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!