Washington Crossing Park

I have a confession to make: I have not done any barefoot running since October 18, 2007. Today was my first barefoot run in 6 months. It felt soooooooo good~! It was at Washington Crossing Park's cross country course. I was there for my son's soccer game. Since the park was the site of my most successful barefoot race, I could not resist. It was time.

As I have discussed in my posts since last year, I needed to recover from Achilles tendon problems. I also needed to do some important races: RVRR XC races and The Escarpment Trail Run in July '07, and the New York City Marathon in November '07.

Quick summary (again): I did major damage to my Achilles tendons in June of '07, running in the President's Cup 5K barefoot. I did not do the damage because I was barefoot - it was because I ran race-pace barefoot, and I had not trained for that. I continued to train and race after doing the damage. I did conventional icing and Ibuprofen. You can read my training errors in this post.

So as I have tried to prepare for some races this year, I have used these things called training shoes. So far, 192 miles of running have been in training shoes, about 50 miles in racing or XC shoes, and finally 5.5 miles barefoot.

Almost 4 months into 2008, this does not sound like much mileage. In my olden days of running, 250 miles would be the result of one month of running, not four. But the important thing is I have been experiencing accelerated healing of my Achilles because I got back on my bikes. I don't know exactly why I decided to hit the bikes again. I know I was gaining weight through the winter. I watched it happen. I knew I could not amp up my running mileage, because my Achilles and heel would be hurting too much.

For some unknown reason I stopped shopping for skis on eBay, and I started shopping for bikes. Irrational, yes. I had a bunch of bikes hanging in my garage. But after shopping and lurking for a while I bid on a nice "vintage" Cannondale, but was below reserve. Emails after the auction closed the deal. It is a beautiful bike.

I got it just before my spring break. I knew I would have daylight time during my spring break to get some rides in. So that is when it started. I rode the Cannondale and my other bikes 131 miles March 25-30. That was the week that marked the end of skiing season, with a two day "guy" trip to Belleayre and Gore, skiing with Andy.

I have continued riding the bikes, tinkering with them, spending some money on them, and have successfully integrated decent running mileage. And I am convinced that the increased circulation to my Achilles and heels has brought about healing of all the tissues of the area. April weeks have been 40, 78, 66 & 91 miles of cycling, and 22, 18, 29 & 30 miles of running. I have commuted to work 10X on bikes and have lost some weight.

Deer Path Park

I can still run.

I ran at Deer Path Park yesterday. I ran about 7.5 miles on the cross-country course. I forgot how great that course is. It was a lot of fun. I wore my Nike cross-country spikes.

I was at the park because my son had a soccer game there. I am glad I got the run in, because the soccer game was horrible. My son is running his second year of middle school track. Yesterday's game may have been the soccer game that turns my son into a full-time runner. I am hoping it is. I used to get a lot of my distance runners during track season from the soccer team back in the early 1980's when I coached track.

I had one perspective on the game, and I am not a trained coach or referee. I just have not been watching soccer long enough in my lifetime to be an authority on this. But I will tell you my perspective. I couldn't swear it was right. When watching a game, everyone sees things differently.

First half: the game was rough. I don't feel referees had it under control from about 10 minutes into the game. The other team was very aggressive, especially towards the Cobras' offense. You know how these things can escalate. As a result, our players got aggressive. There was pushing and shoving, a lot of speedy plays where players banged into each other. That is soccer. Some yellow cards were handed out, at least once to the wrong player in the scuffle - for example when Ross got the yellow because he responded to the other team's player blatantly pushing him. They both probably should have gotten cards. But I am not a referee. It is the referee who decided to hand out only one yellow card.

Second half: Allegedly, the sideline refs were missing calls on both sides. The one on the spectator side was missing offside calls. The one on the team side was miscalling outs and not judging fouls in the goal box. I could not swear to these allegations in court, but that is what Coach Mark and other spectators claim. There was one instance when a player waited for the ref to turn and then pushed one of the players on my son's team. A lot of people were yelling at the ref: Coach Mark, spectators, players - the players were having words with each other on the field and with the spectators.

End of game: I am not sure exactly what precipitated Mitchell to fight with the other player. I have always known Mitch is a bit of a rough player himself, and hotheaded. He was first to run over and strike another player. Players came off the bench and joined, parents came out and joined. It was the worst example of a soccer game I have ever witnessed. The parents who stepped in, both coaches and all the refs should be ashamed of themselves. I can not believe that both coaches were unable to control their players, and that three referees did not get a handle on this game a lot earlier, before a fight broke out.

It was Mitch's decision to fight that really ruined the game and caused a big pile-on in the field. For that reason, in my opinion, Mitch should not be allowed to ever participate in any part of our soccer club from now on. His action was the decisive point that ruined the game for everyone. (I don't think he has ever had a parent at a game or practice, by the way.) Yet, Mitch is not 100% at fault. Both coaches, the refs, and every parent who ran out on the field should be somewhat accountable. I am not sure those parents and coaches realize there was not one college scout at that game, and in perspective, the win or loss means nothing.

When people were leaving, the player from the other team ran over and attacked Mitch again, unprovoked by the my son's team. (Was he encouraged by support from his team mates, coach and parents? Who knows.) That was a mistake, because he got taken down by several kids on the team. Again, I can not believe coaches and parents could not control their kids. It was a disgusting scene that I wanted no part of.

My son did not even play in the game. Which is weird, he usually starts and plays at least half or 3/4 of the game. It was as if Coach Mark was hypnotized by the game, despite being reminded to make substitutions. Perhaps he was determined to leave who he felt were his best, most aggressive players in, to oppose this team - I am just guessing. My son was the only player from either team that did not leave the sideline and join the on-field pile-up fight.

When he came over to me he said, "Dad, I don't think I need to be on this team anymore." I didn't disagree with him.

We got into my car to go when the first cop car pulled up. On the way out we saw three more on their way there. I do not know what happened after I left, and I frankly didn't care.

Somebody asked me via email: How's Your Running Going?

So I wrote this to them:

I am trying to regain fitness that I have slowly lost since June 2007. Though I ran races after injuring both my achilles tendons after that, most notably the Escarpment Trail Run and NYC marathon, both were on minimal mileage and pool running. I ran only 1X per week between NYC and January 2008, and only about 2 or 3X per week so far this year. I skied 30 days this winter. For the last two weeks I have added cycling and will probably train like a triathlete, adding swimming once June rolls around. My plan is to keep running workout frequency low, but have each running workout fairly long & easy. I will run races as my speedwork, and get in some long trail races as soon as I can fit them into my schedule. The only races I am 100% sure I am attending are

Towpath Training Run 34 miles
President's Cup
RVRR Summer Series XC
Escarpment Trail Run 30K
River to Sea Relay

Spirit of the Marathon movie

I went to see the movie Spirit of the Marathon last night. The movie was like a hybrid bike - trying to be everything, it ends up not good on the roads and not good on the trails. The movie tried too hard to include both recreational level runners with world class runners. As a result it was a little too light for long-term running addicts. I wanted more from the cameo "legend runner" speakers, more from Deena and Njenga; and less about group training runs at 12 minute pace. But there were probably people in the audience that loved the everyday athlete take. The music got annoying after a while. It went on and on and on with too much lalala campy inspirational orchestration when the movie needed some good rocking sonic kick.

The movie didn't inspire me with running-as-religion significance - but it left me wanting to run Chicago, no doubt a beautiful city, despite the craziness that killed the race in '07.

How I Am Running

January 1st - After a week's vacation in the Catskills, Christmas Day through New Year's Day, including six straight days of skiing, I decided it was time to get back to running. The fact that it was the beginning of 2008 made it an especially pertinent day to begin on, almost as if it was training from scratch. I ran on January 1st 2008 for exactly 20:08, an almost random coincidence. I saw that I was nearing the end of my run and my watch read 19-something. I had to slow down a little not to over-run my mental finish line, which is my driveway. I stopped the watch at 20:08, like for good luck, or something. It was a relatively warm day.

January 2nd - Wednesday Night Club Run. It turned cold overnight. I felt chilled. I remember saying to Lesley, "I feel under-dressed." I found myself running with Talia, who was telling me how sick she was for the previous week, and that tonight she wasn't sure how far she wanted to run since it was her second day back after being stuck in bed for a bunch of days and taking antibiotics. I remember telling her about my supplement, VIBE, and that I believed it supercharged my immune system, and that I had not gotten sick in two years. I ran about 4 miles with her.

Jaunary 3rd - The jinx I gave myself on January 2nd kicked in: I got a cold. Sinus stuffiness and headache continued through the next 12 days.

January 4 - 15 - I ran a bit despite the cold and skied one Sunday. I didn't take any sick days. I used some decongestant, Advil and Tylenol when I was very uncomfortable. My first week of 2008 total was 15 miles, and 2nd week was 20. I have been interspersing walking thinking it would help the recovery from my cold, but am realizing it is a smart idea, since I am starting almost from scratch.

All my runs since the run on January 2nd have been 5 miles. My run walk intervals have been progressive. I started with walking 30 seconds at every 5 minute mark in the run. Then 35 seconds at every 6 minute multiple. Then 40 at 7's, 45 at 8's, 50 at 9's. I am due for 60 at 10's, but it is a club run tonight, so I am likely not to observe the walk break. I am imagining that I am training for an ultra, for trail running, imagining Jeff Galloway would say I am doing the right thing.

Long Time No Write

Almost a week ago, one person I know in real offline life asked me why I have not been writing. I told her it was because I was taking a break from writing about running, and that I had actually been writing a lot about skiing. Or at least I have been hyper-writing, which takes much more time and effort. My writing is mostly online in various forms: blogs, web sites, email, forums. Writing is no longer something that involves just a writing utensil and paper. Hyper-writing involves a third dimension beyond surface text. There are web links and photos and videos and scripts and widgets to embed. Writing involves response to web articles and to other people, known mostly by just a screen name and sometimes an avatar.

Writing well is hard work. Most of the time, I don't just bang out these things half-thinkingly. I learned way back in high school that whatever a person writes represents them. I don't take that concept lightly; too many people do. The more I write, the older I get, the more I realize how much hard work good writing is, and the more I respect good writers. And in this busy life, there is a budget of work and time. A person can only put out some given amount of hard work every day. So there is another reason why I have not written here. When I work with writing (and with all the other glop that makes up my life) elsewhere, sometimes writing here gets squeezed out of the available budget.

Another thing that has to fit into the budget is the topic written about here: Running Itself. Like good writing, good running takes hard work. I found a need to run less after November 2007's New York City Marathon. I ran an average of about once per week after that event. In the seven weeks that remained in 2007 after the NYC Marathon, I had a grand total of eight running workouts. As a substitute, I did about a dozen strength workouts, specifically targeted towards skiing (from SKI magazine's November issue), and I had 13 days of skiing in December.

As my older posts here indicate, the reason I backed off running is because I found myself suffering from Achilles tendonitis and plantar fasciitis. This is ironic and almost embarrassing, since all this barefoot running is supposed to protect runners from suffering such injury.

A brief history of the evolution of the injuries: I worked hard on my running after the previous skiing season ended, from April 15 - June 2007. I quickly increased my distance running, as I was able to do in previous years based on my bank of cardiovascular attributes gained from 34 years of running, but neglected training for speed.

Let me illustrate how quickly I elevated weekly mileage: From Jan 1 - April 15, ski season, I averaged 20 miles per week, with a high of 40. From April 16 - June 17, I averaged 38 per week with a high of 55. See the graph image below from my Excel Training Log. The dip in mileage at the week ending June 24 indicates the week right after the injury race, President's Cup, on June 18.
Through sheer force of experience, I amped up my training and was running previously unimagined distances barefoot (59% of my 120 June miles were barefoot). And I got cocky: I ran the first 9 miles of the Towpath Training Run wearing just socks with duct tape, which was no problem (pics). I tried the same thing at the President's Cup 5K, a road race. But I now realize why I injured my tendons there. It was because it was my first time running relatively fast on the road. I had only one other race so far that year, a cross-country race. I had been training slow distance - especially when barefoot and it was mostly on grass. My body was just not ready for fast running on the road. It really wasn't the fact that I was barefoot that caused the injury at President's Cup. It was the faster pace, pure and simple. I had done half of the 2006 Geralda Farms 10K race on pavement barefoot before, but slowed down because my big toes wore down and got bloodied and painful. The fact that I wore duct taped socks at the President's Cup race probably increased my probability of injury, because I could run even faster barefoot with that protection. I may have been able to handle that when I was 28 or even 38. But I guess at 48 my old tendons have lost some of that life-giving capillary circulation and decided to call it quits. Additionally, in retrospect, I felt some pain coming on in my Achilles area before the President's Cup race last June, but I did as most over-experienced runners do, ignoring it and continuing to train in hopes it would get better by itself. That is something I probably could have gotten away with in previous decades too.