I ran 2.5 miles my last two runs, and I have to admit I’m pretty happy with myself. Tomorrow night should be 2.75 and I’ll be at 3 by the end of the month! Of course it’s the passing 3 miles that always seems to get me, but I’ll deal with that next month. This whole consistency and planned improvement thing does NOT come natural to me but at the moment I’m loving it. I’ve even been wanting to run on my off nights, which I know would not be a good idea, I need the rest.
The funny thing is it’s not my legs that get tired and I’m not getting out of breath, it’s the muscles in my feet that are getting sore. It’s mostly the muscles on the TOP of my feet, which I find kind of strange, maybe because I’m trying to keep my toes curled up a bit to avoid letting the road (or treadmill) blister them. That’s never happened to me but I’ve heard it can and it doesn’t sounds fun so…
I know running barefoot uses different muscles, and also that one major benefit of running barefoot is that your body tells you sooner when it’s had enough instead of allowing you to run until to injure yourself. It’s interesting to me though to see it in action. Everyone knows you aren’t supposed to increase your running distance too fast, but if I was wearing shoes would I physically feel it? In this case I don’t think so, because nothing else in my body is telling me to take the rest days. Kind of cool, in my humble opinion. I’d way rather have sore feet for a couple hours when I wake up than sore hips all the time!
