Barefoot uber alles! (M+3)

It has been 10 days since my last barefoot run. I went back out there today. It felt really good. Calf pain is just gone now. I took it easy anyway, 8-9 km in 49'. While writing, I am listening to a band that I just discovered recently. It is called Justin(e) and I strongly recommend it to you. You could also load it on your mp3 player to enjoy it while running. Here is the fed for the first song. However, avoid it if you don't like punk rock.
But listen to the rest of the album and the others, available on the page of the group.

On the other side, looking at my graph recently, I realized that there is plenty of red (pain) below the graph. Roughly half of it has some red. I have to insist that I just write everything for the sake of completeness. The real important pain (that reached a score of -3 in the graph) was the calf torn. The rest were not so important. But most of all, I am still able to run my usual shod runs in between the barefoot ones.
So, back to normal, no pain, calves are feeling good.

However, now that I feel about it, I can clearly feel that the sole of my feet has been smashed for almost 50 minutes and I can feel it. It is not a pain, more like a ache, but I can clearly distinguish something there. May be that indicates that I have been doing it too much too soon previously and I shouldn't. So I will try to keep it around 45' for the next couple of weeks and see how that improves.

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Torn calf still not good (M+2)

Saturday, after a quite but good Wednesday shod run, I thought that I would be OK today to retake my barefoot runs. I was wrong. It went fine up to 20 minutes, after which I began to feel again the tore in my calf (score of 2 in my scale). I ran one more kilometer just to be sure, but clearly it was coming back. Not very intense but i preferred to take it easy and came back at a slow pace. After a total of 35', I even stopped running and walked, just to avoid tearing it again (so I raised to pain score to 3 because I had to stop running). It doesn't hurt now, neither did it during the run, but it was there. So, 6 days after it, I still didn't recover completely just yet, despite the OK run on Wednesday, 3 days after. It seems that it is not that straightforward to switch to barefoot running. Take it easy, don't overdo it too fast. Despite this, I still enjoy it, it is very nice, I would recommend it to any one that want to give it a try. But you clearly need time to adapt.

I will do just that, not run until the Wednesday shod run.

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Self eating is key to exercise benefit

We all know that exercise is good for us. It strengthens muscles, keeps weight down, and appears to protect against diabetes, cancer, and Alzheimer's disease. The question is how? A series of recent articles commented in Science confirms earlier suggestion that autophagy, the process by which a cell eats itself, is triggered by exercise.

Cellular "self-eating," which helps cells meet their energy demands, may account for some of the benefits of exercise. It seems that the benefit comes from the recycling of our own components triggered by the energy requirement of exercising. Exercise training leads to more autophagy, which basically means cleaning up your cell and recycling its constituents.

Using different types of mice mutant in some autophagy pathway, it has been shown that autophagy is key to both short and long-terms effects of exercising. On the short term, autophagy-impaired mice couldn't lowers glucose and insulin in the bloodstream, as normal mice do. They showed that this is linked to the relocation of a glucose transporter to the cell membrane, and doesn't happen in autophagy deficient mice. On the long term, fattened mice were put through 2 months of daily treadmill workouts. Unlike the normal mice, the autophagy deficient ones were unable to reverse their diabetes through physical training. Exercise also brought down elevated cholesterol and triglyceride levels in these normal mice, but not in the autophagy-impaired mice.
One proposed mechanism links exercise to the induction of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), an enzyme that reprograms cells to boost energy production. Exercise training also causes lasting adaptations in muscle, including the replacement of old mitochondria, organelles where cellular energy is generated, with new, fuel-efficient ones.
This reminds me of the old prank that alcohool drinking cleans up your brain by getting rid of the old neurons. So keep running and drinking, it's good for you!

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Torn calf muscle (M+2)

So, all considered, I do think that I did tore my calf last Sunday. Not much, but enough. I could still feel it on Wednesday, three days after that. But I could still run our classical tour that goes up the hill at a slow pace.
So I do think that you better be careful when switching to barefoot running. I really don't know what happened on Sunday, but it is clear that because of its mechanics, barefoot running puts more pressure on the calves. I didn't have the impression to go too fast. May be it is just the accumulation. Anyway, I could still run, it is better now, and let's see how it goes over the weekend.
Here is a link to the pros and cons of barefoot running.
So, not so easy to switch. But I am still very enthusiastic about it. I'll be more careful in the future, although I don't really know what I have done wrong. Brftjsh suggest just to take it easy and relax.

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I hurt myself today (M+2)

Don't know what happened yesterday, but I did hurt myself. After 20', just reaching the tracks and getting ready for my first km at a sustained speed, I began to develop big pain in my right calf. Now, this is the one that I broke couple of years ago. I actually broke it completely, and twice in 4 days interval (the doctor was very happy). Now yesterday, just when I was starting to increase the speed on the tracks, big pain. I couldn't run fast. I did a couple of turns more around the field just to be sure, but had to turn around and go back home. Probably a bit more than a big cramp, but not a strain yet, I think. I gave it a score of 4 on the pain graph. I guess that barefoot running is putting more demands on the calf muscles and as such, I might need to be more careful. After all, it is only two months since I started barefoot and my body is probably still adapting to it. I managed to put in 48 minutes in total but at an easy pace. I was not limping, which I interpret as still being ok. Let's see if I am OK for our classical Wednesday shod run.

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Too thin soles? (M+2)

Went back Monday on the tracks, for 63' fully 5Fs. I timed myself again running 6x1 km at a pace between 4'55 and 3'35.

...

Still some swelling feeling below the feet, mostly the right one, 2 days after my over one hour barefoot run on Monday. It is ok, I barely feel it, I walk and move around normally, but still this feeling there. I hope that will stop. I am beginning to think that may be i choose too thin a sole. That has came to me because, I have made another adept, two in fact, two colleagues that also bought their own 5Fs. One of them choose another model with thicker sole and said that it is ok for him in the woods. May be I have been overconfident when I choose mine and I should buy myself a pair with a thicker sole for running on stony grounds. I'll get myself a thicker pair.

Went again today shod for our classical Wednesday run, 17 km in 76'.

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Short Saturday run (M+1)

Went back on the track again. It was good. I still had this small inflammation, little feeling below the feet, mostly on the right one, at the edge between the toes and the sole, but not a real pain anymore, just a feeling (1 on the scale). Could only go for 35 minutes, on the track so I could pace me. Started at a peace of 4'/km, followed by one km at 4'38 and finishing with a last one at 3'36. With the time to go and come back, it was all together 35'. I really like this barefoot running feeling. Interestingly, the feet feel better after, like if the inflammation diminished due to the stamping. Whatever it is, it feels better now. I reiterate the fact that it feels really good to step in puddles of cold water along the way. It is one of the many advantages of barefoot running, it has a really refreshing feeling. When you wonder about cold feet in the winter in Germany, I tell you, 'It is really nice to step in cold water to refresh you feet". I have to admit that the first 3-4 minutes of the run, I had the impression that it was a bit cold below the feet, but after 5 minutes this feeling was gone and as I said, I was even happy to refresh them in cold water.

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Back after skiing week I (M+1)

Back from one week of skiing in the Italian Alps. Skiing season has always been bad for my running schedule, but skiing is also a very good training for the legs.
I have been able to fill in a couple of miles in one of those afternoons where I wasn't skiing for family reasons. I went out on the street with minimal clothing. It was actually quite warm, but people being in the mountain think that you have to dress as in the mountain. So I had a lot of looks on my short, bare legs and 5fs. Only went for around 20 minutes.
But I am back on the tracks and went running barefoot for 50 minutes yesterday. I had a weak pain (scale of 2 on the graph) that actually started while skiing. I am not sure if it is due to the skiing or to the barefoot. Most likely a combination of both. My feet were probably weakened by the barefooting, and being on the skis all day must have done something to it.

Anyway, back on the barefoot tracks. Happy new year.

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