Day 21 - Heel bruise

There is a bruise of sorts on my heel. It is about the size and shape of a strawberry and a pale grey in colour. It hurts when I walk on it, so I'm still limping when I think no-one is looking. I've got a theory that I will still be able to run on it, on the softer surface, and that it is likely only to hurt when I'm walking. I'll try this out tomorrow.

Day 20 - Stone. Ouch. Hurts.

Today I experienced an important rite of passage for a barefoot runner. I stepped on a stone. And it hurt.

I was running into the playing field off Main Street in the village as the track descended beneath a few trees, and my left heel homed in on a stone on the path. Perhaps I wasn't looking carefully. Maybe it was because I entered a shady patch after coming out of bright sunlight and didn't have time to adjust my eyes. Or it could have been the dappled sunlight across the path that made it difficult to make out the terrain. Whatever it was, I found the stone and let out the quietest yelp.

There was a time last year when I was bitten by a dog will running along a canal path. It hurt a bit but I was a good 50 metres down the path before I'd really taken in what had happened and looked back to see a rather embarrassed looking owner. So I just carried on and grumbled occasionally. This was similarly in that I felt the pain but carried on running while I decided what to do, by which time I was onto the grass and into my run.

I'd read plenty about people bruising the sole of their feet in barefoot running and getting on with the run anyway, so I didn't think of stopping. I'd read about one guy running the marathon who decided not to use his barefoot shoes - not for reasons of support or muscle fatigue but because he didn't want to stand on a stone in the first mile and have to carry that for 25 more. It seems that it's par for the course for barefoot runners and you jus live with it. I found that with my landing being mid to forefoot on the grassy surface, the pain wasn't particularly exacerbated by any more landings. I was just aware of it nagging away, so I pressed on with my 2 mile run.

It was somewhat more sore once I stopped running and walked back up the hill home. Now I was definitely heel striking and feeling it with every step. I adopted what I considered to be the most subtle limp I could manage (I was a bit embarrassed about appearing injured when all I'd done was trodden on a stone) until I'd made it through the door. Inspection revealed nothing - it will interesting to see if I have a bruise tomorrow and how much it actually hurts. These things often take 24 hours or so to really kick in.

Day 19 - I keep forgetting my exercises

The last couple of runs have gone quite well, with very little calf soreness. So I've not been thinking much about my legs on the rest days. I think should probably be stretching and massaging regularly - golf balls, foam rollers, you name it - but I just keep forgetting. It's much easier to remember when you've got a nagging reminder in your legs.

Day 18 - Running naked in circles

A shoe's eye view of my running field. This could make for a very interesting set of photographs.

Running naked in circles. Of course, in running parlance, "naked" means without a watch or Garmin (which I admit is somewhat less exciting than this blog title may have implied). Circles are still circles.

Rhiannon and I share a Garmin watch, a Christmas present from my mum 18 months ago. A couple of months after we got it we both picked up injuries and, where I managed to come back after a further two months, Rhiannon seemed to move from one problem to another. So it's taken her a good year or so to find her way back to doing some running. During that time the Garmin has been mine. All mine. I'm a bit stat-obsessed so I time everything. And I come home and analyse my mile-splits and track the elevation and all the other wonderful things the Garmin allows you to do. I love it.

But now Rhiannon has started running pain-free again. This is of course excellent news, but it does mean I can no longer claim sole rights to the cherished watch. So today when, in tandem with her work colleague, she ran 6 miles home from work - not bad at all for someone who is only just coming back - it seemed only right and proper to offer her our Garmin. Which left me with the prospect of running naked. Garminless. No digital readout tracking my progress. No bleeps to tell me I'd covered another mile. Nothing but my own natural perception to tell me how I was doing. No clothes on.

Still, it needn't be a problem, I thought. I know that the field in the village has a handy circumference of quarter of a mile. So I can jog down there, do the appropriate number of laps in my barefoot shoes, and then jog home. Easy. It should have been. But I discovered today that I can't count laps of a field. I was only ever really trying to do 2 or 3 at a time, but I really could not keep track of even that. I had Marathon Talk playing on my iPod and I was swatting gnats all the way round. Maybe that accounts for it. And I had U2's One playing virtually in my brain as my tempo music (I've found I can keep up my cadence tempo by singing to myself now which is handy). Perhaps I was lost in that. Whatever it was, every time I reached the end of a lap I tried to think back over what I'd just run and I couldn't find it. All the memories looked the same. With nothing to distinguish them I couldn't count the laps.

So I may have run 1.5 miles today. Or 2.25. Possibly somewhere in between. On reflection I have to say that running naked is okay, and circles are fine, but put them together and I am thoroughly confused.

Day 17 - Podiatrists on elites switching to barefoot shoes

My cousin, Emma, is a podiatrist, a foot expert. And she's about to complete her first half marathon in Tewksbury. So she's been following my blog with a certain amount of interest, and pointed me to an article in Podiatry Today. As you can no doubt imagine, I'm not a frequent reader of this foot-based periodical, but on this occasion it's right up my street. They've brought together a panel of podiatry experts and asked them about their experience of patients who are keen on barefoot/minimalist running.

It's noticeable that none of them is a particular advocate of the craze. They don't dismiss it, but tend to give “it depends” type answers when asked how they respond to patients who are interested in giving it a go. Most talk about assessing the current fitness/strength/flexibility etc of the patient, and they generally deem it unsuitable for a beginner-runner

It gets most interesting when they are asked whether any of their elite running patients have ever switched to barefoot or minimalist running. I've often noted that elite runners don't run barefoot (with a nod to Zola of course, though even she ended up shod), and you certainly never see them in a pair of FiveFingers. But I've often supposed that elite runners don't need these minimalist shoes. For whatever reason, they already run in a fast, efficient style, regardless of what is on their feet. But it's interesting to hear whether any have tried. Here's a little digest of what the doctors had to say.

Dr Richie. One veteran ironman triathlete made the switch, trying to find more speed. He'd apparently been injury free for 4 years but within 3 months of changing had developed a stress fracture. Two others have switched and had no problems, but they mix barefoot and shod running.

Dr Johncock. Only one, who made a total switch to Vibrams. He ended up with a metatarsal fracture. A number of other patients use barefoot running in their training, but it accounts for less than 10% of their mileage. He has noticed more elite runners moving to lighter less supportive shoes.

Dr Romansky. Many have switched, but few use minimalist shoes exclusively. He says they alternate between a barefoot shoe and a zero-drop shoe. I think this might depend a little on where you draw the line between barefoot and minamlist.

Dr Kirby makes the point that all his elite patients were already running in minimalist shoes – racing flats that is. So it's not really such a new idea. In fact he finds it a bit laughable that anyone thinks it is. He makes the point that there are no current world records held by barefoot runners. But, as I said above, I'm not sure world record holders need barefoot shoes.

Neither Dr Sanders nor Dr Blake has had an elite runner make the switch. And Dr Johncock talks from a runners point of view (his own) about noticing more ultra-runners in barefoot shoes. He seems particularly pleased that none of them have beaten him in anything over a marathon. Interestingly, he says that did try make the transition himself, in a six-month experiment. But he ended up with an achilles injury. However, does say that he has ended up wearing lighter shoes as a result so clearly his style or preference has changed in someway

I'm not particularly surprised that they haven't really had elite runners make the switch to barefoot. When you consider that elite runners, with a natural flair for running, will tend to have a better basic form it seems less necessary for them to do something so dramatic. Also, distance runners are putting in 100 miles and more a week. The vast majority of keen amateurs will do a third of that or less, and I would think that allows the luxury of removing the cushioning and enjoying the barefoot experience. Elites are far more likely to run into problems putting in all those miles without at least some cushioning.

Fortunately for me I am unlikely to become an elite runner, so I can probably continue with my experiment for now. If I find myself getting too fast I will of course review that.

Day 16 - Vince and his running shop

Today I called in to Loughborough's newest running shop. Vince Wilson, the proprietor, had been leaving messages on the Barrow Runner's Facebook page over the last few weeks and generally interacting with people in a fairly friendly way. However, the name of the shop - Sportswear Deals - didn't really fill me with confidence that it was an actual running shop. I thought maybe it would be a mini Sports Direct that happened to have some running shoes and was being cleverly marketed by Vince. But it was in my town, so I was certainly going to have a look.

When I arrived through the shop door my first impressions both confirmed my suspicions and pleasantly surprised me. It did have that slight pop-up shop look, with a reasonable but still fairly small selection of 'last-year's' stock. But it was also a running shop, no doubt about it. As if to prove the point, there was a widescreen TV above the counter showing reruns of classic races (Coe and Ovett while I was there). It seems clear that the business model is to sell bargains - last year's models, end of lines etc - but genuinely within the field of running. And the reason for that is Vince. He's an actual runner. We got chatting about barefoot running, and then running in general and it was hard to stop him talking. Phrases like 'when I was training with Crammy' were slipped in liberally, or 'when I was in Kenya and Mo was running along the street'.

It was a thoroughly entertaining 45 minutes and by the end of it I couldn't quite tell whether I'd just met a brilliant salesman with the gift of the gab or a genuine elite runner with a passion for the sport.  I now can see he's both. Even if he knew nothing about what he was selling he'd talk you into it, he's just got that character. But he does know what he's talking about. By the end of our chat he'd introduced me to a new training session (the OBLA, or something like that) that he recommended I include rather than just relying on tempo runs. I'll try to explain that one some time. I did of course have to look him up when I got home - 3:42 PB for 1500m. Not bad.

Back to Barefoot
Unfortunately, I'm not quite at the stage for OBLA runs, or tempo runs, or sub 4-min 1500m runs, so I limited myself to 1.7 miles today. Most of it was on grass - I found a field in the village with a circumference of bang on 400m so I was able to do laps of that in my barefoot shoes. Again, I tried to be quite natural and let my feet land how they wanted to. This meant that I felt pretty comfortable by the end. I think, next time, I will run on grass again but shift forward on my feet a little and see how I respond. There's a club session in a couple of days that I can join in with on the grass track,  so I'm looking forward to that. Though I am expecting to find the edge has come off my speed work a little over the last few weeks.

Day 15 - It seems to be working

So yesterday I tried to relax in my running. I tried to let my foot fall how it wanted to, rather than force myself onto my forefoot. The result was a more mid-foot landing and... painless calves the next day!

This is good, but I am also concerned to see that I develop style intentionally, so I think I will have to balance this somewhat. But it means I'll be onto another run tomorrow which is good. There's a field in the village that might make a good surface to try out going a bit longer.