Barefoot Running and Pumpkin Hoarding

Today is my first official day back to running! Let me tell you, I’ve missed it SO MUCH! I actually was dreaming about running at one point. This past week, I’ve been doing a lot of walking to get my legs warmed up for running again. I’ve also been stretching every single day. My hip feels great.

So this morning, I headed over to my favorite running spot – Mine Falls Park. Before I talk about the actual run, let me tell you about my new shoes! Check out these babies:

These gorilla feet looking shoes are the Vibram Fivefingers Treksports. The Treksports were designed for trail running AND road running, so they were perfect for me. If you’re not familiar with the Fivefingers concept, these shoes mimic barefoot running. I won’t get into the benefits of barefoot running vs. regular running, but basically your foot hits the ground differently and you’re not bearing down on your heels so much. I think my hard heel striking had a lot to do with my recent injuries (both my hip and my pelvic area strain a few weeks ago).

Anyway, back to my run! I wore these out this morning. My goal was to run 1 1/2 miles in these and then walk another mile. I ended up running close to two and walked a little over a half mile. It was such a great run! I just felt so light and fast on my feet. It’s funny, when you wear Fivefingers, you end up taking these short, fast steps instead of a longer stride. When I hit around 1.8 miles, I stopped to walk. I could’ve gone longer, but I didn’t want to over do it. Both for the sake of my feet getting used to these shoes, and for my hip, since it was my first real run in two weeks. For the next, .7 mile, I alternated walking and jogging, but mostly walking.  In the end, I finished 2.5 miles in just over 34 minutes.

Guys, the park is looking so beautiful right now. I wish I took some pictures. The leaves are starting to turn and the air definitely had the feel of fall. I loved it so much! And speaking of fall, one of my favorite fall foods is pumpkin. But guess what? There’s a pumpkin shortage this year. This is what I’m seeing in ALL of the grocery stores around me right now:

I snapped this at Hannaford and it’s the empty shelf space where the canned pumpkin should be. I came across this very scenario in three stores last week! However, Amazon came to my rescue. They should be here any day now, assuming they aren’t confiscated in the mail by another pumpkin hoarder.

Finally, Scott and I went to a wedding last night and I asked one of our table mates to take a picture of us. I gave it a 70s photo treatment and put it in a Polaroid frame.

Tags: barefoot, fall, fivefingers, pumpkin, running, treksport, vibram

This entry was posted on September 26, 2010 at 8:12 pm and is filed under Miscellaneous, Move. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.