A Passion for Running

Some people will probably be happy about that!

Anyhoo, I ran 6km with soon to be married Aaron dude yesterday and another 7 in the hot hot heat today. Took lots of walk breaks. Blah!

Over Roger…

I’m doing better than expected on my goal to run every week day. Today was supposed to be a short one (3 to 4k) but Nick joined me at the last minute and there’s never enough time to solve the world’s problems in 4k so we did eight again.

Midway through the run, we heard someone yell Nick’s name and a fellow named Roy joined us. Next thing you know he was taking us off the paved path and into the dirt, pebbly-gravel trails. I haven’t run on a trail like that since last summer plus it was another first for doing it pose style. I was a bit worried too since it was also a bit wet, slick and muddy not to mention being quite undulating.

I thought it was going to be a real challenge for me but it turned out to be very very enjoyable. Running in pose form rocks on the trails. Wahoo!

In the last two kilometers, Roy was toying with us by doing some surges. I managed to keep up but it was tough to do so. It was only after the run when Nick told me Roy recently ran a 2:50 marathon so – how do I say this? He’s just a smidge faster than me.

Anyway, the push into the trails and the speedplay turned out to be just what I needed plus it was great fun!

Six kilometers today. Three in the h-streets and three barefoot. I was a bit concerned about the blisters I acquired last time tearing apart but it wasn’t too bad – they actually held up pretty good. However, I still think I should have listened to Aaron and tore the blister skin out so the stuff underneath could have started hardening because something tells me they are going to tear way more next time. What would you have done? Leave ‘em or tear that old white blistery skin off?

Nice discussion huh?

Anyhoo, it looks like three to four kilometers seems to be my comfortable limit for running barefoot on our old asphalt paved paths. Incidentally, there is a big difference between new and old paved paths. New paths are smooth whereas the old ones have a lot of pebbly roughness to them. My feet will require much toughening to handle longer distances on those paths.

In contrast, I love running on concrete sidewalks (who’da thunk that huh?). They are really smooth! I bet I could run a full 8k no problem on sidewalks and/or freshly paved paths. That said, my favorite surface to run barefoot in is grass. It just feels…AWESOME.
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Ever since Bill pointed out the words I bolded in one of my previous posts, I am looking at the way I write differently. For the record, the bolded words in this post are: you love that

hmmm…

At our L.A. clinic, Aaron and I watched an amazing video clip of Dr. Romanov running on the smooth icey surface of a hockey rink (Look Mah, no slipping!). The point was to show us that if you are just tapping the “ground” and letting gravity move you forward (i.e. you are not pulling/pushing with your feet), there is virtually no danger of slipping. At the clinic, someone else mentioned the h-street shoes we run in are “slippery” in the rain – a statement that seemed to contradict what Dr. R. had demonstrated.

So why am I telling you this? Well, because today was the first time I’d run in the rain in my h-streets and the verdict is in – I never slipped even once.

In other news, I was a bit more narcissistic than usual on today’s 8k run. I ran a slightly different route back to the office and it took me past a whole block of very reflective windows. It was neat to be able to run and check out my form as I ran past those windows (that is, until I ran into that lamp post…DOH!). For the most part, I was happy with what I saw. The form looked fluid and I seemed to be landing where I was supposed to be landing. There also seemed to be a straight up pull of my heel off the ground. It was nice to see but I think it is still time to do some more videotaping. Perhaps next week…hmmm.

Anyway, I hope nobody saw me checking myself out since I’m sure they would have thought I had an ego the size of Edmonton.