Barefoot Style Running - Now at day 10

I have now read Barefoot Running Step By Step by Ken Bob, but before it had even arrived I had given in to temptation and ordered some Merrell Trail Glove running shoes. I had initially planned to go for some Vibram Five Finger shoes, however the sole of the Vibram interested me more than the 'toe glove' style. Seeing as the Merrell shoe utilises the Vibram sole it seemed ideal. I really like the look of them, though they are a huge change from my Saucony Pro Grid Ride 3 shoes. Even more so when you add in the additional Neonene insole and Superfeet insole I have been using in the past 6-9 months the Saucony in an attempt to deal with this foot issue.

From...

  to...

When I first unboxed the Merrell I feared they had sent a size or two below what I had ordered, as the shoe looked so small. But it fits very well ...the depth of the sole at the heel is almost 2 inches less in the Merrell! It is also much more flexible (you can bend it double so that the toe touches above the laces), and weighs half as much as the Saucony.

It won't be an instant switch from one to the other of course, and who knows, it may not work out. But after reading the book by Ken (which I would highly recommend) I have been pretty optimistic about this transition. And I'm always motivated re: running, which is what has made this foot issue such a pain. Recent training log as follows (pace/distance based upon Garmin Forerunner GPS Watch)

27-5-13: Approx. 0.1 mile barefoot, felt very awkward and slow.
28-5-13: Approx 0.3 mile barefoot, as above. [11.3 min/mile average pace]
29-5-13: Calfs suffering aches and stiffness
30-5-13: 0.5 miles barefoot. Focus on keeping knees slightly bent as per book instructions, which helped. But still very awkward. [9.24 min/mile average pace]
31-5-13 Calfs very tight and sore (I guess I was actually doing it right the previous day!).
01-6-13 Calfs still quite tight and sore when barefoot
02-6-13 0.6 mile run in the new Merrells. [10.07 min/mile average pace]. The shoes feel a good fit, but the running was quite awkward. I keep catching my legs switching to a heel strike landing rather than a forefoot landing with heel drop.
03-6-13 0.6 mile run barefoot. [10.16 min/mile average pace] Slightly less awkward sensation.
04-6-13 Calfs quite tight and sore.
05-6-13 1.2 mile run in Merrells [8.26 min/mile average pace]. Now this is the first barefoot type run that felt good! I was trying to bear in mind the "fall forward while cycling" type advice for this running style, and also had only a few accidental 'heel first' strikes. The running didn't feel particularly awkward, and at peak pace I was managing 6.41 min/mile pace.

In the above I didn't mention my normal running, which is typically two 5 mile runs every 3-4 days. I found I could sometime carry this out quite normally even when my calfs felt tight and sore when barefoot - that sensation just vanished when wearing my old running shoes. Which goes to show just how different the style of movement is.

From here I need to make sure I don't overdo it I think, and keep the transition gradual. Ken recommends spending several months running entirely barefoot, but I don't feel able to follow that. However I do plan to continue 'vanilla' barefoot running a minority of the time for better form feedback.   

A New Experiment: Barefoot Running

In August/September 2011, and my fourth Bristol Half Marathon, I picked up some kind of running injury in my right foot. In the 18 months since, including some extended periods of rest, it has not fully resolved. More recent assessment has indicated that the arch is fallen in my right foot. I have been wearing Superfeet supportive insoles since then to reasonably good effect, however the issue remains, and has reemerged when training volume or exercise intensity has been high. I may go into more detail at a later time.

During an unplanned conversation with a physiotherapist who specialises in running he mentioned that I should consider barefoot running, which he was very enthusiastic about. He suggested that barefoot running may strengthen my feet, and pointed to a lower incidence of injuries among barefoot runners. I had previously thought that my flat foot issue meant that barefoot running was ruled out due to a need for more support...but now it will be my new experiment!

Reading sources on the internet suggested that, rather than diving straight in with a pair of barefoot type running shoes, you should build up very gradually due to the very different running style and demands placed upon the feet. Yesterday I ordered 'Barefoot Running Step by Step' by Ken Bob, which appeared well reviewed and authoritative. My plan at present is to very gradually and safely build practice and mileage barefoot, and then perhaps a month from now, if all seems to be going well, to buy a pair of barefoot shoes. In the mean time that means running outright barefoot, though I'll be sticking to the pavement of my street for safety (and so I don't have far to limp home if things go wrong!).

Yesterday I tried running barefoot pavement running for the first time... but it wasn't really a run, but more of a strange hobble. Perhaps 80 meters up and down the street, with a strong feeling that my calfs were no where near flexible enough for this!

Today I tried again, this time immediately after the warm up of my usual 5 mile run. It went a bit better, 2x up and down the street, at what my Garmin Forerunner informed me was 11 minute mile pace. Rather slow considering I can be quite comfortable running at sub 7.30 minute mile pace range in shoes (1.41 half marathon pb), and again evidence that this transition will have to be very gradual. I'll report how it goes from here!

A strange draw and a fortunate win

Since my last entry I've got back to running a little bit, having ordered extra insoles to help protect my feet. I also ordered new shoes, but they sent the wrong size. The extra insole plus tightening the shoe serves to brace the foot a bit better when running, and I think there has also been a little more progress with the healing. However on the few 3.5 mile runs I have done I still find myself counting the (semi) 'clicks' from my right foot. They usually start from mile 2 - what fun! Quite subjective as well. It would almost be better if there was actual pain/discomfort, because then I would have a better idea when to stop, whether there is progress with healing etc.

I've played two more league games, which can be found below. Game 1 I played a terrible opening move (4.b3??) against the Benko gambit. My opponent didn't take full advantage of that mistake, but I still found myself with a distinctly uncomfortable position. My opponent played well, and it looked like I was heading for a loss. Surprisingly enough however on move 24 he offered a draw. I had thought about offering a draw as my position became increasingly unpleasant those last few moves, but thought it would be a bit insulting to do so, because black is up a pawn, and has a better position with good prospects of picking up a second pawn. Luckily for me my opponent felt a draw was a good result here because they had seen my grade... and because their grade was 68! Wait, what? It was a division 1 game for the B team as well, so completely unexpected. Bizarre.

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In my second league game I was playing the black side of a symmetrical English opening (exactly what I hated to come up against back when I played 1.c4 myself). My choice of plan out of the opening (13...a6 14...b5) soon proved a mistake after the c file became very weak, and my position became a bit of a mess. Soon after this the game became very tactical. Fortunately for me I came through the complications with some advantage, eventually leading to a fairly simple queen and pawn ending. I dislike queen and pawn endings because of the amount of your opponents checks you have to calculate, but I had enough pawns around my king to avoid any headaches. This game really deserves some detailed (computer assisted!) annotation, which I hope to add at a later date.

Play online chess

Having mentioned getting back to taking some chess lessons again, I finally got around to it today, taking my first lesson from Woman International Master Vita Chulivska (ICC 'kvitka'). I say my first lesson, but what she wanted to do was to play two 15 minute games, with brief post-game analysis, so as to assess my 'level'. Privately I was a bit reluctant, both because of the pressure and also because I don't play rapid chess much, and thought maybe it would be more instructive to just look through this seasons club games to make an assessment. But mostly it was the pressure of playing rapid against someone of that strength in that situation. But I'm sure she has good reasons to start this way.

WIM Vita Chulivska, UKR, 2335 (Chessbase, 2009)

Game 1 appeared to confirm my worst misgivings, as by move 8 it was clear I was getting into trouble. My moves up to that point weren't book exactly, but I had played them with reasonable results in the past. I was lucky to hang in there and not just get checkmated, and from move 8 until at least move 22 my choices were mainly defensive, reactive type moves, without great prospects. Eventually I reached a quite playable endgame (move 33), but by then was down to 20 seconds vs my opponents 9 minutes! I lost on time, but the moves blitzed out during those final 20 seconds had weakened my position to something that was probably losing again anyway.

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Game 2, also 15 minutes per player, but this time I had the white pieces. I played an opening move (3.a3!?) which I have never tried before, but had seen in a couple of older games (probably either Capablanca or Lasker). I think it served its purpose quite well, avoiding my opponents opening knowlege (maybe) and giving me a fairly safe, playable position with good play on the queenside. I actually made good progress and liked my position right up until the tricky 26...Bxd4 tactic. I hadn't realised that my back rank was weak. Fortunately I found a way through this (though sadly missing 28.fxe3! in the process), and the endgame was simplified and equal. Vita offered a draw on move 36 which I was very happy to accept. Probably my best result against a very strong opponent, even if she likely wasn't trying her very best!

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After the game Vita was slightly critical of my choice of opening, but mainly agreed with the moves I had used to carry out my plan on the queenside. With this trial out of the way I have my second session - and hopefully first proper lesson - this coming Sunday.

0-1, 1-0, 3.2ghz, 0-1

I've now played another couple of league games. In the first I played the white side of a Grunfeld. From the opening I kept my centre, but due to the pressure on it couldn't see a way to make progress particularly. It seemed equal to me up until after the heavy pieces had come off the board, at which point I became aware that if the minor pieces came off then the K&P endgame would be totally lost. Trading off the bishops was a mistake, and in the end his outside passed pawn was a strength and I lost. He played well. I may update the game viewer with some annotation at a later date, but I am basically now looking at anti-grunfeld set ups - I don't like playing against it.

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I left Bristol for a few days to visit my parents, which was nice. I'm finding not running a bit annoying however, and am unsure whether the foot has improved any with the resting. Perhaps a little. While away I took part in a simul against IM Jack Rudd. I played the Albin Counter-Gambit, and actually had some advantage for a time (up the exchange and a pawn, but a somewhat weakened king), but lost in the end. At least I made him think for longer than some of his other games.

Returning to Bristol, I had a go at overclocking my computer, getting my Q6600 from stock 2.4ghz to 3.2ghz and giving a great performance boost. However I found that it runs hot even at stock, so I need to look at improving ventillation (leaving a desk fan on full blast into the side of an open case is not a long term solution).

My second league game I again played the Albin. It was a close game where the advantage went back and forth, with blunders from both sides. Going into the endgame it all got a bit crazy, with us both also under time pressure. It should probably have been a draw right up until he lost his queenside pawns, after which it was clearly won for black. We did play some more moves, but due to time pressure I stopped recording them towards the end, and can't accurately recall them now (though I remember the end position was my 2xP & B against his 1xP, with his K getting pushed back). We analysed after the game. During it I had thought that he was quite nervous and anxious, but after the game he was very confident and fluent with his analysis, so I guess he was just giving it his all. I have added annotations to the game viewer.

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I didn't realise it at the time, but it turns out I had played this opponent last year. I won that game in an unexpected 17 moves due to a pin tactic with his knight - see Sam vs 133.

With 2x win and 2x loss my performance rating so far this season is pretty comparable to last season, but it's very early days. I've started analysing Capablanca and Lasker games more, including with friends on ICC. Good fun, and hopefully it will help my play!

Disappointment

Last week they announced that were was going to be a Bristol Marathon late this year, which got me interested, however on the same day that I learned of it they cancelled it. Hopefully they will plan one for the coming year as they had a lot of applicants for this one.

I had been thinking it would be good to do the Swindon Half-Marathon, which would be the 9th of October, however the recovery process from the Bristol Half is taking longer than I had hoped. I had read somewhere that recovery from a running event is roughly a day for every mile of the distance, which in this case would be almost two weeks. I hadn't thought it would take that long, seeing as I recovered from a high tempo nine mile training run in just a few days previous to the event, and also the twelve mile distance run in a similar time frame, but it seems that those last few miles at race pace - and running on a hard surface - really do make all the difference.

General aches and pains went away within a couple of days, but when I have been out for easy runs recently I still got muscle fatigue a lot earlier. When running this morning this was a bit better, but my movements didn't seem to have any fluencey, so I guess I still have a few more days to get back to normal. I say all this, but since the Half I do seem to have acquired a very specific (though not particularly painful) issue with walking barefoot, and am now wondering whether I've given myself a stress fracture. I'll see what my GP says this afternoon...

Last night I had my second game of the chess season. I played a fine game and achieved an excellent position (you can guess what's coming, right?), then blew it in a single move. I guess I got careless, certainly for some of my moves in retrospect I wasn't properly considering all my opponents forcing reply moves, which should be a minimum. Win at strategy + lose at tactics = lose the game. You can find it analysed below.

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The team score ended up at 3-3, but our losses were i - my stupid one move loss, ii - a default loss due to not having a 6th player, iii - one of our players mobile phones going off when they were in a piece up won position.

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Since writing the above entry I have seen my GP. They didn't think it was likely to be a stress fracture due to a lack of inflammation (and thought a strain, e.g. to a ligament, was more likely), but said I should avoid any running/racquet sports etc. for at least a couple of weeks, and come back if the problem persisted. So that's good news (I had started to get images of x-rays, toe splints, special hard soled shoes, not being able to run for many months...etc!), but I think I can rule out the Devils Aquathlon and Swindon Half-Marathon. Hopefully it will have resolved in the next few weeks, in which case my next event could be the Bath Hilly Half Marathon in late November, or possibly the Christmas Cracker 10k run in mid December.

Bristol Half Marathon

On Sunday I completed the Bristol Half Marathon for the 4th time. The organisation and atmosphere was excellent, with pleasant if slightly warm running conditions. Unfortunately however I won't be able to remember it as fondly as I had hoped due to poor performance on the day, and other issues.

Leading up to the event I became slightly OCD about pre-race diet, sleeping quite lightly the night before. I headed down to the city centre with a Sid, who is quite new to distance running, but very committed to competing in events for charity over the coming year. We arrived at the assembly point quite early, and by the time the event started I felt in good shape.

I had planned to run the first half of the event at approx 7.50 minute mile speed, and then adjust accordingly for the latter half, with a target time of approx 1.44 (I had managed 9 miles at slightly sub 8 minute mile pace in a training run on the Downs, for example). I lost track of Sid near a drink station around mile 3 (we were choosing our own pace, so I didn't wait around), and up until approx. mile 8 I felt my running form was good (average pace 7.53 at this point). During this time I also ate a bag of 'Carobohydrate Energy Jelly Beans' while running, which was new to me - they're not easy to eat at all!


Barely had I started entertaining thoughts of a good finish time (surely I could sustain something near 8 minute mile pace for the remainder?) than my legs started to feel increasingly punished by the road. Mile 9 was uncomfortable, and slower. By mile 11 it was pretty dire, and I was probably averaging approx. 9.20 pace. And getting overtaken a lot. Ugly.

When I reached approx mile 13, almost in sight of the finish line, I became aware that there was someone on the ground just off the race course, and they were having CPR. The news has since reported that the 33 year old runner had a suspected heart attack, and died at the trackside. Very sad news, and the likelihood of this was certainly in my mind as I finished the race.

My final (chip) time was 1.50.00, my worst ever time for the Bristol Half Marathon, and almost 9 minutes slower than last year. After collecting my bag I learned that unfortunately Sid had dropped out with a leg injury at mile 3, so not a great event in several ways. It seems that all my 'event friends' have injurys one way or another!

I think my poor performance during the latter part of the race is attributable to not having done enough race distance runs. I still had reasonable energy, and although a couple of kg heavier than last year I could still sustain a reasonable pace until my legs gave out, which was basically at the point where most of my training runs had ended - mile 9. My training had also involved running on grass or dirt where possible, and I may have underestimated the punishment that the paved Bristol route deals.

Looking at training plans online my weekly milage in the months preceding the event was pretty amateur for the most part, which is definitely something I need to improve on - especially if I want to be able to seriously consider doing a marathon (without any walking). In retrospect it almost looks like I was training for a fast 10k, and not a 13.1 mile endurance event at all.

Stert Island 2.4k Swim

Last weekend I entered the Stert Island Swim at Burnham-On-Sea, which was 2.4km in open water. On the day the conditions were quite good, but I was told that the water was slightly choppier than usual. Below shows the crowd pre-event, me scowling out towards the sea front right.



Visibility in the water was terrible, probably about an inch. In the previous swim event I had tried (the 2010 Tenby Wales Swim - 3km), you could at least see your outstretched hand underwater. On the plus side here however, due to the nature of the course and the number of participants, the risk of getting kicked in the face was a lot less as there was less crowding (in fact, this only happened once, although I did swim collide with other swimmers 4-5 times one way or another).

There was more of a current than Tenby, and again I had some difficulty navigating. Finish time of 53 minutes, which as a stand alone value I am fine with, though I finished a few minutes behind the friends I had entered the event with (so essentially my time was entirely unsatisfactory!). I'm glad I did the event, though as with last time I seemed to spend more time and effort on navigation than I did actually testing my limits physically.

Tomorrow is the Bristol Half-Marathon, which I've been looking forward to. I weigh a couple more kilo's than last year, so I don't think I'll be setting a PB (+1kg fat adds +2 minutes over that distance course, on average). I'm targeting a time of around 1.44 (PB 2010 = 1.41). My habit of getting in shape for autumn events only to lose it over the winter is something I'd like to break this year - running is more fun when you're fit! I'm thinking of entering at least one other half later this year, and then perhaps a full marathon early next year.

The 2011-2012 Bristol Chess League has recently resumed, though due to work I couldn't attend the first club game. I am now playing for Clifton C regularly, and up for B as requested - sadly I cannot 'play down' for Clifton D due to some regulation. Tougher competition this year, I need to get back to playing/studying more seriously. I may look into getting lessons again.

The Wales Swim

On September 24th I took part in The Wales Swim, a 1.5km/3km open water event that a friend had suggested I enter. I had known about it a few months in advance, and had practiced a few fairly long (up to 1 hour) swims while in Crete (on my first holiday abroad in around 8 years - convenient timing!). Unsurprisingly the sea in Crete was quite different to the UK, being warmer and calmer... but the Wales Swim would be in a wet suit (manditory if you wanted to do the full 3km course). I've been wanting to work towards entering a triathlon and had already bought a swimming wet suit, so this would to be a good step towards the swim section of that kind of event.



I had used the wet suit for a brief time before buying it at TriUK in Yeovil (using the on site 'Endless Pool'), but also got to test it in a lake outside Bristol a week before the event. The water was very cold, but the main difficulty was adjusting to swimming in water that was basically opaque - in the lake you couldn't see more than a couple of inches underwater because of sediment. And I kept finding myself going off course and having to constantly readjust. The other main difference from swimming in a pool was the way the suit gave excellent bouyancy, reducing drag but changing the swim stroke quite significantly from what I had been practicing at the leisure centre. But it was clearly faster.


The conditions on the day were fairly reasonable although the air temperature seemed very cold waiting to enter the sea. It was a mass start from the beach which made for some pretty crowded swimming in the early sections despite how I had decided to start near the back to avoid this (a triathlon will doubtless be even worse in this respect). The water was clear enough to be able to see your outstretched hand underwater... which also meant clear enough to see the feet of someone swimming close in front of you, so that was quite sufficient.


The first 1.5km lap went pretty well, however towards the end of this people following the 3km route needed to turn towards a set of buoys that looked identical to those that marked the course finish. The sun was very low in the sky and in the direction of these buoys at this time which caused a great deal of glare, and I ended up blundering towards the wrong set of bouys for a time. This added a couple of minutes to my time and left me feeling quite angry at myself for the second lap, also fearing that I was going to finish last (this not helped by a rescue boat tailing me for several minutes like a vulture sensing weakness).

In the end I finished with a time of 1.05.32 which was quicker than my target. And I wasn't last, or even next to last! Over all it was a good day and a fun event, though I'd certainly have enjoyed the actual swimming part a lot more if I had stayed on course.