Barefoot ouch!

Left knee a little sore this morning but only a very minor niggle.

I may have to rethink my barefoot running ideas for a while, apart from maybe on grass. My 13-year-old daughter encouraged me to run with her down to the end of the road and back yesterday, while I was wearing flip-flops. I immediately saw it as an opportunity to kick off said foot apparel and test out my barefoot running skills.

My style was tentative at the best, and pretty much tiptoeing when it came to crossing the handful of driveways. I can certainly see why it's almost impossible to run with a heel strike when you're barefoot

I think my idealistic vision of the joy, freedom and fun of barefoot is much further off than I had imagined.

100 days, 173 miles, 33 hours

100 days, 173 miles and 33 hours is my tally following this morning's glorious sunny run.

Our first breakfast of the year sitting out in the sunshine in the back garden and also the first time my shorts have seen the light of day this year.

I enjoyed my day living in happy valley yesterday and being a beacon. Today's intention is to be kind wherever possible and to start really trying out positive affirmations.

Ordered 4 books on Amazon yesterday with some birthday vouchers, so I'm quite excited about receiving them in the next week or three, and yes, one of them is about running.

I've got a crazy hair-brained idea at the moment - I wonder if I could run the Beachy Head marathon barefoot? I might have to let that one simmer for a few days.

Running is possibility

After my run this morning I was remembering back in 1987 (a couple of careers ago) when I made the jump from a permanent IT role into a freelance one.

I knew then that if I hadn't been doing my lunchtime runs in Regents Park that I most definitely wouldn't have had the courage, the belief, the energy and the vision of possibility to take the leap and the risk.

So if I hadn't run, my life would look very different to how it does now. Running definitely helps me look at the world through the lenses of possibility.

Day 67 - and all's well

Nothing much to report today.

Another sunny morning. Another very cold morning. Spring can't be that far over the horizon now, surely?

My right heel is very slightly sore today. Nothing to worry about but something just to observe.

I'm wondering how long I'll have to wait to try some barefoot running, although I will definitely have to adjust the route to go completely barefoot. All my current favourite routes involve some quite rocky, uneven and stony parts.

Wrong-footed shoes

I stretched my run to just over 2 miles this morning, the first time I've done that since I had plantar fasciitis and ditched my running insoles. It felt really good.

Admittedly I was a bit later this morning as I had to attend my monthly business networking group, which is always fun but does mean leaving home a lot earlier than usual.

As I was running on my own this morning and going a bit further I tried to concentrate on feeling the ground beneath my feet, which I can do a lot easier with worn down running shoes and no insoles. It made me think of the parallel with helping people to fully experience each moment of their lives through coaching rather than numbing themselves from the present moment.

Every bit of life, the highs and lows add value if we allow ourselves to raise our awareness. They all teach us lessons about how we live our lives and what is really important to us.

On the topic of worn down shoes, a guy called David Smyntek, who is a runner and physical therapist specialising in acute rehabilitation, decided to conduct an experiment to see if he really should replace his expensive running shoes every 300 to 500 miles, as the running shoe industry was telling him. So when his shoes wore down on one side he swapped shoes and continued to run 5 miles a day wearing his worn down shoes on the wrong feet. He experienced no problems whatever.

Makes you think, doesn't it.

By the way I've now run over 100 miles since the beginning of the year.