This was not the triumph I’d been hoping for.

I’d built this race up in my head quite a bit, convincing myself that this one would redeem last year’s injury hampered race. Despite those thoughts, I wasn’t able to train adequately. It likely wouldn’t have mattered anyway, temperatures dropped suddenly and my body never had a chance to adjust to running below-freezing yet. My left knee threw a cold-related tantrum near mile 8, tightening up and never letting go. The last few miles were something of a death march. These things happen sometimes, even with perfect training.

So why did I build this one up? After a fantastic running year in 2010, I went into 2011′s Manhattan Half with a mild foot ache and finished with a stress fracture. Probably two fractures, but the X-ray only showed one at the time. The spot where my foot gave out in 2011 has been haunting me ever since. Just past Cedar Hill behind the Met. 2012′s race was supposed to be when I confronted that demon and put it to rest.

The weather would have none of it. Saturday was the first snowstorm of the winter. Not a big storm, but cold, windy and with enough snow to mess things up a bit. Like the subway, but more on that later. NYRR switched the race to an unscored, non-competitive run; participants would get 9+1 credit whether we ran it or not. After the first lap one of the NYRR organizers was telling people to bag it at 7 miles. I didn’t. Again at 12 miles, an organizer said the last mile was too slippery and to stop early. I’d been fighting my stupid knee for too long to quit there, so again, I kept going. After two hours in a blizzard with a crap leg, this level of psychological torture was sort of existentially comical.

The race started out well, it was snowing, windy and 23° but everyone who braved the elements was in a great mood. This was my first snow run of the year, so my footwear situation was untested. This seemed like too long a run, and likely too wet, to try huaraches and socks in the snow for the first time. I ended up wearing a pair of wool Injinji socks and Soft Star DASH moccasins. The combination seemed fine, I had a similar cold knee issue a few weeks ago in huaraches, so I don’t blame the shoes.

Running in snow is hard work. At the finish I heard someone say it was like running on sand. I didn’t think it was that bad, but my heart rate was significantly elevated the whole time. Trouble sleeping the night before also didn’t help. Still, I didn’t “bonk” or run out of energy, and had my knee cooperated, I don’t think I would have.

Even after finishing with my worst Half Marathon time ever, the day just wouldn’t let up. Thanks to subway and bus troubles, I ended up finishing the morning with a 1.5 mile slog across 14th St. By the time I got home my feet were soaked, I was very cold and very tired.

But in the end, none of that mattered. It was an insane, amazing morning, and while not the triumph I was hoping for, it was a triumph nonetheless.

I’m looking forward to doing it again–and better–in 2013.

Postscript: Two days later I found myself running along the East River, no shirt, no shoes, and smiling in the sun. This has been a crazy winter.

One quibble with their timeline: The human foot has remained essentially unchanged since the pre-human Australopithecines, nearly 4 million years ago. Judging from evolution, the design must work pretty well.

Created by X Ray Technician Schools, via Tuck, via The Discovery Channel, via America’s Podiatrist.

For the past couple months I’ve been experimenting with MAF training, running at a targeted heart rate with the goal of improving my aerobic base. I’ve been using a simple heart rate monitor (HRM), but I always run with my iPhone and it would be nice to record my heart rate data alongside all the other information my phone collects.

All iPhone compatible HRM sensors work by attaching a dongle to the iPhone.

Runalyzer Key
$69 on Amazon

Wahoo Key
$80 on Amazon

I’m only looking at Runalyzer and Wahoo because they both work with a wide range of apps. (Runalyzer compatible apps, Wahoo compatible apps) The other HRM options I found, Garmin’s and Digifit’s, only work with their own proprietary apps.

Wahoo uses the ANT+ wireless protocol (2.4 GHz) and requires an ANT+ compatible HRM strap. Runalyzer claims to work with all existing analog HRM straps (5.3 kHz). Runalyzer’s hardware dongle is slightly shorter and wider than Wahoo’s.

Unfortunately, RunKeeper, my preferred running app, doesn’t support anything except the Wahoo Key. But I tried iSmoothRun again and was very impressed with how it’s progressed since I last tried it–enough to switch.

So, I’ve decided to try the Runalyzer dongle with iSmoothRun since I can keep using my existing Omron HRM strap. It’ll be here in a few days.

Sunday was the second annual NYC Barefoot Run, and the cap on a very unique, very fun weekend. In spite of a forecast of potentially heavy rain, the weather was perfect.

I ran three loops, or as Chris H. said (a line I’m gleefully stealing) “I had three wonderful conversations.” I’m still nursing some old ankle injuries (shoe-related) and some of the laps were a lot faster than I’ve been comfortably running lately, otherwise I would have kept going. But I couldn’t have asked for better company.

My main takeaway of the weekend was how much the idea of barefooting has grown in the past two years. Sure we’re still out on the fringe, but it’s a rapidly exploding fringe which is transforming lives around the world.

I really enjoyed meeting and catching up with old and new friends, putting faces on names and being surrounded by hundreds of like-minded people whose radical diversity was unified by our hyper-capable genome. And toes.

Thank you to Maggie and John Durant and all the organizers and volunteers who put this together. I’m already looking forward to next year.

This is Ruth Frith, in August she’ll be 102 years old. In 2009, at the age of 100, she competed in the World Masters Games and set six world records for her age group.

A year later in October 2010, at 101 years old, she bested her own record in the hammer throw. 11.3 meters (just over 37 feet). The hammer weighs 2kg (4.4 lbs).

She currently holds 8 WMA records for shot put, hammer throw, discus throw, javelin throw, weight throw, long jump and triple jump. Those last two have stood for 15 years.

80 year old runner O Santa Claus (he legally changed his name from Elvis Kipman) ran the 10k and 100m races…barefoot.

He wasn’t alone. Osmo Millridge took home a silver medal for the 2000m Steeplechase and a bronze medal for the 300m Long Hurdles in the 75-79 age group. Also barefoot.

The title is a reference to a quote by the late Jack Kirk, aka the Dipsea Demon,

You don’t stop running because you get old,
you get old because you stop running.

Photo credits: Ruth Frith (1, 2) and O Santa Claus (1): Mark Nolan (Getty Images AsiaPac). Osmo Millridge: Phil Hillyard (Daily Telegraph 2009-10-19, via Southside Masters)

Shortly after I started running regularly back in 2007 I was “diagnosed” as suffering from serious over-pronation. My visit to the sports medicine doctor had been prompted by significant, painful plantar fasciitis, runner’s knee, IT band pain and an occasional soreness in my hip–all classic running maladies. I had also long suffered from painful foot cramps in which my arch would tighten and my big toe would splay awkwardly and painfully inwards. The doctor sent me to a running store for motion-control shoes and to a physical therapist. I was instructed to stretch more, take several days off between runs and ice my knees afterwards. (I never bothered with the recommended orthotics or night boots)

For the next couple years, I believed this to be normal. But having since switched to a more natural stride, forefoot landings and minimal footwear, every single one of those problems is gone.

Summer of 2009, I bought a pair of Nike Free 5.0s (precursor to the Nike Free Run+) to wear as everyday shoes, having fully swallowed Nike’s marketing video:

Stronger feet? That couldn’t hurt.

At first I was indifferent. While I liked how they looked and felt, I wasn’t sure the Nike Frees were anything more than expensive Crocs. But after a few weeks, I noticed my feet were cramping less and rarely hurt in the mornings.

Still, I never tried running in them. I was too invested in my diagnosis and convinced my foot and knee pain would be even worse without my doctor-prescribed, running-store-recommended, $130 motion-control running shoes. I mean, the store analyzed video of me on a treadmill, was that all BS?

Yes.

After reading Born to Run in Spring of 2010, I finally felt brave enough to try a short run in the Nikes. “Short” turned into a very pleasant 10k. The next day the tops of my feet and the muscles running up the outside of my shins were sore. (Turned out those are a single muscle group, the Extensor digitorum longus.) But sore isn’t pain, and my knees didn’t hurt. A few days later I went out again in my Asics–for what would be the last time.

My original plan had been to alternate between shoes, but that last 8 mile Asics run left my knees hurting for days. I also noticed I was hearing my footfalls through my earbuds. My landings in the Frees were much gentler and nearly silent.

One more run in the Frees and I knew I was done with the Kayanos. The next night I ran 15 miles, my longest run up to that point (by half), and felt absolutely fantastic afterwards–and only mildly sore the next day. All my previous attempts at running anywhere close to 10 miles had ended with IT band tightness, limping and days of residual knee pain.

Something was working, and it was not all in my head.

It’s gotta be the shoes!

No Mars.

In Barefoot Ted’s Google Talk (at about 35:15), he spoke about the idea of products as solutions:

“I realized there was no way in hell that this barefoot running was ever going to become a fad or a hit in the United States unless there was a product… We are so trained, we purchase a solution. We’ve got to have a purchasable solution.”

He’s right, we’re conditioned to believe in the power of products. While I do blame my old motion-control clunkers for inhibiting my form and contributing to knee pain, my success with the Nike Frees was because the shoes got out of my way and let me run more naturally. They helped by not helping.

The Nike Free is a revolutionary product, and a gateway shoe to no shoes at all. After a few months and several hundred miles run in Nike Free 5.0s, including my first ever half-marathon, I stepped down to the flatter, more minimal Nike Free 3.0 and started to mix in some near-barefoot runs in Vibram FiveFingers.

Learning to run near-barefoot was a slow process of rebuilding long-forgotten muscles. For fully 6 months, my calves would be rigid knots for days after a few miles in the FiveFingers. Having spent most of my life in shoes, the muscles and tendons in my feet and lower legs needed quite a bit of time to stretch out and build back up.

While in the middle of this transition, it’s comforting to remember that muscle soreness gets replaced by strength. My aching calves were a promise that someday soon my legs would be even stronger. The encouragement of finding an entire unused muscle group was incentive to keep at it.

With the Nike Free, I became aware of how important shoe flexibility is to foot health. Whenever people asked me about them I’d take one off and curl it up to show how flexible it was. (I did realize how silly this looked) But running in VFFs showed me that a totally-flat, zero-drop heel is every bit as important as sole flexibility, maybe even more so. I’ve since become obsessed with wearing the flattest, most flexible footwear I can find.

Going all the way: Running barefoot

Towards the end of Summer in 2010 I finally took the last step and lost the shoes completely.

It’s difficult to explain how wonderful running barefoot felt, like trying to describe a completely new color or flavor. The quantity of sensory feedback is astonishing and the permanent silly grin can’t be helped. There really is a profound, near-spiritual experience of both human freedom and connection to the Earth.

The promise of extra leg strength proved out. Once my legs adjusted I found myself running further and slightly faster without significant fatigue. My form also improved, the VFFs were masking a lot of skidding and over-reliance on my toes which was immediately apparently–and corrected–barefoot. Despite one significant shoe-related setback (I did too much), I’ve been amazed at how durable and adaptable our feet are. Only two barefoot runs had to be cut short, both of those were because previous, shoe-caused blisters failed and needed covering.

I used to think all that needed to run was a decent pair of shoes. But all I really ever needed was to go outside and just start running.

Stress fractures are ridiculously common among runners, but this post will specifically address the apparent rash of metatarsal stress fractures afflicting minimalist and VFF runners, including myself.

First off, the term “barefoot” needs to be clarified. In every case I’ve found the runner wasn’t actually barefoot. We were all running in minimal shoes: Vibram FiveFingers, Nike Frees or something similar.

I noticed several consistencies among runners’ accounts of their injuries:

1. Running in Vibram FiveFingers or other minimalist shoes, not barefoot.
2. Running faster than normal (races, speed work, or just having too much fun)
3. Mostly older than 35 years old (past the age of peak bone mass)
4. Injury occurs months after transitioning to minimalist or barefoot running

So here’s my theory:

The majority of stress fractures affecting minimalist runners are not impact-related, but rather result from overloading weak metatarsals with increased toe push-off. These injuries arise several weeks or months after switching to natural running because the runner’s muscles strengthened faster than their bones.

Metatarsals are most susceptible to injury because they’ve been immobilized and weakened by conventional shoes. The second metatarsal, being the longest, endures the most stress.

Skin protection offered by VFFs and minimal shoes likely increases the risk of injury, friction on bare toes would have limited activity before the bones could have been hurt.

Anecdotal evidence

As I’ve been researching this, I’ve found a lot of stories similar to my own:

• Joe (me, 40 years old)
  Proximal stress fracture of the second metatarsal after running much faster than usual in VFFs.
• Bob at Downtown runner (51 years old)
  Second metatarsal stress fracture in VFFs during a short race while running at a personal record pace.
• Caitlin (34 years old)
  stress fracture of the second metatarsal while doing speed work in Nike Frees.
• David Abel (mid-thirties?)
  Second metatarsal stress fracture after running a very fast half marathon in VFFs.
• Elliot Fuller (age unknown)
  Likely stress fracture after a fast VFF run. From his description, it’s another proximal second metatarsal injury.
• Curtis M (age unknown)
  stress fracture in VFFs while doing speed work.
• Kristin (age unknown)
  second metatarsal stress fracture in VFFs after a faster than normal 5k.
• Sherri Leimkuhler (age unknown)
  Metatarsal stress fracture after running “a 5K race in one of my best times ever.” Sherri is the sports columnist at the Carroll County Times.
• Phil Hart (40+ years old)
  Third metatarsal stress fracture after sprinting the last half mile of a short run in VFFs.

If you’re a near-barefoot, minimalist or VFF runner and have suffered a stress fracture, please email me or leave a note in the comments.