25th Run: A change of form and all my problems went away!

Today I ran 6.5 miles in the Vibrams, all on the sidewalk, without my feet cramping up and without my shins hurting! Blisters still formed but that's to be expected. Not sure when that will end. Anyway, what did I do differently?

I changed my stride. I have heard over and over that you should be taking light quick steps, which is what I thought I was doing, but I guess I was doing it wrong. I was forcing it in a way. I was still running like I had normal running shoes on, I just hit my toe first, but I was still reaching with my foot and pushing off it once it was behind me. Bearfoot runners will tell you this is the wrong way to run barefoot, I just didn't pay attention to this advice for some reason. Your feet should stay under you and gravity should do most the work. It's very much like the Pose method. Anyway, I leaned forward a little bit and man did it make a difference. My feet were landing almost right under my hips, and once they went back far enough I just picked them up and put them back under my hips, one after the other. When you run this way, it's almost like you're not running, but just falling and catching yourself before you tip over, a few thousand times.

Not only did this allow me to run 6.5 miles without pain, but it allowed me to run it fast! Average pace of 7:30. When I ran 2 days prior I was struggling to keep up an 8:10 pace. Today my body did not feel like I was going that fast. I kept looking at my GPS watch and thinking that can't be right. I unfortunately didn't wear my heart rate monitor on the long run a few days ago, but I looked at some of my previous runs going at a slower pace, and my heart rate was about 164, the same as it was today. So this seemingly minor adjustment to my stride allowed me to go much faster, without using any more oxygen. Freaking amazing!

Anyway, this is very exciting. I think the Grand Rapids River run shouldn't be a problem. Who knows, maybe I'll be able to run that at a 7:30 pace. We will see.

I will still continue to track my progress on this blog, but my posts will be more spread out because I have essentially adjusted to these shoes sans the blisters. Those can be avoided by running on the grass though, I just wanted to see what would happen.

Full Run Details Here
Happy running!