Barefoot March Madness with Merrell’s and Mud!

Run for your Lives GA March 3 2012

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly an Update on my Barefoot journey

So it’s been a while since my last post and in a short month it’s been a roller coaster ride of up’s and down’s.

The Good

So come the turn of the year my running was going great. Felt fantastic and also seemed i could run for ever. I was still keeping to my ground rules of running only a maximum of 5 miles in my barefoot shoes and switching to my Saucony Kinvara’s for anything longer. It was around this time i decided i wanted to do the GA Half Marathon in March. So i stepped up the training over night. Instead of doing just the one lap of my course i would double the distance too two laps and a 9+ mile run. After 3 of these in quick succession my knee really started to hurt.

The Bad

Thinking i could run it off i gave it another go with my knee in pain from the get go, Bad move. I hobbled around the 5 miles and went off to see my friendly neighborhood orthopedic Dr. Here my naivety showed through, Where i was being “careful-ish” with my barefoot running transition, i gave my knees and legs no such benefit. I may well be able to run a half marathon from a cardio stand point, but that does not mean my legs can, right off the bat. This was a big set back and took me out of the running for a good few weeks, while the anti-infamatories worked on my knee.

On top of that, I was rock climbing with Sophie and Ian. After watching Sophie performing all kinds of awesomeness on the rock wall at Stone Summit, i decided I’d give it a go, and try a move that was in retrospect way out of my league. Without stretching and warming up first. The outcome of this fiasco was me falling off the wall and pulling my groin in the process. Thus my extended break from running. Still I’m back now and pushing to get back to my beginning of the year pace, and slowly this time build up my distance, to run a half a little later in the year.

The Ugly

Just in time really as i have two ugly / messy races this weekend and next. This weekend I’ll be being chased by the undead. A small Zombie army will be trying to eat me, as i fly through the 5k obstacle course http://runforyourlives.com/

The second which will be much harder is the GA Spartan race. 4 miles and genuinely tough obstacles await me there. http://www.spartanrace.com Wish me luck for that one.

I did however have a warm up race back on the 18th of Feb, far from race fitness I finished the Run The Reagan 10k road race in 56:37 which all things considered I’m pretty happy with. My goal was to beat an hour and i easily did that.

2012 Race Calendar

So here is my 2012 race calendar. Not complete but certainly something to work on and start booking dates and times. So i’d love to see you out there running with me, so let me know who is in and when?

Warrior Dash Central FL – Jan 21st (Register here) 5k

Run Road Atlanta – Jan 21st (Register here) 10k

Run the Reagan – Feb 18th (Register here) 5k & 10k +Kids

Run for Your Lives, Zombie Run – March 3rd (Register here) 5k

Spartan Race GA – March 10th (Register here) 5k +Kids

Publix GA Marathon – March 18th (Register here) Half Marathon

Spartan Race NC – March 24th (Register here) 5k +kids

Warrior Dash Kansas – May 5th (Register here) 5k

Warrior Dash GA – May 19th (Register here) 5k

Muddy Buddy – June 11th (Register here)

Ultimate Mud Run – Aug (Register here)

Down & Dirty Mud Run – Oct (Register here) 10k

Rock n Roll Marathon – Nov 3rd (Register here)

Bold are confirmed runs

March is going to be a crazy month and add to that my first half marathon into the mix. I’ll keep adding to the list as additional runs come available.

Note: The Warrior Dash for NC is on the same weekend as the GA one this year.

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