FiveFinger Run
After having spent the last three days on the saddle, twice on the cyclocross bike and once on the singlespeed, Sunday was a day to take it down a notch, do some laundry, vacuum and let my MacBook Pro process the video I stitched together with Saturday’s footage of the mountain bike ride to the top of the Chasseral. The laundry machine spit out the clothes in no time, the vacuum choked on several weeks worth of cat hair without going up in flames and the kitchen clock had only moved to an early afternoon. The Mac was humming “Don’t touch me”, so I spontaneously decided to add another workout to the weekend. The legs felt great and the sun was out. I grabbed my FiveFingers, which I’ve only used once so far on my old running trail in Shiloh, eager to test them on home soil. After my first run in California, I had ended up with sore calves for a week. My muscles were not used to striking forefoot first. Years of running with traditional running shoes have programmed them to touch down heel first. I easily adapted to running on my forefeet, but I totally ignored Vibram’s recommendation to only run 10% of my normal running distance. Well, I paid for that mistake. Today’s run was only my second wearing FiveFingers and it went really well. I chose the trail through the Taubenloch gorge and jogged at an easy pace. I focused on learning that new athletic skill of running with a forefoot strike and had lots of fun reading the trail. Interestingly, my mind found no time to wander off in thoughts as it was busily paying attention to what my legs and feet were doing while scanning the trail for the best landing spots at the same time. I’m hooked. For now I’m not running as fast as in the past, but I’m engaging muscles more, strengthen my feet, run smarter and probably safer as well.
| Distance: | 7.8km (4.8 miles) |
| Elevation: | 320m (1’050 feet) |
| Time: | 54:01 |
