Barefoot Fresca

A Barefoot Run in the Rain

2012-02-16T15:30:00.000-08:00

I opened the door to go out for my run, Daffodil on her leash, all excited.

It was raining.

Shoot, why hadn't I known it was raining? I had seen how grey it was outside my window, but had been so busy all morning that I didn't know it was raining.

Daffodil wouldn't step out.

It's supposed to be bad to run barefoot in the rain -- Blisters. I usually avoid it, and I can, because since my running schedule is simple, with breaks in between, and since I don't train for marathons or anything like that, I can just skip it if it's raining.

Today, though I was all ready and I wanted to run. And I am in training. Training for my black sash progress stripe and this is part of it. So, I decided to just go ahead and run barefoot in the rain. After all, I was only going a mile. And maybe I could be really really careful and pick my feet up so they don't rub on the ground and make blisters ...

Okay, Daffodil, you don't have to come.

It wasn't really very cold, so that was good. We've been having an extraordinarily mild winter. I haven't had to wear shoes out there at all, in both January and February.

Oh, I know! It's probably because I bought those Merrell pace gloves to use in the cold. Now we will not have cold weather any more.

I usually don't care what people think about my being barefoot out there -- or what I think they think, because I never know what they think. But today I felt a little self-conscious. It seemed a bit odd to be out there in the rain. I really thought that people would think I was a little crazy.

Why didn't I think people would think I was crazy when I was walking through the snow drifts last winter? Well, snow drifts kind of hide your feet. No one driving by really sees you behind all those mounds of snow. And I was only doing small sections of snow at that time. And, well, I don't know why I didn't feel self-conscious about it. I guess because it was too over-the-top. It was so over-the-top that it just seemed like some kind of experiment and nothing weird. Being out there looking almost normal, except for shoes, seemed to be more weird. I imagined someone thinking, "Okay, I've heard about barefoot running, but in the rain?"

Needless to say, you all know I had a wonderful time. The bottoms of my feet got a little numb, and my shins and calves felt a little stiff.

I think they may have been stiff because I didn't do my 1/4 mile walk warm-up first. I felt even more self-conscious walking barefoot so I started running as if to say, "See, I'm out here for a barefoot run." Walking around seemed odder than running, for some reason.

So, I ran along, being extra careful with my form. The outer left side of my foot did not feel painful. I tried to be aware of what I was doing.

However, at one point, I put my camera on the ground, set the timer, and started running towards it and captured this photo:

Now, it's not really fair to evaluate my form based on this photo because as I was running towards the camera, which I had set for 10 seconds, it was not firing and I was worried that I would run past it before the picture was taken, so I started running slower and taking baby steps so I would get the photo. In other words, I altered my gait a bit.

Yet I find it interesting that it looks like that left foot, the one in front, is about to land on the outside. Remember I told you in my other post that peroneal tendonitis can be caused by landing on the side of the foot? Hmmmm!

I don't think I was doing that all along, but with running it's hard to tell what one is doing. It goes by so fast (even a slow runner like me).

Now that the run was over, it was time to check out the bottoms of the feet. Back to the self-timer on the camera:

Hmmm, can't really see that well. Better take one closer up:

A bit wrinkly, but things look okay. Looks like I didn't do any damage. Lots of stuff sticks to the feet in the rain. I have noticed, however, that my feet do not get as dirty as they used to when I run barefoot outside. The leathery, thickened skin seems to almost slough off dirt, and things like splinters and little stones don't seem to manage to work their way in any more. That's very cool. Another reason I don't want to put shoes on. It took quite a while to make those great soles and I would hate to lose them and have to start all over again.

Once I got them cleaned up at home I made another inspection of the bottoms:

I saw that a blister-like area of skin had been roughed up a bit on the sole of my right foot and another similar small spot on the big toe of my left foot.

I think these were leftover blisters or callouses from a long long time ago that have just been there but not obvious, kind of flattened up against the skin. The wet rain and pavement acted like a kind of pumice-stone action to kind of work on those little spots. It's just old dead skin that needs to come off, but I have not wanted to pumice the bottoms of my feet for fear of reducing the protective layers. Guess nature decided to take care of it. Maybe we are supposed to run in the rain.

Peroneal Tendinitis Part II -- The Cause

2012-02-14T09:22:00.002-08:00

This is a long post. There are some photos and illustrations below, so if you bear with me, it will become more visually interesting as we go along.

In the last post, I talked about a painful condition I have on the outside of my left foot that first showed up after I ran the Disney Family Fiesta 5K back in January. Before we could decide that it was a peroneal tendon strain, we had to rule out Jones Fracture, so I got an X-ray and was really happy that it wasn't a Jones Fracture.

The best way to heal a peroneal tendon strain, I gather, is to just stop running for a couple of weeks, ice it, ibuprofen it, do some stretching exercises, rehabilitate it, then re-enter the activity -- kind of standard. I'm going to add some osteopathic manipulation and some percutaneous electronic nerve stimulation to the mix.

But the point with someone engaged in an athletic activity is that when they are injured they often don't want to give up the activity. I don't want to give up running. Why should the rest of my body have to be deprived of the enjoyment of running and working out just because a tiny part of my body -- those teeny tendons -- are complaining? Well, of course there are other things I can do to cross-train. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. However, one reason I chose running is that I like it way better than those other activities. They say to find something you like and then you'll do it. They say that if you are doing an activity you find boring it will be harder to stick with it. So, I passed by all those other activities for running and Kung Fu and I want to keep doing what I enjoy.

However, the argument could be made that 2 or 3 weeks is really nothing at all and it passes by quickly. And besides that, I didn't run for 6 weeks because I fell out of the habit -- which is part of why I am in this boat to begin with -- so if I went 6 weeks without running back then, why oh why would 2-3 weeks be a problem now?

And yet, stubbornly, I don't want to take that time off. Stubborn and dumb. I don't want to have to "begin again" again. As much as I enjoy all stages of running, and could find much to enjoy in the early stages of just getting back out there, I don't want to have to start from scratch again.

So, I am going to do what so many other runners do and see if I can "beat the injury clock." I am going to try to run enough so that I don't make the injury worse, and take enough recovery time between runs to allow the injury to heal. It's a kind of compromise. It might take longer for it to heal this way,, but as long as the healing sessions are outpacing the re-aggravation/re-activation sessions, it should work. At least in theory.

So, now I know what the injury is, and I have a plan to heal and repair it.

The other component is finding out what caused it so I can prevent it from happening again, and also so I can prevent myself from undoing the healing. For example, if there is something wrong with my form and I just keep re-injuring it over and over again, then the healing is pointless. One can get into an injure/heal kind of cycle that doesn't make sense. I get the feeling that once one gets into that kind of cycle, the injury eventually wins out. So, I need to know the cause -- the mechanism of injury, as my DH calls it -- so I can prevent it from happening again.

I have several "mechanism of injury" theories:

Too Much Too Soon (TMTS)
Poor Form While Running Barefoot -- Inversion of the Foot
Poor Form While Running in Merrell Pace Gloves
UGG Boots Injury

It could be one of these things, more than one of these things, or all of these things acting in concert that set up the conditions for the injury.

Too Much Too Soon (TMTS) Theory

It could just be as simple as I didn't train for 6 weeks, gained weight, and went out and tried to run a 5K distance. That is "Too Much Too Soon." To pin the problem solely on the weight gain wouldn't be exactly right because that weight gain could have been accommodated with the right kind of training, very gradually strengthening the feet, muscles, tendons, etc... to accommodate the extra weight. Seems to me that all TMTS injuries involve a problem with the body bearing it's own weight, whether the person weighs 150 or 250. It's the "too soon" part that can vary depending on how much weight is being borne. So, although the extra pounds were a contributing factor, it was TMTS that played the most significant part in this injury, but is that enough to know to prevent further injury, or could there be more involved? If it was merely extra weight and TMTS, why was only one body part affected and not many others? There has to be a reason that particular foot and those particular tendons bore the brunt of things.

Poor Form While Running Barefoot -- Inversion of the Foot Theory

I read on a couple of sites that peroneal tendinitis can become a problem when a person lands on an inverted foot. Little video explaining foot inversion and eversion:

While I don't think that I usually invert my foot when I barefoot run, it is possible that I did that day. Here are some of the possible causes of my inverting the foot (if I did).

Perhaps my ankles were weaker after six weeks of not running and they did not support enough and the foot rolled to the side because of that?
I may default to the side of my foot to avoid digging in at the second metatarsal, which is a "Morton's toe" kind of situation. I have written about this longer second metatarsal bone in my left foot in the past -- (See blog post "Aha! I found it! Why the second metatarsal is bothering me") -- and about how I experience discomfort at the point where that joint makes contact with the ground. Since the time I wrote about it, I have found that there is a group in the forums at the Barefoot Runner's Society where they discuss this particular issue (will add a link later because barefootrunners.org doesn't seem to be loading right now).

It is possible that in order to avoid the little spot that is uncomfortable, I am compensating by inverting the foot and putting more weight on the outside of the foot.

This brings me to a side note: When a person has a lot of extra weight to carry along, there is less margin of error for imperfect running form. That is, you're not going to get away with poor form for very long. Landing on the side of an inverted foot is going to hurt with all that extra weight. A lighter weight person is going to get hurt eventually too, especially if they are racking up the miles, but it might take way more repetitive landings to bring about that awareness. In this way, being overweight can be an advantage because the overweight person is made aware almost right off the bat when something is wrong.

I have checked my barefoot form, and everything seems to be pretty good with that. I have noticed that towards the end of the run, when I am getting a little tired, there may be a tendency to put more weight on that left side of the foot.

Poor Form While Running in Merrell Pace Gloves Theory

As much as I would love to run barefoot all the time, this year I decided to invest in a pair of minimalist shoes, thinking that there will be some times that I need to put on shoes. (I had hoped that the Vibram 5-finger KSOs that I owned would suffice for this purpose, but I found out last year that I did not like them for bitter cold weather running, which is one of the major times I would consider putting on shoes.) After reading a lot of reviews and reflecting a long time, I had finally decided on the Merrell Pace Gloves. One of the main reasons is because the Merrell company was at the 2nd Annual NYC Barefoot Run and I had a chance to try on a pair and was very impressed.

Up until the time I went down to the Disney race, I had not run or trained in the Merrell's at all. As I was packing to go down to the race, I remembered the really sharp, pointy parking lot from last year's race, so I threw the Merrell's into my carry-on bag. As I pondered, on the eve of the Disney Family Fiesta 5K, whether I should be attempting to run the 5K, there was no question about whether I should be doing that first mile barefoot or not. Perhaps if I had kept up my training, and specifically had trained to run on the sharp pointy stuff, I could have made the decision to run it barefoot again. However, I knew for sure that coming from six weeks of not running would NOT be the time to run on the sharp pointy stuff. So, I put on my Merrell's for the first mile of the race.

It didn't seem dumb at the time. It seemed smart to cover my feet for that painful parking lot. However, there was a dumb element in that I had not used the shoes, had not acquired any running experience with them, and had no idea how they would work for me.

During the race everything seemed fine, and it got me past the pointy part and to the place where I could take off my shoes and finish the race.

However, now that I know about this foot inversion thing, I thought I'd take a look at the way the shoes were designed. Come to think of it, I did remember the sensation of my foot rolling to the outside a little bit during the part of the race that I had run with the shoes on.

I put the shoes on and ran in the backyard a little bit with them. They felt pretty great, as great as I remember them feeling, but I did notice a feeling like I was balanced on a thin base that did not feel 100% solid beneath my feet.. I took a look at the sole.

See how thin the base of the shoe is? I feel slightly unstable on that thin a platform. The foot feels like it could rock a little bit. It's kind of subtle, but it's there.

The way the lines of the design of the tread curve, it almost looks like the foot is going to roll that way (although it is not these lines that would actually cause that.)

There is also a little bit of arch support in this shoe. It's not so much as a blatant arch, but that the shoe is designed to the shape of the arch of the foot. I guess that is why the shoe feels like a fitted glove.

This fitted feeling is something that caused me to favor these shoes and I really love it, actually. But it is possible -- I thought, as I ran in the shoes -- that the presence of this arch is obstructing my arch's natural motion enough to push my foot to the outer edge. There might not be quite enough give in the shoe's arch, so that my own arch's springiness coming up against it is causing the foot to rebound back to the outside of the foot.

Or, it could be because the toes are pointed up. Most shoe companies have this feature, I've noticed. Most of the minimalist shoes have the toes pointing up. I feel that this makes a difference. I can't quite explain how or why, but seems like there could be some kind of top-of-foot strain with the toes up like that and unable to make contact with the ground. And in the photo, it even looks like my foot is tilting to the outside.

As long as we're taking a look at the shoes, we might as well make it complete and see the heels too:

As much as I love the Merrell Pace Glove and appreciate what they have attempted to achieve here, it is clear that my heel is not achieving the same position on the ground that it can and does when it is barefoot.

I don't want to blame the shoes for my injury. There is no way of proving that they caused me to invert my foot during the race. However, the possibility is definitely there. It could have been happening due to the design of the shoe, and my not having practiced with them, and my running in a race without training for it.

Ugg Boot Injury Theory
Oddly enough, as I was visiting all the runner message forums seeking out information on peroneal tendinitis, I found a few curious comments in some of the forums about peroneal tendinitis being sometimes called "The UGGs Injury."

Could it be a coincidence that this is the year I decided to purchase my first pair of UGG boots? In fact, I purchased them on the same day that I acquired my Merrell Pace Gloves. It was kind of an impulse purchase, but I needed something to slip my bare feet into when I ran outside in the cold to put the garbage out, or to drive to the store. I had been thinking that this UGGs concept might work for that, and had been reading up on it. The fact that podiatrists did not like the UGG boots because of the lack of arch support actually inclined me towards them.

I have actually been loving the UGG boots. All these years I have resisted them, also thinking that they were not very attractive, but finally I knew why women loved them. They seemed so plush, so warm, so comfortable. And now I had the added benefit of being able to just slip bare feet into them. They almost seemed perfect for a person who preferred to go barefoot most of the time.

But ...

Apparently there can be problems.

On a blog post I found, Joshua Tucker,"The Tendonitis Expert" explains (in the comments section below his post about experimenting with Vibram shoes) how the platform of a shoe causes our foot to act differently than it does on the ground when we are barefoot. His explanation made sense to me based on my experience of walking on the platform of the UGG boot. While barefoot, the foot "folds/ bends/grips around objects." The toes work independently of each other, the muscles of the leg get fired up by this. All of the things going on while we're barefoot help support the arch. However, while walking on a stiff platform inside a shoe, your foot rests on this hard platform and the platform does not bend around objects on the ground.

Even though Mr. Tucker says later in the comments that he likes his own pair of UGG boots, my experience of the UGG boots are that they have that hard stiff platform, and my feet are not acting naturally, like they would when I am barefoot, while they are in the UGG boots.

And it just so happens that I had my UGG boots on the night before the race. I had worn them to the airport and had to really hustle and walk distances in them. I was a bit upset to find out that I had chosen the wrong shoes to use for traveling. I had thought it would be a good thing to use them, but had never really walked so much in them before and was discovering that they are not the ideal choice for this kind of walking.

When we finally got to the Disney hotel, I was glad to sit back, kick off the UGGs and just wait for our suitcases to arrive from Disney's Magical Express. The suitcases usually arrive a couple of hours after we do, and my other shoes were packed in those bags, except the Merrell's that I was going to need for the race the next day.

However, an unforeseen food emergency necessitated that I hustle over to the dining hall -- which was a considerable distance from our room -- and back before it closed. I thought for a second about putting on the Merrell's for this purpose, but decided it was easier to just throw on the UGGs.

That was a mistake. I was uncomfortable using them for this task the whole way and back, and by the time I got back I was even a little worried because the soles of my feet felt sore and raw. "Oh no," I thought, "Is this going to affect my race tomorrow?"

Well considering what I have been reading about UGG boots, and also considering what "The Tendonitis Expert" said about walking on stiff platforms inside of shoes, and also considering how at present, I feel my injury now and its pain much more while I'm wearing UGGs than when I'm walking around barefoot, I would seriously consider the possibility that the injury was either caused by the way I walk in UGGs, or that my use of the UGGs predisposed my foot to get the injury when I ran the next day.

(BTW, I don't know "The Tendonitis Expert" and am not specifically recommending him. I only read that one post of his, have not explored his site deeply. I thought he said some smart things in that particular post. Just wanted to let you know that his site looks like an interesting one to explore, but that's about it for now.)

I can't believe anyone is still reading, but if you are, thanks for helping me go through all my possibilities.

(Disclaimer -- I'm not trying to sell anything and don't have any affiliation with any companies mentioned. Just sharing my experience, as a non-professional, non-expert, simple and lowly barefoot running person. People who need help with this kind of injury should seek professional help, not an amateur know-nothing lay person with no science, exercise, bio-mechanical, medical or sports training or background etc ... )

Peroneal tendonitis or Jones fracture?

2012-02-10T07:27:00.000-08:00

What you see to my left is an X-ray of my foot. In the image, it is pretty clear, even to a layperson, that there are no fractures in this foot.

But up until I had this X-ray there was a question of whether there might be a fracture and I was REALLY worried that all my training plans were going to go down the drain.

Because of the X-ray, we have ruled out the possibility that I have a "Jones Fracture". (Paper clip is pointing to the spot where a Jones Fracture would appear.) But I do have something, and in the course of this "having something" I have been driving myself crazy, and of course overloading on all kinds of information on Google instead of doing my housework.

But so that my adventure into this area of the foot near the fifth metatarsal does not go so much to waste, I shall relay my thoughts and findings here, complicated though they are.

Here was my Facebook status update yesterday:

"How to hurt your foot in 3 easy steps: Step 1: Sign up for a race ... Step 2: Stop running 6 weeks before the race ... Step 3: Run the race anyway because you are not mature enough (at 50 years of age) to do the right thing and wait until next time."

So, in order to tell the story right we must go back in time. Back in time to when I first injured my foot a month ago at Disney's Family Fiesta 5K Race (some nice photos of the race that I did not take on that link)

(My silly attempt to represent time-travel waves)

Getting Injured
It was the eve of the Disney Family Fiesta 5K Race. I was having qualms about participating in the race in the morning. Back in November, 6 weeks before, I had stopped training. Can't really explain why. We had a death in the family and the day of the funeral was a scheduled run day, and I didn't go out. After that, for reasons I can't really explain, I just didn't go out running again. Had killed me not to train because the weather was simply gorgeous. Every day could have been barefoot at a time of year when it might be getting too cold.

So, my Heart and my Head were having a major argument the night before the race, Heart wanting so much to be in the event, and Head having serious reservations. At least it started out that way ...

"You haven't run a step, almost, for six weeks. In the interim you have gained a bit of weight. It is not wise to go out there and undergo that stress under these conditions," warned my Head.

"But I had been running up until that point and was doing pretty well. Perhaps some of that training is still residing within," argued my Heart.

"Maybe, if you hadn't gained those pounds, it would be all right," said Head, "but you know that overweight people cannot afford missteps. You would have needed to gradually increase your strength to accommodate the greater load and you didn't. It would be a bit risky."

Deep down inside, Heart knew that Head was right. And now Heart was beginning to take up the argument against in a kind of heartish way:

"Well," considered Heart, hoping that Head could not hear her, "I could just do what I want, ignore Head, and go out there anyway and run the race. But, ... but, ... what if Head is right? What if something terrible happens! What if I get out there and I get a (*shudder*) stress fracture or something? Then I wouldn't be able to run for quite a while!! Or, even worse, what if I have a heart attack!!! I'd better listen to Head and not run in this thing tomorrow." Heart started feeling very afraid. (This can start to happen when Heart actually listens to Head, but can also backfire because Heart can take Head's reservations too much to, -- shall we say -- "heart.")

Head, who saw what was happening and also was concerned at Heart being so sad at not being allowed to run the race, stepped in and said, "Hold on now, there might be some compromise that could be made. Perhaps you could just go out there and walk it. You ought to be able to walk it."

Heart brightened up as she considered this. "Yeah, and I could even try running a little. Surely I would feel it if it was 'wrong' and I could just stop. If things didn't feel good I could even just drop out of the race." Heart actually cheered a little at the thought of how dramatic and fun it would be as she imagined herself being carried away by the Disney medics on a stretcher ...

Head thought about this for a minute, "It's good to be conservative and safe, but there are times when one has to go out and test the waters in order to learn. Sometimes things cannot be figured out ahead of time. Heads can need to collect practical experiential data in order to make better assessments in the future."

Heart argued, "Yeah ... sometime you have to just go out there and give something a try to find out what happens."

And so it went on, with Heart and Head eventually coming to an agreement. The strategy would be to begin the race and run as far as I could, and after that point to walk/run the rest of the race or even just walk.

The race was a pleasure, very satisfying to Heart, and I will be writing up a race report at some point. All seemed to have gone well.

"See, Head," said Heart, "nothing bad happened!"

But about an hour later, there was a horrible pain on the side of my left foot. It seemed like it was in the bone. After going back to our rooms after the race, having a good breakfast, showering, we were all ready to meet up in the themepark and walk around.

I was a cripple walking around the themepark.

"Oh no, this is REALLY bad," I thought. "Am I in big trouble?" What could it be? Some variant of TOFP (Top of Foot Pain)? It was pretty painful. Something worse? Did I break something?

Took ibuprofin at night, and had a light day the next day, pretty much staying off the feet as much as possible. Things improved, pain lessened. It continued on and by the fourth day it had reduced to a mere annoyance that popped up later in the afternoon, after I had been on my feet for a while.

So, I concluded that whatever the problem was, it couldn't be a fracture or anything really serious because it was getting progressively better. I was sure I would be fine.

In the past few weeks, since coming home from the Disney race, I have been running and training in Kung Fu. But after last Saturday's black sash cycle training class, I experienced the pain on the left side of the foot again. It seemed to have been reactivated by the class. Perhaps it was the hopping on one foot, something else which Head had had reservations about but Heart had decided to go ahead with.

Rested a day and it was better.

Then on Monday went out running, and then put myself through a Kung Fu workout.

Monday evening at choir practice I could barely walk. Almost like the first day when I originally injured it.

Now began the detective work. It started when I wrote my last blog post and found out the names of the body parts that could have been affected. A few Google hours later I was convinced I had the answer. Based on my research I decided it was a case of peroneal tendonitis.

I remembered last year when I had injured my shoulder by practicing too many overhead blocks in a row, my doctor-hubby had given me a special electronic nerve stimulation treatment that -- to me, miraculously -- healed my shoulder in a mere few days. I had thought the shoulder injury was going to knock me out of my black sash training, and had been so elated when the treatment worked and I was back in commission in no time.

The treatment he had used was P.E.N.S. (Percutaneous Electronic Nerve Stimulation, not to be confused with another type called T.E.N.S) In the treatment, acupuncture needles are inserted into the shoulder and neck area which are hooked up to wires and a little machine that controls an electric current. The electric current is delivered to the tissues/nerves and not only produces an analgesic affect, but also promotes healing on the cellular level. Overall, it's not completely understood how the healing mechanism is achieved. (There is some talk of this opening up and getting "chi" channels to flow, but I'm not sure about that and how it works.) I can assure you that it worked, and I felt it working as it was working.

So, I thought that maybe that treatment could use to heal the peroneal strain. Wasn't it a kind of similar injury to my having hurt my shoulder?

After presenting my request to my hubby, he did a little research and came back and told me that before he could treat me for peroneal tendonitis, he would have to rule out Jones Fracture.

"Jones Fracture!!! What is that?"

"Google it," he said as he walked out the door.
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To make a long story short, it was not Jones Fracture. I didn't go out running yesterday just in case. But now we are safe to assume that this is tendonitis and can be treated as such. We are going to begin P.E.N.S treatment, along with some osteopathic manipulation therapy and I shall do some work on a balance board to strenghten my ankle and foot muscles.

Oh, and I'm going to try to shed those extra pounds I gained.

I am VERY happy that I will not have to cease bearing weight on my foot for 8 weeks, as I would have had to if it had been a Jones Fracture.
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There is more to tell of this story, and I had ambitiously thought I would be able to put all the information in this single blog post.. However, this is pretty long, so I shall have to continue the rest of the story in subsequent blog posts.

Here are some of the questions I've been pondering and researching and which I hope to address in the next blog post:

Are six weeks off and gaining weight the only factors contributing to the injury? Did I get injured because of running barefoot? Did I get injured because there is something wrong with my form? Did I get injured because I am overweight? Did I get injured because I am overweight and barefoot? Did I get injured because I wore shoes for the first mile? Is there something not right for me in the design of the minimalist shoes I chose to use for the first mile of the race? Did I get injured because of wearing my UGG boots and rapidly walking a distance in them the night before the race? Do other barefoot runners get this injury?

Stay tuned for part II ...

In Training

2012-02-06T10:42:00.000-08:00

Training for Today (Commentary below):

Running:

1 Barefoot Mile with dog

Conditioning Exercises:
(Jumping Jacks JJ, Push-Ups PU,
and 3kinds of crunches -- regular CR, side-side-middles SSM, and Bicycles BI):

Set 1 -- 30-JJ, 10-PU, 25-CR
Set 2 -- 30-JJ, 10-PU, 15-SSM
Set 3 -- 30-JJ, 10PU, 20-BI

Run-Thru Kung Fu Basics:

10 alternating warm-up single punches
20 punch, palms & hooks PPHs (if you want to know what they are, see photographs below)
20 palm-hooks
While in horse stance: 10 single punches, 10 double punches, 10 triple punches at increased intensity from last week but not at full intensity (so as not to pull my arms out of my sockets before they strengthen up)
Drill through all basic stances on each side, holding for 10 seconds each: horse stance, forward stance, crane stance, empty stance, drop stance, forward stance back to horse
Go straight from stance drill into 3-minute horse stance.

Review and practice weak spots from last class:

both kinds of spinning kicks -- back and whatever the other one is called
battle line kicks (hopping on one leg while kicking with the other across a distance -- living room much shorter distance than at the school)
Long Fist II -- which I blanked out on when we went to do it in class, even though I had passed with flying colors knowing this last June

Reading someone else's workout can be pretty boring. It might be as boring as reading what someone ate all day, or when they slept or when they vacuumed. However I have put it here anyway.

Here are further notes, which may or may not be a tad more interesting, depending on one's frame of reference.

Running
That stuff The Dog Whisperer says about dogs needing exercise to be calm nice human beings is really true. When I stopped running for six weeks, Daffodil wasn't getting her runs in and she turned into hyper-dog. We'd all be sitting around trying to watch the news and she was all revved up in the evening barking and barking and asking us to come throw her pet squeaky skunk 500 times. She was driving us crazy.

Just one week of me getting back to our old routine was like MAGIC. She is the calm, mature, peaceful pup we have all come to love. I almost have a moral obligation not to stop taking her out there.

We do have her go out with "the pack" in town a couple of times a week. But she needs me to take her the other days. I'm really the only one who's going to do it.

Issue with my left foot: I'm too tired to find out exactly what's wrong with my foot, so I'll just try to describe it.

Oh, shucks, okay, I will go out there on and Google foot anatomy so I can try to be accurate. Just wait a sec ...
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Okay, I'm back. It's hard to know what part of my foot is giving trouble, whether it is a muscle, tendon, or even a bone. I strained something during the Disney race (haven't written about that yet) and was very concerned about it, although the face that it got better and better made me hope that it wasn't something serious.

The area affected is somewhere around the extensor digitorum brevis muscle, OR, if it's a tendon, it might be one of the peroneus tendons, brevis or tetius, OR it could be something going on with the 5th metatarsal bone. (based on a brief examination of this illustration: http://www.podiatrychannel.com/pod/Images/ft_sdvw.gif) The more I study the illustration, the more I think it's something to do with the 5th metatarsal bone.

It hurts on that side part of the foot, and there is a corresponding burning feeling on the top of that outer part of the foot. My doctor-husband says that the fact there is a burning feeling on top means there might be some kind of nerve encroachment. The only way to find out what's going on would be to X-Ray it. Since it's getting better and better with each passing day, I figured I would just wait and see.

So, it was getting better and better and better. Running last week did not bother it. But after cycle training class on Saturday, I felt it acting up and was a tad worried. A couple of hours after cycle class, it was much better, so I chalked it up to one of those temporary kind of strains. I was glad that I would have my rest day Sunday, figuring the rest would take care of it.

But this morning when I stepped out and began to run, it started to complain to me after about a 1/4 mile. I felt the burning sensation. I had to ask myself if that meant I should stop. I did not want to stop. After all, I'm in training and I was on a mission. But I believe in being humble and wise, so if I needed to stop I should do that. On the other hand, I was only running a mile. Surely a mile would not cause too much trouble. I decided to continue on.

I concentrated on relaxing my feet as I ran along. It turns out that the little warning pain went away. The first part of the run was on an incline. I'm wondering if the incline was stressing it more, and once it leveled out everything was okay? Or was it because I was focusing on relaxing the muscles in the feet and lower leg? Hard to say, but it seems to be okay that I ran the mile. Me very happy! Don't want a set-back right now.

Conditioning Exercises
Since the beginning of my Kung Fu training over four years ago, the conditioning exercises we do at the outset of each training session have been my nemesis. Although I saw progress over the years, and increased my number of reps and learned to engage the muscles involved more fully and deeply, they have always been the hardest part of my Kung Fu training. I've had to stop and rest and do my own little mini sets-within-sets of them. I have had a really hard time doing the bicycles. At my best over the years, I was hitting three classes a week and doing the conditioning workout three times a week, and doing them at home on my own if I missed a class. At my worst, I was doing them once a week in class.

This year, I am tired of feeling defeated by these conditioning exercises. I have had the thought that twice a week is no good for them. In the past I've been hesitant to do them every day because it seems like the muscles need to rest in between. But my progress at 2 or 3 times a week has been very slow, so maybe I need to do them more often?

I've been trying to find out info on the internet about how often one should do push-ups and crunches. There seems to be a lot of different advice out there. Some emphasizing quality over quantity. Some advocating every day, some advocating anywhere from once a week to a few times a week. Some say it depends on your body. Some say abs recover quickly, others say, no, they are just like biceps and need rest to regrow.

I'm going to go with 4x a week. Twice in class and 2x on my own. The ones I do on my own are going to be less in quantity than in class, but I'm going to focus on quality. We'll see if I make progress that way.

Actually, in only one week I've made progress. Body is springing back and remembering. Seems like this is going to come back faster than I expected.

Long Fist II
I knew this! I really did. I worked so hard on it last year. But when the time came for us to do it all together in class last Saturday, I could not keep up with the class. I had not reviewed it and fumbled.

If you want to see Long Fist II, check out the video on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsZO_JwX2GE&context=C32257cdADOEgsToPDskLNCqw_5uBFNj6AnWFJ7edi
I do it much slower than that, but that's what I'm aiming for.

Last year I went through this black sash training and passed the test, but if I were to grade myself, I would give myself about a C+. I could have started training seriously earlier, but kept putting it off until I had only about 5 weeks left. Therefore the whole thing was harder than it needed to be for me until the last 5 weeks. But that was really cutting it close, and I always knew that if I had been training all along it would have gone much better. This year I'm aiming to pass the test and get my progress stripe with a better grade. I'm actually aiming for an A+. I feel that an A+ reflects the black sash ideal better.

Looks like I'm off to a good start.

Better Kung Fu Cycle Training Class

2012-02-04T12:26:00.000-08:00

Wow! What a difference from the last class!

The first black sash class felt like a disaster; a catastrophe. It wasn't really a disaster or catastrophe. It could be viewed as such from one point of view. If the definition of disaster/catastrophe was almost passing out and not making class, then from that angle, one could say it was a disaster. However, if it is looked at under a realistic and objective lens, it just simply was. A person who allowed themselves to become de-conditioned and accumulate extra pounds was only going to have the results I did. In fact, an argument could be made that I did better than could have been expected.

So .... no disaster. Just a situation.

Anyway, I set down to make a plan to determine how I was going to deal with it all.

I figured there was no way I could work out on my own at the level of intensity that we had in class. Doing that might even injure me.

Decided to use the week to play catch-up. I would scale everything way way back and start from there.

So, I planned my "getting back into it" workouts for the week. They were very light. I just wanted to get the muscles moving and inform them that they were going to be needed again and these were the types of things I was going to be doing. I modified everything. My idea is to just survive the very intense Saturday morning cycle classes the best I can, and in the meantime, play catch-up during the week.

So, the way it turns out is that during the cycle class on the weekend, I'm working on an advanced black sash level, but during the week, I'm working on a basic beginner level. It's kind of like having to be an adult on the weekend and do all the kid growing up during the week.

I'm tempted to say that I shouldn't be in the black sash class at all, but my Sifu disagrees with that so I'll have to proceed with my plan.

Here was the week:

My baby workouts during the week were effective! I made it through the entire class on Saturday, and even felt a bit of my old strength popping through. Still had a tough time during the conditioning sets at the beginning of the class.

Also, we had to do "battle line" kicks. That's hopping across the floor on one leg while continuously kicking with the other -- oh, and if someone puts the other leg, the kicking one, down, we all have to begin again until we all get across the floor successfully. I had a hard time last year doing these battle-line kicks. It seemed impossible to me to hop across the floor like that. I was a person who caused us all to have to go back to the beginning again quite a few times. But my classmates -- er, my Kung Fu family, that is -- cheered me on and in the end I mastered it.

Well, this year, I was hesitant to try the battle-line kicks with all this extra weight I'd put on. It was a double-whammy in that I was out of condition and had the extra weight. Had I been doing the drill all along, while gaining the weight, my strength would have come along with it, but having stopped and put on the weight while stopped, I was afraid to try it. That's a lot of weight to hop around on.

So, before class, I got permission to sit out that drill.

However, when the time came, I assessed how things were going and I was feeling so good that I just knew I could attempt it. It was tough, but I was fine.

Body is definitely remembering that it knows how to do this stuff. This is good!

I can't wait to experience what this next week brings!

Kung Fu Black Sash Year II

2012-01-31T20:05:00.000-08:00

Last year you all followed along as I worked in "cycle training" from January to June and tested for my black sash in Kung Fu. It was the most intense physical activity I had ever pursued and I learned so much going through the "cycle."

This year the cycle has started again. From January to June we will meet once a week for a 2-hour intense session that will test our endurance, strength, and stamina. This year I will be working to earn a progress stripe toward an eventual 1st degree black sash.

Because of a snow day, and a day I had to miss, I have only attended one cycle class thus far. And that one class was somewhat of a disaster.

I had let my Kung Fu slide and had only attended class a couple of times in December. In the past, when I had taken a couple of weeks off, it wasn't too hard to get back up to snuff again. But this time I had been out a couple of months. Don't know how that happened. I guess "I'll go back next week" just kept turning into another and another week, and before I knew it I had put on a LOT of extra pounds and had lost a good deal of conditioning.

So, I was pretty much dreading the first cycle class. I already knew I was going to modify everything, and kind of hope that I could kind of "hide" or something (although that really is not too possible in cycle class). It turned out that half-way through the class I began to see stars and started feeling really queasy. I had to drop out of the class. My Sifu took me in the back and gave me freezing cold water shock therapy on the back of my neck.

The thing that struck me, however, is that I had always discounted anything I had accomplished over the years in Kung Fu. I always felt like the weakest and least in the class. But as I experienced how much more difficult everything was that had once seemed easier, I realized that everything I had accomplished up until then really had been something. Maybe I needed to have it taken away from me before I realized what I possessed. I made a decision to from now on never minimize any physical accomplishment, no matter how seemingly small. I also made a decision to not compare myself to the others. (I actually thought I had not been comparing myself to the others, but just the fact that I had minimized what I could do meant that I had been comparing myself all along without being conscious of it.)

SO ...

I made a little plan. A little plan to use the time during the week between cycle classes to get myself back into condition.

Yesterday, I went out for my mile-and-a-half run, and then I put myself through the conditioning exercises and some basic Kung Fu drills: punches, stance-work, etc... Just the very basic stuff, to get my body moving again and my joints and muscles headed in the right direction. Although we do 60 jumping jacks during cycle class, I only did 10 at a time on my own. The same thing for the pushups, crunches, etc... I did a few. I'll just gradually increase the ones I'm doing at home, and somehow grit my teeth on Saturday mornings to get through the more intense version.

Tonight's plan was to get myself back into some Kung Fu classes. I chose to go to the Intermediate/Advanced Forms class. My plan for this first night back was to take it easy. The real goal for me was to just make sure I showed up. That would be enough. I didn't need to kill myself or anything. Just show up. I would stand way in the back in the back row, and I wouldn't go all out. I would modify, and do less of the conditioning, slower jumping jacks, etc... (Just for the first couple of weeks). I would shrink and try to make myself as inconspicuous as possible, even make myself totally invisible if I could. Maybe I could do it this way for a few weeks and by the time anyone noticed I was there I'd be all back in shape!

Well, sometimes the fates have another plan!

When I got to class, my instructor called me and some other black sashes to stand up in front to be "role models." I winced and protested a little, indicating that I was in no condition to be standing up there in front of everyone. But he insisted. He gave the class a little speech and said that we were a family and you don't feel embarrassed in front of your family ever. Ever! If you are just getting back into shape, he said, that's okay. We have to leave our egos out of it. Period.

So, that was the lesson for the night. I did not get to hide in the back. I had to be who and what I was at that given moment in time and I had to be where I was at right up in front of everyone: all the purple sashes; all the red sashes; the brown and the green.

And after that ...

It was testing night! Oh my gosh, no! I had returned on testing night!!

Each small group had to get up and do Long Fist I. I had not done Long Fist I for at least 6 weeks. Did not even know if I would remember it. "This is going to be just great," I thought.

It did not go badly. I guess all the hard work I had done on Long Fist I over the years had solidified my knowledge of it so that I was able to go 6 weeks without doing it and still had it in me.

All in all, everything that happened tonight happened exactly the way it should have. The contrast of the actual first night back to my plan of making myself invisible was just too great for it to not be some kind of message to me. By absorbing how things went, I hear the message, and I'm ready to plunge back in.

My plan is to use my blog as a little running journal of my time through black sash. I will be most happy if you follow along my little journey with me. Stay tuned for more.

Beginning Again -- Part II

2012-01-30T09:34:00.000-08:00

About an hour ago I posted that I was going to head out for my first run in quite a while and that I was planning to wear my new Merrel Pace Gloves. because it was too cold.

I stepped out the door but looking down at the shoes I did not feel very good about it. I had a frown. "It's okay," I told myself, "you can run barefoot a little later when it gets warmer."

Still not happy.

"You only need to do this because you let it slide. Before you know it you'll be back in barefoot shape and you can run barefoot all summer."

Still not happy.

"You need to run in these things some time because you can't run barefoot all the time and you're going to have to use these for certain things."

Still not happy.

Finally I just couldn't do it. I couldn't even take a step. I had to take the shoes off.

Immediately I felt happy. In fact, happiness flooded into me. I had no idea what would happen out there, having not run for so long, but I knew I was back where I wanted to be -- barefoot running.

And waiting for me, like a big beautiful blue reward was this:

It was 35 degrees and sunny! And my feet never felt cold at all!

What had made me unhappy about having the shoes on? What did I love about having taken my shoes off?

It was that I had missed coming in contact with the ground. I really love to feel the ground.

I do believe it's true about getting that feedback from the ground. The Merrell's are really nice shoes. Really great shoes.. I used them to run the first mile of the 2012 Disney Family Fiesta 5K just a few weeks ago -- that first mile on that painful nubby parking lot that I described to you from last year's Disney 5K. I didn't feel happy about wearing the shoes there either, but it was something that was necessary because I was not conditioned to run on that sharp nubby pointy stuff.

But it seem that no matter how well they make these very minimalist, barefoot-style shoes, there always ends up being a layer between the nerve ending and the feet and the ground. Sometimes the soles of these shoes are very good, and you can feel much through them, but it is just not the same as that direct contact with the ground. It's just not the same!

I think I now know my destiny.

I think there are lots of ways to run. I don't believe my barefoot is some kind of doctrine that must be adhered to. If someone hated it they should not do it that way. But for me, there is nothing like it. I won't cease to get a big kick out of the fact that it can be done this way. After all those years of believing and thinking and just taking for granted the "truth" that I needed some kind of support in my shoe in order to run, I can't stop thinking it's so wonderful that I can just run without any shoes at all. It's such a feeling of bursting free!

By the way, I also wrote in that post an hour ago that I would just walk/run out there. But I didn't. I ended up running the whole time. Only ran about a mile and a half but that is enough for the first day back.

Beginning Again

2012-01-30T07:52:00.000-08:00

Hi there, everyone.

Here I am standing at the threshold of a new beginning.

I have been invited to round 2 of black sash training in Kung Fu. This time working towards a progress stripe on my belt. This is an intense, like last year, 6-month training event that ends in a big test and a graduation. I wrote about my last year's first experience with it here.

This year I'm in big trouble. I let myself lose a lot of my conditioning -- actually most of it. Same with my running. I've put on a lot of extra pounds and I can really feel those extra pounds in everything I do.

So today is day one of enacting the plan to do two things -- get through this black sash training, and run a 5K on Mother's Day with my friend and her daughter.

Today is going to be a running day, but since I haven't gone out there since the 2012 Disney Family Fiesta 5K (which I shall write about later), I am going to just get out there and walk this first day.

I'll walk, and test out a little running, maybe a minute here and a minute there..

It's cold and I have a pair of Merrell pace gloves. It's not THAT cold, and last year I would have gone out with bare feet, but just to get me out there, I'm going to use the pace gloves. I don't like it, but I think it would be best because if I'm more walking than running it is colder and my feet are more in contact with the cold ground. When I'm totally running there is less ground time and they are less cold.

I'll let you know how it goes.

How to Love Your Body

2011-11-01T11:47:00.000-07:00

Just read a blog over at Livestrong where the author talks about getting an e-mail from someone who said "I hate my body." ("Cut Through the BS")

Now, you all know that I am an overweight barefoot runner. There are a lot of people out there who might think I should hate my body.

But I don't.

I used to hate my body, but now I don't. I love my body.

I don't believe that love is a REaction. I think love is an ACTION.

I wrote a post about "How to Love Your Voice" over at my Avocational Singer Blog.

What I wrote over there is about how the example of the loving actions a mother takes on behalf of the child she loves can serve as a template for how to love our voices. I highly recommend you check the ideas out in that post because it also can serve as a way to understand how to love our bodies.

An example of loving or hating one's body based on a REaction would be something like this: I look in the mirror and I approve of what I see -- meets my conditions for acceptability -- and then I feel love for my body. Or I look in the mirror and don't approve of what I see -- doesn't meet my conditions for acceptability -- and then I feel hate for my body.

A lot of people want to run because they are hoping that running will be a tool to shape them into the kind of body that they can love. They come from a place of not loving their bodies, and wanting to transform their bodies so that some time in the future they can love their bodies.

But I would like to assert here that it is love for our bodies that transforms. We have to start with the love. Love that is put into action.

Using the same analogy as loving our children, we can treat our body as that "child" of ours that we love.

We don't force our children to do unbearably difficult exercise, stand over them and holler and get them to repeat laps and reps. We try to find something they enjoy and have fun doing, like take them to the playground and let them swing from the monkey bars, so that they don't even realize that they're getting exercise. We sacrifice our time to bring them to the playground after school and on weekends, because we want them to have that benefit and not just sit inside and live a sedentary life. We want them to breathe fresh air and hear the rustle of the leaves in the trees and feel the wind on their cheeks and the warmth of the sun because we LOVE them.

We make sure they go to bed at a decent hour because we want them to feel good. We know they will be able to function better in their day at school, be in a more cheerful mood, thus eliciting more positive responses from the people around them. We know their immune systems will function better. We make sure they go to bed because we LOVE them.

We bring them to the doctor when they are sick and remove them from activities and let them lie on the couch and color and watch TV because we want them to get well. We take care of their injuries, and make them stop activities so that they can be whole again to enjoy those same activities to the fullest. We do that because we LOVE them.

We make sure we shop for the kinds of foods that will build and repair their growing cells, tissues, muscles, bones. We provide nutritious meals for them. We let them have treats, but within limits. We don't starve them, beat them, deprive them. We give them good things in a good way so that they can grow. We go to a lot of trouble to feed them this way because we LOVE them.

Well, if you replace the word "body" for "children" in the preceding examples, it might be easy see that it is by loving actions towards our bodies that we will have the greatest impact on them. They will be formed in the most optimal way.

By loving ourselves this way, we don't have to wait until some transformation that turns us into something lovable, because we can be lovable as we are right now. Not a future lovable. A NOW lovable.

Bunker Roy: Learning from a barefoot movement | Video on TED.com

2011-10-18T12:03:00.000-07:00

Wow, did you know there was a Barefoot College?

The philosphies of this Barefoot College are very intriguing! Just like there have been companies in modern society convincing us that we have to wear a certain kind of shoe when we run, there are universities telling us we have to have a certain kind of education and a certain type of degree to make it in society.

Bunker Roy: Learning from a barefoot movement | Video on TED.com

After watching the video, I looked up the college web site. Here it is.

I am sure that most barefoot people will find this really interesting.

"The Barefoot College"

Barefoot Running Loot

2011-10-13T13:05:00.000-07:00

I didn't tell you in my writeup about my time at the 2nd Annual NYC Barefoot Run that we got a little goodie bag. It feels a little weird to "get" something at a barefoot run because it makes it seem like any other run. Everybody kind of expects to "get" something nowadays when they go to a run because that's the way it's done and is part of the fun. I, for one, love having the T-shirt because wearing it in my regular life, at least at this point, is a bit distinctive. All the other run T-shirts kind of blend all together until they all look like the same T-shirt. But, in these early days, a Barefoot Run T-shirt is a little unique.

But the whole structure/format/setup of the barefoot run caused one friend of mine to raise a philosophical objection. She wanted to come to the run only on Sunday, but could not attend all the events on the preceding Saturday. The fee for the whole weekend was $75. She wanted there to be a "race-only" fee. She asked the organizers if this would be possible and they told her no, that the $75 fee applied to participate, whether you were only coming to run the race or not. After that, my friend wrestled with whether she wanted to pay $75 to just come around the island two times and get a T-shirt. She decided it was not a good use of her money, and besides that, she found some kind of discrepancy between the fee and the idea that running barefoot was "minimal" and can be looked at as a means to objecting to paying the high prices of the scientifically designed running shoes offered by the big running shoe companies.

My friend raised these objections to me. Well, I faced the same fee dilemma, also not being able to attend the seminars, talks, workshops, partying and book-signings on the preceding Saturday, but reasoned that I was making a donation to promote a good cause. I saw it as a contribution to making an event like this possible, a way of supporting the movement in general. My friend's minimalist argument is not lost on me, but there are SO many other aspects of barefoot running to enjoy and so many angles to come from that I don't feel that I'm compromising some kind of principle or anything by paying the fee.

I had intended to share my thoughts about the forward lean aspect of barefoot running. But, as you can see, I played around with my photo today, and I think it's enough for today to just talk about how I was enjoying the loot from the NYC Barefoot Run. I shall have to save my reflections on the forward lean for a future blog post.

Barefoot Fresca Goes to the 2nd Annual NYC Barefoot Run

2011-10-06T10:07:00.000-07:00

Since I took the photos, and told you all I was going, it would make sense that I write up my experience of the 2nd Annual NYC Barefoot Run for you all, even if it is a bit late. This post might start out a bit uneventful, but keep reading on because I'm saving the highlight of the day -- when I got to meet a very special barefoot blogger -- for the very end.

I had the most wonderful time in the world.

But the night before the run it wasn't looking so good. Got a weather update for the run in my email and here's what it said:

"We have access to a building on Governors Island that is just off the ferry. If it’s raining hard, we will set up the run out of that building ..."

and

"After getting set up indoors, we will make a go at a run in the rain. Afterwards, people can return indoors."

To a fair-weather barefoot-runner such as myself, this did not sound very appealing at all. Every time I imagined what it would be like in that building after running in the rain with all those wet sweaty barefoot runners, I thought "ugh!" Yet, to not do it would be to miss out on the gathering of like-minded souls. And it would also mean I would not get to meet one of my barefoot blogging heroes, whom I had been so looking forward to meeting.

Waking up Sunday morning, however, it was not looking too bad. Unlike last year, at the 1st Annual NYC Barefoot Run, I did not have any companions joining me. I had to make my way over by myself. I decided to try driving in, because I wasn't sure if the buses were going to be running regularly on an early Sunday morning. I was very nervous about parking, and when I got to a certain point on the West Side highway, the police redirected traffic through Manhattan. This little detour made me a bit late.

So, I caught the last ferry going over to the island.

Amidst the air of celebrity -- whom I think the organizers were referring to as "the Kudus" at this event -- I felt like a very small and insignificant barefoot runner. So, I felt a little more useful when asked to help carry some boxes coming off the ferry. (See in the photo, the guy with the backpack carrying the box. He, like me, was a Box-Carrier. Boxes got loaded on to the little rickshaw). It made me feel a little more important!

Next was the 15- minute walk over to the part of the island where the race was going to start.

I remember how last year I was all worried about an extra 15 minutes of walking, since I was trying to save myself so I could run twice around the island. It felt good to know that 15 minutes of walking was nothing this year and would not take away from running (even though I was only planning to run one time around, about two miles).

Instead of the incredibly blue skies and beautiful sunshine from last year, the sky was overcast and gray:

There wasn't a lot of time beforehand for me to connect or talk to people because they were already gathering for the group photo. If you go to the 2nd Annual NYC Barefoot Run page and look at the group photo, you will see me -- maybe. Count 8 people in from the right -- about 3 rows back -- and you'll see me standing there in a blue shirt. (I'll tell you a secret. I chose a bright colored blue shirt because I hoped it would help me spot myself in the photo because last year I couldn't see me.)

This year we were delighted and surprised to kick things off with some beautiful singing -- the singing of The National Anthem by a barefoot-running singer named Melissa. (If you are on Facebook, you will be able to hear her singing by clicking on the link.) Melissa had been the sweeper, who had so kindly run alongside me at the "Born to Run" Barefoot Run I had attended summer of 2010 when I was first starting out as a barefoot runner. I had learned since then that she was a singer, but now I got to hear her for the first time and it was a thrill to hear her beautiful mezzo voice. It was really cool to have such a professional kick-off to the event.

After allowing a couple who got engaged at the event to head out first in the Luna Rickshaw that was being pulled by Barefoot Ted, we all set out on our merry barefoot way.

As I started out, John Durant, who is the co-founder of the Barefoot Runners New York City Meetup group, fell in step alongside me. What did we talk about? Why, the weather of course. How happy we were that it did not rain after all. I think he left me with the deep philosophical reflection on the fact that when they say 60% chance of rain we always forget that there is a 40% chance that it will not rain. He is always a very profound guy.

Now, John Durant was very kind to run at my very slow pace for a bit, but I am sure that he could not have continued at that pace forever (nor continue to come up with profound weather statements for much longer). He needed to get up to speed and head on his way. Nevertheless, despite how slowly he may have felt he had been running, it was a little bit faster than I usually run. Due to that fact -- having set a bit faster pace -- I actually found it a little hard to get around the island for the two-mile run I had planned. Remember, I have not trained that much this summer, so I haven't got much more than 2 miles in me at this given point in time.

As I struggled along, kind of thinking that I might need to stop and walk, which I actually did for a few paces, I spied ahead of me on the path someone who was running a little more slowly than I was (not too many of those out there). As I was about to pass her, I realized that she was running more at the pace I am accustomed to using, and that I would be better off slowing down to her pace.

I fell in step alongside her and found out it was Marilyn, whom I had met last year at the 1st NYC Barefoot Run, along with her husband John. They had come from out of state again this year. Last year, only John had run, but Marilyn had recently taken up barefoot running herself, and this was her first time running at the NYC Barefoot Run. She remembered me from last year, and we fell in step with each other. She became my "pacing partner." John, her husband, came along with us and took some photos:

At one point, back there by that little brown building, my contact lens fell out. I had a really tough time with sweaty hands and the wind, trying to get it back into my eye. Marilyn and John were really nice and stood blocking the wind for me. After several attempts, I managed to get the contact lens back in my eye.

After finishing my one time around, John took a picture of me under the finish line:

Okay, so the run part was over.

Now the highlight of my whole day occurred. I finally met fellow blogger and barefoot-running mentor, Barefoot Josh. I felt like I knew him already because he is exactly like he seems on his blog. I love the fact that even though Josh is a very fast barefoot runner, he makes no judgments and condescends to help the struggling poor little ones find their way into the world of barefoot running. We had a great, although too short, little chat, and I left that day thinking that as fun as it is to merely go out running barefoot, it is also great fun to meet other people who like to run barefoot too.

Barefoot Fresca and the 2nd Annual NYC Barefoot Run

2011-09-19T09:28:00.000-07:00

Oh no! What have I done?

I let myself get to within a week of the Second Annual NYC Barefoot Run without training all summer and without writing in my Barefoot Blog.

How could I have let this happen?

I have run all of about 20 miles this summer. All barefoot, of course.

Here's what I figured out I did: Every Monday, I would "begin again." It was a summer of "beginning again" over and over again. I went out there faithfully on Mondays. But during the week I would fail to get out there. (There was a lot going on.) So, Monday would roll around and I would keep beginning again, beginning again, beginning again ...

It was a little frustrating because I wanted to be doing more, but it just wasn't coming together this summer.

But the good news was that I'm solidly in my bare feet this year. I have a solid barefoot mile in me at all times, and I have been slowly increasing the distance every Monday. All the surfaces that were hurt-y, pointy, or rough last summer are a piece of cake this summer due to the soles of my feet being in great condition for barefoot. All my barefoot walking is natural and easy like when I was a kid (last summer it always felt awkward and unnatural.)

Most of all, I just can't even think of putting on shoes to run. The thought of it bothers me a lot. I would rather skip running altogether than put on shoes. Not because this is what I think all people should do or something, mind you. It is a very very strong personal preference.

Okay, so all this means that I do still belong at the NYC Barefoot Run, right? Even though I didn't run that far. Even though I didn't tend my blog. Even though I lost track of everything happening in the barefoot world? (Well, not everything -- I did buy Barefoot Ken Bob's book when it came out).

But this weekend, all the rock stars of the barefoot world are going to be there, and I had hoped to make a little better showing of myself at the event. Wouldn't you hope for that if you were coming? I had hoped to be able to run a few more laps this year (Last year I went around twice for around a 4-mile total.) The furthest distance I've run on any run this summer has been 2 miles. That would be one time around the NYC Barefoot Run track. Maybe I would have liked to be running a teensy bit faster this year, or lost a little weight, or got some cool barefoot runner's tattoo on my ankle or something?

There's no way I can miss this, though. I've been signed up for months and I'm going, even if I have to just walk the second time around. Really do wish I could run a whole lot farther on Sunday, but this is just going to have to do for this year, and MAKE ME COME BACK AND READ THIS POST before I let this happen again next year!!

I realize my blog needs some pictures, so I'm going to decorate it now with some stuff I made for other blog posts I didn't get to, but intended to, write to you this summer. All summer long I had intended to tell you about the pair of sandals I got from Zappos which I LOVED and highly recommend for barefoot-loving folks everywhere.

They are called Volcom Knock on Wood Creedlers. When the reviewers gave a little warning about the shoes having no arch support, I knew they were just what I wanted.

I was a little worried about the ring around the toe, but, like one of the reviewers said, amazingly, you don't feel it at all. They felt like feathers on my feet and went with a little bit dressier look.

I wore these things ALL summer! I don't have my own picture of how great the shape of the sole of the sandal is, but it was nice and wide in the forefoot area and a good shape for people who believe toes should be able to splay freely in a sandal. You'll have to go to the link above to see how flat and thin the soles are.

I was tempted to run in them. They felt like they feel wonderful running, but I did not think they were sturdy enough to hold out for the running experience. But the fact that I felt like running in them tells me I might do well in a pair of those running sandals, like the ones Barefoot Ted makes. (Have been holding off on that because I am intimidated by the fact that you have to figure out how to get the tying of them right.)

BTW, I won't get anything if you buy these sandals. I'm just sharing how much I love them with you like I would share with a friend. There's probably some affiliate program I could sign up for so that if you click the link and buy them I'd get something, but I'm too lazy to go figure it out, and being that I haven't talked to you all this summer, I want to get this post up there.

Yay! I'm a Black Sash!

2011-06-16T20:57:00.000-07:00

Wait a minute. That's a picture of a brown sash, not a black sash. I thought she said she was a black sash.

Yes, that is my "old" brown sash you see over there on the left, with all the progress stripes earned over the past year or so.

I told you in the other post that I was being given a second chance to get my black sash. That "second chance" meant that I had to show up tonight for sparring class, get changed into my gear in 3 minutes or less, and spar whoever was there.

Apparently all the tall men take the sparring class. I had to fight 5 tall men who punch and kick pretty hard and, frankly, seem to take all this fighting rather seriously. If I had been able to spar at the black sash test last Friday I would have been in the group of people my height and mixed men and women. Plus I would have been fighting people who were tired -- not fresh and springy -- which really makes a difference, I tell you.

I got changed into my sparring gear with a minute to spare. Guess the practice session I had earlier this week served me well. Despite my careful calculations and accounting for everything, there are always going to be some surprises. I got changed in the dressing room where all the ladies from the previous class were in there changing and trying to talk to me. I had to explain -- with a mouthpiece in my mouth -- while changing that I was doing this for my black sash. "Ahm dng dsh fr mah black ssh."

That didn't phase them. They kept asking me questions.

The other thing -- ha ha -- that I didn't account for was the velcro from my shoes sticking to the rug!!! You saw me practice outside where the velcro didn't stick.

Nevertheless, all was well. As I said, I finished with a minute to spare.

As soon as I got out there, the instructor made everyone form a circle and he put me in the middle.

Here's what I wrote to my friend about it:

"The most I had ever sparred was 3 people in a row, but tonight I had to do 5 and it was really hard. After I got past the 3rd one, Mr. R., my instructor, told me "This is where you have to push through." I felt like I was sprinting up a mile long hill. After number 4, he said, "you have to do one more." He looked me straight in the eye. I felt like I was dying, but I looked him straight back in the eye and said, "okay, let's go."

Later he told me that when I looked at him and said "let's go," it was what he had been looking for. And that's what makes you pass the test."

What's funny about this is that this is the kind of intense workout level that I have avoided my whole life. I felt really winded, like I was doing sprints, or running hills, which are two type of running activities that I don't usually engage in. This was what I was doing during cycle training when my lips turned blue. I was literally seeing stars at the end of it.

The other funny thing about it is what I told you in another post. Fighting was about the last thing on earth I ever thought I'd learn to do. I am a peace-loving person who does not like violence at all. I was kind of in shock to find out that all this Kung Fu was showing me how to fight. I have always been the kind of person who had no interest in fighting and I am truly here by accident (if there is such a thing as accidents in this life).

Well, to make a long story short, I did it. Err -- I mean -- I DID IT!!

And the ritual is that the brown sash is removed and we don't wear a sash until graduation -- which is tomorrow. I am so-o-o-o happy that I'm going to be moving on to the black sash classes with everyone else and not be left behind.

And now I'm even thinking maybe I'll try running some hills or something.

If at First You Don't Succeed -- Practice!

2011-06-14T11:18:00.000-07:00

I'm getting a second chance! I suppose that means I should practice! I guess that means I have to put on shoes! (Grumble, grumble, complain, complain.)

I thought that it would be enough to practice during class each week over the past six months, but it is obvious that practicing a little at home might have been a good idea. Since getting into sparring gear in 3 minutes is what cost me during my black sash test, it might pay off to do a little homework now.

First up: The video below shows that I clearly can get into my gear in under 3 minutes -- with 30 seconds to spare as a matter of fact -- at least while I'm fresh.

Next Up: Knowing My Left Foot From My Right
Because of the delay to get to my bag -- at least, by my estimation, a 20-second one -- there was no room for any errors. One thing that happened was that when I put the first shoe on, it was on the wrong foot. I think there has been a question in my mind whether these shoes have a right and a left or whether they are both the same. For once and for all I should check this out.

This way?

Or this way?

Okay, after a few minutes I figure out that there definitely is a right one and a left one. (the first picture has it right). But there definitely IS something weird about these shoes. One of them has a different shape than the other. It is narrower and comes more to a point (the left one, btw). No wonder I was confused, but since I had never really studied them, and only got to know them "on the fly," it has actually been helpful to figure it out once and for all.

The next part is the elastic bands. I thought I had figured out to come around the outside first, wrap under the instep, and then come back up and cross over the top. But for some strange reason sometimes I found myself having gone the wrong way the first time and had to reverse it, costing precious seconds.

And here is why!!

Will you just look at that?

Well, I'll be!

Both straps are attached in the same direction. It's not reversed.

I had been assuming they would be mirror images of each other, and that if I had to wrap around the outside on one, it would be the same with the other.

But this homework I'm doing is revealing some strange things about my equipment and my assumptions.

Here's a video to show how it all really works!

The Final Up: The Glove
If you remember my sad story, when we were called to the floor, I had all my gear on except for the glove. As I was walking to the floor, I tried to slip the glove on quickly, but two things prevented me. One was that the glove was curled closed and needed to be "opened" first. The other was that I had forgot there was a hand strap in the glove so I went straight for the fingers and missed.

So, here is a video of me settling on a glove technique.

That's it. That's all the homework for today. Sorry I can't show you me doing some fancy Kung Fu spinning hook kicks or flying leaps. It turns out that is not what being a black sash is about. Being a black sash is about doing homework like this, and practicing things in slow motion and being less than awesome most of the time as you break things down and work things out.

Kung Fu Black Sash -- A Second Chance

2011-06-14T04:10:00.000-07:00

I'm getting a second chance.

I was called in for a meeting with Sifu tonight.

He gave me a choice. I could come in later this week on the one night that was available for this, take the kung fu class that night, then gear up for sparring and spar whoever is there for the sparring class that follows.

Or, I could wait for cycle training next year.

My choice.

I have already told you -- and I told my Sifu tonight -- that I already feel that I succeeded. I feel that I succeeded with my goals and objectives and my training. I do already feel like a black sash, because, like they say all the time, it's something you define for yourself and you possess it within you. It's not the piece of material or the recognition or award.

So, now, after having had to process what happened at the test, I can have one more chance. If I pass later this week, then I can be a black sash at the black sash graduation this weekend. I can stand with my classmates who all started with me four years ago,

I can lay any doubts I have left to rest if I test later this week.

Or, I can wait a year.

I have to let him know tomorrow (which is now today because I didn't post this last night).

Everything Matters -- The Importance of Small, Functional Fitness

2011-06-13T09:45:00.000-07:00

A couple of days have gone by and with it plenty of time to ponder the moment of fail during my Kung Fu black sash test.

There might be some who will say I'm over-analyzing with the blog post I'm about to present, but I do not think that I am. There are some important lessons, details, and revelations in the minutia and I hope that case will be made as I present my thoughts in the words and photos that follow.

Basically I failed my black sash test because I couldn't dress myself. This may seem like a trivial reason to "fail" after being able to handle apparently tougher physical matters, but I have come to believe that it may not be so trivial after all.

For a while now, I've been on the track of considering what basic functional everyday fitness means to our lives. I've written about this a couple times on this blog, and most recently as I've been posting the little beginner routines I've found and have been using as warm-up routines. (See "The Joy of Warming Up")

Here I would be mastering these awesome Kung Fu forms and stances and various other Kung Fu physical feats, but little functional fails in my daily life would make me sit back and think. For example, after kung fu class I would come home in the evening and when I got ready for bed, I would notice that I had trouble crossing my arms and lifting and pulling my t-shirt off over my head. I was lacking in flexibility and even the simple strength to accomplish this basic task of undressing without some effort and struggle. I would think that maybe I should rep that, or find some exercise that would develop that needed motion.

Another time I would notice a "fail" would be when trying to put on a pair of shorts. I would have trouble balancing on one leg and lifting the other leg to insert in the leg hole of the garment. Another fundamental physical task, needed by us all, to maintain our daily lives. Having the strength, coordination and balance to dress and undress ourselves effortlessly should be a kind of functional fitness available and enjoyed by us all. Simple and obvious, right?

Dressing One's Self is Important
When my son was in kindergarten, I was still assisting him getting dressed in the morning. The "master teacher" at his school told me in a conversation that it was important for me to let him struggle with dressing himself because he would be developing strength in his fingers and arms and motor coordination skills.

And at the other end of the spectrum, sometimes the elderly lose the strength and balance and flexibility they once had that made getting dressed so easy at one time in their lives. They often end up needing assistance getting dressed.

And the fact that getting dressed and undressed requires effort, coordination, flexibility and strength is evident when there are really important people, like Kings, who end up having a valet or butler to assist him in getting dressed.

In light of these reflections, this weak link that manifested itself in my failure to "dress myself" in my sparring gear within the required time is not trivial, nor meaningless in a quest to live a better life by freer and more effortless movement.

I'm going to examine one of my functional weaknesses in this blog post (even though there are a number of other ones as well). This is one of my main ones, however, and I think this has been giving me trouble when I gear up quickly for sparring.

Weak Link: Hip Flexors
I had three main areas of concern going into my black sash test (besides stamina and endurance).

Worried about stopping during the bicycle crunches during the conditioning segment
Worried about losing balance when doing crane stance
Worried about taking too much time to put my sparring crotch protection piece on

There is actually something all three of these tasks have in common, and another thing two of the tasks have in common. All three of these physical tasks involve the hip flexors, and two of them involve balancing weight on one leg while using the hip flexors of the other leg.

1. Bicycle Crunches

It wasn't my abs that failed on these, they were pretty strong. It was the hip flexors. Doing these bicycle crunches are great for helping strengthen them through reps. Being overweight meant that I was working with a high level of resistance. High resistance, lower reps. That's why the fail. These bicycle crunches came at the end of 3 rounds of conditioning exercises and it was tough. I improved so much, but maybe not enough to last the whole amount of time. I didn't know during the testing period whether I would get the best results from doing them every day, or three times a week. To me, they were like weight training, and they say to do weight training 3x a week, but maybe that was the wrong approach and I would have made faster gains if I had done them every day.

2. Crane Stance

Right here you see that in crane stance the hip flexor is raising one leg while remaining standing on the other bent leg.

Being overweight means that I need much stronger hip flexors to lift my leg. It doesn't mean I can't do it, but it does mean that the strength to do it needs to be developed. It took me a long time to be able to raise my leg this high. In the first couple of years my foot was just about an inch off the ground.

That is area number one of the test where I could have had a "fail." During our cycle training, if someone put their foot on the floor while we were doing this, we had to start at the beginning of the stance routine again. I felt bad in the first few weeks of our training because I was one of the people who caused us to begin again a few times. But in the later weeks of training I improved on this greatly.

3. Stepping into the sparring gear crotch piece.

There were two leg holes here. In order to get this on it was necessary to use the hip flexors, while standing balanced on one leg and insert the foot into the hole. The elastic bands made it tricky, especially if the foot got caught on one of them. The openings look big enough for the feet, but they were slightly smaller, making it necessary to point the toe to get the foot through the leg hole.

I had considered sitting down to put this and my sparring shoes on, but there are other problems with my being able to get up off the floor quickly. I ascertained that I was losing less time doing it standing by going through the whole process of sitting on the floor and getting up from the floor (Maybe I'll do a whole post on the functional daily fitness ability of being able to spring up from the floor easily and well.)

Here we go.

This ain't gonna' be that easy!

Ugh! Huff ! Puff! Costing me precious seconds! Costing me my black sash!!

First on my Kung Fu Fitness To-Do List -- Strengthen those Hip Flexors!!
Those of you who have been reading along on my blog know I was already on to these weak links in my physical conditioning. I was already on the road to correcting the hip flexor issue because that warm-up routine I wrote about from Project Elastic Steel includes exercises for those hip flexors.

In fact, it's possible that because I was doing the Project Elastic Steel routine along with my cycle training in the last few weeks, I was improved enough to succeed on the crane stance and the bicycle crunches during my test.

The realization of these little weak links came a little late in the game while I was training. Maybe I did too little too late for this test, but one of the great gains I made by putting myself to the test of this very tough cycle training is that I discovered things about myself and I'm smarter now and know exactly what I need to do and can do to improve.

I hope I've convinced you that this was not an unimportant or trivial aspect of the test. I still think it's a shame that it cost me so much because I did so well in other areas. I was, after all, capable of doing it, at least to the minimum required. Nevertheless, it is all good to know!

Kung Fu Black Sash Test Results

2011-06-10T22:03:00.000-07:00

Right off the bat I have to report the sad news that I did not pass my black sash test.

It wasn't because I wasn't awesome, because I did an amazing job on the test and I was stronger and better than I'd ever been. All my training strategies kicked in the way I wanted them to and I knew all my stuff and felt amazing during the test.

So, why didn't I pass?

It was on a technicality..

It was that bleepin' sparring gear that did me in.

Here's what happened. There was a mob of black sash people at the test because some candidates from another school came and were also part of the test. It was crowded. Our sparring gear was lined up in black bags ready for the moment when they told us to gear up.

As I explained in another post, we had 3 minutes to get into the gear. I had been having a little trouble with this. I always seemed to get everything but one piece on each week when we practiced. One week it would be the mouthpiece. The next week it would be the helmet. Another week it would be a glove.

But the past couple of weeks I've been making it all the way within the 3-minute time frame so I thought I was good. And, in a way I was.

When the time came to gear up tonight, a mob of kids scrambled to their bags which were piled layers deep in front of mine. I simply could not get through the bodies to my bag. There was a delay. I am sure I lost a good 20 seconds at that point.

But I still would have been good. I put my shoe on, and thought it was on the wrong foot, so I took it off again, but found out it had not been on the wrong foot. But I think that shoe thing cost me the valuable seconds I needed. Losing that 20 seconds at the beginning meant that there was no leeway for any mistakes.

When they called time, I still had one glove to go. I was holding it in my hand. They called us in to the floor: "Everybody on one knee." At this point, I thought I could still slip it really quickly, but then Sifu said the fatal words:

"Nobody make a move."

So, there was no way I could slip the glove on without moving, and I felt that I had to obey what he said.

Next he said,

"Anyone who is missing even one piece of equipment, leave the floor. You cannot participate in the next part."

Very sadly I rose from the floor, walking off fully geared up except for the glove I held in my hand. "This can't be happening," I thought. "It's not real. I have so much energy left even though we've been at this for hours. I am so ready for some rounds of sparring!"

But, tragically, it was happening. And it was happening to one other kid too, who also had been prevented from getting to his bag. He was crying.

I stood there in my gear, looking like a forlorn Kung Fu panda, just watching everyone spar. It took a long time. I think I stood there over an hour. I felt like I was in some surreal movie. I just stood there in my sparring gear thinking "Maybe he will change his mind and call me over to spar after all." But it never happened.

Once they got through the sparring, there was just the 5-minute horse stance to get through. We had now been there for over 4 hours. I stood with everyone even though I already had been told that I did not get my black sash. But I did the horse stance anyway, and I felt really strong and springy, like I could have done a 6, 7 or 8 minute horse stance.

So, it's a really weird report I have to make. I can't really say I failed in my training or plan because it all worked wonderfully. I can't say that I didn't know my stuff because I did. I can't say that I choked because of nerves, because I was amazingly calm, in control and having a really great time. I can't say I didn't have the stamina, because I was going strong after several hours and lots of hard physical work.

The only thing I can say is that I don't have the sash.

It's feels sort of like not getting the T-shirt at the race (although that's never happened to me at a race, but this is how I imagine it would feel.)

Countdown to Kung Fu Black Sash Test -- Eve of Test

2011-06-09T19:23:00.000-07:00

It's 10:13pm and I should have been in bed 13 minutes ago. Today's plan: Get a good night's sleep. But I couldn't go to sleep without checking in with you all.

I spent the day mentally preparing myself for sparring by imagining different scenarios and envisioned myself taking care of it all neatly and calmly.

That's about it. No working out. No running -- It was way too hot.

I am really glad I am not nervous at the moment. I HATE that nervous feeling. It interferes with being able to feel the fun of all this. I know it will come back, but right now I'm pretending like the nervous feeling will not come back. Even if it does, I'm enjoying every minute of being at peace right now. And every minute of not being in pain.

So, as soon as I finish typing these words to you all, I'm hitting the sack.

Countdown to Kung Fu Black Sash Test -- Day 3

2011-06-08T19:23:00.000-07:00

Running out of pictures that have to do with Kung Fu. Had to dig into files from 4 years ago and find a picture at one of our first belt graduations. Looks like I just got my yellow belt here (and yes, that is an American Flag you see in the background..)

We didn't wear those white uniforms for too long before we moved to the intermediate level and bought our black pants and cool black T-shirts.

My last workout for the week before the black sash test was tonight and it was at a beginner class where they were wearing the white uniforms. As part of the black sash training we have to "role model" at a beginner class. The funny part about that is I am always humbled by those people learning in the white uniforms. They always seem so much better than I am.

Because the beginner workout is lighter, it was necessary to jack up the intensity and work at a high energy level. This is not my forte -- deliberately performing an activity at a higher intensity level when it can be done perfectly fine at a lower one -- but if I didn't use this last workout on the agenda to work hard, the black sash test on Friday was going to be harder.

Now I won't do any more working out until the test. Maybe I'll go for a little barefoot run tomorrow morning but that's it. I will imagine my muscles gaining just a tad little bit of strength as I sleep tonight, and then that will be it. That will be the most I could do before the test.

I could have made this easier on myself by training a little better. I could have made this easier on myself by losing some weight. I could have made this easier on myself by not missing a single class these past six months. I could have practiced and worked out more at home on my own. But, in the midst of all the business of life, I did what I could. I've been through the "I could have ..." stage of this process and have arrived at the acceptance stage that I am what I am at this point and my performance on Friday will reflect that.

All I'll be able to bring to the test will be how much I've achieved thus far. If it's not good enough, then I will have to wait. If it's good enough, then I'll pass and move on to some higher training.

Countdown to Kung Fu Black Sash Test -- Day 2

2011-06-07T20:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a barefoot run -- about 2 miles. On the agenda for today was my regular Tuesday night advanced class.

I knew I had to work the intensity for tonight's class. In the regular class, we do less in our conditioning sets than we do in the Saturday morning cycle training, and than we'll do on the test this coming Friday, so my plan was to push it harder tonight. Kind of like doing hill work or sprints.

During the black sash test we will have to get through the following conditioning section right off the bat, before moving on to anything else:

Set 1
60 jumping jacks
90 seconds (or is it 120?) push-ups
90 seconds regular crunches
Immediately to Set 2
60 jumping jacks
90 seconds non-stop push-ups
90 seconds side-side-middle crunches
Immediately to Set 3
60 jumping jacks
90 seconds push-ups
90 seconds bicycle crunches

It's that last bit of bicycle crunches that always gets me and that I'm very worried about. If you stop during these sets, they will tap you on the shoulder and you're out of the test. I almost always have to put my feet on the floor and rest after about 30 bicycle crunches. I'm just not there yet. But one of my instructors told me to just keep moving. What I was able to do this past Saturday was just switch to regular crunches. If they accept that, I'll be okay.

(Very weird thing that's happening during my bicycle crunches. Since I NEVER wear shoes with arch support any more except for those old running shoes in kung fu class, I have been getting this really weird charlie horse cramp in the arch of my foot when I get down to do the crunches. It just cramps all up in this tight contraction in the middle of my foot and hurts really badly and is out of my control to relax it. It makes me look weird as I start the bicycle crunches. It is bizarre and I think it's because of the shoes -- doing the jumping jacks in those old running shoes.)

I also have to stop in the middle of the third set of push-ups, but I can stay in plank position and just do one more, then stay in plank and do one more, etc..., so I can get by.

The test is going to be 3 hours long. We'll be tested on everything we've learned for the past four years. Punches, kicks, various drills, Long Fist I and Long Fist II, the defense applications of both Long Fist I and II. And then we'll have to spar. Some people will have to fight 3 people, some 5, some -- the second degree black sashes -- 10 people. And at the end of all those hours -- the famous 5 minute horse stance!

Well, now back to my plan for tonight. My plan was to do deeper and faster crunches and push-ups. Since in the regular class we have to do half the amount of jumping jacks and half the time for the crunches and push-ups, I figure it would be like when you run faster because you are running a shorter distance. More intensity with less time.

Then, when I have to go the "longer distance" on Friday, I will pace myself. I will do slower push-ups crunches and not do them as deeply into the muscles. Like when you run slower for your "long run" day.

That's the plan anyway.

Countdown to Kung Fu Black Sash Test -- Day 1

2011-06-06T19:06:00.000-07:00

Today's plan was to run. Run barefoot, of course.

But I got called to sing a funeral in the morning, so was planning to run when I came home from that, a little worried that the pavement would be hot.

But as I was getting ready to go sing I got the horrible aura of a migraine -- shimmery jagged lights in my vision. My DH, who happened to be home, gave me an osteopathic adjustment to my neck, which often keeps the headache from coming. I got through the funeral and never got the headache, but still felt pretty crummy and had to lay down for several hours.

I only get these dumb migraines about four times a year but I was upset that it spoiled my training plan for the week.

So, I had to force myself to go out and run in the evening.

I felt really out of it because of the migraine, and I really did not want to go out there. But I kept thinking of that test on Friday -- a three hour test of endurance that I'm not even sure I'll be able to pass. I knew that this run was important to get in to at least help maintain my aerobic conditioning.

So, I tricked myself. I told myself that I was only going out for a walk.

It worked.

It is very tricky running out there in the evenings. There are tons of joggers out there bouncing up and down in their springy running shoes. There are also lots of fitness walkers with their sweatshirts tied around their waists and their water bottles swinging at their sides. There are also lots of people walking dogs and talking on cell phones, and families with kids in all kinds of riding contraptions.

In all that, weaving in and out of the people with my little dog, not one person seemed to notice or even blink an eye about the fact that I was out there running barefoot. In that way I enjoyed it tremendously because we were all just out there doing our thing, whatever it happened to be. I have a friend who gets hostile comments in the urban neighborhood where he runs, so I feel very blessed to have this place here.

On the way back, I was blessed also with being able to see the most beautiful sky. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera or phone with me to take a picture for you all, so I'll use one I took from a couple of nights ago. Stay tuned with me all week as I go through the final workouts before my black sash test on Friday!!

My Love/Hate Affair With Kung Fu Sparring Gear

2011-06-04T10:06:00.001-07:00

Ummm … That should read my ~~Love~~/Hate Affair.

From the moment we got this sparring gear, I had an aversion to it. In fact, I had such an aversion to it that I would often “forget” to bring my gear to class, and while everyone else was practicing sparring, I would be over with the group that forgot their gear and just practicing forms, which I liked better.

No one really looks that great in their sparring gear, but some of the younger girls can look a little cute in theirs. I am not one to worry too much how I look. I don’t let that concern stop me from going out and doing stuff, but I have to admit that the sparring gear was a little too much. I thought it made me look a lot like Kung Fu Panda.

But really, the aversion to the sparring gear for me was almost as strong as my aversion to sparring. I mean, I had joined Kung Fu because my daughter had wanted to do it and my friend and her daughter were doing it and I thought it would be a good way to get some exercise. I looked at all those Kung Fu forms and thought, “They’re kind of pretty – like dance. I can go for that!”

About two years into Kung Fu the realization came. “Oh my gosh, I’m learning to fight!” I have to tell you that it was the farthest thing from my mind when I had joined – learning to fight.

Needless to say I feared it and did not like it one bit. Fighting seemed as far off my radar as something could possibly be. I don’t like violence at all. I never go to any movies that come anywhere near being violent (Kung Fu Panda being an exception, and also the Lord of the Rings Trilogy).

Well, to pass our black sash test we have to spar. We have to spar against a number of people. So, we have been sparring during our black sash training.

When Sifu called me in last January to invite me to black sash training, he told us that he would not invite us if he didn’t think we could do it. He asked if I had any concerns. I told him it was the sparring. “What could we do to help you with that?” I told him that if I had some technique and strategy I would feel more confident. “Just show me what to do," I said.

All that time I had “forgot” my sparring gear, I had missed out on some training and I was behind. I have been trying to catch up the past 6 months.

I don’t think I’ve ever participated in a physical activity that is as intense as this sparring. My little barefoot 16-minute miles just don’t cut it compared to this level of intensity. It is during the sparring that my lips have turned blue two times.

There are a lot of already black belts in our class that are training to get their second and third degrees. Some of them are teenagers who are strong and fast and have been training a lot longer than I have. It has nothing less than comical as I’ve gone up against some of them. They just set themselves up on one leg and just start kicking and kicking me like I’m some kind of punching bag.

Until this morning.

I have been thinking a lot about strategy and about myself. I cannot make myself a more advanced person than I am right now. I have a repertoire of a few moves that I can use, much fewer than the fancy spin kicks and arsenal that some of those girls have. I’m not speedy, but I do have my brain.

I decided I needed a bit more practice, so a couple of days ago, I attended the sparring class that was just after my regular Kung Fu class. I didn’t know how I was going to do it because just getting through one 45 minute workout is enough for me. But I did stay and I learned just a little bit more, and I built my stamina just a little bit more.

So, this morning, I was very calm and I started to do well. Keeping a cool head helped me. When the kicks came, I just pushed them out of the way. I controlled my space and kept far enough away so that I couldn’t be used as a punching bag. I planned my moves in advance and watched carefully what the other person was doing. I didn’t swing or kick randomly or wildly, but waited patiently for the opportunity.

And I did much better.

(the dumb mouthpiece that makes us all look like goons)

The Joy of Warming Up

2011-06-02T08:59:00.000-07:00

It's been over two weeks now that I've been thoroughly warming up before I engage in any physical activity such as barefoot running or kung fu. It has made a big difference in both my ability to perform these activities, and my enjoyment of them as well.

I posted last week that I was using a very simple, non-flashy, beginner routine that is posted by Paul Zaichik on a youtube channel, "Project Elastic Steel." The video of his I had posted last week was the first part of "Episode 2."

I have now progressed to Episode 4 of his little series.

There is much to say about this little series of humble videos.

First, some people who checked the video out may wonder why -- if I am already engaged in working out with somewhat advanced activities that are in kung fu and running -- why does Barefoot Fresca think that she has to do such exercises for not only beginners, but a routine recommended for people who might even have very limited mobility at this point and are looking to get back into exercise?

Well, the sad truth is, that Barefoot Fresca jumped into these more advanced activities sooner than might have been recommended had anyone known what was going on.

Sometimes when an inactive person desires to get active, she might choose an activity or sport that looks fun to her. Not knowing that years of inactivity has most likely affected her joint mobility, flexibility, strength, overall range of motion in many areas of the body, she may not realize that more developed tasks of movement are not going to come easy and it might be unwise or even unsafe to go full out before some basic physical tasks, ones taken for granted while young, are restored to her.

This is kind of what happened to Barefoot Fresca. As she learned this awesome kung fu stuff and went out to run, she didn't realize what time and inactivity had done to stiffen her up and rob her of the ability to participate in movement activities.

Okay, enough talking in the third person, I'm going to switch back to talking about myself directly again because it's hard to keep that up.

There are a few limitations that have been hampering my ability to progress with my chosen activities. Here are some limitations:

spinal rotation (unable to perform the simple task of putting my hand on the back of the passenger seat and twisting around to look behind me while backing up while driving)
limited overhead reach (having trouble putting heavy frying pan away in the cabinet above the refrigerator)
weak knees (unable to do squats and do the back-saving and protective action of bending at the knees to pick stuff up off the floor)
lack of strength to get up from the floor (if someone knocked me over in a fight, it would be won because I cannot spring back up off the floor. I'm the last one up in the kung fu class when we finish our crunches and have to stand back up)
deficient strength with kung fu stances that are done with most or all of the weight on one leg -- crane stance, empty stance, etc...
difficulty balancing on one leg

and the list goes on and on.

What I should do, is go back to the beginning and start all over again and perform the routines on Project Elastic Steel -- or something similar -- which contain the seed form of more advanced movements. But I'm not going to go all the way back to the beginning. I'm going to continue to enjoy and work on the more advanced stuff I've been learning, while humbly working on these elementary routines. After all, doing the advanced stuff has gradually strengthened me, improved my flexibility and range of motion. I modified the advanced stuff to my abilities as I went along and these movements have served to develop me. It's just that I feel the need to fill in the gaps. By using this routine as the warmup for my other stuff, I believe I can do that -- progressing along with the warmup as I continue to maintain the gains I have made in running and kung fu.

In addition, because I am heavier, I need to build extra strength to manage my body weight. If I'm not ready to reduce the amount of food I'm eating and lose weight -- which I'm not, for a number of reasons -- then it would be smart develop the strength to bear the weight I do have. One or the other (or both) is advisable if one desires to experience freedom of movement.

In this beginner routine -- which also makes an excellent warmup for non-beginners -- the task of standing on one leg will build strength in my standing leg that will later form a foundation for better kung fu kicks.

What I like about the Project Elastic Steel videos:

Mr. Zaichik explains the physiology of each movement very thoroughly. The way he works it is that he goes through the routine the long way first, with detailed explanation -- such as in episodes 1 and 3 -- and then once you know what you are doing, he gives the fast version
His workouts contain all the elements of what they recommend for warmups now -- joint mobility warmup (fantastic!), cardiovascular warmup, muscle action warmup (lower and upper body), dynamic stretches, and -- lastly, when the body is completely warmed -- static stretches.
All the movements in the videos are kind of a seed form that develops over a period of weeks throughout the episodes and become more challenging and more advanced. This gradually develops a person for more advanced physical tasks.
He is very organized and methodical (something I like). I even like the way you can keep track of each Episode because he has thought to wear a different color T-shirt for each one.
The videos and routines are very simple and humble, produced at a low cost, apparently -- maybe even right in his home -- and yet containing way more valuable knowledge, information and insight into human movement than a lot more flashily produced videos.
The routines use one's own body weight with a minimum of equipment.
The routines take up very little space (I've been doing them right in the kitchen in front of my computer)
Mr. Zaichik patiently explains what one should do if one has trouble or difficulty with even this basic level of stretching or movement. He is very reassuring in the way he lets a beginner know that it is okay not be be able to perform a movement or to perform it on a lesser level. He makes it very clear.
As I said before, I admire the humility and patience of a very advanced athlete to count through these simple movements and exercises with a beginning kind of student. He has stated in the comment section on his channel that he has an interest in helping people who have been cut off from movement find their way into the wonderful world of physical activity again.
The routines are constructed so that if they are followed faithfully, they will improve a person's physical abilities and enjoyment of body and movement.

I am not a fan of using any kind of equipment for fitness. I am not saying that anyone who does like equipment is wrong or anything. I am merely speaking that my personal preference has always been for natural ways to improve one's physical capabilities using one's own body weight. I think this part of my personality and preference and philosophical outlook is part of what gets so tickled about barefoot running and the way I get to ditch that piece of equipment that seemed so essential -- the modern running shoe.

However, there is one piece of equipment I've decided to invest in. I think it's really important to add some pullup action to my routines, and these videos from Project Elastic Steel include some pullup action. I've been doing pushups for a while now in kung fu, and I've read and heard that it is wise to train the antagonistic motion of pulling up as well.

In the videos, Mr. Zaichik mentions at the beginning that one could use two chairs and a broom stick for the pull ups. That's what I've been doing so far. But my chairs were so low that it was hard to get in the proper position for the pullups.

Then I saw another Paul Zaichik video where he mentioned that you would have to use books on the chair to get the broomstick to the height that is needed. So, I did that, and it was better, but the broomstick kind of bows (guess I don't have a very strong broom) and I really like the contraption he is using in the videos. It is a simple stand and it is very portable and just looks so useful for a variety of things.

I went over to the Elastic Steel web site and found that this piece of equipment is not sold there. I also read through all the forums and found that this piece of equipment is not mentioned or discussed anywhere.

I searched all over the internet and I found this:

I showed it to my husband and he said to go ahead and get it (even though it cost a pretty penny). However, based on the way I like to work out, I have a feeling this is a good investment. I will let you know how I like it once it gets here.

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Disclaimer: I solely have pointed to these videos and products to discuss them from the point of view of sharing what is interesting and useful to me. I have no connection whatsoever with the people who produce or sell any of these things and get nothing for writing about it. These people don't even know I exist. Just sharing my personal journey -- discoveries, thoughts, and explorations -- with all of you, dear blog-reading friends..

Sunny Sidewalks

2011-05-31T10:26:00.001-07:00

How many times can you look at a photo of these same sidewalks that I run on every day?

Yup, here they are again! I must be breaking all the blog rules about keeping my readers interested by variety. And yet, dear friends, you keep coming back!

An uncle of mine, who is a pastry artist, once told me that when he was little my grandmother didn’t want to bring a whole box of crayons along when she brought him with her to her appointments, so she just brought one crayon (I wrote about this on my other blog in the post “One Crayon”). He told me he developed his art talent by the fact that he had to make that one crayon look so many different ways.

Well, something similar is the case with my barefoot running and this blog. I have to make my one sidewalk look so many different ways and see it from so many different angles because I never go anywhere else. But, being kind of “stuck” here for the time being in my barefoot running life, I have been forced to see that there is so much to learn right on this one little path and that I do not necessarily need to leave for trails along oceans and up mountain tops in order to discover new things about barefoot running.

Yesterday I wrote about getting myself out there too late and the pavement was too hot. I told you I would try to go out later in the day.

I kind of chickened out going out later in the evening. It was Memorial Day, and I had forgotten that this boulevard is crammed with people strolling along looking at the boats on The River. There would be dogs, and children and crowds of people. Although Barefoot Fresca is brave and doesn’t care if people see her running barefoot, that was a little too much to go out there with her little dog and weave in and out of that scene. So, I decided to go out this morning instead even though I have Kung Fu tonight. I hope I will be able to handle Kung Fu class.

I almost made the same mistake and got out there late again, but not quite as late as yesterday. The shadow from the wall had already receded and the tiles were exposed to the sun, as you can see in the photo above. However, it was early enough that the trees along the path were still casting a shadow, which had not been the case yesterday, as yesterday it was past noon and this morning it was enough before noon that there would be some shade from those trees, thus making it possible to run across little hot sections from tree to tree.

There was no way to run in the shadow because it was right up against the wall, and besides, even if one could be that close to the wall and run, one wouldn’t want to because that wall is very famous for being the place all the doggies like to relieve themselves. As brave and un-squeamish as I’ve become about sidewalk dirt, I don’t have the inclination to run along that strip.

I did find that the section immediately to the left of the shadow that remained was cooler than the section of sidewalk a little to the left of that. I think it is because that strip of pavement has only been newly exposed to the sun and had less time to soak it in and heat up.

So, my strategy was to run on that strip. I tested it out several times and it was definitely cooler than the center of the path.

The day before, my feet had become slightly burnt by the 1/4 mile of hot pavement I had walked on. Last year I would have given them an entire day off to heal up and toughen. That worked really well. But my feet seem to adjust more quickly this year – definitely a sign of leaving beginner-hood behind – and it felt right to go out this morning. If this run was not part of my black sash training, I would have just waited another day, but I am determined to get two runs in at least this week because I believe it will help my stamina during my black sash test.

There were definitely some hot sections, and I felt a little worried about the fact that I had once again forgotten to bring along a pair of flip flops in case I couldn’t handle the heat. What’s wrong with me? Have I become over-confident? I always went out so prepared last summer (and btw, never had to use the flip flops). But I just kept thinking about what I knew was up ahead – the haven of “The Shady Section.” Before I knew it, “The Shady Section” was upon me:

Aaah! The best part!

One worry, though, for the way back. There would be a long hot section to get through. It would be a little hotter than on the way there because it will have had at least 20 more minutes to soak up the sun and the wall shadow would have receded even more. Here is “The Brutal Hot Section”

As you can see, the shady strip along the wall has become very small, and the rest is hot, hot, hot! In a few weeks, that hot section will not be a problem. I know that because last summer it was not. But until I get my thermal resistant soles built up, this is a little tough and needs to be taken a little at a time.

I stayed close to the shady part, where the tiles were slightly cooler, but when runners coming from the other direction came, I had to move out to the middle where it was hot.

You see, in the hierarchy of runners, the slower, less-experienced runner is the one who has to give way to the “professional” runner. One can feel the hierarchical energy and one knows when one is supposed to yield. I’m not exactly sure of this, but I sense out there that the barefoot runner must yield to the shod runner. It is a humiliation for the barefoot runner, for the barefoot runner must accept the position of being “lower” than the “serious” shod runner, even though the reality is that this may not be so.

Perhaps this is all in my own mind. Perhaps it is just me who always yields, because I think I am truly the smallest and least of all runners.

But while I was yielding I was thinking, “Sheesh! Don’t these people with shoes on know that it’s hotter out here in the middle?”

No. They don’t. There is stuff that barefoot runners know about these here sidewalks that all the world does not know!! Secret barefoot knowledge!

One last little bit of secret barefoot knowledge about this path to share. You can see in the photo to the left that there are sections of the path that have this decorative stone inlaid (which the dogs also LOVE).

When running along the shadow on the cooler part of the tiles, I had to move out when I got to the stones and it was hotter out beside the stones.

All in all it was a great run, and I had some thoughts about it being like resistance training and I think I solved the question I’ve been having about whether to increase speed (intensity) or distance (endurance) first as an overweight runner. I was going to share the conclusions with you in this post, but it really doesn’t fit because this post is mostly about handling the hot pavement. So I’ll save my other strategy for another post.

Right now my feet feel slightly burnt again, but I know that will be gone within a day and my feet will be more tolerant of the hot sections than they were today.

Thanks for reading along!

Hot Sidewalks

2011-05-30T10:47:00.000-07:00

Ouch, ouch, ouch-ouch, ouch, ouch ouch!!

I made a mistake today. I waited too long to get out there for my planned barefoot run and the shadow from the wall along my boulevard was not there and the tiles were hot -- very hot!

Last year I very methodically and carefully built my mileage up bit by bit. I started running only about 100 yards, then a 1/4 mile, until I could run a barefoot mile.

While I was gradually increasing my barefoot distance, gradually toughening the soles of my feet, gradually strengthening the unused muscles and tendons and ligaments and bones, I was also gradually acclimating the soles of my feet to the heat of the sidewalk. I eventually got to the point where it didn't bother me to run on a hot sidewalk, but even so, I planned my runs so that I didn't have the hottest sidewalks and so there would be patches of shade along the way for relief. I also would carry an emergency pair of Vibrams or flip-flops just in case I got stuck out there or something.

But this year I've been regularly running about 2 miles out there. There hasn't been a need to build gradually from scratch like I had to last year. Feet have felt great in every other way so I wasn't really thinking there would have to be any kind of re-conditioning for the heat.

But I was wrong. We had a kind of cold rainy spring and we just plunged straight into hot summer days this past week.

I sort of thought because I had kept my feet somewhat conditioned for the cold that they would be tough enough for the heat too.

Lesson for today: Cold conditioning is a separate state than heat conditioning.

I got out there and was trying to walk my 1/4 mile to my starting place and I could feel the burn on the bottom of my feet. I considered just going ahead with it anyway. I really didn't want to go back. I wanted to get the run done.

I looked across the street to see if it was shadier there. Nope.

I could have just ignored common sense and gone ahead and tried running. But deep down inside I knew that it was not a good idea to go ahead and run. Why did I know? Because my feet were telling me. They were sending really strong signals that I'd be in trouble if I went ahead and did it. I actually experienced myself block out the "voice" of my feet as I was considering the options, kind of like a mom might block out her kids' voice when she's thinking something over and not realize the kid has a good point. But suddenly the principle of listening to my body came back to me and what my feet were saying came into clearer focus. No, don't do it.

So, I made a decision to turn around and come back. I will go out later when there is some shade.

Kung Fu Black Sash Test in Two Weeks!

2011-05-28T18:02:00.000-07:00

This is it folks. The final two weeks before the black sash test.

You know the story. Started training in January. Intense, brutal early Saturday morning military-style workouts. Almost fainting one day. Lips turning blue another. Didn't train as planned. Kids in the class using me as a punching bag during the sparring time (ouch!). Final decision to go through with it amidst doubts.

And this morning we didn't have Kung Fu class because the school was closed for the holiday. So I had to do something very opposed to my nature. I had to give myself the whole gruesome workout at home by myself. Because there is no way I'll make it if I don't keep it up during the time off.

I am really really proud of myself for putting myself through that workout all by myself this morning. Was rewarded with a flood of great endorphins afterwards.

Something I noticed. The jumping jacks were "easier" when I did them by myself. Less fatiguing. Could it be because I did them barefoot?

Remember the post where I agonized over what shoes to wear for the black sash training? After all that guess what I did? Nothing. I just went ahead and wore the beat-up pair of running shoes the whole time. I guess I was just tired and didn't want to go through the whole hoo-ha of finding out whatever shoes I chose didn't work any better.

All Kung Fu practice sessions at home have been done barefoot and I've been loving it. My feet have not been liking that old pair of running shoes that I stuff them into for Kung Fu class. The bump in the shoe has irked me and thrown me off balance. My feet cramp up in them when I'm doing the crunches, like I'm getting charlie horses in my feet! Every time I have them on I think, "I've got to do something about this," but then I don't.

At a certain point in the black sash class, we have to get our sparring gear on. We have to get into this protective get-up in 3 minutes (which I haven't fully mastered yet). You don't pass the test if you can't do it.

Well, lucky me, the "get-up" includes this protective foot padding that you wear without shoes. So I get to do all the sparring in these babies here:

This is great! I am wondering if I would be permitted to take the black sash test barefoot? I feel that it would be way better if I could. I would have way more fun going through that two-hour highly intense test if I didn't have to do it on a bump in my shoe. Maybe I will ask.

Right now my barefoot running is an adjunct to this Kung Fu training. I've been going out and running roughly two barefoot miles on the days I don't train the Kung Fu.

As soon as this black sash test is over with, I plan to start running further distance.

These next two weeks are crucial if I'm going to pull this off.

Mon -- Barefoot Run 3 miles
Tues -- Kung Fu advanced class
Wed -- Kung Fu role model class
Thurs -- Kung Fu advanced class
Fri -- Barefoot Run 2 miles
Sat -- Last brutal early morning black sash training class
every day -- go through Long Fist I and Long Fist II very slowly and thoroughly twice each and one time fast each. I CANNOT MISS CLASS, because if I do I will have to do the workout on my own and I HATE THAT!!

There is still a chance I might chicken out of this. I'm going to see how it is next Saturday morning and if it feels like it's going good, then I'm going through with it. No days off from here on in.

I have so much more to write about. Next couple of posts will be one on the subject of "Pain" and the other on "Warming Up!"

How's Kung Fu Going?

2011-05-26T06:49:00.000-07:00

How can I explain what's been happening ever since I told you last January that I had been invited to black sash training?

I know, I'll compare it to training for a marathon.

Did you ever have one of those times when you signed up for a marathon and planned to train, but then things did not proceed as smoothly as you had wished, and you found yourself lagging in your training as the marathon approached?

That's kind of how the black sash training is going.

Last fall, I joined a second choir and was all into my barefoot running and blogging about it. Due to the difficulty of juggling these new time commitments, I had kind of lapsed in my kung fu training during November and December and became de-conditioned for that.

I really did not expect to be asked into black sash training and when I was I knew that it was going to be hard coming off of two months neglect of my kung fu.

It was true that the first class was brutal, but I expected that if I kept up my running, and did not miss any of the regular kung fu classes during the week I would be fine.

The first few weeks went pretty well. Each Saturday morning we would wake bright and early and head over to the kung fu school to start by 7:45 and each Saturday morning -- actually the stomach ache would start Friday night -- I had a huge stomach ache on the way over thinking of how intense the class was.

You all know that I don't like working at high intensity levels. You've followed along at my slow pace ever since I started this blog. "Slow and steady wins the race" is definitely my philosophy and I also believe that you can coax yourself into fitness just as well as drive yourself into it.

So, to be in this almost military-style, boot-camp-type training was a pretty drastic change for me. I'm still not completely convinced this is the way it absolutely has to be done. It still believe there is a kinder, gentler way to fitness goals -- (as a matter of fact, check out this little article by two-time Hawaiin Ironman World Champ Chris McCormack which seems to support that idea a little bit) -- but I'm going with it because it's my school and my classmates and we're all in it together and this is the way it's done at the school.

Although the first few weeks went well and I was progressing and it was feeling a little less painful (sort of), I ran into some snags. All of a sudden there were multiple events at the school to go to on kung fu class night and other reasons why I could not make it to class.

Well, that's okay, I'll just work out on my own.

But it was much harder to force myself through the workouts by myself, without the group. It is much easier for me to pick up and go for a run than to put myself through that circuit training of multiple non-stop sets of jumping jacks, pushups and crunches.

During one of the last black sash class while I was sparring one of kids gasped, "Mrs. Barefoot Fresca, your lips are purple!" What?!? Uhh... [panicked] Is that bad?

"It means you don't have any oxygen!"

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After that class I knew I had to get serious. It wasn't too late yet. Six weeks left to the black sash test. If I got myself on a committed and consistent little program I could still do it.
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But ...

Two weeks passed and I still hadn't started on my serious committed program.

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So.......

It has come to the final hour. Do you or do you not really want to do this, Barefoot Fresca? (Think that you didn't train the way you had planned for the marathon and you've got a month left and you've got to decide whether to pull out of the race or just go ahead and do it.)

I decided that I will get serious and I will do it.

I made a four-week plan that I believe if I stick to it will accomplish the goal. I won't come in first place, or make any kind of impressive showing, but I will at least be able to pass. It's not too late.

Week one is going very well. Just making the decision to go ahead and do it seemed to make it easier and me stronger somehow. (I wonder if I had been about to follow the road of self-sabotage I mentioned I am prone to follow at times?)

It gets way too warm in the house -- and still way to early to put A/C on -- so I went outside in the yard to work out.

Oh, no, there were little neighbor boys playing in the yard behind us!

Well, the thought of doing it inside was too stifling, so I'll just go ahead with it.

I managed to do my conditioning exercises behind the table with the umbrella and they didn't seem to notice. Even though I probably didn't need it, I rolled my purple yoga mat out so when I dropped down for pushups I would be kneeling on something soft.

But when it was time to practice forms, there was no place to hide. In order to have the space I would need, I would have to go out there in full view of the boys.

As I began Long Fist I, I heard the voices.

"What's she doing?"

"She looks like a Ninja!"

"That's not karate"

"Hey, guys, she's doing Kung Fu!"

At a certain point, I couldn't pretend not to hear the voices any more.

I stopped and looked over and saw four boys hanging over the back fence watching me. "What are you doing?" they asked. I told them I was practicing for a test in Kung Fu.

This is funny, right? This barefoot mom practicing Kung Fu in her backyard with four little boys hanging over the back fence watching her?

To end, I'll have you enjoy with me the view of "my tree" that was so soothing as I lay on my back having finished the third round of crunches (which happen to be the dreaded bicycle crunches)

A New Warmup (Performed Barefoot, of Course)

2011-05-14T06:43:00.000-07:00

In the last post I told you that I've found a warm-up to use for all my physical endeavors and that I'd write a post about it. Here it is.

"What?" you ask! "What is extraordinary about this warm-up? It is very simple, kind of mundane and routine, and nothing that doesn't make sense or that one couldn't devise for one's self."

So it would appear.

In fact, in Episode 1 of this same series of videos (the one posted above is the first video in Episode 2), the video creator, Paul Zaichik, himself admits that this routine is simple and does not have the "wow" factor one might be looking for.

But I think there is something special about this routine.

For some people -- and most especially for a person like me -- a routine like this is exactly where they should start when they want to get back into movement after having gotten horribly out of condition and after bones, ligaments, joints, muscles have become stiffer, weaker, smaller and creakier through years of inactivity and disuse.

The movements that Paul Zaichik goes through in these videos are the A-B-Cs of movement. Every skill, every physical endeavor has it's basics -- the fundamentals. Many times in a craze and frenzy to become fit, lean and sleek -- in an eager desire to have athletic accomplishments -- people rush through the basics to get to the "good stuff." The basics are boring, and seem unspectacular.

Yet the basics form the foundation for everything else and if there is a weak link there, injuries are ready and waiting to happen.

Recognizing the shapes and knowing the sounds all the alphabet letters make leads one to being able to make and recognize words, which then later leads to forming sentences and paragraphs, and much later to complicated written and spoken communication that eventually expresses complex and abstract concepts.

What we have here in this video is the alphabet of human movement: joint rotation, flexing, extending, bending, rotating, stretching, etc... Getting familiar and bringing one's self through this simple progression of movements is like a recitation of that alphabet that will set a person up for physical activity above and beyond. It will reveal weak and troubled spots, and at the same time strengthen and correct problems. They are functional movements that will be used in more complex situations later on.

I admire the patience of Paul Zaichik. If you check out some of his other videos, he has a vast knowledge of how movement works, especially in the martial arts, and he himself is a master of movement, skill, power, speed. And yet he is humble enough to sit down and patiently go through a basic movement routine to teach someone how it's done. That's like a great literary academic sitting down to patiently teach kindergartners their ABCs. There is something really humble and special about that.

Using this routine would be a great starting place to lead a person into more advanced physical and athletic pursuits. I got myself involved in more advanced tasks of movement before getting myself through these basic levels of development, but it is not too late to go back and work with the A-B-Cs. Because I love some of the more advanced stuff I'm doing, I'm not going to go completely backward by giving it all up and starting with only this routine to build from the ground up. But I think it makes a great warm-up and adjunct to the other stuff I'm doing, and I have already experienced how much better my other workouts feel after going through this fundamental routine.
----------------------------------------

By the way, if you want to hear his in depth explanation for all the movements in the routine, you can watch through all the Episode 1 videos on the Project Elastic Steel channel. I did, and found them very informative.

Also, this guy Paul Zaichik is very capable of also producing the wow factor, so check out some of his other videos on the more advanced stuff if you're looking to be impressed in a more conventional way.

Barefoot Running and Barefoot Kung Fu

2011-05-12T09:59:00.000-07:00

Hi, folks!

What a gorgeous day it was for a barefoot run! The joy of barefoot running truly returns with the spring. Even though it was possible to tough it out in the colder snowy weather, there is no doubt that the full joy of it blooms in the spring.

Had planned not to give play-by-play descriptions this season, as I did last year, but so much happens out there, it's hard not to come back and talk about it.

One excitement is that cobblestone sidewalks and asphalt do not feel rough and hurt-y this season! The feet are definitely reverting to a state once known in childhood, when they walked over all the hurt-y things all summer and didn't seem to notice. Don't know why, exactly, but there's a kind of elation in this.

Wisdom From Guy on Bicycle
Today at the finish of my run, a guy rode up to me on a bicycle.

"You should buy those new shoes," he said, definitely with the tone as if he thought he was telling me about something really cool that I would like.

"I've got 'em," I said (not smugly). "You mean the Vibram Five Fingers, right?"

"Yeah," he said, and then he rode his bike back in the direction he had come from.

I got the distinct feeling he made the trip just to tell me that.

**pause**

DOES HE NOT KNOW WHO I AM? I ... I AM BAREFOOT FRESCA! OF COURSE I KNOW ABOUT VIBRAMS. I WRITE A BLOG. I READ BOOKS. I TAKE PICTURES OF MY FEET. I ... I ... I KNOW ABOUT EVERYTHING!!!

Lol! This is quite different from the girl who a mere year ago wrote:

"I have started a barefoot blog even though the only knowledge I have of barefoot running is what I have read and exists as an appealing theory to me."

"I have started a barefoot blog even though I am an absolute beginner who has only run barefoot about six times."

"I have started a barefoot blog even though I have no idea if I'm going to stick with barefoot running or not?"

Barefoot Fresca: "Beginning the Barefoot Journey"

Okay, enough with that.

In my next post I'm going to tell you about some warm-up exercises I've been using before I go for a run. I was going to tell you about them in this post, but I realized there was a lot I wanted to say about it (don't worry -- not too much), so it would warrant it's own separate topic.

And Now Some Barefoot Kung Fu
I also took some videos of me practicing Kung Fu barefoot outside. I'm not sure about showing you the practice videos because I'm not that good. But they are of interest because it's being done barefoot, so perhaps I will show them to you.

I'll show you one. It's me practicing a roundhouse kick. First I'll show you a couple of pictures of the surface I'm practicing on:

Here is me practicing some aspects of a roundhouse kick:

The first part, where I just lift my leg -- called "chambering," I think -- is something that I need to do over and over again because a while back I couldn't do that part without falling over. What good is going on to try to kick something if you can't even get that part right? So, some of my Kung Fu practice is very un-glamorously repeating that motion over and over again.

Okay, since it's not a big deal to just stand there barefoot -- didn't move across the ground surface -- I'll post another video where I'm moving around a bit. This one is me practicing the first part of one of my forms -- Long Fist II:

I had worried about pivoting while barefoot, but that doesn't seem to be a problem here, does it? In fact, doing it barefoot has been as great as discovering barefoot running was.

If you liked these videos I can show more. As you can see, it may sound impressive that I'm going through black sash training right now, but I have a long way to go to master this stuff. In fact, I'm not sure exactly why I was invited into the training, but we'll just go with it.

Flying Barefoot

2011-05-02T09:43:00.000-07:00

Let's say you are like me, and you allowed yourself to live a sedentary life for many years.

Let's say you are like me and you had once known what it was like to experience activity and a modest amount of fitness, so you knew what you were missing.

Let's say you were like me and you always had the secret dream of becoming a moving, flexible, strong, graceful person again.

Let's say you were like me and after putting off this "secret dream" for many years finally realized that you'd better do it.

So, you lifted yourself up off your couch and started to become physically active again.

Maybe some of you jumped right up and got right into it and after a few months of adjustment were back in the swing of things.

But maybe others of you, for one reason or another, found that it was not as simple as it seemed to transform one's body from a sitting and thinking machine into a moving and doing machine.

The fact is that it takes time and patience to put it all together. There will be ups and downs and injuries and setbacks. There will be periods of progress that seem to go down the drain because of one interruption or another. There will be over-eagerness and lack of realistic goals that precipitates too-much-too-soon burnout. There will be a laziness and lack of motivation and drive that hold one back because one doesn't demand enough of one's self. There will be lack of foresight and an intelligent approach. There will be an approach that is too thought out and too detailed and too intelligent that is impossible to achieve. All kinds of things to go through.

You may find that the freedom of movement you admire when you watch the top athletes on TV does not come easily. That movement and athleticism is multidimensional and that there are way too many body parts,systems, interactions and functions involved.

You start an activity and then you find out that there are limitations that are preventing the fullest expression of that activity. You find out that you might need to improve your strength in other areas that don't even seem related to the activity you've chosen. You might find out that some of your joints and ligaments need to open up and rotate and move in ways that they could not when you started. You might find that your muscles are tight and need some kind of stretch or myofascial release. You might find that your muscles are too weak and you need to supplement with strength training. You might find that moving in only one direction and one way all the time makes you kind of a lopsidedly fit person.

You might find that it's hard to carve out the time, and that every time you try to add a new activity, everything else has to be rearranged.

You might find that you have to give up other stuff you really enjoyed.

You might find that it takes a long time, lots of trial and error.

You might find that missing just one piece of the puzzle may cause trouble and/or injury and prevent you from progressing.

At some point you might realize that this is going to be a lifetime endeavor.

All this sounds much more complicated than just going out for a little jog every night, doesn't it?

The fact of the matter is that merely getting off the couch and going out for a little 20 minute jog every day is going to improve a person's life. That's fine and good, and maybe an old fat lady like me should be content with an improvement like that.

But the way I'm wired, I find out that isn't what I'm really after.

Think what I'm after is the ideal of freedom. To break free of the limitations that hold this poor body back.

Maybe what I'd really like to do is learn how to fly.

It just seems like if I could get all the pieces in to place, wave my arms in just the right way, with enough flexibility and strength, just the right amount of training, and catch the air current just right, maybe I could fly.

To have a dream of moving like that -- flying free -- when one is so earthbound and is aging fast, can seem the height of ridiculousness right? Overweight -- not just by a little, but a lot -- Aging -- turning 50 this summer -- Osteoarthritic -- after she's been sitting for a while she hobbles across the floor in a bent over position until her joints get all oiled up and working again -- Lethargic, Slow to move, Prone to Procrastinate ... And she thinks she's going to fly?

But it seems like running might be a way to experience a moment of flight, because, unlike walking, there is a moment when both feet are off the ground, and you are kind of flying.

I M A Barefoot Runner!

2011-04-15T11:24:00.000-07:00

Spring is here!

Did you think I had left you all?

No way!

But I have been on a little break from barefoot running.

Didn't run for several weeks after the Run Disney event. A couple of weeks ago tried going out a couple of times and felt great both times. Couple more weeks passed and finally today got back out there again.

From the way it went outside there today, it appears as if it will not be necessary to start from scratch, even after all that down time. Soles of feet, muscles, bones, joints, ligaments all felt great. It can officially be said that I am not longer a complete beginner.

Last season's blog was all about becoming a barefoot runner. The format was that after I came home from each run I gave reports about the experience. I ran on the same path over and over again, mostly, and blogged immediately after running while all my thoughts were fresh in my head. Running along outside, thoughts of all of you barefoot readers were with me and so many posts were composed to you in my head as I ran along.

During this down time I have been thinking about what direction Barefoot Fresca blog should take this year. Will I continue going round and round my same running path reporting each little stone that got stuck on the bottom of my feet, and each little toe that I stubbed?

No, that doesn't seem to be right any more.

This next season should be about how I got stronger, faster, ran farther, went new places, met more new people, ran bigger races, etc ... right?

But that is not what this season will probably be about.

Some explorers explore by going out further and further. This type might even end up signing up with NASA and flying to the moon, or studying far away galaxies with a giant telescope in an observatory. But other explorers stay right at home, take out a microscope and start studying the dirt in their own backyard. They find their own "galaxies" as they break down the ordinary experiences within the self-imposed limits of their own lives. This is another valid job of the explorer.

Perhaps I shall run faster and further this year and shall meet more and more barefoot runners, and shall venture to new barefoot places. But, on the other hand, perhaps I shall not, and I shall study each barefoot step on the same path over and over again, and just get to know the barefoot people I have already met a little better. Each experience would be something to learn from

My main interest in focus in my barefoot running right now is in the experience of each single barefoot step. I am interested in the way it feels. I am interested in the principles that surround the act of managing gravitational forces, body weight, sensory feedback, balance, strength, speed. I am interested in learning about all the factors that effect the act of flying through the air for a moment and landing on one foot and managing those forces within the intricate coordination of joints, muscles, tendons, bones. I am interested in the way it feels, and I am interested in getting to what feels right and good as I go along.

For a long time, there has been something in me that has been intensely interested in athletics and I haven't known why, exactly. I'm not an athlete, exactly, and yet I felt that I was, in some way. I think I have finally discovered why this is. I have a deep interest in human movement in general. Almost a kind of scientific fascination. I was very excited recently to find that there is a word that puts a name to this interest. It is the word "Kinesiology."

Whatever the activity engaged in over the years, I have always wanted to understand that activity this way -- in a kinesthetic way. Singing. Kung Fu. Running. Dance. Golf. Or even just everyday Bending and Lifting. It is not enough for me to just experience the activities themselves. I must, it seems, understand which muscles are working, how the body is functioning while engaged in the activity, what the most efficient and optimal position is in which to perform the activity -- in a sense, getting to the heart of the nature of the activity, it's essence. In fact, there has always been a little something in me that couldn't quite grasp and perform the activity -- even while everyone around me found it simple to pick up -- without studying the mechanization and understanding exactly what I was doing.

But now I have found a name for this orientation of mine -- it is an interest in kinesiology, the science of human movement. I used to call it an interest in "athleticism," which was kind of close, but not exactly right.

So, don't be surprised if you read me musing, reflecting, exploring, studying and learning about the kinesiology of my experience of barefoot running and other physical pursuits in the coming months in this blog.

Season II -- Barefoot Mile Number 3 -- Calculations!

2011-02-11T19:40:00.000-08:00

Got the e-mail from my barefoot buddy today,

"Barefoot Running at the Indoor Track: Tonight or Tomorrow"

It was written to three of us and said she might be there tonight.

I showed up, but there was no one there. Kiddies were having their free karate class in the gym below, just like last week.

On the walk over, it didn't feel so bad out. I thought, why am I going to this indoor track? I should just run outside. Then I remembered I was going because my friend might be there. And besides, it was dark.

So, I started round the track. It was fun, I'll admit, but I was going to run further tonight so I wasn't sure how many times around the track would be about a mile.

I tried to eyeball the track and figure out how far around it was. Was it half the size of a regular track? I'm not very good at eyeballing, but I thought it looked half the size of a regular track. (You will find out later that I was very very wrong about this estimation.)

I decided to run around in sets of 10x around. I ran round and round. It was really hot. There were these old radiators in there and wow could they make it hot. Plus I was in the upper part of the room above the gym so the hot air had risen. But they had the windows open on the wall by the radiators so there was a cold breeze when I ran by the hot radiators. That was a weird sensation.

I started to get bored going round and round without my friend to talk to. This is not much better than a treadmill, I thought. Although it is slightly better because I don't have to change my form to pawback or anything. And I can count the laps. Only I kept losing track of how many, so I think I "cheated" myself by counting some of them twice.

I also started feeling a little tilted from running round the edges in the same direction. After 10 laps, I switched direction.

I had thought that 10 laps might be about a mile, but after 10 laps it definitely had not felt like a mile. Maybe 20 laps is a mile, I thought. I decided to do 40 laps (remember: I'm still getting back into it after a month off, plus I have Kung Fu tomorrow).

I decided to concentrate on breathing quietly and running softly and quietly without losing my composure. That was interesting enough to get me around all the laps.

After finishing the 40 laps -- uggh! -- I tried to figure out how far around this track was. I walked with baby steps around the track. It was about 140 baby steps. My baby steps might be a foot long and they might not.

When I got downstairs, I asked one of the kids taking the karate class if they knew how many times around the track was a mile. "24, I think."

Wow, I sure did not eyeball that track well if I thought it might be half the size of a regular track!

So, I got home and tried to do some math. First, I tried to see how many inches my "baby step" was.

I guessed it was about 20 inches.

I multiplied 20 inches by 140 steps around the track: 2800 inches.

Then divided by 12 to get feet: 233 feet around.

Then I divided the feet in a mile (5280) by 233 which came to roughly between 22 and 23 times around the track for a mile.

Considering how inexactly I had taken the baby steps and how inexactly I had measured my step when I got home, and also considering how I felt after running 20 times around the track, I guess the kid is probably right that 24 times round that track is probably a mile.

Now, why did I bother to try to roughly calculate that? Why do I need to know how far I went? Why do I need a measurement?

While I was going around it was really bothering me that I didn't know how far I was going or how long I was running. So, I had this thought that maybe I could just listen to my body. Maybe I could just run until it seemed like fatigue would no longer let me keep my form well. I thought of non-dieting approaches to manage food that recommend paying close attention to body signals: eating when you are hungry and stopping when you are full. Maybe the same approach is good for running too. Let the body's wisdom determine the distance and speed.

But it was hard to listen to the body's wisdom. I needed to have an idea when it was time to stop. I needed some predetermined amount to run. I decided on 40 times around the track ahead of time.

I mean, what would happen if I listened to my body? What if it never wanted to stop and I was stuck there running round that track forever? Or, what if it told me to stop before I had run enough to benefit me? (Whatever that amount is?) What if endorphins kick in and I don't notice I'm overdoing it and end up with a repetitive stress injury? What if I give up and don't push myself beyond? (Beyond what?) What if there was no such thing as training for a race? A tempo run? A long run? What if I just ran for fun and did what felt good and exhilarating?

No, I have to go around 40 times. I'm sure at least 40 times ought to be enough. (Enough for what?)

And counting the times around will give me something to do.

Season II -- Barefoot Mile Number 2 - Back Out There Barefoot!

2011-02-07T10:28:00.000-08:00

Forty-one degrees!

Just heaven.

I remember the first few times I ran out there barefoot in the 40s and it seemed quite cold. But after those few sub-40 degree barefoot runs I had back in December, and after those few tentative little walks out in the snow, this 41-degree-day today seemed so warm and comfortable.

This was my first time running outside since I got back from the Run Disney Buzz and Woody's Best Friends 5K early in January.

The running path looked mostly dry today:

There were patches where there was some slushy snow in the way but I just ran through it. It didn't feel that cold.

I ran an introductory "back out there" barefoot mile today.

I didn't know before I went out how it might feel. After a month off would I have to start all the way at the beginning doing a quarter of a mile? Would it take a long time to work my way back?

Well, that mile felt so good, and my feet feel so good now, that it is clear to me that the gains I made over the past season are with me, and that I will not have to start at the very beginning again.

I have spent a few weeks just thinking about barefoot running, what my "goals" might/should be for my second "season" and exactly what it means in my fitness life.

I have been influenced by a book I've been reading: Athletic Development: The Art & Science of Functional Sports Conditioning by Vern Gambetta.

Today, as I ran along in my barefoot mile I had these passage from the book in my mind:

"Effective movement, especially high-level athletic performance, is the result of the interplay of the three movement constants; the body, gravity, and the ground. Understanding each of the movement constants independently is one thing, but the real key is to understand how they interact."

and

"A better understanding of muscle function will allow training to be more focused, logical, and exact ... The focus shifts from "feel the burn" and "no pain, no gain" to an understanding and feeling of flow and rhythm in the movements."

and

"Movement is gravity driven. Movement is a delicate balance yielding to gravity or being able to overcome it."

and

"The interplay between force reduction, force production, and proprioception will produce the highest quality of movement."

So, what does this mean? It means that as I ran along today I was more interested in the really sensing the relationship between gravity, my connection to the ground, the fluidity of my movements in relationship to the ground and gravity. It means that I was interested -- throughout the course of one barefoot mile -- in really experiencing what the movement was all about as I ran barefoot along. It means that I was focused more on the quality of my movement and how my relationship to gravity felt while moving than how far or fast I was running.

If Year One of my barefoot running was about being a beginner and just learning how to get out there and get my feet and body conditioned for some barefoot running, then I think Year Two is going to be, for me about the quality of the movements.

Will my blog be slow-moving and boring because of this focus? I mean, if I don't run faster than I did last year, or if I don't run farther than I did last year, will it all fall into "the same ole, same ole" category? Perhaps.

I am not planning to try to out-do myself this year. I am not planning any personal records. I am not planning to run farther and farther and faster and faster. I am merely trying to run better. I want to really understand what running movement actually is. I really want to try to feel and experience what my body is actually doing, how all the systems are working together with the ground and gravity.

So, I hope it doesn't get boring, because since a lot of what I'm going for is a feel and experience, it might be hard to write about.

Let's just say for now that I'm off to a good start with it.
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Disclaimer: I think by law I'm supposed to tell you that the link to the book above is part of Amazon Associates. If anyone clicked on that link and bought the book I would get some money. I am not writing my blog for money. (If I ever do, I will tell you). I would read this book anyway, and I would link to it anyway, so since they have this gadget, I figure, why not just use it since I'm going to link to the book anyway. I am not trying to sell books though. I am really trying to share stuff I find interesting and inspiring. (If that ever changed I would tell you.)

Season II -- Barefoot Mile Number 1 - First Time on An Indoor Track!

2011-02-04T21:20:00.000-08:00

Well, bless my little barefoot heart, didn't I just have the answer to my barefoot winter prayers tonight!

An indoor track.

Free.

Just a couple of blocks away.

How cool is that?!?

You haven't heard much from me this January. As soon as I got back from the Buzz and Woody's Best Friends 5K down at Walt Disney World, two things happened to affect my running. First of all I got invited to black sash training at my Kung Fu school and have to be working out Kung Fu more frequently, and also going once a week to this very brutal black sash cycle training class. That threw off the balance of my workouts.

In addition, before going down to the Disney 5K I had been motivated to train in the cold because I wanted to run that race barefoot. But once I got back, I couldn't face the cold again. I decided that January was a good month to step back, think about things, get used to the stepped-up Kung Fu training and just decide what I was going to do with this barefoot thing in the middle of winter.

I want to tell you something. I have a treadmill. In the basement. A really nice one that we got about 8 years ago. A True treadmill.

But I just won't go near the thing. Just won't. Before we got it, I thought it would be a really amazing thing to own, but I found that I hated it. When I heard that people called it "the Dreadmill" -- a term I heard for the first time in the past couple of months -- I nodded my head in complete agreement.

So, I have been in a state of paralysis about my barefoot running during this month of January. I simple won't use the treadmill, even though many times I tried to talk myself into it. And yet I just couldn't bring myself to run outside with shoes either!

I toyed with just going out in the very snowy streets and just running barefoot.

Here's some pictures of me doing that:

In fact, I took a movie just for you all of me walking a block and back.

What you see by this is a girl who very much wants to keep running barefoot, but is dismayed by the weather. Like the last person who won't go home from the party -- doesn't want it to be over yet.

So, rather than give in and go out there in my shoes, I decided to take a little break and see if the weather got any better and I could just continue barefoot. But the weather didn't get better, and we just kept getting dumped on and dumped on with snow.

You've seen all the photos I've posted over the past Summer and Fall of the view I have of the City Skyline while running and how it's changed with the seasons? Well, one day, during a snow storm the view completely disappeared.

And my running path got buried:

And I started wearing my boots all the time:

So this barefoot girl was very bummed out. Very very bummed out and was just waiting to see what was going to happen. Would she run in her Vibrams again? Would she try the treadmill? Would she try to go out in all that snow barefoot? Would she wait until spring?

Then, a few days ago, I got this happy e-mail from my barefoot running buddy (Remember I met the barefoot running buddy and I wrote about it and she ran with me a few weeks and even came to the First Annual NYC Barefoot Run with me? Well, she had decided to run on the outdoor track in our town because the streets and sidewalks were a bit rough for her. So we had temporarily parted ways as far as our barefoot running was concerned.)

Well, this is what the e-mail from my barefoot running buddy said. It was an e-mail from our town's recreation department and it said:

Alternatives to Cabin Fever
Our town's recreation reminds you that it offers
adult residents 18 and over
"alternatives to cabin fever"
during these long winter months

Had enough of the snow?
Tired of winter?
Not getting enough exercise?
We have indoor activities to keep you fit and healthy

At the local school gym, take a brisk walk or a light run
around the newly refurbished 2-lane indoor track!

And my barefoot running buddy had written:

"let's get together and do a barefoot run sometime."

So that's what we did tonight.

We were the only ones who showed up to run, and my barefoot running buddy had on her winter boots, and I had on my Vivo Barefoot Kalis and when we asked about the track (you had to go upstairs because it was above the gym, as you can see in my first picture at the top of this blog) the lady looked at our boots/shoes and said, "you've got sneakers, right?" My friend answered really quickly, without batting an eye, "yeah, yeah, yeah." I figured the lady meant that we couldn't run on the track in our boots, and I didn't think it was necessary to get into the whole barefoot thing, right?

The track was small. We probably had to run around it 10 times to make a barefoot mile. But it had a really cool kind of rubber, not too cushion-y, but soft enough to be a little bit of a treat surface. It was nubby and textured enough to make sure the skin got enough to keep it conditioned, but in no way felt uncomfortable or painful. It was really great. I had a really great time and I'm so glad we went.

One of the recreation ladies did come up and take a glance at us running round and round on the track. She did notice us barefoot but just went downstairs. Later, when we were leaving, she said something like, "that track is not very soft," which I guess was referring to the fact that we had been barefoot. Inside, I couldn't help but smile. "Lady," I thought, "you have no idea how heavenly that surface is after running on the sidewalk all summer." But I did not voice that thought aloud.

The only bad thing about it -- and it is a really bad thing -- is that I am completely busy with choir and Kung Fu every time the track is available. There is only one night a week that I can avail myself of it. But that's okay. I feel so happy I could burst, to just have had this little answer to getting me out of my barefoot paralysis.

Kung Fu -- Barefoot or Minimalist Shoe?

2011-01-25T10:31:00.000-08:00

Well, folks, it's still on my mind. What does a new barefoot running adherent do about shoes for Kung Fu training?

Responding to my last post, Barefoot Josh asked in the comment section, "Do you have to wear shoes for Kung Fu?"

This is a very good question. Don't think that after all this barefoot running I haven't had the notion to train barefoot in Kung Fu.

I have already mentioned that I asked my sifu about it and he said that he was of the opinion that shoes were better for Kung Fu training. He is an expert with a lifetime's worth of martial arts experience and has tried many things, including training barefoot, so I respect his opinion.

And I have already mentioned that Kung Fu is traditionally trained in shoes but I didn't know why.

So, I went out a-Googling to try to glean some insight from what's published out there on the Internet about it, which isn't too much, but there is some.

First I'll show you the information I found and comment on it, and in the end I'll tell you what I've concluded.

(Disclaimer -- My writings and thoughts on this topic are horribly unscientific and incomplete, and I am a know-nothing, so all this is just my personal musings and brain-ramblings and ought to be taken as completely non-expert opinion in the matter.)

Why Do We Train Kung Fu in Shoes?
There are two main answers I have got for this question so far. One is that martial arts such as karate and tai kwan do, which historically had been trained and practiced in a dojo indoors, developed a custom of practicing barefoot because of the Japanese and Korean custom of not wearing shoes in the house, and to keep the mats clean.

Kung Fu, on the other hand, was a martial art of the street. It was martial arts for the people and it was practiced outside where it was dirty and cold and shoes were worn for that reason.

The other reason put forth for training in shoes that I've been able to find in my Internet-surfing is that because of the fighting and self-defense nature of Kung Fu, it's practical application is likely to occur on the street if one was being attacked and got in a fight. Usually in that circumstance a person would be wearing shoes, and if you had been training in bare feet at your school on the one hand, you might get thrown off balance by the fact you were wearing shoes at the time you got attacked on the other.

One of the more interesting and cute articles I found about the custom of wearing shoes for Kung Fu practice was on Kung Fu magazine's site in an article called "Monk Takes Off His She: My Life as a Shaolin Shoe Salesman," by Gene Ching.

The information I was looking for, however, was more along the lines of how shoes were part of or were necessary to form optimal technique. I didn't find anything like that, really. The answer to wearing the shoes just seemed to sum up as, "because that's how it traditionally was practiced," but did not ever really specify if the shoes were intrinsic to the art itself or added to the functional aspects of training and development of the form in the sport. So, I decided to dig a little deeper.

Pros and Cons of Barefoot vs. Shoes in Martial Arts Training
In my continued readings of forums and articles on the subject, I did pick up a sense that there is a continuing dialogue going on within the martial arts community over the benefits/drawbacks of wearing shoes vs. going barefoot for martial arts training in general.

The people who prefer training barefoot value it for many of the same reasons barefoot runners value it -- because of greater foot strength and conditioning, more subtlety, greater balance, less equipment, better understanding of the body, room for adaptability, feedback from the environment. (For more, see "Barefoot Training in the Martial Arts: No Shoes is Good News!" by Rick Tew.)

Likewise the people who prefer training with mat shoes value it for many of the same reasons runners who like to train in shoes value it -- protection of the foot from diseases, cuts and abrasions (one of the biggest complaints about barefoot training is that foot cuts and mat burns are common in beginners), greater stability, shock absorption from training on hard surfaces like wooden floors. (For more, see "Martial Arts Training Shoes: Four Compelling Reasons to Wear Them," by Ed Sadler.)

In this one article I found, "Mat Shoes vs. Barefoot Training," by J.P. Alvarez, over at Suite 101.com I learned that martial arts which have traditionally trained barefoot are being replaced by using shoes to train. Little by little the shoe companies are designing martial arts shoes. It sounds like right now this martial art shoe category tends to be minimalist and light, but I fear the shoe industry grabbing on to this trend and starting to develop shoes that spring-load your kicks and give you greater stability, etc..., just like the shoe companies did for the runners.

In fact one of the sensei's quoted in the "Mat Shoes vs. Barefoot Training" article even said that he thinks there will be a new era of mat shoes as men and women look to be more hygienic and avoid the spread of disease and frequent toe injuries. He also predicts that athletic companies will probably start designing shoes tailored to the needs of martial arts students because of this new trend.

By far, the most thorough article I was able to find was from an April 2000 issue of Black Belt Magazine which was on Google Books, "With or Without Shoes: 9 Experts Debate the Pros and Cons of Barefoot Martial Arts Training" by Adrienne Lee Bell. That article quoted experts from the various disciplines in the martial arts. It seems like a barefoot runner taking up one of the disciplines that trains barefoot would be right at home and something of a traditionalist. But a barefoot runner who took up Kung Fu, where the training has been done in shoes, would be breaking with tradition.

In the end, it seems like cross-training in both shoes and barefoot might be a good choice. That way the student could get the foot conditioning and strengthening and other benefits of barefoot, while getting the practical knowledge of training in shoes.

What Shall I Do?
Well, after all my research, and all my experience learning how to barefoot run this past summer, I have a great desire to train my Kung Fu barefoot. I believe there will be great benefits to my Kung Fu form by including barefoot training, just like I believed my running form would improve if I tried barefoot running. But since the tradition is to train in shoes -- I shall also need to conform to that tradition in order respect my Kung Fu school and sifu's protocol.

I have been thinking that one thing that is putting me off from barefoot Kung Fu training is similar to something that puts established runners off from trying barefoot running. Because of the principle that one must develop the foot strength gradually and not do too much too soon, the established runner is often not inclined to try it because he/she would have to cut back on mileage and temporarily "lose" what they have gained in their training thus far.

I feel the same way about my Kung Fu training. Perhaps I could not get through a full class barefoot at this point. In that case, the same principles that govern learning to barefoot run might also apply in learning to train barefoot Kung Fu. In the article above, the beginners complain of foot cuts and mat burns and that is why they run out and get mat shoes for their martial arts training. But from what the more advanced practitioners say, this is less of a problem when the feet have been conditioned for it. I think that, just like with barefoot running, one should transition by incorporating just a little bit of barefoot Kung Fu at first to allow the feet to adjust to the new task.

So, I will find a more suitable training shoe than an old running shoe for my Kung Fu classes, and I shall begin to add some barefoot Kung Fu practice at home. In the beginning, I might do as little as ten minutes of practice barefoot and gradually build to longer and longer amounts of time. In the meantime, I will train in a minimal shoe while in my classes at the Kung Fu school, which will allow me some of the flexibility and benefits of barefoot, if not all of them. A cross-training approach.

I feel very strongly that I must get out of the shoes I've been wearing ASAP. In that case, I am leaning toward the Feiyu martial art shoe. They are inexpensive, generally praised in the reviews (although I have heard complaints about lack of arch support, which for me would be a good thing), and have the right kind of grip for the mats.

Ouch! On Being a Barefoot Princess and Needing Minimalist Shoes for Kung Fu

2011-01-20T18:27:00.000-08:00

It's been snowy wet and cold here and I have not gone out to run since the Buzz and Woody Best Friends 5K a couple of weeks ago. Don't worry -- (were you worried?) -- I've got plans and I shall be getting back out there. I'm just re-grouping.

But I did tell you that I at long last started black sash training for Kung Fu.

Now that I have graduated to being mainly minimalist, barefoot, or in socks almost all the time, it felt really really weird to put on the old pair of running shoes that I had been using for Kung Fu.

Not only did it feel weird, but I was finding that I could not stand them. It seemed like the outsides of my feet were raised up on some kind of platform and this was pushing my feet inward, but then there was this bump in my arch that was digging in when my feet were inward. I could feel my toes cramming in to the front of the shoe and pressing up against it. I felt so-o-o-o uncomfortable and I knew that I needed to be doing this in a much more minimal shoe. As I went uncomfortably through my workout, I made a firm decision to get a different pair of shoes for Kung Fu.

The experience for me was like that old story about the Princess and the Pea. The real princess would feel the pea under all those stacked-up mattresses because she was so sensitive. Well, I felt like I have become a real Barefoot Princess, and that my feet have developed into these sensitive soles that can feel every lump in her shoe, just like the princess could feel every lump from the pea under the mattresses.

In fact, at one point during the class I was taken by surprise by this very painful foot cramp in the arch of my foot. It felt like I was getting a Charlie Horse in the arch of my foot and I couldn't believe what was happening.

We had just finished our third set of jumping jacks and push-ups and were about to go into the third round of crunches, when the charlie horse cramp hit the arch of my left foot.

I was in so much pain that I couldn't start my crunches and I just lay there.

I had to focus and try to relax the muscle cramp. But I knew that it was because of the shock my feet were having from being in the supported and bolstered running shoes.

When I first joined Kung Fu over 4 years ago, I was of the mindset that I would need a lot of support in my shoes because of my weight. I tried using my then-current running shoes, but they provided too much traction. We do Kung Fu on this foamy kind of exercise mats and my feet were literally sticking to the mat and when I would switch stances, my feet would not follow that easily, putting a lot of pressure on my twisted-up joints.

So, I took an old pair of Brooks running shoes that were smoother on the bottom because they had worn down and they had seemed so perfect, just like my running shoes for running had always seemed and felt.

(Ran out of my alloted free space on Google Blogger's Picasa. Rather than purchase more photo space, I'm trying out this photobucket thing until I figure out how I'm going to manage.)

So, I will be looking in to what shoes I shall use for Kung Fu from now on. I did a little research tonight, but I can see that it might take me more time to decide. I'll write another post with some of what I'm finding out about minimalist shoes for Kung Fu.

A few months back I had tried to use my Vibrams for Kung Fu class, but the Vibrams had a little bit too much grip on the mat and I believe it caused me to get a strain in the area where a person gets a toe turf injury. I wrote about that here: "No Run for Me Today: Minor Surgery Instead"

Traditional cotton Kung Fu shoes like the ones you can see here -- Cotton Sole Kung Fu Shoes -- may be my very first option. They only cost about $10.00 and reading the reviews makes me think they will be just the thing.

The funny thing is that way back when I first started Kung Fu and I thought I needed support, I saw a picture of these shoes and thought, "Those look way too flimsy. For sure I will need more cushioning and arch support, etc.... blah, blah blah." Now, I'm looking at the same shoe and thinking, "This looks perfect!" It's amazing how much I've changed without really realizing I was changing.

Something Different -- How About a Little Kung Fu?

2011-01-15T12:57:00.000-08:00

This is horse stance.

Horse stance is one of the basics of the foundation of learning Shaolin Kung Fu.

When you first start in Kung Fu, they make you hold that stance for about a minute. By the time you get to the Intermediate/Advanced level, they make you hold it about 3 minutes. But the people in black sash training have to hold it for 5 minutes.

This morning I held it for 5 minutes for the first time.

I took the self-portrait above before I met all of you on Barefoot Fresca blog. Two years ago, actually. Around the same time I decided I was going to run a half marathon. Around the same time I decided to build a base by walking for 8 weeks or so and then walking a 5K as a preliminary to starting to run again.

This was before I knew that my plans to start training for the 2010 Disney 1/2, despite how carefully crafted they had been, were going to end with a bad case of plantar fasciitis. Before I knew that I was going to have to quit my training the following Thanksgiving. Before I knew that I was going to adopt a what's-the-use attitude and eat my way through the holidays and gain about 25 pounds. Before I knew that I was going to get my can-do spirit back and begin again. Before I knew that when I began again I was going to end up trying barefoot running. Before I knew I was going to start another blog ...

That was then.

But this is now: One of the reasons (amongst many others which I've iterated on this blog) I wanted to train for the 1/2 marathon was that I was slowly working my way towards getting into the black sash training at my Kung Fu school. I had heard that the black sash training was tough, and I thought that some aerobic exercise would help my stamina.

Well, the time has come. After four years of working to build my Kung Fu base, I have been invited to black sash training. And the first class was this morning. It was hard, and I'm very glad that I have been barefoot running because it helped me so much to get through that very tough class this morning.

I've come a long way with this Kung Fu stuff. About five years ago I was looking for a mother/daughter athletic activity we could do together. I was worried that I was not a good role mother as a mom. My children never saw me participating in any physical activities.

As I was spending my time contemplating what athletic activity we could pursue -- run together? take ice-skating together? roller blade? ride bikes? swim? -- my kid surprised me by coming up with something of her own. How about we take Kung Fu?

Kung Fu?

What?

Well, I knew it was a martial art at least. Was it like karate? It wasn't exactly what I had been thinking of, but why not? Let's check it out.

I thought the forms were pretty. I had liked taking dance and gymnastics when I was young, and it kind of fit in to that concept. I didn't think there was any way at my age and level of conditioning that I'd achieve anything in it. I figured it could be as good an exercise class as any I might go to and give me a nice workout and improve me somewhat. So, we joined the school.

The first classes were agonizing and difficult. I felt a knot of fear in my stomach each time I headed over to Kung Fu class in anticipation of the pain I'd be in, and the how much effort I would have to exert. I also did not enjoy being the slowest and least member of the class. It was a humbling experience. My face would go beet red and I'd be huffing and puffing during the sets of conditioning exercises -- jumping jacks, crunches, push-ups -- that occurred at the start of each class. The instructors would look nervously over at me, "Mrs. Barefoot Fresca! Are you okay?" and "Breathe, Mrs. Barefoot Fresca, breathe!!" (Of course I was not known to them as Barefoot Fresca then. In fact, I wasn't even Barefoot Fresca then, but I'm using my stage name here to tell the story).

Well, I bet you can guess what happened. That's right. Little by little the body responded, as the body is wont to do with physical activity, and as the law of accommodation kicked in and my physical conditioning improved -- lo and behold -- I found myself actually really loving it and becoming interested in really learning how to do it, not just showing up for an exercise session.

And after a bit, I even began to believe that maybe I, too, could proceed to black sash training

Well, the time has come. I was so ready for it this past Fall, but something unanticipated happened. I got a little Kung-Fu-de-conditioned in the past couple of months. It's kind of a long story, but my schedule got pretty full and trying to juggle and balance everything resulted in my Kung Fu suffering a bit in the process.

So, my first day back after a little Kung Fu hiatus was this stepped up, incredibly intense Kung Fu workout. Boy oh boy was I glad that I was in condition for it aerobically. That helped a lot. Mostly all I had to do was contend with a drop in my level of muscular strength. I know that will come back in about 3 weeks.

It was a tremendously positive experience. This school is very special and the black sash class is very encouraging. We're all in it together.

There was a bit of pressure on because if someone "messes up" the whole class has to begin all over again. I was the cause of everyone having to begin again a couple of times, but there were others there who caused it too, so it wasn't too bad.

At one point, we had to do these battle-line kicks across the floor, which entailed hopping on one foot. Hopping across the floor when you weigh what I weigh is no easy feat. I had been practicing them in the regular Kung Fu classes, but had not been able to make it across the floor. I would hop about 6-10 times and then step and then hop 6-10 times, then step.

But that wouldn't do today. As soon as I took that step, he called everyone back to begin again. Oh no! They'll all be mad at me for making them begin again!

But they weren't. Everyone started cheering for me. Sifu said, "yes, you can," and I made this act of the will, contracted my abs, focused on making sure I landed squarely centered beneath me each time, did not get my foot ahead of me or behind -- hey, kind of like running barefoot! -- and to my great surprise I made it across. Not only once, but several times on each leg.

So, as you can imagine, I'm feeling pretty good (but a little stiff and sore).

I don't have as great a motivation to run barefoot in the cold as I did before. Before, I was doing it to keep my feet conditioned for Disney. I will try to run barefoot when it's favorable conditions out there, but I may be wearing my Vibrams more often for the winter months now. Monday will be my first run since Buzz and Woody's 5K last week, so we'll see what happens.

But I think for the winter months I may be writing a bit about Kung Fu on this blog, since my workouts for that have now stepped up in frequency and intensity and I'll be working for that black sash test in June. I hope you will follow along as I write now about both barefoot running and Kung Fu black sash training.

"Run Disney" Barefoot -- Buzz and Woody Best Friends 5K Race Report

2011-01-07T21:11:00.000-08:00

Evil nubby pavement Disney Epcot parking lot.

Above you see my best shot at trying to convey the texture of the painful surface that slowed me down in the first mile of the Buzz and Woody Best Friends 5K run this morning. In fact, as I sit here typing this in the evening, I can still feel the slight soreness on the balls of my feet as my little souvenir from that first mile. I just thought that I should post the picture of this nubby, pointy, sharp, stabbing surface first, because that was the main challenge I had in the race.

But let's go back now to very early this morning as we arrived at the Epcot parking lot around 6:00 a.m. in the morning.

Disney has a special bus to bring everyone over. We arrive in the dark. I'm wearing my Vibrams to walk over to the gathering area.

My sister gets a snapshot of me in my Barefoot Runner's Society T-shirt.

I had been observing the parking lot surface for a while, and even through my Vibrams I could feel that those nubby, sharp bumps were not going to be fun. I waited until about 6:45 and removed my Vibrams.

As soon as my feet felt those sharp pointy bumps, I knew it was going to be rough going. I immediately began to worry and calculate. Should I put my Vibrams on and wait until I got into the park? How far would we be running on this? My knowledge of where we were standing and where the entrance to the park was made me realize that I was going to have to run pretty far on this surface.

Interrupting these thoughts was a surprise voice from behind the rail calling to me, "Hey, Barefoot Runner's Society!" I look over and there is a guy in these huarache running sandals calling and waving to me. It turns out that it was Warren, who started a thread about running the Disney races in a forum at BRS's web site. His wife had seen the T-shirt and he had come looking for me. He told me he would be running the Goofy challenge, which is 1/2 marathon tomorrow morning and then the full marathon the next day.

Warren was kind enough to pose for a picture that I told him would be on my blog:

I have to admit that it felt really good to meet another person who knew what I was doing and expressed approval for it. This was a VERY shod race. The sea of feet around me stretched on in all directions of every kind of running shoe on the market. I did not even see any Vibrams there, although my sister told me she did see another person at one point with some Vibrams.

(Later on, my Mom and Dad -- who had been spectators and been specifically watching for barefoot runners in particular because of wanting to spot me -- told me that they did not see one other barefoot runner. That means that it is possible that I was the only barefoot runner in the race. That would be cool.)

Well, it was time to start, and there was quite a walk to the starting line, since we lined up by pacing groups and I had put myself in the 13 - 16minute group.

Here's what it looked like as my feet began the walk:

and here is how far it was to the start line (actually was further -- it was just that at this point I thought to take picture).

I bring this up because, besides the evil sharp pointy parking lot surface, this was another factor in it taking me 22 minutes to get to the first mile marker!!!

When we finally got to the start line, Buzz and Woody were there chatting away.

I was trying to stay within sight of this family dressed up in costume. About six of them running together with the same heads. Two of them stopped on the side of the road and graciously gave me permission to put a picture of them on my blog. I think stopping to take a few pictures also contributed to my 22-minute at one-mile problem:

And I was thinking of all of you when I took some time out to get a picture with this army guy:

After that the lines for the characters got a little too long to stop for photos. So I just took a few as I ran along:

But, the nubby parking lot, the long walk to the start line, the stopping for photos had brought me finally to the sad time at the 1-mile mark:

Now, anyone who's been reading along for a while knows that I don't really run for a time. I'm not a contender, and run at the back of the pack. Nevertheless, I have been happy to keep improving my own personal little best, and when I ran as Barefoot Cavewoman, I had run much better than this. This event today was a fun run and there were not going to be official times and winners. But I didn't want to be hobbling across the finish line in last place. I didn't think it would be good for the barefoot image.

So, now that we were on smoother surfaces at last, I decided to concentrate on running well, and not stop to take pictures with the characters, who now had long lines forming by race contestants.

Snow white & Dopey:

Gepetto from Pinocchio up on the balcony:

and Chip and Dale standing on the pavilion in the Japan section of world showcase:

All seemed to be going pretty well in mile 2 except for one thing: I had to go to the bathroom.

I had been concerned that it hadn't occurred before the race. And now I wondered if I should just keep running or stop and use the rest room. I wanted to make up somehow for that first mile, and I knew that if I stopped that I was going to have to forget about making any kind of good personal barefoot showing. But, remembering how sick I got one time (and a time or two after that), when I went ahead an ran when "the call" came and it was pretty horrible. So, I stopped to use the rest room. It was a full 5-minute stop!

Now, -- I will tell you -- all summer long I have not been that upset about running on the dirty sidewalks with my bare feet. I've dodged around crazy looking spots and tried not to think about the fact that the "clean" parts I'm stepping on might have God-knows-what on it. But in all my barefoot running days, I have never been as grossed out as I was walking barefoot in the rest room at Walt Disney World. (Mental note to self -- bring along a pair of paper slippers, like the kind you get in the hospital, just in case I ever have to do that again.) Sorry to bring the topic up, but it's part of gaining barefoot experience and getting better at anticipating things and protecting one's self in the future.

When I came out from the rest room, I was dismayed to see that there were no longer the back-of-the-pack runners, but the walkers out there. I stepped back into the stream, and soon arrived upon the two-mile marker: 41 + minutes! Why, I practically ran an entire 5K in that time just a couple months ago. Oh, well! This is a Fun Run after all.

I was really enjoying the scenery along the way:

But they turned the course suddenly and brought us on some back service roads. Darn! More rough asphalt. Not as rough and nubby and evil as the parking lot, but not nice to run on after having experienced the parking lot 20 minutes or so earlier.

I was happy when the service road section brought us back around and into the park again:

As we approached the big Epcot ball that houses Spaceship Earth, I just kept passing walker after walker. From now on, that's what this race was about for me, just passing and passing everyone because they were all walking and I was running:

In a way, it was kind of nice. Because when I'm up with the runners, I usually feel like a stone in a river that is flowing up ahead of me. All the runners are usually passing me. I had a completely different perspective back with the walkers as I was the one passing all of them. It, once again, gave me the full understanding that because I have begun to run, I am ahead of the game, even if I am in last place. That is the illusion that one gets when one is a beginner. One feels in last place. But it is hard to see and understand that by being a beginner, one is ahead in many ways.

I had a surprise waiting for me as I got to mile 3. I was just getting ready to ask the Disney cast member to take my picture for you all at mile 3, when I heard a little cheering squad break out. It was my Dad, Mom and one of my sisters. My Dad was taking a video. Here's a short clip I edited from the video:

Of course I had to ask my Dad to take the 3-mile picture:

Okay, so that's pretty crummy. I was running, and I had a time that some people who walked the race might have. But I really do blame it on the evil parking. lot and the fact that I had to stop to go to the bathroom. I was worried that there would be more evil parking lot at the end of the race, but -- thankfully -- it was all regular asphalt for the next .2 miles.

There's some kind of official race photos, and Warren (remember Warren from Barefoot Runners Society from the start of this story?) took some photos of me at the finish line that he told me he's going to e-mail to me. So, maybe I'll post some of them when I get them.

But this is it for now. I think I was 58 minutes and something at the finish line.

When I told the official race photographer to get my feet in the picture, she asked if my feet were cold. I couldn't even imagine that anyone would think this weather, which was around 60 degrees, was cold. Did I stop to tell her that I thought it was really great and that my feet felt absolutely heavenly compared to 31 degrees? No, she thought I was weird enough. Why exacerbate it?

Had to go back out to the evil parking lot surface to get my stuff from the bag check. Just to be a tough guy, I walked on it a bit before I put my Vibrams on. But boy-oh-boy did it feel good to have them on again:

My Dad thought the Vibrams were pretty cool and took his own photo of them:

To finish up, I'll leave you with a few more images of "evil parking lot."

And thus ends my first barefoot running season (which I never knew was going to be a barefoot running season at all). I wonder what the next season will bring!

"Run Disney" Barefoot

2011-01-06T21:08:00.000-08:00

Thought I'd send you all a few pictures on the eve of my Disney 5K.

But while you're looking at the photos, just a few words about why I "run Disney." I have some catching up to do here at Disney. My mom has run the Disney 1/2 and the Disney marathon. My dad has run the Disney 1/2 and the Disney marathon. (They both did it in their 60s for the first time). "Little" sister number 1 has run both of them multiple times, and has done the "Goofy Challenge" (run the 1/2 on Saturday and the full on the next day). "Little" sister number 2 has done it a couple of times. And "little" sister number three has done both of them multiple times. This weekend sister #1 and sister #3 are here and #1 is running the marathon and #3 is doing the Goofy challenge for her second year in a row (and I think has done it in the past.)

Well, I think you kind of get it. I'm the only one in the family who doesn't have a Mickey, Goofy, or Donald medal. It kind of seems like I have to run one of these races some day to complete the family picture, but I'm starting with the 5k

Around the turn of the millennium, my mom told us that for her 70th birthday she wanted our entire family to run the Disney marathon together. At the time, I thought it over but decided it was too much to ask. At the time I weighed about 275 pounds and knew that I would have to devote a LOT of time to the goal, and I just couldn't see myself doing it. At the time I was devoting a great amount of time on my singing as I couldn't add the time to train for a marathon. I sadly told my mom that it was too much time and I would not be able to participate in her 70th birthday wish,

But I thought it over and decided it didn't have to be all or nothing. Five years ago, I decided to come down here and show my kids what athletic aunts and grandparents they had. I guess they knew my family ran a lot, but they never had seen it, so I decided that it would be really good for them to not only see their extended family run, but also to be around lots of people who did stuff like this. I wanted them to be exposed to that world, that they might not ever realize existed.

We came down and walked.the 5K. I planned to maybe run it the next year. But I actually strained my hip joints during that walk. It took a long time to heal, and I decided to proceed more carefully next time I started moving again. I had planned to upload a photo of me crossing the finish line that year, but I forgot to upload it before I left for my trip, so I'll have to add it later.

My mom never got her 70th birthday wish. A couple months after I came down to walk that 5K, she was diagnosed with leukemia. She had to stop running and she had to go through chemotherapy and then she had a stem-cell transplant. Her 70th birthday passed. But soon after that everything looked like it was going to be just fine. The treatments were successful. She went into remission. She started training again. But one of the steroids she was on destroyed her knee. Now she can't run any more.

So, last year I decided to train for the Disney 1/2. As many of you know it was during that training that I got plantar fasciitis and never finished my training (long run was up to about 6 miles by the time I had to call it quits).

When I started up this past spring again, I didn't know what would happen, but I signed up for both the 1/2 and the 5K. And you are up to date now, because you all know I started barefoot running, and because of how gradually I had to build barefoot -- well the 5K it is! Maybe next year for the 1/2?

Everybody's down here except sister #2 (she ran it last year). Mom and Dad work at Disney's Wide World of Sports, so they're always down here during the winter. So, today we went over to Disney's Wide World of Sports and signed up and hung out at the expo:

Lots and lots of running shoes down there in that mob of people. But I did not look at a one. Oh, I did stop to look at this one:

Yes, that's Cinderella's famous slipper done up with running treads. Maybe Cinderella needed that tread on the bottom of her shoe when she had to high tail it out of the Ball. But do people forget that her other foot was barefoot? As she ran away, why didn't she just kick off the other shoe and just run barefoot?

Ah, well, no time to worry about it now. I have to get to sleep because we have to get up at 4:15 in the morning to get over to Epcot by about 6:30. I'll see you all after the race.

Happy New Year -- First Barefoot Steps of the New Year

2011-01-01T21:38:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year, everyone! I feel most fortunate to have been able to go for a barefoot run on the first day of the year.

(I got a little ahead of myself with my blog posts. Before I could post this one, I had to finish up the series "Winter Cross Training in Vibrams, Parts I, II and III." That resulted in me posting a barrage of posts all at the same time. If you missed the Vibrams series of posts, you can start reading it by clicking here.)

For the first day of 2011, I got ready with my warm layers, but when I checked the temperature out I was surprised to see that it was 50 degrees! It had been a few days since I had run. I was very busy doing two special performances in the middle of the week with one of my choirs. There was a lot of rehearsing. But on top of it all, a tooth that had been worked on about a month ago with my very first really big cavity started acting up, and now they are telling me that I may have to get my very first root canal. I have never really had any significant cavities and this has been my very first toothache and I have not been liking the experience very much.

But I knew today that if I was going to make it in that Disney 5K next Friday -- toothache or no -- I was going to have to do a "long run" (which for me is a 5K distance). I had cut back in recent weeks and had been running shorter runs to acclimate to the cold. I figured that those shorter runs were maintaining my 5K distance for the most part that I had built up over the summer, but if I went much longer it was going to be tougher.

When I realized it was 50 degrees out, I ditched my sweatshirt and hat and gloves and headed out barefoot. Having decided that in the winter it is a good idea to take a little barefoot walk around to test the sidewalks, I did just that before I set out. It is true that it was pretty warm, but the melting snow made the sidewalks really wet. Since it wasn't freezing, I figured the wet would not be a problem as far as how cold my feet were, but would pose the usual problem of running in wet, some of which I first discovered when I wrote here about running in the rain. The way was mostly clear, with occasional patches of snow in the way which looked easy enough to jump over.

When I got to a spot like the one to the left here,
it was easy enough to find strategic spots to set
my feet, which you shall see in the next photo.

As you can see, there's always a way with these conditions. This is something I would not have realized if my hesitancy to try it out had kept me indoors. In fact, one begins to almost feel slightly clever as one starts to discover little solutions out there.

I remember reading in one of my barefoot running books (can't remember which one) that feet getting wet can be okay if you find a dry spot to get them dry as soon as you can. It's when they get waterlogged that there is more of a problem because then the skin starts slipping around and that's what makes one more prone to blisters. So, that little bit of reading knowledge came back to me after I got my feet wet going over the snow patch. I found a dry piece of sidewalk and made sure the water was transferred there as you can see by the photo on the left.

Speaking of solutions, I wasn't sure what to do when I had this snow bank blocking my way to my running path. I had thought that by now they would have cleared the cross walks. But there it was, the same snowbank I had walked through with my Vibrams earlier this week.

I thought about it and said to myself, "Well, I have walked on snow before, and that was when it was much colder. I can do this with my bare feet. There's bound to be dry spots on the path beyond and this will only take a second. So, I took the plunge and just walked in the deep footsteps others had provided for my bare feet to follow:

Sure enough, it was easy, thanks to the fact that I had made myself walk in snow a couple of times. As I've been learning, all this stuff doesn't have to be "all or nothing." A little bit of walking on snow can be fun enough, and it's safer than deciding to go run 8 miles in a blizzard. It gives one's feet a little taste of the experience without risking injury. It just stings a little. But then again, doesn't it sting when you grab a handful of snow with your bare hands to make a snowball?

And it was worth the trip over the snow bank, because the path before me had plenty of dry stretches. It was going to be good.

I ran about 3.15 miles. That ought to do it for a long run. I can have two more runs this week and then I'll be in good shape to run at Disney next Friday. According to the Weather Channel, the low will be about 42 degrees that day and the high 69. It says there will be a few showers, but that can be dealt with.

Notes to self: Look for the dry spots and you will be just fine.

Winter Cross Training in Vibrams -- Part I I I -- The Barefoot Part

2011-01-01T20:43:00.000-08:00

Ah, here we are at last in the final part of the 3-part series "Winter Cross Training in Vibrams." Yes, folks, I dared to write a 3-part series about an hour out running the same route I've run for the past 6 months. I don't know how long I can keep it up, writing about the same run over and over and over again, but somehow, there is always something new. There was so much on this day when I capitulated to the fact that the weather had beat me and I would have to put on shoes, that I did, indeed, need to tell the story in 3 parts.

In the first part -- "The Preliminaries" -- I wrote about how I fretted over exactly how I would proceed with this new kind of running with shoes on. I gave an account of the short walk up the block to the boulevard path and the little challenges the presence of the snow presented.

In the second part, -- "Running in Vibrams," -- I wrote about what it was like to run my first steps with shoes on since last June. Since you've seen my little running route adorned with summer and fall, I gave you a peek of it in its winter dressing.

Now, in this final part, I get to the fun -- "The Barefoot Part." This part could also be titled, "It Doesn't Have to Be All or Nothing." That's because just because weather and my degree of conditioning may cause me to have to forgo being barefoot for one of my runs, it doesn't mean I have to give up barefoot altogether until spring. I can still include a little bit of barefoot. A little bit of barefoot to keep me happy. A little bit of barefoot is better than nothing at all. And that little bit of barefoot might be doing two things: 1) it may be keeping my feet conditioned enough over the winter so that I don't have to start so tender-footed when the good weather comes and 2) it may be conditioning and accustoming my feet to winter conditions so that I may enjoy longer barefoot runs in the winter in the future.

So, here we go.

I had decided that there was a little stretch out on the bluff that looked favorable for a barefoot section of running.

When I returned to the spot, it was time to take off the Vibrams. This proved to be a little tricky, as there wasn't a place to sit, and I wasn't sure how to go about it. I finally settled on something like this:

I picked the Vibrams up and tuck them under my belt. My feet were pretty warmed up from having just run 2.37 miles. Since I had done those other runs in the 30s of degrees, it really did not feel bad at all.

I set out and took a video of it for you all:

I continued on to run a half mile in my bare feet. It felt really great to run a half mile outside the day after a giant blizzard. Somehow I felt way less defeated by the natural forces around me. I think a half a mile is fine for someone like me -- still a relative beginner -- to tackle my first year of barefoot running. I definitely could feel that the training and preparation I had done in the colder weather -- even the very few steps out into the snow I had done -- had made it possible for me to run barefoot this way. I was very happy.

The last piece of tricky business, was how I was going to put my Vibrams back on. Back when I had been trying to envision this, I had pictured sitting on a bench, and tying Daffodil to the bench so I could use both hands.

But when I got to the bench I realized there was a bit of a problem with that plan:

I considered just trying to climb over the snow bank in my bare feet and head home, but when I looked at the snow bank, I decided not to:

It looked like I was going to have to try to put my wet Vibrams on while standing in place on one foot and holding a dog leash. It went something like this: First, drying my feet with the little towel I had brought along.

Then the rest:

It was a bit of a struggle, cold toes were hard to feel so I couldn't tell which toe was going in to which slot. But it wasn't as bad as I had pictured it would be when envisioning it beforehand.

Daffodil and I took one more look back at the path:

And then I picked her up and carried her over the snow bank.

First one step:

and then another

and another

Until we were all done.

Thanks for coming with me on my first day of cross training in Vibrams. (Remember, I decided to think of it as a completely separate sport from barefoot running, so I wouldn't feel bad about having to do it.)

New Year's Day will bring some surprisingly warm weather and delight me in that I will be able to go for a completely barefoot run again. But I didn't know that at this point.

Winter Cross Training in Vibrams -- Part I I -- Running in Vibrams

2011-01-01T19:50:00.000-08:00

Well, I certainly have a task as I bring you part II of this series from the one and only day this winter I ran in Vibrams so far.

The problem is that I was so busy that I didn't get Part II and Part III of the Vibrams adventure up before I had another adventure, running completely barefoot again on the first day of the New Year.

So, tonight, I first went about the business of writing a blog post about my run today on New Year's Day, while it was fresh in my mind, but did not publish it, because I have to go back and finish up my plans for this 3-part Vibrams post.

So, from the memory of 5 days ago, I continue. Due to the circumstances, I shall keep this part brief and tell it mostly in pictures.

When we left off in Part I, I had finished with the preliminaries of figuring out how I was going to manage the day after our big blizzard, and I had climbed over the snowbank and was on the path about to begin. My plan was to run in Vibrams and maybe do a patch of barefoot running, if it seemed like that would work out. I headed out on my usual route, following the shoveled out path along, when I ran into a snag in my plan. It seems that the guys with the snow plow were moving a little more slowly than I was. I had to turn around. Evidently I had been following a freshly-hewn trail.

That's okay, I'll just repeat the other part. I hate repeating. I find repeating on the same run very dull. But I had to admit that it was a way better kind of dullness than the treadmill would be, so I shut myself up and proceeded on.

Here are some pictures of what the way looked like.

Daffodil and I found that the application of salt was a little uneven:

Don't worry, I didn't let Daffodil lick any of the salt. But I was worried about her little paws. (I made sure to check them when we got home. She is just fine, in case you were worried.)

I did discover that running over the salt that was sprinkled on the sidewalk was like running over hard gravel pebbles. It was not fun.

I also began to worry about Daffodil's paws being too cold too. But I realized that she has been conditioning with me. She must have made some adjustments to it as we've gone along too. I watched for signs of her being too cold, but she just seemed happy the whole time.

There was this little section of stone that I found fatiguing. The first pass over it, I kept running, but the second pass over I just walked it. You can see the stones in the photo on the right. It seems that the snow plow missed the main path and left the border free.

All along, as I was running, I was surveying to terrain to see if there would be a stretch where I could maybe take off my Vibrams and get a little bare foot mileage in.

My feet were pretty wet in the Vibrams from going through patches of slush. It was 35 degrees, so being wet was not dangerous because it wasn't going to freeze. As long as my feet are wet, thought I, they could be barefoot.

Pretty soon I found the stretch that might work for barefoot. It was out on the bluff section, where I usually do my 1/4 mile or so of asphalt:

Here it is:

The part I've shown here is the sidewalk part. The asphalt is on the road to the right, which you can't see in that picture, but you can see in the one below:

This road is usually much wider, but they had only plowed out a narrow section. This is my asphalt training ground. It is hard to show here, but it's a pitted and rough kind of asphalt. I tried to take a close up to show you the texture but it came out a little blurry:

Well, as I passed over this part of my path out on the bluff, I made up my mind that I was going to do it bare foot on the repeat.

My total distance in the Vibrams had been 2.3 miles when I was ready finally to take them off and include a little barefoot.

The barefoot part will be the next in the series: "Winter Cross Training in Vibrams -- Part III -- The Barefoot Part"

Winter Cross Training in Vibrams -- Part I -- The Preliminaries

2010-12-28T20:56:00.000-08:00

A simple little tale of going out running the day after a giant blizzard ending up having to be told in three parts, it seems. Part I will be the "The Preliminaries." Part II will be "Running in Vibrams." And Part III will be "The Barefoot Part."

A subtitle for the series could be, "Who says it has to be all or nothing?"

So, here we go with Part I -- The Preliminaries

This was going to be my first day out in my Vibrams. Some of you may remember I mentioned that I started in Vibrams last spring, ran a few times, then decided to try barefoot to learn proper form. My intention back then had been to go back to Vibrams once I had the barefoot form down correctly, but after experiencing barefoot running I never put them back on.

So, today was going to be the day I put them back on. Had them all ready on the chair, along with a pair of Injinji toe socks.

When I checked the temperature, I saw that it was 35 degrees. Well, that's pretty warm, I thought. Maybe the streets are clear enough that I could do it barefoot after all.. Let me go see.

So, I headed outside to take a little walk around and scope the situation out -- in my bare feet of course.

Parts of the sidewalks seemed fine, very well-shoveled.

However there were sections like the one below which did not look like they were going to be good at all.

Well, I thought, it must be clear out on the Boulevard. Maybe I can start out in the Vibrams and take them off when I'm on the runway, then put them back on again to come home. Yes, that's what I can do and what I shall do.

I went back in to put my Vibrams on. This was the first time I was using the socks with them and it was really tough getting them on with the socks. I thought to myself, "I don't know how I'll get these back on when it's time to come home. This is really tough." I thought about how my feet would be wet when it came time to put them back on. I decided to bring a little towel with me.

Then I realized something! I don't have to wear these socks! It's 35 degrees out there. I've run barefoot in 35 degrees so why would I need these socks? I decided to ditch the socks.

Now it was time to step out the door:

Definitely did not feel good about having them on. :-(

Here is a video of my first steps down the snowy path in my Vibrams:

When I got to the corner, something completely unanticipated happened. I looked across to the other side and saw that the way to my running path was blocked by snow:

How am I going to get up there?

I could clearly see there was a little path carved out up there, but couldn't see how to get to it.

So, I went back across to the other side of the street and started jogging along. Maybe I'll just have to run along these paths:

As I jogged along, I was beginning to think my plan to take off my Vibrams at some point was starting to fall through. When I got to the corners, I was especially sure it would not be a good idea because I would encounter puddles of slush like this:

All the while I was on the lookout for a place across the street where I might cross over on to the path by the river. Finally I found a spot that looked like it might work. Daffodil and I stepped through it to get to the Boulevard path.

We took a look back to see where we had come from.

Now we were up on the path at last.
We scoped it out. First we looked North:

And then we looked South:

And everything looked "good to go."

Notes to self after "The Preliminaries:

Scoping out the scene in bare feet before heading out by walking up and down a few blocks to see how it feels not only gives a good idea about whether to use shoes or not, but also gives the feet a little touch of cold weather conditioning. Who says it has to be all or nothing?
Climbing through snow and slushing through slush in the kind of Vibrams I have is pretty wet, so it's not like Vibrams are going to keep my feet dry.
I don't need socks when it's 35 degrees.
No matter how hard I try to think things through and anticipate everything, there's always going to be something I didn't think of
Sometimes I have to just get out there and see what it's like to know how it's going to go. Experience is the best teacher.
Don't like my Vibrams any more. The first time I ran in them, back in the spring, I thought they were amazing. But after running barefoot all summer, I don't like them any more.

I'll continue in Part II -- Running in Vibrams

Barefoot in the Snow -- Take 2

2010-12-27T20:58:00.000-08:00

We had a big blizzard today. Really big. When I opened the front door to bring Daffodil out this morning, both of us kind looked on in wonder.

My little tootsies came right up to the threshold of the door. I really wanted to just see if I could walk in it barefoot.

It felt so freezing that I chickened out and put my boots on

But I was just so curious, I couldn't give up the thought that I'd just like to walk through the snowdrift on the porch, just to see what it was like. So ... I decided to step out of my boots.

First one barefoot step:

Then another:

Then I quickly ran across the snow drift. I thought I might leave behind a set of barefoot footprints to take a picture for my blog, but I forgot that Daffodil would be following and leaving little paw prints in the snow too.

It was absolutely freezing, and I thought that there was no way I would ever want to go run in this. And stupid me forgot to roll my pant legs up, so they got snow all over them. And they were a little damp later on while in the drafty house.

I didn't go running today. I have a treadmill downstairs and I didn't go on that either. (I have never really used that treadmill, and have been hoping I will never have to.)

So, it would seem like this blizzard marks the end of my barefoot running for the season. I will have to go out sometime this week for the first time in Vibrams (the only minimal shoe I own at this point).

I have actually decided that if I consider running in minimal shoes a completely separate sport from barefoot running, that perhaps it could be considered cross-training. For some reason, psychologically, I like the idea of "cross training" in Vibrams better than seeing it as part of my barefoot running.

However, I do still have some curiosities left in me. Maybe it only felt so horrible because it was the first day? Maybe it wouldn't feel as horrible if I was actually running and building up body heat? Maybe if I was dressed more warmly on top with hat and gloves and never stopped moving? Maybe, instead of being the end, maybe this little run through the snow drift on the front porch was a good start?

Time Travel -- How I Learned About Barefoot Running

2010-12-26T20:36:00.000-08:00

While we're having a big blizzard outside, I thought I'd share with you a blast from the past -- a blast from when readers of Barefoot Fresca did not know me.

I was actually learning about and contemplating barefoot running a long time before I took my first steps out to try it. I read the book Born to Run by Christopher McDougall way back in January or February of 2009. On my other blog, Avocational Singer, I wrote a post about some thoughts on barefoot running almost an entire year before I tried it. It was so interesting for me to go back and read that, knowing that I did not know I was in the future going to become a barefoot runner. Back then I was just thinking.

Here is the post if you'd like to check it out.

"What is Natural"

--------------------------------------------

Disclaimer -- You all know that we have Amazon Associates connected with blogger. When I write the name of a book, I use the link from Amazon Associates and if you click on the link and bought the book I, like all other blogger bloggers who use it would get some money. I do not write this blog to make money at all. I use google adsense because I like the way you get to analyze who visits and stuff. I use Amazon Associates because I read a lot of books and I like to talk about them, and I like to link to them if anyone is interested. It kind of makes sense that if I'm linking to them anyway, I might as well go ahead and use the Amazon Associates link.

Anyway, if I wanted to make money on the blog, I would do way more things than use adsense and stuff. I would buy a book, "How to make money on your blog for dummies" and would read up and study it and try out different things and draw up contracts and get advertisers, etc....

But I read that bloggers are supposed to put disclaimers when they're using links like the Amazon Associate one, so this is my disclaimer.

I like to read a lot. I only post books on here that I'm reading and quote things I find inspiring in the books. I don't get paid anything and don't get any free books, and no one has asked me to review or mention their books. Just wanted to let you all know that.

If anything ever changes with that, I'd let you all know that too.

2010-12-25T11:34:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas

and all the other greetings of the season to all my fellow barefoot friends and the barefoot curious who stop by to read.

Based on what I received for Christmas -- something I've wanted for a long time and which can be seen to the right, -- it looks like I'll have something else to practice every day (besides barefoot running, Kung Fu, blogging, piano, voice, photography). Perhaps I shall one day post videos of me playing the harp barefoot for you! (No, not with my toes, silly, with my hands, in some flowing white gown and my bare feet planted firmly on the floor.)

(edited to add: In fact, now that I think about it and have tried plucking a few strings on this thing, I believe that some of what I learned in barefoot running and some of the patience I had to use is going to be needed in learning to play the harp. I can feel that the tips of my fingers are tender, and that I will have to build up and develop them much in the same way I had to build and develop the soles of my feet. That will require a definite strategy of not doing too much too soon (TMTS) . In the beginning, probably only 5 minutes at a time. Perhaps I did need to become a barefoot runner first before getting my first harp.)

Last night I sang
"O Holy Night" at midnight mass.

I was wearing black velvet pants with a black velvet top, but when it came time to put on fancy shoes with heels, I just couldn't.

Now, because I have not had time to accumulate a wardrobe of shoes better designed for the health of my feet, I have only that pair of Terra Plana Vivo Barefoot Kali shoes which I've been wearing about everywhere. I decided that, once again -- like every day -- those would be the shoes I would have to wear.

I didn't have any black socks washed, so I took a pair of black injinji socks and used them underneath. They were so-o-o-o comfortable. I was more comfortable singing than I ever had been before.

This shoe thing could pose a problem in future singing gigs -- or it couldn't, depending on how things go -- because sometimes when you sing you get all gussied up and have to stand in front and your shoes kind of complete the look, and it can make the difference between looking polished and authoritative. I'm sure I'll be sometimes wondering what to put on my feet as I sing, and be on the lookout for barefoot-friendly formal shoe wear appropriate for singing. But for my purposes last night, it all worked out great.

Christmas is a family time, and I would love to tell you about my family and share pictures of everything, but my family does not feel comfortable having me write about them on my blog and I respect that. So, if the blog seems a bit narcissistic and focused only on me, well, it is -- but by special request. You can assume that wonderful family things are happening on Christmas and all the time. And I hope that wonderful family things are happening for all of you this holiday season.

I actually did think of going for a run today, but have decided not to because I'm tired from attending the big family Christmas Eve Feast, and then midnight mass. So, we shall begin anew soon. In the meantime -- Enjoy your holidays everyone.

(Oh, btw, below is what the harp looked like wrapped. Did they really think I wasn't going to know what it was?)

Okay, okay, I'll show you some of the presents Daffodil got as well. After all, she doesn't mind me writing about her on my blog.

She really loved the little santa doggie. In fact, she played with it so much (it squeaks, btw) that we thought we wouldn't even have to give her the other presents and could save them until next year.

Soon enough, however, she was ready for her doggies lobster dinner, with baked potato, corn and broccoli.

After her Christmas dinner (bty, the lobster, the corn, the lemon, and the potato all squeaked), she was allowed to have some doggie cookies:

And, just one more Daffodil Christmas-y thing: Every year we buy a new ornament for the tree that has some meaning about our life that year. This year, we added a "Daffodil" ornament to the collection.

Six Month Anniversary -- 150 Barefoot Miles!

2010-12-23T13:24:00.000-08:00

Six months ago today, I ran my first full Barefoot Mile.

What a day that was!

I thought it was really something.

Wow, it's possible! I can run a whole mile barefoot!

"Hey everybody! I just ran a whole mile barefoot!"

(I think I put it in my status update on Facebook that day, but not really anyone noticed because before that I had been posting pictures of my new Vibrams so everyone just thought "barefoot" meant Vibrams, and to this day most of my friends still think that when I say barefoot I mean I'm running in those funny shoes. It doesn't matter how much I try to explain that I am running completely barefoot, it takes them a really long time, if ever, to get that I don't mean those funny shoes. When they do get it, their faces kind of fall. "You mean, nothing on your feet?" "Yes! Yes! I mean nothing on my feet." And then it starts, "Ewww, isn't that dangerous, etc...." and I am no longer cool -- because the Vibrams kind of barefoot are cool, the other kind, not.)

You know what? It was really something.

It was two days before I made my very first blog post. That post was on the day of my second barefoot mile. After that I very patiently ran single barefoot miles for 10 miles, resting a day in between each one, before I began to increase the distance every so slightly during July.

Since then I have strung a whole bunch of those barefoot miles together and yesterday I ran my 150th barefoot mile. And the last 15 of those barefoot miles were in temperatures that were in the 30s of degrees.

Let's take a look at what the bottoms of those feet look like after 150 barefoot miles:

Not bad, eh?

No more little blood blisters. No more little abrasions, bruises, scrapes, and peeling skin. No more little embedded dark mysterious objects. Even the calloused spot where I have trouble with that third metatarsal head (morton's toe thing-y) has smoothed out as I've been very careful of my form and not to push off from there. And I've developed these really wonderful, thick cushion-y pads that are so comfortable and supportive to walk on. Back when I started, I was so worried that my feet would become all scruffy, calloused, and ugly looking that I took pictures of my old feet to say good-bye to the pampered state, and so I could always remember a time when they had been soft and beautiful. Little did I know on the day I took those pictures that barefoot running would make them way more beautiful. And strong!

You can kind of see why I don't want to stop barefoot running. I mean, it took all summer and 150 miles to get these babies into this kind of condition. I feel this sense of protectiveness of them, almost a kind of pride. I can't just let them wither down to that tender-footed wimpy state they've been in for so many years again so soon.

I just found a new blog by a fellow barefooter named Claire. On her blog, Take Two, in her post "Gravel Marching for Dummies" she talks about the lengths she's willing to go to during the bad winter to keep her bare feet conditioned for barefoot running. I have to admit that I saw a youtube video of a guy doing that earlier this summer and I thought, "Now that's taking things a bit too far!" Fast forward several months of patient bare foot conditioning and I kind of get why someone would want to do that. Weird evolution.

I will confess one teeny little touch-up I did to this photo. There was a piece of grey fuzz from my sock stuck to my right foot and I clone brushed it out. That was a teeny spot. But I did absolutely nothing else to the photo.

15 of those miles have been in weather that was below 40 degrees. It only took 15 little barefoot miles to get my feet conditioned for the cold. You would think it would have taken a lot more, but now I'm running in the cold pretty comfortably now.

My last two runs were Saturday (the day of the sunrise) at 35 degrees, and yesterday at 32 degrees. I did not go out and try when it was below 30 because I didn't have to. I might have tried the 20s if it had lasted enough days, but as it was, I waited and the temperatures went back up to the 30s so I didn't have to try the 20s yet.

Sidewalk Salt
A new thing Daffodil and I encountered was salt on the ground. See those white spots in the picture alongside this text? That's the salt.

At first it looked like crushed glass and I was doing the little hoppy don't-want-to-step-on-glass dance. But I figured it out soon enough.

I suppose I don't really want to step on salt either.

What Next?
Well, as I've written here before, the whole reason I've been running in the cold is because I have that 5K at Disney in January (Buzz and Woody's 5K). It is only three weeks away. I think that my luck held out really well with the weather here. I think that no matter what happens from here-on-in, I will be good to run barefoot in the race. If I am able to run at least once a week barefoot until then, I'll be good. I think I will. I really don't know. I don't know how long it takes the soles of one's feet to de-condition.

My mileage is down a little bit. You know I ran two 5Ks barefoot this past Fall (5K number 1 and 5K number 2). So, I know I'll be able to do the 5K. But I had two step-backs I hadn't figured on earlier.

One was after I had that strange dislocated fibular incident. Once that healed up, which didn't take too long at all if you remember, I had to get back into routine carefully.

The come-back from fibula weirdness runs went like this:

1.45 miles
2.75
2.75
1.5
and then finally
4.3 miles

But then I hit the cold weather, and had to step it back again to get my feet used to the new conditions.

So, the runs have gone like this:

1.4 m @ 37 degrees
2.74m @ 35 degrees
2.74m @ 31 degrees
2.74m @ 31 degrees
2.74m @ 41 degrees
2.74m @ 32 degrees
1.5 m @ 32 degrees

I have three weeks until Disney. Now that my feet can handle the cold, I will bump up to a 5K distance at least once a week and I'll be fine. I already previously made the decision not to increase mileage at this point during the winter and that was a good decision. I will save growing my mileage for next season.

In the meantime, because I haven't been running further, I have been stepping it up on the last quarter mile of my run each day. It's been feeling good to push a little on the speed, and it seems like just the right amount for someone in my state of things.

Just three more weeks to go and it will be the end of my first barefoot running season. And then we'll have a whole new season to look forward to!

-------------------------------------------------
I recently found a post on my other blog, Avocational Singer, that I wrote the day after that first barefoot mile.
Here it is: "More Barefoot Running"

Barefoot Mile #148 -- Sunrise!!

2010-12-22T18:22:00.000-08:00

I'm shall be getting back to writing about my "Brr-foot" Running, but I'm taking a little time out right now to share some photos I took the morning of my past Saturday barefoot run. (Just a preview, in case you're in suspense -- I'm still running barefoot. Haven't put my shoes on quite yet.)

It so happened that I had to run an errand very early in the morning of the day that I was later to complete my 148th barefoot mile. I noticed that the sun was about to rise so I got out there with my camera to just enjoy watching. You might get tired scrolling through so many pictures, but don't give up -- it's worth the wait, as it was for me.

Come watch the sunrise with me:

Barefoot in the Snow

2010-12-14T06:23:00.000-08:00

It happened overnight. We had our first light dusting of snow for the season.

This happy barefoot runner did not feel as happy about the first snow as she usually does. In fact, she looked out the window with a bit of dismay.

Maybe it will be gone by tomorrow, when my next run is scheduled.

I kept staring at the snow, and as I came back in the house, dragging the garbage cans in behind me from the curb, I still kept staring at it.

I wonder what it would feel like to just step out there and see what it feels like? I mean, it won't hurt me to go outside, take a picture of my feet on the snow, will it now? A minute or two wouldn't hurt, would it? I definitely am not going go barefoot running in the snow this year, but, well .... it's only a light dusting of snow and it looks like very dry snow.

Yeah, but as soon as my feet touch the snow it won't be dry. It will melt and it will be wet and freezing.

But what would it cost me, really, to just go out and take just one eeny little picture for my blog? I mean, it would be fun. I have a Summer picture of my feet outside, a Fall picture of my feet outside. This could be the Winter version. Oh, I simply must have the Winter version!

Okay, I'll do it.

I admit it was hard to take of my socks and Terra Plana Vivo Barefoot Kali shoes that were keeping my feet relatively warm. But once the decision had been made, then I just saw it through.

Amazing! It was not miserable. It actually felt pretty good!

I could definitely feel that the cold-weather conditioning I've been doing over the past couple of weeks had produced an insulating kind of effect. I felt definitely like my feet were prepped or ready for this and that it did not feel as cold and freezing as it might have had I not accustomed my feet to the cold. The strong, tough skin on the soles of my feet which had developed over the past 145 miles of barefoot running almost felt like a layer of protection, almost like a kind of "shoe" on my foot.

I'm not saying it wasn't cold, but it was surprisingly more comfortable than I thought it would be.

But I have no idea what it would be like to remain out there. I was only out there for about 3 or 4 minutes. I wonder how long I would be out there before my feet started to freeze.

But then I thought that maybe they wouldn't freeze because I'd be running and the activity would keep the feet warm. There really would be no way of knowing for sure until one gave it a try, would there now?

Maybe running barefoot in the snow would also work like learning to run barefoot at all, or learning to run barefoot in the cold, and have to be done incrementally -- bit by bit, increasing very gradually?

Maybe by taking these little steps out I've already begun?

No, no no! It's not the right time. I will not, shall not, run barefoot in the snow. I will not do it in a house. I will not do it with a mouse. I will not do it here or there. I will not do it anywhere. Mark my words, I will not run barefoot in the snow! Do you hear me?!

Mile 145 -- Still Barefoot in December

2010-12-13T20:06:00.000-08:00

I looked out my door this morning. It was warmer, in the 40s, but it was wet. I stepped out with my bare feet and the wet was cold.

No. I'm not going to run with this wet ground. Let me wait and see if it dries up.

Later, around noon, the ground had dried up completely. I was in my running clothes. I think I even saw a bit of sun. But I was wrapped up in doing a million things and ... well, it was feeling harder to go out and run.

Remember those spontaneous run days in the summer, when the urge to run just came over me (spontaneous run day #1 and spontaneous run day #2)?

Well, I haven't been feeling it as I look outside at the cold weather. I have to make myself go.

The brief moment of sun went away. Some more time passed. Now it was getting later -- 3:30pm. If I didn't go now, it was not going to happen.

I ran through a bunch of thoughts. Can I wait until tomorrow? Maybe I'm not meant to run today. But maybe this will be the last day I can go barefoot and if I don't go I'll miss it. And what about that last race in January down at Disney. If I don't maintain the work of the summer, I won't feel good running it.

So, I forced myself out the door with my little pup.

And it was great!

I loved every step of it! It was 41 degrees but it felt cold, even colder than the days I ran in the 30s. It was very overcast and dull and grey outside. And yet it was wonderful. I think that the ground was colder than when it had sun shining on it. I think it makes a big difference when the ground is actually colder.

On a numbness scale of 1-10, with 10 being not able to feel anything and 0 being completely normal, I would say my feet were at about a 3-4. It seems like that is an okay way to run. A little danger of pounding my feet down too hard, but if I'm careful it's okay.

I wrote the other day about getting feedback from knees and other body parts about whether I'm running gently enough. This awareness of listening to the rest of the body, after a summer of mostly listening to feet, made me feel more complete. I thought that this whole body awareness would be useful for transferring barefoot running technique to when I put shoes on again.

As I was out there, it began to snow flurry. It was really pretty.

It's a good thing I went out, because this snow continued through the day. I think that I won't try snow running this year. Maybe some year I'll try it, but I'm not ready to try it this year.

So, maybe this was my last barefoot run of the year. 145 barefoot miles. (actually 145.96) Not a bad total.

But who knows? Maybe my good fortune will last and I'll be able to keep it up somehow by the time I go down to Disney.

Day 3 -- Running Barefoot in 31 Degrees

2010-12-09T21:17:00.000-08:00

This is Part III of my first explorations into colder (sub-40-degree) weather. The first day out it was 35 degrees. The second day out, it was 37 degrees. And now it was time to run again and here it was 31 degrees.

I now have added a pair of running pants over my HIND tights, and a great big sweatshirt over my compression turtleneck and long-sleeved T-shirt over that.

I am plenty warm on top.

Daffodil now gets a sweater. I don't know if dogs need sweaters but Havanese dogs are Cuban, and have a kind of double-layer fur that keeps them cool in the summer. So, I was kind of thinking Daffodil might need a little something.

Although I was dreading taking my first steps outside, they really were not bad at all. I remember when I was conditioning my feet to run on asphalt, how it would hurt so much one day and my feet would feel a little sore afterwards, but by the next time I went out, they would have already adapted some during the time off and there was steady improvement from run to run as long as I did not do too much.

Well, it was my impression that the cold conditioning was working the same way. My feet began to adapt much sooner than I would think.

I was very very comfortable for my 2.75 mile run. I even ran the full length of asphalt this time. It was tricky and I had to be really careful. But it was amazingly better.

(That big pile of the last fallen leaves of November that I had showed you on day one had now been swept away.)

Why am I doing this barefoot running in the cold when I don't have to?

Well, I've already written about how I want to make sure I'm not put off just because it was uncomfortable in the beginning. I wanted to make sure that the difficulty of the first time out didn't make me draw the conclusion that it was not for me. I wanted to give it a chance.

But there is another reason I really don't want to stop going barefoot yet. I am signed up to run the Disney 5K in January. I think it would be fun to run it barefoot. I really would like to run it barefoot. But if I stop running barefoot now, I might not be able to do it by January. (If you do click on the Disney link you will find that the race is full. Last year at Thanksgiving time, when I finally sadly realized I would not be able to run in the half marathon because of my plantar fasciitis, I tried to get into the 5K but it was full. I had thought I could have run that 5K with my injury. This year I signed up early so I would definitely be able to do it.)

I have no experience with this, so I have no idea how long it takes a conditioned sole of a foot to get all soft again, but I feel that the longer I can go before I have to put shoes on the better off I'll be.

As far as why I'm running on asphalt, well I remember when I walked this same 5K a few years ago that it started way far out in the Epcot parking lot. Now this is Disney, folks, so maybe the asphalt out there is smooth, but just in case, I don't want to be too much of a tenderfoot. I think that inside the park it is a smoother surface, but it is hard to remember because I had been wearing shoes at the time.

But most of all I just feel so sentimental about my barefoot running experience this summer, writing the blog and all that, that I just don't want it to be all over yet. Not just yet.

I know that there will be a new season -- that it will all begin again next spring. But I am just hanging in there for the last dregs here. I feel that my running season officially ends with my Disney race in January. So, I just want to finish up.

Well, by the end of that 31 degree run, I felt so good that I was sure the temperature had gone up to at least forty. The wind blowing through my toes felt like a cool spring breeze. It actually felt good. It's not that my feet weren't slightly numb. The balls of my feet were where I felt some numbness. It's just that they felt comfortable. It was nothing like the first time out when it was numb and painful. I really truly think that my feet adapted. But what was surprising is they responded really quickly.

Anyway, when I checked the temperature it had gone up, just as I suspected -- to 32!

The same thing happened a second time when I went out for another run at 31 degrees after that.

I have drawn some conclusions about it. This is stuff really experienced barefoot runners already know, but I am finding out about it now. Here are my "notes to self" about barefoot running in the cold:

First of all, stay as warm as possible up on top.

Second, start with only a little bit, like when you first started barefoot running, and gradually increased. Have as much patience as you did when you first started to run barefoot.

Third, go out a little later in the day when the sun has been shining and warming up the ground a tiny bit. When I went out that first morning and had to go too early, there was no sunshine on the ground. For these latest runs, I was able to wait until there was more sunshine on the path and that made a difference.

I have read a post by a guy named Smelph over on the Barefoot Runner's Society site where he warns about going out when it is cold and WET. I have only gone on beautiful cold days when it is dry. I think that's a good idea for a beginner.

Fourth, don't just walk around all day with your feet all warm and cozy. Take them out and let the get used to being in cooler temperatures so that it's not so shocking when you go to run.

Fifth, give your feet recovery time. Take a full day off in-between so your feet can figure out what happened to them, adjust and do whatever they do to make the cold feel better next time.

That's all for today, folks.