Week 2 Master’s Swim

After swim #3, it’s still just as much fun as it was the first day, but new challenges are rapidly being put on me. It turns out my technique was really not all that good. Not that this is any big surprise, but the process of correcting is like going in reverse. It turns out I had modified my arm stroke to allow me to get a bigger breath of air, this was causing all kinds of mis-alignment problems and slowing me down. I do understand why I have to fix this, but the problem is that I now can’t breathe anywhere close to the volume of air was previously and on top of that if I mess up my body position I get a mouthful of water and have to delay a much needed breathe even longer. This puts me in an oxygen deficient very rapidly and my only option is to slow down.

The Flip Turn

After my first day of practice I wanted more speed, fixing my technique and gaining conditioning was just going to take too long, so I decided the quickest win was to figure out the flip turn. Fortunately, I’ve been periodically practicing this all summer, so after reading an few tips on the web and another day of practicing I had it down good enough to implement during practice.

Doing this at practice worked just like I thought, maybe even better, for speed that is, this would have been fine if we were only doing a 50m, but the oxygen tradeoff to do the flip turn put me into a huge O2 deficit and my performance rapidly declined and then when I realized we were doing 100m I had to drastically slow down just to finish. I guess the lesson learned here is that there are not freebies in swimming. It looks like practice is the only way. So now it’s a balance of how often can I swim based on how much recovery time do I need?

Is That Me Swimming?

Over the summer I started swimming a couple days a week in the pool just outside the front door of my apartment building. Once the pool was closed for the year I realized that I had made some decent improvements in conditioning and actually started to enjoy swimming. When I started, 5 minutes in the pool seemed like an eternity, but I kept at it, and as I got in better shape and learned better technique (self taught from reading articles on the web), I was able to go out to the pool for a 30min workout, which is really a lot of bang for the buck if you don’t want to spend a lot of time exercising.
Once the pool was closed, I then started thinking that I would like to continue swimming, and in Grand Island that leaves one option, which is to join the YMCA. Besides being the only pool in GI, I had also learned about the 5:30AM Master’s Swim, which is nothing unique to GI as Master’s Swim is basically the name for everyone uses for the time slot allotted for adults to do a structured and supervised workout, with instruction as needed.

The idea was great but getting up early is a real problem. I attempted to modify my sleep schedule so I could make it to the early workout. In one month I made it to the YMCA once! Only to discover that the days had been changed due to the HS swim team practice. So I didn’t even get to swim. It was then another month before I made it back again, and the only reason I did that was to just say I made it, I really had given up on the idea of getting up early at this point. Getting there was really an accident, due to increasing my workouts and intensity I found myself super hungry late on a Tuesday night after the indoor cycling ride, so I got home and ate more food. Bad idea to eat so late, so I didn’t sleep well and woke up around 4am, after laying in bed for another hour I decided I just as well get up and go to the Master’s Swim.
I got to the pool and was warmly welcomed and immediately found a new group of friends. In fact the swim was so much fun that the hour was over with before I knew it. I got lots of great instruction and my technique improved immediately. My competitive spirit was also awakened as I was certainly very slow compared to the group and I need some tremendous improvements to my cardio. I would have said my cardio was reasonably decent but when you don’t get to breath when you want to that changes things. Should be excellent for cross training. So after 1 time, I was hooked, and despite the major battle I’m going to face getting to bed earlier (lots earlier) I’m going to commit to going to all 3 practices each week.

Vivo Barefoot!

Finally on Saturday the Vivo Barefoot Dharma’s arrived and they are awesome! They are the most comfortable shoe I have ever put my foot in. Actually it’s more like, they are the most comfortable shoe that has ever been built to go around my foot! They are instantly comfortable, there is no breaking in period, since I got the right size you just put them on your feet and go, they are ready for action out of the box. Even though they are a dressier shoe, I’m going to wear them everywhere, which is something I would never do with the typical shoes I buy for work. I already started changing out my shoe collection. Sold 3 pairs on ebay already, and as I figure out alternatives for each of the remaining shoes, they will all be getting swapped out to a barefoot equivalent.

The Obvious Next Step

After experiencing the freedom of the fivefingers it's just downright dispicable putting my feet back in regular heel strike shoes.  So I got some Terra Plana Vivo Barefoot Dharma's on order, these shoes are a regular looking shoe except the sole is flexable and only 3mm thick.  Also the toe area is really wide so you're toes can spred out.  The Dharmas are a nice dressy leather shoe I can wear to work with no problem.  Still going to have to keep my steel toes at my desk, but overall I won't have to wear them very often.  Just ordered them today, won't be here until mid next week.  I ordered them from Born To Run in Washingon.  Barefoot Ted's retail store.

First Fivefinger Barefoot Run

Since our feet have been boxed in miniature coffins their whole life it's no surprise to learn that all the muscles in your foot have atrophy and are no where near strong enough to walk or run barefoot for very long.  Pretty all the information I've read or watched on YouTube says to start slow and build up slowly.  This is one reason I've been just walking around in them for the past week (besides being sick)  tonight I went out for the first run and it was awesome!  At least for the 3 blocks that I was able to run, then I walked home.  If you think this sounds like I'm a wimp, then go get your own pair tough guy (or gal)!  I didn't overdo it buy my feet and calves are sore today, I definately pushed them hard enough.  this will pretty much be the plan for the next month before I will have any feet strength to run/walk much further -I hope I progress faster but it's unlikely you can only do some much so fast.

It was incredible though, I also noticed that when I have to put on my clunky big heel work shoes, that I can feel/hear the heal strike in my ears when I walk.  YES, I'M SERIOUS, the impact to your heel bone resonates all the way to your skull, where you can feel/hear it!  I don't have any proof, but I'm almost positive this is why so many people need knee replacements when they get older...!?

In the next photos I tried to capture what your toes almost immediatly start doing, and thats fanning out to create a stronger base.  I suggest going to YouTube and watch some videos, I found a few where seasoned runners "flex" their toes and they have a nice wide base.  Very cool when you think about the biomechanics of it and how a wider toe base increases your stability.  Very sad when you think about how today's shoes jam your toes together.  Here's the photos where I've tried to show how wide my toes want to be after running compared to the shoes I usually put them in.

Finally a Fair Amount of Walking in the Fivefingers

I've been wearing the fivefingers almost everynight this week, but a non-barefoot disaster struck on Saturday when I got sick with all the oh-so-fun flu type symptons.  Miserable weekend and been a bit slow recovering this week.  So finally on Wed I was feeling good enough to get out of the house and do something at least.

Over the past few days of wearing the shoes it has become obvious that learning to walk is going to take some thought to do it right, running on the other hand is a no brainer you just automatically do it.  It turns out that even though I don't wear shoes at all when I'm at home in my apartment, I still don't walk right and this is because the carpet is soft enough that I can still walk with a heel strike, and actually if your walking slowly the fivefinger sole is soft enough to allow you walk with a heel strike.

Today’s grocery shopping trip to Walmart is the most I have walked around in the fivefingers with a conscientious effort to walk correctly.  Certainly gave the feet a workout and it’s a lot easier to understand how much atrophy has occurred in my feet.  If you’re reading this keep in mind that when I say “my feet” unless you’ve already begun your own revolution this applies to you also.  The best thing I discovered today is that reverting back to walking naturally as we were meant to walk isn’t going to be all that hard, I found myself walking correctly once I got home also and had been off my feet for a bit and had a chance to forget about making an effort.  As expected though, it didn’t take much walking and the muscles in my feet were worn out.  Wow did it feel good though, I felt my whole body thanking me as I padded around.  Really looking forward to getting the Vivobarefoot shoes, it was ugly cramming my feet back in their steel toed coffins to go back to work this morning.  It’s even uglier to have to walk in the things…

The Barefoot Revolution Begins

Picking up a copy of Christopher McDougall’s book “Born to Run” is the same thing as winning the lottery (and a big payout at that)! Maybe not a payout in real money, but who can put a price on your general health and well-being? The answers that Christopher discovers in Born to Run are so basic and fundamental that they are revolutionary! One of my biggest pet-peeves in life is believing something that is not true, and after reading this book, thinking about the biomechanics of the human foot, and doing 5 minutes of experimenting, I have no doubt that walking and running barefoot is how we were designed! I now compare wearing shoes as we know them to drinking Mercury as medicine, both were considered true at one time and both are now known to be bad for you! I highly recommend picking up a paper copy, or an electronic copy, which is really how I “read” the book, (when I say read, I really mean I listened to the book…) The book tells a tale of a real life adventure to remote parts of the world on a journey to discover the truth, and along the way Christopher meets some really interesting people and most importantly discovers the truth and makes life better for anyone who decides to embrace the most fundamental truth of his discovery!
Summary of my new now known truth: Running Shoes = coffins for your feet = drinking Mercury as medicine
Side note Rant:

It angers me to think that companies like Nike and Addidas have known this for years and have conspired to not only bury the truth, but continued to develop products they know are not healthy for human beings. It angers me even more that now that the truth is going mainstream they continue their conspiracy by leveraging marketing power over publications like Runner’s World…

OK, moving on,
THE REVOLUTION BEGINS: DAY 1 – Going to buy some Vibram fivefingers
Amazingly Redman's Shoes in Kearney, NE had the fivefingers in stock,  I drove over afterwork and picked up a pair of KSO's and a couple pair of Injinji socks.  Obviously, wore them for the rest of the night. Looking forward to giving them a test spin.

 Injinji Socks - Of course they have toes, how else would they fit in the fivefingers?