered his. His pain was solved with orthotics and he is very happy with them. I'm still hopeful that the foot experiment will be a success... he did say that he knows that everyone is different and that even though we have the same thing wrong with our foot, what works for one person won't necessarily work for another person. But it was cool to actually meet someone who has the same issue I do.

I walked from school to the subway again today while listening to Chopin. It was a pretty glorious experience. I really wanted to run this morning, but J had a really hard time sleeping last night so he didn't wake up early enough for us to go. I am not really ready to be running myself yet. I don't know what I'm afraid of. The park is perfectly safe and the trails aren't that crazy, but I just prefer to go with my fiancé. It's more fun to have someone to talk to and someone to be with. So hopefully we will get to go tomorrow. Walking almost two miles today felt really good. I think my feet just might actually be getting stronger.

I also had an argument with one of my youngest brother's friends yesterday about the shoes. He's a track runner and a world class know it all and told me and J definitively how bad the Vibrams are for us and how the three kids on the track team who wear them are all too injured to run now despite the fact that they don't actually run in the Vibrams because they "know better". It's impossible to have a real conversation with the kid because he listens with his mouth, so I quickly gave up in trying to explain the biomechanics behind it. Even my father doesn't believe in it, despite being an engineer like me, but that's okay. When I run in the shoes, I know what I'm doing is right.

And speaking of which, I take back everything I said up there about not wanting to go alone. I'm going for a run! I'll bring my watch and my pedometer of questionable accuracy.