Agoge Fit

Tuesday of this week was a beautiful day.  The air was clear and somewhat cool for a morning late in Alabama summer.  This was a deload week for me and I was looking forward to the first of two planned trail runs.  As I walked up the hill from my car to the trail head I decided a small warmup was in order and at the top knocked out some squats and lunges.  I hit the “go” button on my timer and took off.

Immediately I noticed I was hitting a quicker stride and that it felt good.  I thought for a bit about how the heat affected my running and settled into what I anticipated to be one of the best runs of my summer.  My pace was pretty fast.  Not as fast as when I wore trail shoes, but faster than I had been running in my Vibrams so far.  I wondered if I’d ever get to that kind of pace in these shoes.  I took advantage of the low, soft stretches of trail and really sprinted, high on the balls of my feet.

Just past halfway on the trail I began to notice a warm pain in my left foot.  My calf was tightening and my footfall on that side became flat.  I alternated walking and sprinting for a while but the feeling never went away and I became more and more aware of how off my left foot had become.  By the two-thirds mark I was walking and I walked the rest of the way out.  As a testament to my pace I did clock out of the trail at 54 minutes which is still consistent with my average pace, since I started wearing the “toe shoes.”

By the time I got back to the car I had a straight up limp.  I was not happy.  Injury is a fact of life when you are active.  Eventually something will get hurt, no one is super human.  But it still pisses me off.

Back at the gym I was trying to minimize my exposure.  I’ve caught a lot of flack for my new footwear and I was sure to get an earful of, “You hurt your foot running in those shoes, didn’t you?”

I managed to shower and get to my back area without too much notice.  As a massage therapist I know you’re supposed to wait 48 hours after an injury before applying any therapy.  Ice is the only answer.  Well, I also know that applies to everyone else and not me.  I want it fixed and I want it fixed NOW.  So, I took my trusty lacrosse ball and began rolling my foot over it looking for trigger points, basically any spot that hurt like hell and applied pressure, to make it hurt like more hell.  I trained my 9 o’clock clients from my chair and kept treating my foot.  I switched to a frozen beer bottle at one point thinking the cold would help with inflammation and finished with an all out ice bath.

I trained my clients for the rest of the morning and at noon left for an already scheduled massage.  John Murray specializes in Thai massage and that, by God, was what I was going to get.  I told him of my injury and asked him to pay special attention to my left calf and foot.  I opted for a full session because I am learning Thai massage and wanted to get a taste of how he worked.  It was a great session and I look forward to robbing him blind of knowledge in our future work together.  As such here is a plug, if you’re looking for Thai massage in Birmingham, go see John Murray (by the way John specializes in many other modalities and has more than 12 years experience to back him up.  Go see John.)

Somehow I made it through the day without too much notice.  At home, Samantha gave me some baleful looks but was otherwise sympathetic.  She nursed me well, scolding me for not taking Arnica on my own and offering me some of her 800 mg Ibuprofen.  The girls were my own cheering section each coming up to me to hug and ask with deepest concern, “How’s your foot, Daddy?”

Wednesday morning was not so good.  I woke around 2:30 to go pee.  I managed to hobble my way to the bathroom but needed the assistance of my youngest daughter (who was up herself) to get back to the bedroom.  At 4:30 I got up to get ready for work.  It was at this point that I seriously considered calling in and saying I couldn’t make it.  Walking was extremely difficult.  I pushed through and as I did I noticed that things were slightly starting to get better.  I wore my Redwing boots to work for support and protection.

Unfortunately, there was no hiding my gait.  Right in the door, “Monkey, what’s wrong with your foot?” asked Trey, my best friend and gym owner.

“I hurt it running yesterday.  I think it’s either a stone bruise or I’m starting to get plantar fasciitis.”

“Hurt it running in those gorilla shoes, didn’t you?”

So that’s how my day went.  The good news is that as the day wore on and I became more and more active my foot hurt less and less.  I had worried that it might prevent me from jiu-jitsu practice but that is actually when it felt its best.  I think the increased blood flow from exertion was helpful.  The bad news is everyone blamed my shoes, except one dear client, who called me a “numb nut” for wearing the shoes, let alone running in them.

For the record, I don’t blame the shoes.  I blame me in the shoes.  Anyone who’s read this blog and compared it with any of the other barefoot blogs out there can attest I seriously shortened my break in process.  I didn’t want to compromise my runs and as such tried to speed up my transition.  I think I went a little too fast.

Today is Friday.  I’m back to wearing my Tevas and only have a slight limp.  The pain in the sole of my foot is slight and entirely bearable.  I did not run yesterday or jump rope.  I opted to ride the stationary bike for 20 minutes, did a 20 minute kettlebell routine and got back on the bike for another 20 minutes.  My foot did not bother me at all during the entire workout.  I did, however, tear a callus on my left hand with the kettlebell, but that is another story.

I’ve continued to wear my Vibrams off and on throughout the week.  They continue to be my favorite shoes.

I took my first trail run in them last Tuesday.  The weather was perfect and I had a nice run.  I intentionally took a shorter route this time knowing I would need to transition into running in the Vibrams.  My pace was definitely slower, but I ran the whole way.  What struck me most was how much more attuned my feet were to the terrain.  I paid more attention to how I picked my path than I ever did in running shoes.  Which, again, made me slower but I think overall was better for my run.  I tried to flow over obstacles rather than let the armor of my shoes let me crash through.  Overall, I think I saved myself a lot of jarring and joint stress.

On Thursday I did another Hurricane, this time it was a little more involved with 20 second sprints and mountain climbers and pushup variations in between.  The warmup was the same and included the 12 mintue jump rope session.

My arches “spoke” to me throughout the week, but in way I was comfortable with.  They felt well worked and sore but in a muscles-are-gettting-stronger kind of way.  I am optimistic.

I wore them during my lifting workouts as well and paid particular attention on leg days.  Both deadlifts and squats feel good in the shoe.  I noticed them the most on squat day.  The old phrase “you’re only as strong as your weakest link” stays in my mind as I pursue this experiment.  I have always felt my feet and ankles were my weakest links and “fixing” them with orthotics never really made sense.  How do you strengthen a muscle by giving it a crutch?

Here’s my process.  Over the last few weeks my runs at Ruffner Mountain have gotten worse and worse.  My time began slowly creeping upward and on the last run I actually walked a good third of the way back.  I’m sure there are several reasons for this and I’m pretty sure a sudden decline in my conditioning is not the real culprit, despite what my paranoia might say.  At 8:30 am, the end of my run,  the temperature has ranged from 85 to 95 degrees fahrenheit over the past few weeks.  I’m not sure of the humidity but I imagine it somewhere around 200%.  This is Alabama so that’s not going to change until late October or November.  So, if I’m going to keep my training up I have to adapt.

After that last run, I made a decision.  I have been doing a lot of reading about Paleo lifestyles and barefoot running in particular.  I had shifted my running style to a “toe running” style a year or more ago.  I was intrigued by the reports of it being a more natural stride and more in keeping with the physiology of our feet and running.  I liked the results and became more interested in it and surrounding ideas.  I had thought about the new “barefoot running shoes” but knew there was a tranistion period involved and wasn’t willing to limit my runs (read: sacrifice my conditioning) in order to break into new shoes.  Enter Alabama summer.  After last Tuesday’s totally crappy run I decided that if I was going to continue these crappy runs now was the perfect time to break in “barefoot” shoes.

That afternoon I bought a pair of Vibram Five Fingers.  They resemble water shoes, but with a strap and a sole manufactured by Vibram, the same people who made the lug sole I had put on my Red Wing work boots a while back.  Because I wanted to  use them to trail run, I bought the more expensive model with a thicker sole that had some tread to it.  Thick is a relative term here as the sole is just a few milimeters thick.

Trying them on was a bit of a challenge.  Getting each toe in each compartment was a chore, but by today, the fourth day of wearing them I found them much easier to get on.  Once on, I loved them immediately.  There just so damned comfortable and I really liked the way they helped my toes spread.  Fashionably, they’re a nightmare.  My kids and other young people think they’re cool.  But so far everyone over 30 has had an issue with them.  Apparently the older you are the more ridiculous they seem.  No matter, I’m used to playing the fool and don’t mind being the object of your amusement.

Conversations about them have been interesting, though.

Do they offer much arch support?

No.

????

See, that’s the point.

What about your feet/ankles/knees?  You going to be crippled in no time.

Well, the theory is that our dependence on increasingly therapeutic shoes is actually the result of the shoes themselves.  Excessive cushioning and support makes the muscles of our feet, for whom those jobs were originally assigned, redundant.  As such they atrophy, becoming weaker, and make the need for cushioning and support more apparent.  Rather than increase that downward spiral, this approach encourages the development of stronger feet and eleminates the need for advanced foot technology and thereby alleviates issues such as “bad” feet, ankles and knees.

The response to this varies from blank stare to outright skepticism to mild curiosity.

So here’s the experiment so far.  Tuesday I bought the shoes.  I wore them through the afternoon and evening.  Wednesday I wore them to work and through my bench press workout, until 11:30 am.  I put them back on in the late afternoon and wore them through the evening, until bedtime.  Thursday I had a massage client scheduled at 8 which is the second half of my usual run time.  I had planned to do Martin Rooney’s hurricane scheduled in week two of the workout program outlined in Ultimate Warrior Workouts (catchy title, eh?) instead.  That meant, after the warmup, two five minute rounds of jumping rope and eight rounds of 15 second sprints at 10 mph, recovering to a heartrate of 120 bpm between each sprint.  I have since decided that at least until the weather cools I will continue to follow Rooney’s hurricane progression on Thursdays and trail run on Tuesdays.

Here are my results so far.  First I loved the way the shoes felt during the workout.  My sprints were crisp and up on the balls of my feet.  Only during rest did my heels touch the floor.  After the workout, in the shower, I noticed, by touch, the prominence of a vein in each butt cheek that I’d never noticed before.  My legs were highly vasculated and the blood was pumping.  Later that day a noticed a new level of tighness (nothing too extreme) in my quads and calves.  By evening I could clearly feel my arches had been challenged as they were a little tight and sore.  I’m wearing the shoes this morning and intend to wear them through my squat workout today.  My arches are a little tender but in a stretch-them-out-and-that-feels-great kind of way.

I plan on trail running on Tuesday in them for the first time.  My goal is a light run just to see how they do on the trail, testing sole sensitivity and overall run feel..I’ll keep you posted.

Promise yourself:

1. To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.

2. To speak to all of happiness, health and prosperity.

3. To give all your friends the feeling that they have value.

4. To look at the bright side and turn your optimism into an eventual reality.

5. To think only the best, work only for the best, and expect only the best.

6. To be as fair and as enthusiastic about the successes of others as you are of your own.

7. To forget the mistakes of the past and focus your energy on the achievements of the future.

8. To always keep the person next to you happy, and always smile to those who address you.

9. To expend the greatest time improving yourself, and no time criticizing others.

10. To be too great to feel uneasiness, too noble to feel rage, too happy to feel setbacks, and strong enough to feel fear.

11. To have a good opinion of yourself and proclaim it to the world, not with resounding words, but with good works.

12. To have the firm conviction that the world is on your side, as long as you stay loyal to what is best in you.

Applicable to anyone’s journey.  No matter how you choose to stride.

View of Birmingham from atop the quarry at Ruffner Mountain Nature Center

So there’s this old martial arts adage that says you fight how you train.  What that means is that your body responds with the techniques it knows best under the stressful conditions of a fight.  It also means that the conditions under which you train affect your ability to respond as well.  That is if you don’t train striking in a sparring context you’re not going to be very adapted to someone actually hitting you.  Fights get very intense very quickly and having trained in a tachycardic state will make you more able  to keep your head and function in that state in a fight.

I bring this up because I went for a run in one of my old haunts today.  For about six months I ran the Five Mile Trail at Ruffner Mountain Nature Center.  For full disclosure I must admit that the Five Mile Trail is, much to my dismay, not five miles long.  In fact, at 3.9 miles it’s not even close to five miles which is very disheartening, considering the first time I ran it I was amazed at my sub ten minute miles.  That was faster than I’d even run on pavement before.  How was that possible?  Short answer is, of course, it wasn’t.  Oh the agony of a misnamed trail.

Nonetheless I ran the trail today, or well, part of it.  See I haven’t run that trail in about a year and a half.  My training shifted to other areas and longer (for me) runs seemed contrary to my strength goals and jiujitsu seemed a much more fun form of cardio.  Anyway, now the trail seems a perfect addition to my strength gaining and my jiujitsu.  So I ran in the woods.

It.  Kicked.  My.  Ass.

I remembered that the road to the trailhead from the parking lot was steep.  I did not, however, expect to be sucking wind so severely two minutes in.  I persevered and as I hit the crest the trail evened out and I settled in.  I only had thirty minutes total to run and planned to double back when I hit fifteen.  I managed to make the lower entrance to the quarry in good stride.  My iPod was in perfect sync with the run and all was well.  The problem came as I began my ascent back out of the quarry.  By the time I hit the ridgeline I was again sucking wind very hard.

At that point, I am ashamed to admit, I had to walk.  I actually hit the slow stride a few more times on the way out and by the time I got back to my car my inner thighs were really talking to me.  I can’t wait for tomorrow.

Lesson?  As ye train, so shall ye fight.  There is absolutely nothing like trail running.  The changes you have to make, the obstacles to avoid, the necessity of getting your feet up so you don’t trip over rock and root make it unlike any other run you’ve ever had.  Needless to say I’ve been re-hooked.  I’m thinking maybe I can get back out there on Thursday…