More

Results not typical, don't try this at home. I generally don't like to give numbers out - some look at them think they are big, others think they are small; the point here is for comparison.

A little more than a month from buying my first pair of VFFs and beginning my foray into the world of barefoot running I am amazed at my progress. I am currently running 9 miles in my VFFs twice per week - by comparison in January I was actually struggling a little bit to maintain 5 miles twice weekly in shoes. I have had 13 mile workouts in years gone by when training for triathlon or adventure racing, so 5 miles should have been a cake walk; I just assumed the running volume associated with my soccer schedule (5 hours of soccer per week) was making those 5 miles more difficult than they should have been.

But I still play soccer 3x weekly. So how am I running so much further with ease, and putting up such huge increases so fast? Did I say with ease... well I meant it. I finish every run feeling better than when I started! It is the most amazing thing.

And without injury? In fact the only thing that hurts at this point is the bottoms of my feet a little. I run mostly on trails and I figure I step (on average) on one painful rock every two miles. So at 18 miles per week, that's nine painful rocks per week. I'm still a rookie so I guess I should expect to be a bit of a tenderfoot. The hazards of being barefoot I suppose.

I seriously doubt I can continue to add a mile or so per week, that is insanity right? Or is it? At ten miles that's only a 10% increase per week - and while I haven't read any literature lately, I think most running rags allow for that increase as acceptable.

Doesn't really matter though, with four kids the real limiting factor here is going to be time, not distance. Right now I can get through those 9 miles in about 75 minutes - the length of Sam's baseball practice. Any longer than that and someone isn't going to be happy. Maybe I should give Sam the keys so he can drive himself home; I'll run behind him.