“Wiggling Their Toes at the Shoe Giants.” An article about the current interest in barefoot running…

If you’re interested in running shoes and why the Newtons I bought are different from others, check out this video about their design technology and shoe philosophy.

Trying out the Newtons
I still feel like crap, but dammit, I wanted to try out my new shoes yesterday. So I headed out to the Domain for a very, very easy run. You’re meant to ease into forefoot running because it uses different muscles than a traditional heel strike. I did three intervals of 5 minutes running followed by 5 minutes walking, and I concentrated hard on my form. The “actuator lugs” are a little weird at first. (I was reminded of those special shoes people use to increase their vertical leap.) I tried to lean forward a bit, to increase my cadence, and to run lightly as if I was barefoot. The Newtons really do make you more aware of and connected to the ground surface. I don’t think I was using more effort than I usually do, but my speed graph shows I was going a fair bit faster than my usual plodding speed. Here’s the cheesy bit: I actually felt like I was RUNNING. Yeah, I’ve said for years that running isn’t about speed, but the truth of it is that when I’m on the road, I never feel as effortless and athletic as the people that pass me. But by avoiding heel striking, suddenly I felt like a fleet-footed Olympian… for a few seconds. I figured out pretty quickly why they said to start off easy. My lower legs got TIRED. The last of my intervals was a big drop-off from the first as I struggled to maintain proper form while my calves and ankles were aching. With every step, I could feel the force of impact being absorbed through the muscles in my bent legs rather than shooting up into my back. (My usual lower back pain? Didn’t bother me a bit.) Today I’ve got some soreness in my lower legs on up through the lower part of my thighs, but I expected that. I checked out the bottom of my Newtons and was gratified to see some wear on the actuator lugs. It looks like I was landing in the right spot! (There’s a tiny bit of wear on the outside of each heel, but I think that was probably from walking since I tend to do that in all my shoes.) I’ll probably alternate shoes/styles for the next few weeks. I wonder if I’ll be strong-enough to use forefoot running in the half-marathon? I’ve still got just over three weeks to go…

Last week started so well and then fell apart. Tuesday I had a fantastic 5km run in the Domain at lunchtime. Afterwards though, I developed a little bit of a cough. I figured it was just from pushing myself a little harder than normal, but it didn’t go away. Wednesday I did a workout at Spudds and felt okay, but when I got home that night, I suddenly realised that my throat was sore. A headache soon followed, and I ended up staying home from work Thursday. I saw my doctor that night and he told me no running for the rest of the week. So here I am less than four weeks out from the half-marathon, not having run in the past 7 days. ARGH.

This week: 5.25km (3mi)
Last week: 20km (12.5mi)

HOWEVER – things are looking up. I feel like I’ve turned a corner today, and I’m not coughing nearly as much. I’ve been thinking about running form, and specifically whether forefoot running would help with the persistent back pain I’ve been having. Brandon is a big proponent, and Steve Runner is a recent convert. Brandon is always raving about his Newton shoes, which promote landing on your forefoot. On a whim, I looked them up and saw that there were a few retailers in Sydney. So I emailed HERT and Mark told me to come on in and check them out. I went over at lunchtime to try some on. He was clearing out last year’s models, so they were $60 off. What the hell. I decided to go for it. So I am now the proud owner of some very ugly shoes. I’m hoping to try them out tomorrow for a very short run around the neighbourhood. (I know you really have to ease into the forefoot technique.) I’m excited to see if it helps at all!

After two weekends with races, I had a much-needed recovery week.

This week: 20km (12.5mi)
Last week: 24.9km (15.5mi)

My lower back is still killing me when I run though. I think I need to go to the physio again.

Huh. It’s been pretty much all running, all the time around here lately. Sorry about that! It’s just that I had two races in a row, so I haven’t had time/willpower for much else. Getting back to normal now. Six weeks til the half-marathon!

This week: 24.9km (15.5mi)
Last week: 17.8km (11mi)

Today was the day of my fourth running of the 14km City2Surf… and my first without the Snook! He said that our run last year “nearly killed him,” and he hadn’t done any training this year. So I was on my own. (Technically there were three guys from my company running, including my buddy Paul here that I met up with afterwards.) I headed over to the Blue start on College Street this morning at 9am, knowing that it would take ages to get started. The crowd was a record 75,000 runners, and the weather was gorgeous and sunny. I told myself over and over that this was just a training run, that I wasn’t going for any specific time. I set RunKeeper to intervals of 5:00 running and 1:00 walking. Our group finally crossed the starting line at 9:28am. We were off!

My enforced walk-breaks worked well for the first half, and I tried to take a photo during most of them. (Unfortunately they didn’t all sync to the map, but you can see them above. Optus’s network failed bigtime.) My pace for the first half was fantastic, even with the walking. Oddly enough, I actually ran into my teammate Venks around the 5km mark! I can’t believe out of 75,000 people, I ran into one of the few I knew. Venks was taking a break himself, so I left him behind when RunKeeper told me to speed up again. Soon we were at the hill… and that’s when it started sucking. I got a stitch/cramp in my side that just would not budge. I took an extra walk break, taking exaggerated breaths to try to stretch it out. I ended up walking most of the hill, and my pace just wasn’t the same after that. No matter, I told myself. It was just a training run! I tried to enjoy it. At 11.5km I stopped for a second to send the Snook an SMS telling him I was getting close. I ended up crossing the finish line (hunched over, fighting the stitch) at 111 minutes, which is about 5 minutes slower than we did last year. It’s okay. It was good just to be out there with everybody else.

I was thinking about why I love this event. I think it’s because it reminds me that you can’t judge a person’s athletic ability by their shape, and you’re really only out there competing against yourself. I was passed by people that I wouldn’t think could run 2km, much less 14km. And because of how many people there are and how staggered the starts are, there’s no point in comparing yourself to anybody else on the road. We’re all running our own races. It’s the great equalizer.

Anyway, the end of the race was madness. I couldn’t find the meeting point where my teammates were supposed to congregate, and I nearly couldn’t find the Snook. (Optus and Vodafone SUCKED.) Eventually we met up with Paul, who’d already had a shower and change of clothes! Then the three of us joined a queue for the buses and made our way back to the city. I had a long hot shower and a hot lunch before heading over to Broadway for a much-needed full body massage. Ahhh, *bliss*.

The new highly-anticipated (by me, anyway) release of RunKeeper finally got approved yesterday. It’s got some nice improvements with real-time mapping and iPod playlist integration, but the killer feature for me is the ability to take photos and have them geotagged along the route. I thought it would be super cool to do it on Sunday during each of my walk breaks along the City2Surf. So I went out for a run this morning just to test it out.

I did notice some weirdness at first, mostly regarding the pace calculation and voice feedback. (My pace showed up as 0 for the first 10 minutes or so.) The time and distance were correct though, so I wasn’t too worried about the pace (which eventually came good). Posting a “status” message is pretty easy, akin to sending a tweet really. There’s a word balloon that you type in, and you can click the little photo icon to take a picture. I only had two problems with it. First, as you might expect it’s not easy to type a message on a touchscreen keyboard while you’re running down the street (or god forbid, riding a bike). You can hit the photo button relatively easily, but to actually add a caption you have to be walking (or stopped completely). The second problem (which compounds the first) is the iPhone’s spell correction doesn’t seem to work on the status updates. So while I think it’s really neat functionality, it’s hard to actually use it when you want to be using it.

That said, it’s still super cool to see your photos along the route. Did you see that last one of me? I’d just done six speed intervals and I was pretty wrecked. I’m really looking forward to Sunday…

After the success of the Bay Run yesterday, I’m feeling back on track for the Half-Marathon in seven weeks. The next hurdle will be this weekend’s City 2 Surf, 14km from the city out to Bondi. I’m not planning on setting any specific time goals for this one; I’m going to treat it just as a normal long slow run. (In fact, I’m thinking of doing an enforced run-walk to keep my pace down.) My distance this week was a big step down, mostly because I didn’t want to wear myself out before the Bay Run. I think I’m probably due for another visit to the physio though… My back was hurting quite a bit at the end of yesterday’s run. Need to get it sorted before the Half.

This week: 17.8km (11mi)
Last week: 28.8km (18mi)

I’ve been looking forward to this race for a year now. I was supposed to run it last year with three guys from work, but a surprise business trip to L.A. made me miss it. No way was I going to miss out this time. So Stef, Tim, Shane, and I signed up early and gave ourselves a silly name: “Barry and the Apples.” The race is 7km (about 4.5mi) around Iron Cove, and it’s been getting more popular every year. They have separate events for runners, walkers, kids, and even dogs. Race Day dawned beautiful and clear and sunny, and Snookums came along for moral support. The guys took off first, and then the girls left 15 minutes later. I was apprehensive. I told the Snook that in an ideal scenario, I’d average 7:00/km and finish in less than 50 minutes… but realistically I figured I’d do closer to 55. I started out slow. The first half of the race had the only hills, as we climbed up to Iron Cove Bridge and ran along Victoria Road. Once we got back to the water’s edge and the course flattened, I deliberately started to push myself. I’d lost Stef in the initial crush, but at the halfway point I spotted her 100m ahead. I tried my best to catch her, but she was setting a good pace. Soon the first of the dog runners was passing us. I skipped the sole water stop. Lots of people were taking walk breaks, but I told myself that at the very least I’d meet my secondary goal of running the whole thing without stopping. At the 6km sign, RunKeeper told me that 40min had elapsed. I suddenly realised that I was going to do it. Even if I had to walk that last kilometer, I knew I could do it in ten minutes. My back was starting to hurt bad at this point, and I had a stitch in my side. But I kept going. I could still see Stef, tantalizingly close. I pushed. Suddenly the finish line was looming and then we were done. I barely had time to hit Stop on RunKeeper and notice that my time was under 49min before a nice woman was hauling me out of the crowd to remove my timing chip. I turned around to see the Snook taking my picture. “I did it!” Turns out we all did it. My final time was 48:38; Stef finished about a minute ahead of me; and the boys were each more than ten minutes ahead of that. We posed for one last group shot and then headed off for breakfasts and showers.

Of course, the really funny bit is that I just logged on to check the results… and there’s “Barry and the Apples” as the #1 Team in the competition! I nearly fell over laughing. If you look at the results spreadsheet it’s clear that they’ve mistakenly given our team name to the actual winners. But still, now, for the moment, Barry and the Apples are the big winners of the Bay Run 2009.