Time to Ditch the Running Shoes?

When I first spotted a barefoot runner it was at about mile 14 of the San Francisco marathon. Really bad blisters I thought? Just plain crazy? He was clocking at least a 9-minute mile pace, so something was working in his favor -- and not just the adulation he was getting from the spectators.

But if recent research reported in PM&R (that’s the official scientific journal of the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation) catches on, we could see a lot more barefoot runners on our streets. The news that’s getting the barefoot running community all abuzz? Studies show that running shoes could actually be the culprit behind runners’ knee injuries, not simply running itself.

To be honest I’m not sure if I’m ready to go sans shoes and hammer my naked feet against the pavement every couple of days. Let’s just say I tried it once when a couple of Guinesses made me think that peeling my shoes and socks off and getting a sneaky extra run home from the pub was a genius why-don’t-I-always-do-this? idea. Well, why don’t I always do that? My shins hurt like hell the next day from all the un-cushioned pounding, not to mention how black they looked. If only I’d known about the nifty glove-like shoes you can now find from Vibram. They may make you look a little amphibian, but I think they could be fun for a beach run.

Reasons To Run

The full body scan.



Need I say more?

It's a Primal Thing

Diet and exercise fads come and diet and exercise fads go. They are, after all, to New Year what fireworks are to July 4, bright, sparkly and exciting, yet totally forgettable once they’ve faded into obscurity. January just wouldn’t be the same without them. So it’s pretty rare to hear about a regime with such longevity that it started 15,000 years ago. Yep, you read that correctly, that’s 15,000 years ago. According to today’s New York Times the hottest (or I should probably say coolest because workouts include barefoot running in freezing temperatures) fitness trend among New York’s skinny young things is in fact the Paleolithic diet.

Involving the consumption of “large quantities of meat and then fasting in between meals to approximate the lean times distant ancestors faced between hunts,” the Paleo diet is more of a lifestyle than your typical New-Year-New-You quick fix. Waiting 36 hours between chowing down on handfuls of raw beef doesn’t sound enticing enough? How about “scooting about the underbrush on all fours” and “playing catch with stones” as part of the exercise regimen?

And apparently, just like those prehistoric men in the Geico advert they don’t like to be called cavemen either. Just ask Erwan Le Corre, the man behind the Paleolithic inspired Mouvement Naturel who prefers to think of the whole thing as more about “trusting your primal heritage” than simply becoming a caveman.

Now I’ve just got to decide, will it be deer ribs or organ meat for dinner tonight. Read more about it here.

What's on the to-do list this weekend?

Oh, that's right.

I have a ten miler planned for tomorrow and methinks revisiting a running trail of yore might amp me up. Perhaps Los Penasquitos Canyon? It's been a loooo-ng time since I've run there. Lots of scrambling on very hot rocky paths, lots of close encounters with animals ("well hello there sunbathing rattlesnake in the middle of the trail"), but also some beautiful, shaded stretches of peaceful running. So peaceful that more than once I've convinced myself mid-run that I could be eaten by a mountain lion or attacked by a coyote and no-one would know (see "off-beat ways to boost your running pace.")

A couple of summers ago I had to make friends with some horses in the paddock at the mile-five turnaround and ask them to share some of their water. Believe me I would have asked a human mammal had I seen any. Gross, yes. Do I decide to wing it with the water belt on long runs anymore? No.

Hmm, if only I'd known about the Lemonadeberry.

Good Morning Pacific!

All hail the first morning six miler of the year!



And voila the Pacific (albeit in the hazy distance) at the three mile turnaround point from my house. Now I'm ready to conquer the rest of the day.

Plyo What?

Genius running programs aside, I’m pinning my hopes of marathon success on finding a battery of sneaky strength exercises I can easily add to my workout routine. Enter the plyometric exercise. Fancy word, but from what I can tell, PEs basically boil down to jumping. Lots of jumping. Jumping on boxes, jumping off boxes and jumping up and down. Erm, hang about, that’s something I can do at home.

Suitable footwear probably recommended.

Actually it was Stacy, the one-woman running machine that I’ve been working out with at 24 Hour Fitness, (but more about her later) who introduced me to the jumps with a lateral box push off. They look easy, but believe me if you do enough of them in quick succession they get challenging. Apparently they're all about teaching the muscles, nerves and tendons to be more powerful and to quickly convert strength into speed – all without necessarily building muscle strength (thanks Wikipedia.)

So, I haven’t been exactly sure how often to integrate these exercises into my schedule to get the best results, but the good news is that from what I’ve been reading, occasionally seems enough to help boost running speed.

Interested? Hop, skip or jump over to this site for fun animations of PEs.

Today's the Real New Year's Day

Back to life, back to reality. Isn’t that how the song goes? It’s the start of the very first working week of the year, which should probably make today the real New Year’s Day. For me it’s fini late nights, ne plus the lie-ins of the Christmas holidays, au revoir lovely macaroons I got in my stocking, and, since my husband’s back to work now, kaput any mid-week me time.

I might not have to brave the horrible freeway traffic to work anymore, but I’m having a real case of the Mondays today. I signed up for the marathon yesterday and what with work commitments growing, I’m realizing that I’m going to have to get pretty creative with time management if some serious running is going to happen between now and June. And when I say get creative, read: run more than the measly four miles I managed earlier. Easier said than done with a ten-month old.

So, in the spirit of the New Year I hereby resolve that this week shall be the first of several ramp-up-to-my-genius-16-week-marathon-program weeks, (in layman’s terms that translates to run-at-least-25-miles-in-a-week weeks.) Happy Real New Year’s Day everyone! Four miles down, 21 to go!

About Women For Women International

The First Step

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, or so some old Chinese dude said. No, I’m not going to run a thousand miles, but probably by the time the sun sets on June 6, somewhere around 580. Well according to Four Months to a Four-Hour Marathon that is. (Snappy title don’t you think?) So anyway the first step in this running adventure is to find a plan, a genius running program whereby I simply follow a 16 week-long formula, increase my mileage, get faster and avoid injury. Easy.

With this in mind I head to Borders, join some peevish neighbors in the Self Help section and dive into the immense running canon. Well, apart from it turns out that the running canon is neither immense nor canon like. In fact it’s plagued with books that despite their punchy titles hold entire chapters of completely state-the-obvious information and useless factoids. Sorry David Kuehls, author of the aforementioned Four Months to a Four-Hour Marathon, you apparently write for Runner’s World and are probably a hugely more accomplished runner than I will ever be, but your book should be relegated to a section called “ Publications That Should Really Just Be Pamphlets”. I did however learn that Oprah ran her first ever marathon in 4 hours. Not sure if that’s inspirational or de-inspirational if there’s such a word.

I left Borders with a book about Coco Chanel and not about running ( it’s a pretty good read actually). The quest continues. I then went and ran 5 miles on the Silver Strand.

These Shoes Were Made For Running

These are my running shoes. I’ve bought the same pair ever since I very tragically discovered that simply wearing any old pair of trainers to pound the pavement = no big toenails. Not pretty. Over the years they’ve run along muddy trails in Sussex, jogged on seafronts in Kent, hot-footed it over scorching tarmac in California, and yes the lucky soles have even been treated to a few foreign getaways. My life might have undergone a few huge scenery changes since I brought home my first pair of trainers, but my running shoes have remained reassuringly familiar throughout. So here we are in 2010 and it’s time to put these old friends through a few new paces. The goal: Run the San Diego Rock and Roll Marathon. Run it in 4 hours. Run it for Women in Congo.

My laces are tied and I’m ready to run.