Barefoot Mile 124 -- Like I Said -- No Two Runs the Same

Yesterday's run seems so far away now that all I have left are the memories of it from the camera on my Droid phone.

All summer I long I had given you "fresh-off-the-run" blog posts, but now that the Fall season is fully underway with it's busy-ness, I get a little delayed and then I forget all the wonderful things I was going to talk about.

This is what I remember about yesterday morning's run:

It was misty over the city:

The sky was very dramatic:

I really wanted to get going before it started to rain or something, but I was so captivated by the sky that I just kept snapping pictures:

There was a little patch of light above and below the section of Manhattan where the World Trade Center towers had been.  It wasn't exactly on the spot. a little to the left

I knew I had to get moving, but I'm kind of fascinated with the little camera on my new Droid phone, so I was taking a lot to see how they all came out.  I think it works pretty well. This is great because I used to have to jam both my cell phone and my camera into my little running waist pack -- along with the doggie paper towels and bags and hand sanitizer and lip moisturizer and tissues and keys -- so if my Droid can take nice enough pictures, I can have a slightly less-crammed pack.

You might think that someone who had this view when they ran every day would tire of it.  But I have shown here that the view shows itself so many different ways.  Not only that, it isn't even the same view within the same run, because it is continually changing with the light.

When I turned to face the other way, I got something totally different.

Of course, some day, some way, I'm going to have to break off and go run a trail or something. I can't live off this forever. But, like "The Barefoot Mile" there is still a lot to get running alongside this river and taking in the view.

My run was 2.75 miles. It was great. My feet weren't sore. No muscles were sore. I felt strong. I'm getting my stride now. I have a technique for handling the asphalt and I don't have to slow down.

I'm starting to figure out what my own personalized footprint is now. As I was learning, I was following the "instructions," the guidelines. But little by little my feet took over and started to customize my footstep. I am now feeling my step on all the padded and soft parts of my feet.

I definitely have a very wide footprint. I land ever so briefly on the mid-foot, and a good wide portion of it. It happens so fast that it almost feels like my entire foot is landing at the same time, almost like I am running sort of flat-footed. I think this increases the surface area to bear the load. Since I'm heavier, I thin that the forces have to be distributed over a greater area so I can't, at this point, do any kind of action that causes one small part of my foot to bear the entire load, such as when a person might toe-off.

Even though I only ran the 2.75 miles, I easily had a lot more in me. I was just taking it easy one more day after having had that fibula problem.

But tomorrow I'll be back to the 5K distance.