My Aching Achilles

I've managed to get in three real runs now and they felt pretty good. On each of them I started getting a hot spot on the outside edge of the ball of my left foot but no other issues at all. On Monday I ran one mile BF then later that evening played a two hour long softball game that pushed me to my limit. The great news is that by not using my orthotics in my cleats I didn't experience any of the "normal" pain that I used to while playing! The bad news is that I strained my Achilles tendon in my right leg. I didn't know it at the time but I woke on Tuesday morning STIFF. I took the last two days off, trying to stretch things back out and I think I'm going to be ready to get back to a little run tomorrow.

Why Am I Running Barefoot?

In the last three weeks following my decision to bare my feet I've had a lot of people ask me "Why aren't you wearing shoes anymore?" and "What's with the barefoot thing?” In as few words as possible I try to explain to them my reasoning while not sounding completely crazy… and I'm pretty sure I fail at the latter part. Honestly, that's fine with me! Let me explain why...

Slowly Progressing

It's been another week and things are progressing nicely, I can feel steady improvement in my evolving pancakes. I didn't touch the orthotics this week and went barefoot as much as possible, only wearing my invisible shoes when I had to have something on. The upside? I experienced little-to-no ankle pain this week like I did when wearing orthotics. One difference though is that my ankles, feet and calves do get tired faster when I'm standing around, I'm sure that this will slowly get better as my muscles strengthen. Usually in the mornings I experience soreness across the top of my foot and a little in the calves but it only sticks around for about 30 minutes.

Tonight we had another softball game and just like last week, my feet feel the best they ever have after that kind of physical activity. One cool thing I noticed tonight when I took my cleats off was that my socks weren't dirty over the whole bottom of my foot (from dust getting in my shoes). Only on the balls of my feet, around the outside edges and my heels were brown, imagine a normal wet footprint... In the past the entire bottom of my foot would be brown because they were so flat. That's pretty exciting for me since I'm only two weeks into the barefoot thing! It seems that I might actually be beginning to form arches! Even if my feet don't change any more than they have in two weeks I can't ever imagine going back to orthotics and motion control shoes. Sure I can stand around longer in them but I'd much rather play and have fun with no painful aftermath...

Oh, I also wanted to note that I did throw on a pair of Converse Chuck Taylor's to ride my motorcycle and had to walk in them for about an hour. My little pinky toe has never been so vocal!!! It didn't take long to rub a layer of skin off the outside of that poor little guy. Now I'm starting to see why some of the barefoot runners refer to shoes as foot coffins. ;)

Old Sidewalks = 5 Grit Sandpaper!

Today I decided to take a one mile walk downtown to get some lunch from The Hotdog Cart and decided that it would be a good idea to try it barefoot. Everything was going pretty good for the first 1/2 mile. At that point my old baby-blister decided that it wanted to open back up and my feet started to feel like I had been walking on 5 grit sandpaper; literally! I think if you got down and counted a square inch of the old sidewalks around here you would probably count 5 rocks... I'm very happy to report that I didn't form any new blisters today but I think I got about as close as possible, my feet are slowly getting tougher. As long as I remember I've had a callus on the bottom outside edge of each foot (right where they bulge out on the inside of my ankles), this is from my orthotics rubbing on my flat feet day after day.  An interesting thing is that those callus' are starting to soften from that part of my foot not touching anything now. Not that it really matters that much but it does seem that my feet are slowly starting to transition toward the normal side. Not that I ever expect to be normal... ;)

Today, after having a couple down days sitting around studying, my calves were pretty-much completely pain free. That was, until I went walking! After my walk my calves were SHOT! I think going barefoot is going to make them explode! (In a good way...) But, I am expecting my legs to look like I've got bricks stuffed under my skin by the end of the summer... Not having shoes on really makes me walk differently and step onto the ball of my foot rather than heel.  I'm interested to see how I feel tomorrow.

My major take-a-way today was: Throw my Huarache Sandals in my pocket if I'm going to do anything barefoot for an extended period away from home...

First Update

I'm about three days into my journey of trying to get used to walking around barefoot vs. using shoes or sandals and I'm finding that it's crazy how much different shoes make you walk! When I'm barefoot I can walk more on the balls of my feet rather than "heel striking" with each step which I'm virtually forced to do in shoes. I've found that when I roll heel to toe it's very difficult to keep my ankles from rolling in and my feet flattening out, but when I weight the ball of my foot first it causes me to weight the outside of my foot as my heel comes down keeping my ankle from rolling. I'm also shocked at how little my ankles hurt. Spending this much time barefoot in the past would have caused me some serious ankle aches but I'm hardly experiencing any of that; what I am experiencing is muscle soreness... I never knew that there are muscles on the top of your feet! Also my calves are pretty sore from the extra weight on the balls of my feet.

That leads me to another finding. I have knees that hyper-extend and when I'm just standing around I usually have them locked back. I've found that when I do this it cases me to roll my ankles in and stand completely flatfooted. By ever-so-slightly bending my knees and putting a little weight on the balls of my feet I naturally shift weight to the outside edges of my feet keeping my ankles in line. This definitely has to be an intentional change in posture and one that I keep having to remind myself of but I think that if I can keep it up I will spend a lot less time flatfooted...

A lot of the research that has been done on running barefoot and the idea to try returning to that comes from studying the Tarahumara people, a native tribe from Northern Mexico that are known for running barefoot or with huarache sandals for up to 120 miles nonstop. There's a book written specifically about them that I would like to read called Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen.

Until next time!  -Ty