Happy New Year! - 44 Mile Week

Happy New Year Barefoot Runners,
I hope everyone had as nice a week as I did.  I am truly blessed and it was great to be off work for the entire week!  I had my highest mileage week since I started barefooting and my longest barefoot run ever this week -- 11 miles.  The daily breakdown for the week is as follows:

	Miles	Time	Pace	Temp
MON	8	1:16:00	0:09:30	39	BAREFOOT
TUE	0.25	0:03:19	0:13:16	33	BAREFOOT - Ouch! Turned around.
TUE	6.15	0:57:22	0:09:20	33	in Vibrams
WED	6.65	1:01:07	0:09:11	26	in Vibrams
THUR	11	1:45:56	0:09:38	38	BAREFOOT
FRI	7.05	1:01:12	0:08:41	46	in Vibrams
SAT	5.16	0:46:07	0:08:56	37	in Vibrams

The two barefoot days were relatively dry (not counting short slushy run on Tues) and as a result these were my 2 longest runs of the week.  The feet felt really good on both of these barefoot days, although I did sort of develop and then re-aggravate a blood blister on the ball of the left foot.  It still looks pretty bad but doesn't hurt (and it didn't pop, thank goodness).  On the 11 mile run I actually carried my Vibrams in my jacket pockets just in case I got into trouble.  It was nice to have them (psychologically) although I didn't feel the need to use them.  This was a particularly long route down Hwy 38 all the way to the South Harbour Fire Station and then back up through South and West Harbour subdivisions.  The roads in these sub divisions were very rough and weren't exactly dry as they had been snow covered just 48 hours prior.  All in all it was a great test of the feet and I felt very fortunate to hit 11 miles by the end of my first year barefooting!
The other days I used the Vibrams as it was either snowy (Tues) or rainy (Fri) or just wet. 

Even though I hated using the Vibrams, I do love the fact that I'm still able to run on these "bad weather" days and keep up the cardio.  And I really needed them for warmth in the slushy snow on Tuesday morning.  I also appreciate the tread on the bottom of my my particular brand of Vibrams (KSO TrekSport) for extra traction on the snowy hills, etc. 

Once again, thanks to my Garmin 405CX I was able to run 7 completely different routes in each of my 7 runs.  I really think the Garmin motivated me to go longer three different times this week and helped push me to the 44 mile total (incidently, this is my longest week of the year since early Jan 2011.)  It had been a particularly low mileage year even in shoes, prior to starting the barefoot thing in Mid July.  My total annual mileage is 839 miles (lowest since 1995!) while my Barefoot Mileage is 202 and my Vibram Mileage is 70.  The first half of the year was shod but only 560 miles or so, due to hip and hamstring injuries (now completely healed thanks to barefooting!)

Overall this has been a great "start" at barefooting and thanks to the mild winter so far, I've been able to steadily increase my mileage and start going back-to-back instead of skipping days.
Weekly Overall Mileage = 44 miles
Weekly Barefoot Mileage = 19 miles

Stay Safe Out There This Winter Barefooters!
(...because the colder weather is coming!)

(BF) Dan Lutes