Shoeless Saturday

Well, not completely shoeless, but for 2 miles it was. Kid 1 had a birthday party to go to with my wife so I took kid 2 in the BOB jog stroller for the first time. I loaded him up with toys and off we went. He barely made a peep the whole run. Every time I looked at him he was either looking back up at me through the sunroof or looking around at the surroundings. I'll call that success.

I didn't think I'd be running this weekend. I had planned to run at lunch at work on Friday and get in a barefoot mile or two in mid-run. On the way to work traffic slowed down to a stop on the freeway (me included) but the car behind me didn't and pounded me into the car in front of me. My neck has been sore since it happened and the car might be totaled (it's 11 years old). The airbags didn't go off and luckily everyone involved has insurance. The car was mostly driveable so I turned around and came home to deal with insurance companies, repair shops, get a rental car, and see my doctor. My doc said that there was definitely trauma but that it should be fine within a few days and surprisingly that it was okay to run.

Back to today: I ran out to the tunnel trail to find that I'd missed some plants here and there on my recent pruning adventure and that the trail was still pretty muddy. At the top of the trail I headed up to the local Middle school to run on their field. When I got there, it was deserted (good!) but there weren't any gates wide enough to bring the jog stroller in. There was just one of those really narrow openings in the fence meant for skinny people to walk through sideways. I ended up taking the kid in and setting him down on the field, then lifting the stroller over the fence and shimmying through the gate. From there, it was off with the shoes and back into the stroller with the kid. I had the Garmin on so I ran just over 2 miles barefoot on the track. I would have liked to run a few more but I didn't want to overdo it on my legs and I knew that the kid would need to be fed in ~30 min.

I reversed the procedure to get the stroller and kid through/over the fence after putting my shoes on and headed home. I took the longer way (Ray Nash Dr.) back rather than dealing with the mud on the trail. I actually saw two other runners ahead of me on Ray Nash (very rare around here) so I picked up the pace, caught and passed them. Yeah, that's right, I passed you with a jog stroller! :)

I took it easy the last mile to cool down somewhat and got home just in time as the boy was getting hungry and not afraid to tell me about it. I ended up with a pretty good run in perfect 60F sunny weather. The barefoot running is coming really easy to me so far (knock on wood) and I feel like I'm doing okay adjusting my stride/gait to a mid-to-forefoot landing. I  looked at my Brooks Cascadias (love em! ) and the wear pattern is definitely starting to show under the ball of my feet and not yet under the heel. I've noticed a slight decline in knee pain after recent runs which is the chief reason for all of this midfoot/barefoot business in the first place. I hope that I keep seeing improvement there in my quest to return to running pain-free.

Time: 1:11:16
Dist: 7.6
Avg: 9:22/mi
Alt: 2500 (Garmin) or 1000 (reality)