This is part 4 in a series on transitioning to barefoot running by Christine Skelly.  You can read Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 2.5 here, and Part 3 here.

The next experience was a few days later, and was equally as impulsive. Being in college, I unfortunately exemplify the student with a strange sleep schedule and was awake at 7 in the morning after a nap had thrown off my ability to sleep. So I viewed this as the best opportunity to feed the chance I never felt I had to test out barefoot running, an idea that I had in the back of my head.

Certainly not ideal conditions.

But then again, life is not always ideal. Still being March in coastal Virginia, the weather provided an especially windy March morning with a balmy temperature of 40 degrees. Now, if you read some of the barefoot forums (which I did afterwards) they tell you: Do NOT go running in too cold of conditions. But like I said, I never ease into anything, I usually jump in both feet first, especially in this case.

40 degrees and Chesapeake Bay wind whipped at my feet as I stood outside contemplating the sanity of this venture. Sanity got left in the cul-de-sac as I headed down the sidewalk along my neighborhood of condos before reaching the beach. The concrete was unpleasant. Tough. Unforgiving. Like the evil school teacher who you never forgot from your childhood. After only a few minutes I reached the beach and had lost all feeling in my feet. Looking at them pre-run, they were ghostly, but now they were bright red, angry at me for undergoing this strange form of punishment. I was able to run maybe a bit over a mile, or a mile and a quarter (12 minutes) since my stomach started hurting and I was beyond frozen. But despite my sweat and red face, my bold venture had felt like a warm up. I was in no way tired or winded, but I received the same runner’s high.

I continued for the rest of the week running every single day for 18-22 minutes (~2 miles) and remained thoroughly impressed with the fact that I could now run more than 15 minutes and not be reduced to a helpless bag of mush by the time I was home.
I was shocked by 3 things most in this week-long experiment:

1) I could run longer and not get tired.

When I began doing 20 minute runs, I often times would feel like the run was cut short and was only a warm up (I returned to spend time with my family) and that I could have gone much longer, and my body felt that these short runs were only a tease of what it could really perform.

2) The immediate results in my physique.

The day after I did my wimpy 12 minute run I felt my calves become unlike anything I had seen before. They were like puppies that had evolved overnight into wolves: beasts ready for battle and more than eager to serve their master. The results blew me away: muscles like that had taken me more than 2 weeks to get in my FiveFingers, and that was with dreaded squats and lunges. How did this new phenomenon wake the untapped potential my body had never known?

3) I wanted to run.

I needed to run. I woke up every day and it was the first thing I wanted to do. My puppies were scratching at the door eager to go out and take their morning rounds. The want to run was the most surprising of them all because running was not a task, it was not even a tool to achieve an aesthetically desirable physique. It was play time, and we all know you will pursue something over and over if you enjoy it, rather than dread waking up to your shoes in the morning.

The last effect was a pleasant freebie. I was always so exhausted every night from running I would fall asleep around 2 a.m. and wake up no later than 9:30 a.m. without an alarm the next day, something I have never experienced since I have always been a night person.

I was spoiled this week that I began barefoot running since I always had sand to run on, and not the concrete jungle which I normally reside in during my schooling.

The different terrains certainly make a difference, and the jungle fought back the time I ventured out in it without any protection. But that is for another time.

 

Has anyone ventured out barefoot and has any good stories?
Or even tried walking part of the day barefoot? What do you like or dislike about it?
If you have any questions, I can try to answer them!