Friday, March 12, 2010

Something New, But Not Really

Alright so a wierd title I know. I recently finished reading "Born to Run" which was an awesome book! I'm not going to get into it here, if you want to hear about it let me know, but basically it really made me think about running in a different light.

**time to step up onto my soap box**

In "Born to Run" there is some discussion about barefoot running, and about how mankind was built to run...and to run for a long time. Essentially we were built to hunt and to be able to out run our prey. Our prey being deer and things of that nature. There were some very interesting points brought up in the book about running, and being able to outrun those animals, and when I started to think about it I could see where it was coming from. You see we sweat...animals (for the most part I think) don't. Could you imagine running with your body covered in hair...I mean like wearing a fur coat. And no this is not a lame excuse to justify why triathletes shave their legs. It would suck to run with a fur coat on...so the theory is that our ancient ancestors would just continue to run at a pace that they could keep the animal in sight, and eventually the animal would succumb to exhaustion and collapse...therefore man had dinner. They had tested this somewhere in Africa and it worked...or maybe they didn't, but I'm alright with it because in my head it makes sense.

**time to step off of the soapbox**

Alright back to my title, I had picked up a pair of the vibram 5 fingers shoes this weekend and took my first run in them yesterday. You see they are "new" but based off of something that is not really new...running barefoot. Basically they have a rubber sole that protects your feet from the harsh things that might be on the ground. You're supposed to slowly build up time with these since the odds are our feet are not as strong as they once were 100's of years ago. So I went out with the dogs for a quick jaunt through the neighborhood. It ended up being 2 miles at a 7 minute pace, and I had no problems with the shoes!

Last night I swam at masters and ended up getting another 4000 yards in. It was "sprint" night, and the interval times didn't seem too bad...but I tell you what it was tough. Oh well I hit all of my times, so there is improvement!

I ended up running again this morning with the vibram's and it felt great...another 2 miles at a little faster pace.

It's time to keep working and to stay strong!

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