2011 Los Angeles 13.1 Race Report

Jan 16

Running has just become a part of my life. I hear others talk about how they think that it’s sheer craziness, and I know that I would have agreed at times in my life with that sentiment. But since my mind was changed around 7 years ago I have gone from my first half to a full and even starting to mix in a fair share of barefoot running. With this in mind I decided to do another half marathon with some friends from church.

This half marathon stands apart from the other races that I did because I believe that I did nearly all of my training for it barefoot. There might have been a couple of runs that I ran shod, but I don’t particularly remember them even when I ran in Boston, MA in November or during the cold temperatures here in Los Angeles, CA (~36 degrees Fahrenheit at night). In any case I was fairly set on trying to do this barefoot, but I hurt my heel on my very last tapered run 2 days before the race! I was trying to run on the street more since it was going to be a street race, but it did not go well. I am sure that there are errors in my form, and these will need to be addressed in the future. This started to give me some idea to what my problems were going to be for the race. The pain in my heel was slight, but I knew from past experience that any slight pain will be hugely magnified over the course of many miles. This made me start to doubt whether I would be able to finish the race barefoot.

The morning of the race went well. We all slept well and got up ready to go. I brought my shoes along just in case the conditions were unbearable, but I decided to leave them in the car when we finally got there. At the starting line I went up to the 8-9 minute/mile corral just before they started the race. The first mile along the boardwalk was grand since it was concrete, and I have plenty of concrete sidewalk experience. However near the first mile marker the course turned onto Venice Blvd. That first portion went decently even if there were some rough spots. Just to give you an idea from Ken Bob’s Terrain Guide, I had trained mostly on grades near 6 or 7 while the actual surface of those Santa Monica streets oftentimes warranted a 3 or 4.

In any case I continued on my merry way, doing okay until between miles 8 and 9. It was at that point that I was starting to feel the pain quite a bit, and it was affecting me a lot. I refused to stop or walk, but I was not doing well. Instead of passing people, I was starting to get passed. I won’t lie, it was rough going. The surface seemed to have gotten worse on the way back, but it could have just been that I was more sensitive after having run all of those other miles.

Those last 5 miles were torturous. I knew that I had to make it, and I knew that I could not stop. I reasoned with myself that stopping to walk just meant more time on my feet, and that was the last thing that I wanted at that point. I approached the end, thankfully, and I’m pretty sure that I picked it up in the last half of a mile as the finish line neared simply based on the fact that I was soon going to be able to get off of my feet. For the next 2 hours I was either sitting with my feet off of the pavement or hobbling uncomfortably because my feet were too tender to walk very far.

I did get to meet a nice older fellow who had run the race barefoot. He looked pretty comfortable as he was walking around afterward, but we chatted and he shook my hand in congratulating me on my first barefoot half marathon. I’m pretty sure that he thought that I was slightly foolish for only having run my longest barefoot run at ~10 miles prior to that race, though.

I don’t have too many pictures because honestly I only had 2 things on my mind. My right and my left feet. But the short story is:

• I did not train far enough in my distances.
• I did not train on the correct surfaces.
• I will be hobbling for a little while.
• I did it.