Yours Truly Are Stupid

Either I are stupid or chalk this one up to it being Friday The Thirteenth. Be glad I did not take the sole photos I was tempted to take, because they would have looked gruesome.

I ran barefoot today. I have not been running barefoot that much this 2008, so far. Reasons have been posted in previous posts. But, I have to admit, that pulling back on the number of miles I run barefoot - and indeed the number of miles I run in general - has fostered the healing of my heels and Achilles tendons. At the same time, I am feeling very fit, at least aerobically. The speed at which I will be able to race is still in question, however, since I totally lack anything like tempo runs or intervals.

So I are stupid because, on this hot Friday The Thirteenth, after wearing shoes all day, I came home and took them off. Then I set out for a barefoot run. Half a mile on the street to Greenbrook Park's grass. Well, after only 50 yards or so it felt like I had something embedded in the bottom of my forefoot, behind my right little toe. I noticed the pavement was hot, but it didn't seem too hot. I continued my run. The pain worsened. I looked for something in my foot, briefly, and saw nothing. I got to the park and the pain continued, even on the grass. Something must be up, I was thinking. I checked the bottom of my foot again and saw nothing of note. So I did the right thing and turned around and ran home. Arriving home, I inspected the bottom of my right foot more closely and found three blood-blisters. The most bloody was the one on my forefoot behind my little toe. The second was on my forefoot behind my big toe. The third was on my big toe itself. Then I discovered a fourth on my left forefoot. Unbelievable. I can't remember ever having blisters from a short run like this, which was about 1.5 miles.

For the rest of the evening, I was limping around, because the blisters really hurt. The three points on my left foot, for example, seem to be the major weight-bearing points when I step. I suspect that my right foot does more work when I run, because the forefoot of my right running shoes now wear out before the left. (When I ride my bike hard, I am pretty sure my right leg works harder also because I can feel the stress at my right knee. That is when I try to relax my right leg and concentrate on using my left leg more.)

The stupidity factor in getting these blisters is evident in retrospect when I failed to consider my relatively low barefoot mileage this spring, the pavement temperature, the softness of my feet after being in shoes all day, and the fact that I am running the President's Cup 5K - my first race since the NYC Marathon last November - on Monday night.

Lucky for me, I am not shooting for any kind of specific goal at President's Cup beyond finishing with a time that I can work with for planning future workouts. And there is the Sam Adams and party atmosphere that follows, of course.