September 1 - Already!! - I am really enjoying using the free shoes, but the 5 fingers..man they are a hoot!! I have been going back and forth, but earlier this week, I did a three miler with the vibrams followed by about one half mile completely barefoot. It was pretty fun - even if my times suffered a little. Been reading more about barefoot running as well - I ordered "Barefoot Running" by Michael Sandler. There is some pretty good info in there as far as injury prevention, some common sense stuff for running - mixed in with some way out zen-ish bullshit - getting one with the earth - meditation stuff - how being electrically "grounded" to the earth by being barefoot allows for proper connectivity with everything - I guess the guy went into orgasm when he saw the Avatar movie...I dunno about all of that crap - but I do have to admit that it is pretty dang fun to run barefoot - even for short distances - and it is true that you better be "one" with the earth - the part that you are about to place your foot on, to be more precise.
Sept 18th...
Well, I left the trails of the state park and ventured forth into the city for the 5k Autumn run for Autism. I haven't run in this large of group in quite some time. it seems like everyone runs with headphones stuck in their ears these days...which means that they have no clue what so fucking ever about what is going on around them. This is probably ok in most situations, but not at the beginning of a 5k with 300 participants. To make it worse, the first part of the course was a narrow out an back with two way traffic. I spent the first mile dodging a herd of clueless sidestepping plodders that had zero concern for what was going on around their personal Idaho.
I can only hope that people will not feel the need to carry such flotsam on a marathon. My final time was 29:58 with a 9.40 pace. There in lies the motivation to go faster - to be able to seed my self in front of all that nonsense.
