Learning to Walk before I Run

It seems today's as much a lesson in humility as it is in running.

Despite my initial reservations of running purely barefoot due to the dirt and dust, I decided to give it a shot today to test my form and see my limits. The plan was to run the same Changi route last week in my new Bikila LS, and then take it off halfway to go barefoot. Unfortunately, it decided to rain heavily on that side of the island, so I ended up doing a run around my own neighbourhood.

Since I was close to home, I changed my mind and went for a 10 minute warm-up barefoot first, planning to come back later to get my Bikilas for a full run. Bad idea.

Regardless of what delusions I had in my mind of how tough my feet were, the soles of my foot shared no such illusions. Since they were so much more grounded in reality (pun totally intended), I soon found myself hurting less than 5 minutes into the run.

At first, I ignored them thinking they were just from getting used to the rough asphalt, but I soon realised they were precursors to blisters. By then, I was halfway into my warm-up run and there was no shortcut back. With no shoes to put on, I decided stick with it and finish the run back. In a short span of 10 minutes, I had two spots of blisters on each foot. Under the ball of the feet which was no surprise, and interestingly, near the outer edge of my sole, just below the little toe.

While I've gotten blisters from running before, they usually appear under the ball of the foot, so the ones below the little the toe was something new. I was paying close attention to my gait once I noticed the blisters, and I did not have any excessive scrapping against the ground as far as I could tell. So it probably is just a function of how the barefoot running gait is slightly different even from minimalist shoes. I'll probably need to clock more barefoot runs to find out.

However, me being me, I didn't want to be shortchanged out of my weekly run, so I came back to put on the Bikila LS for my actual run despite the blisters. During the week I had already walked around in the Bikilas, and they felt nice and cushy enough that I knew they would take much of the sting out of the blisters. They were also very comfortable to wear, so I went without socks.

Still, I didn't want to overexert and bleed all over in my shoes, so I cut my run short to just 25 minutes at my 85% MHR pace. Based on the pain I was getting from the blisters, I also noticed something interesting - I tended to land further up on the forefoot when running barefoot, almost on my toes and the area below it, while I landed more squarely on the ball and nearer to the midfoot area when in shoes. Seems like the further up I land, the more impact is cushioned, hence the need only to do so when there's less padding underfoot.

Of course, the shoes won't protect me completely from my blisters, so now I'm nursing a tender foot with two medium-sized blisters under each foot. Moral of the long story, take it slow and easy.

Guess I gotta start implementing a barefoot regime to get my feet up to speed. I'm thinking maybe a short 5-10 minute morning run to the pool on weekdays, followed by a swim and walking back in shoes.