2010 Waxhaw Town and Country 5K Recap

The Waxhaw Town and Country 5K became a fairly challenging evening for me this past Friday but I had a great time nevertheless.  The highlight of my night was  my 8 year old son, Jack, who ran his first 1/2 mile fun run and finished 4th among all kids in a time of about 3:37.  He received a medal after the race and wore it proudly for the rest of the evening.

 Jack proudly wearing his race medal.  He did not take it off until he went to bed that night.

As I mentioned in my previous post  I wore my Vibram Five Finger KSOs (VFFs) for this race.  That decision was what made the night challenging for me.  The good news is that I ran my best time of 22:09 which is a 7:08 min/mile pace.  The bad news is that my decision to wear the VFFs tore up my feet .

Before you start thinking that VFFs should not be used for street running, the reason my feet got wrecked were not any fault of the shoes.  My lack of street training in my VFFs are the sole blame for the damage to my feet.  Prior to this run, I trained only twice on asphalt - last Monday running 1:05 miles with my son Jack for a little over 10 minutes and Wednesday we ran 1.65 miles in around 17 minutes.  That was it for street training and running in my VFFs!  Running two times during the week of the race at a pace much slower than my usual pace is hardly what I would call proper training.

Keeping all this mind, I now had to run a hilly course on the streets of Waxhaw for 3.1 miles and at pace I  haven't run since last November's Matthew's 5K.  I knew in the back of my mind before the race that the VFFs were probably a risky choice but decided to go for it anyway.  I should have listened to my rational side and not my reckless side. Making matters worse for my feet that evening, temperatures hit the low 80s and the ground was fairly warm.  Earlier in the week when I ran temperatures were in the 60s.

When I began wearing VFFs last year my big issue was building enough foot and calf strength to run full races as a forefoot striker.  When I run trails, which I do regularly, I wear the Inov-8 X-Talon 212s which are low profile and intended for forefoot striking.  At this point strength is not an issue with my feet and calves.  Sure enough, other than tearing the bottoms of my feet during this 5K, the rest of my body recovered pain free - no sore calves or hamstrings - just really bad raw skin and blisters.

My post race feet!  What a mess!  YUCK!!

The first mile and a half were not bad as far as my feet burning but by the time we hit some downhills inside the second mile the fire started growing.  The third mile had some really steep hills and the downhills were the worst.  I was never so happy when I came to uphills and flat road as that provided some minor relief.  The regrettable part was that my breathing felt great that night.  I had plenty in the gas in the tank even towards the end but could not run full guns in the last mile because my feet burned too much.  In the end, I was still quite happy with how I finished - 28th overall out of almost 500 runners and took second in the 40-44 age group.

So my advice to anyone looking to run street races in their VFFs is to build up your speed and distance gradually in them.  Sometimes when you get in shape you feel like you are invincible and all it takes is incidents like these to bring you back down to reality.

Two weeks from now is the Uwharrie Rumble, an 8K trail run, so I need to get my feet healed quickly!  Until next time - have a great week!

Barefoot Running Shoes and the Barefoot Revolution!

Looks like the barefoot running movement is really picking up steam as more companies are jumping on the bandwagon with more minimalist shoes.  I recently bought a pair of minimalist shoes for work called "Ramblers" from softstarshoes.com.  Softstar makes a terrific line of minimalist shoes starting at infant through adult.  I also like that they are handmade right here in the USA.  The shoes resemble mocassins that allow your toes to move freely and are incredibly comfortable with durable flat soles.

As usual, my co-workers were quick to comment on them which was to be expected.  This time they told me I bought a pair of leather slippers.  They certainly are as comfortable as slippers but can pass as shoes at work and are much less conspicuous at work than my VFFs.   I like how easy they are to slip on.  In addition to wearing them at work,  I wear them to the corner bus stop with my son every weekday morning.  After I wave goodbye to the school bus, I love how they feel on my feet when I do a short sprint home.  Try doing that in a pair of regular slippers - these shoes are very well made!

My Softstar Ramblers on my desk at work.

Softstar must have read my mind because I have been thinking that they should make model that is geared for running - and lo and behold - they have done just that!  They now offer the RunAmoc line and offer two types of soles - one for trails and one for street running.  I think I might sample a pair very soon as I am very satisfied with my first purchase from Softstar.

On the topic of new minimalist shoes, Vibram Five Fingers also has some new models coming out that I can't wait to sample.  Okay, I know, I am getting really weird about minimalist shoes - but I can't help it!  Check out the post below about what is coming up for VFFs.

barefootrunningshoes.org

Running My First 5K In Vibram Five Fingers

The day of the Matthews 5K finally arrived. It is my first 5K since July 24th and my first wearing my Vibram Five Fingers KSOs. I had slowly built up mileage on them over the past couple of months and felt confident I was ready to wear them to race. At this point going back to regular running shoes is not an option and my only other option would be to wear my Puma H Streets however with those I have to wear socks and I end up with some blisters. The plus side of wearing the Five Fingers was no socks and no apparent blisters. To be fair it was in the 50s when I ran today and not in the 80s-90s which is usually when I get blisters so the jury is still out on the blister factor. I wanted to get a few more road runs in before this race but it just wasn't happening.

The race only had 57 participants. The July 4th race back in 2008 at the same Matthews location drew almost triple that number. I am thinking perhaps the recession and other local competing races were reasons for the low attendance. With that said it was easy to get near the front at the starting line. In the first minute or two I was actually keeping pace with the leaders. We turned a couple of corners and the distance between myself and the leaders(only four or five guys) started widening. Three guys passed me early as the gap was widening. Two of them looked like they were around my age so I knew I had to keep a strong pace to stay in the top three in my age bracket. The front runners looked much younger than me so I was not concerned. The other guy that passed me was pushing one of those baby buggies and keeping a heck of a pace but luckily he too looked younger than me. This race used 10 year age groups so I was in the 40-49 which is extremely competitive even in a small race. I ended up passing one person, a 14 year old, somewhere in the first mile. In the second mile a tall guy with blonde hair passed me. He looked younger so again I was not too concerned.

I remained close behind the blonde guy when we came to the crucial part of the race - the big long downhill into the big long uphill which comes just before mile marker 2. I conserved lots of energy on the downhill and was getting ready for the uphill when I noticed Blonde Boy was not moving that quickly up the hill. I thought I would give it a go at speeding up and passing him. I tend to enjoy running up hills so I slowly kicked it into gear. For a few seconds I was neck and neck with Blondie and when he didn't seem to be accelerating I turned on the juice and regained my lead. He was not able to catch me after that.

After that there was nobody to pace with as the distance between myself and those in front of me had grown quite wide. Two of the guys in front of me were within eye shot but I knew it would take a major sprint to catch them and not knowing the course that well I was not sure how much of the race was left so I conserved for most of the last mile. Another factor in the last mile was knowing where to turn. The course was not well marked and I was thrown off a couple of times. The police were not very helpful about directing the runners either. Twice I had to ask which way to turn as I approached corners. One runner I spoke with after the race missed a turn. During the race, a police man told me I had made a right turn down the wrong street. Some turn markers would have been nice. The street I turned down ran parallel to the correct street but the confusion certainly didn't help my time.

I hope to run the 5K at the Charlotte Thunder Road Marathon in December. Overall my time of 22:52 was good for a ninth place finish overall and 3rd in my age group so I'll take it and start training for my next race.