Pain is Weakness Leaving the Body -U.S. Marines

I guess this means that I've got a lot of weakness. I have officially deferred my entry for the Austin Marathon to 2011. The pain after my weekend run in Houston was too much. At mile two my legs began to lock up. I soaked in an ice bath and still the pain was present. I'm bummed about it because this is the second year in a row that I've had to drop out after six months of training. I'm going to give it a rest and start training like the Tarahumara tribe of Chiapas, Mexico. That's right, I'm going barefoot.

This officially means that the Marathon brew will be called, "Oh My Achin' Feet Wheat." Congratulations Coby, I will deliver your beer as soon as you finish the marathon.

PB and new shoes

Yeehaw!
I've trained for two weeks barefoot. The transition was rough. My calves have never ached this much in my life. For a week straight, I walked like Frankenstein. It's like I'm learning to run all over again. I have to mentally tell myself to make contact with the ball of my feet and not my heel. It's weird. This past weekend I purchased some new Brooks to help me transition to a lighter shoe. This advertisement should say, "objects on website may be brighter than they appear," because they are just about the ugliest things in the world. The good news is that they don't hurt my feet and that's what is important. I didn't know if I would be able to run our time trial this week, but I did. In fact, I kicked some butt in my new kicks. I had another PB. I did the 2-mile run in 16.15.

Barefoot Running

These are my new running shoes. I'm training barefoot for the next four to five weeks. This is an attempt to learn to run lighter, to help heal my Plantar Faciitis and to transition to a lighter shoe. This morning I ran six miles barefoot and it was real eye opener. I learned to run quieter and I worked muscles that I didn't know that I had. Check out Geezer's video of us running in the dense fog.