Vibram | Obsessive Ramblings

August 22nd, 2010 | 16 Comments

It was bound to happen, but at least I am now in good company. Many, if not most of the top ultrarunners in the world have suffered defeat at the hands of their instrument of success – Scott Jurek, Dean Karnazes, Anton Krupicka……. It has to be expected and accepted as a normal part of such an extreme sport that not everything will go right all the time. I had felt no more nervous about this race, … Read entire article »

Filed under: Events

Barefoot running

April 15th, 2010 | 1 Comment

This is an interesting summary I picked up from the web – originally published in the Denver post, but with references to Runner’s World and Barefoot Ted (of ‘Born to Run’ fame) The graphic clearly shows the benefit of running ‘barefoot’ to encourage a mid-foot strike to allow the foot to operate as designed, i.e. as a shock absorber in conjunction with the calf muscles, rather than running with cushioned shoes which force a heel-strike through a lack of proprioception, i.e. the foot hasn’t got a clue where it is in relation to the ground. The constriction of the foot within a ‘normal’ shoe exacerbates the situation by not allowing the foot to flex and perform its function as intended by nature, and over time the muscles atrophy and the tendons become … Read entire article »

Off-road Vibram run

April 2nd, 2010 | 4 Comments

I have been running very conservatively in my vibrams. Last week was a bit of a milestone as for the first time I replaced one of my main weekly runs with a vibram based run of the same distance. At this stage these are limited not only in distance but also intensity, so basically short easy runs only. Today I reached another milestone as I did 11km with my vibrams today, most of which was off-road as I followed my familiar route up to Pewley hill and Newland’s Corner. With the recent rain the trails were wet and muddy though and although the vibrams have small protuberances underneath, I slipped and slid all over the place on the narrow sloping trails. function scro11me(f){f.contentWindow.scrollTo(0,0); } My feet and legs are still getting used to the uncushioned … Read entire article »

Heavy week

February 7th, 2010 | 1 Comment

The first week of February turned into a pretty heavy week. In fact my highest weekly mileage (excluding weeks which included ridiculous races in 2009) since mid-March last year – the week before the Reading Half Marathon – two weeks before I picked up a foot injury. For the record, last week I completed 57 miles consisting of the following: Actual Mileage – w/e 02/02/10 Date Description of Run Overall Distance Total Time Average Pace Mon, 01/02/10 Long – Early morning in dark 16 km 1:20:00 5:00/km Tue, 02/02/10 Vibrams Test 2 – Lunchtime 2.54 mile 0:19:00 7:28/mile Wed, 03/02/10 Pace run at lunchtime – Thames loop 7.26 km 0:31:01 4:16/km Thu, 04/02/10 Long – Late evening run 8 mile 1:01:10 7:38/mile Fri, 05/02/10 Easy – London Streets 10.5 km 0:46:05 4:23/km Sat, 06/02/10 Vibrams Test 3 – Late afternoon 2.53 mile 0:19:08 7:33/mile Sun, 07/02/10 Long – Early morning Guildford loops 23.13 mile 3:15:07 8:26/mile On the basis of comparison with last year’s schedule, I think things are going pretty well – in … Read entire article »