I have joined the barefoot revolution

I admit that I never put a lot of stock into the whole run barefoot, anti-shoe company, hippy speak surrounding barefoot running. But the book Born to Run really changed my viewpoint on the topic. I also like the mentality that the human foot is the product of millions of years of evolution and we should put a little more trust in it. Anyway, here is the pic of my new Vibram fivefingers Bikilas.

* I do still plan to run occasionally in my Newtons as well as compete in them for longer events.

5k 5:30am morning run

Justin and I kicked off our morning workouts today with a 5k run that started at 5:30am. We met in between our two apartments and then ran north till we hit 1.6miles. Somewhere on the return trip we lost some mileage because my total at the end was 3.0. It was also a nice ward 46degrees out. As always, the Garmin stats are below :)

5 Mile Run from work

This is a great run that leaves from Research Park where I work and takes me through the park across the street. You can see it goes past a Par 3 golf course and is pretty much an out and back run. There are also some trails through the park that I would like to explore on the next run.

I know its been a while

Its definitely been 2 :) long since my last blog post and I promise to wrap up a few things in a moment. However, I just ran one of the best 5k runs of my life so I am going to use this post to throw up the garmin stats.


As a result of this run, I am upping my goal in the Passionman at Bucknell to running the 3.1 miles in 20mins. The difference between the run I did today and the Bucknell course is a few hills and I will have already swam and biked. However, a 22min 5k today makes me think I can get there.


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Foot OverPronation

In order to fully demonstrate what I am talking about when I discuss my running form, here are some screenshots from the video analysis I took of myself running yesterday.

Good (Midfoot Strike and little pronation):

Bad (Over Pronation):  You can see how the ankle and foot cave inward.

Video Clip (Some Good and Some Bad):

One thing that jumps off the video to me is that my feet appear to be running down the center line of the treadmill.  In my next session I am going to try to focus on landing them on the sides of that imaginary line rather than directly on it.  I think this could be a big reason for the pronation.

The Shoes that won at Kona

It seems like I just keep buying new toys, I assure everyone I do train too.  This post is about running and the Newton shoes.  During the triathlon camp last weekend I reviewed my running form on video and with the coaches.  Everything looked pretty good, with one exception.  In slow motion you can see my heel strike first (and hard) and then my foot pronates inward (and hard).

The proper running form is to land each footstrike on the midfoot and use you hamstrings to pull back.  While the pronation is my biggest concern (as it can lead to both injury and inefficiency), changing to a midfoot footstrike is the first and a major step towards correcting the pronation.  I wish I had the video of my run to post.  Midfoot Strike vs Heel Strike

The shoes I just purchased were worn by Craig Alexander in hiss 2008 win at Kona and are specifically designed to help with making a midfoot strike.  Newton Distance S Shoes.  There is a lot of good information on the Newton site (even if it is geared towards selling their shoes).