Days 137 to 140 - Bruise recovery

No running at all for me this week. I've decided to take a full week off to try and shift the bruise on my left foot.  Those of you who are inclined to a more sceptical view of this barefoot running business are probably secretly thinking 'I told you so...' Which would be fair. But, in my defence, I have done two things which show I am learning and adapting. And that is the secret - learning your limits, adapting as you go, perfecting your method. Here are the two things I've done.

1 I've rested rather than ploughed on regardless
One of the great temptations as a runner is to keep going when you shouldn't. The allure of improved fitness is potent, and it can persuade otherwise sensible people to ignore sharp pains in their body in their pursuit of PBs. I have no evidence for this, but I'm sure that most injuries are not so much caused by overwork, but by ignoring signs of damage as a result of that overwork. One too many runs when your body is telling you it has had enough.

By dropping my mileage down to 1.5 a week at the start of this, and steadily increasing throughout, I've had to learn to hold back. I don't like it though. I wish I'd been out all week. I wish I'd been running in the 10-mile league race on Sunday. I wish I'd done the Mad Mile at club last week where everybody seemed to set new PBs.

2 I've bought some new shoes
There clearly is a limit to what you can do in the thinnest of shoes, and I think I found it. Curiously it was connected to running faster, rather than greater mileage. What that means for future runs and races remains to be seen. But the time had definitely come to expand my arsenal of footwear weapons, and I'm very happy with my new shoes. This week I hope to try mixing and matching between the two, so that I retain some of that barefoot feel in my programme.