A First for me! And an honest review.
In the book Born to Run, Caballo Blanco tells Chris McDougall that the first step to running like him (caballo) is to make it easy.
That is what I focused on this time. I wasn't worried about time, or speed or what anyone thought. I was only worried about making it easy. This meant going very slow and really concentrating on my form. Slow and steady wins the race? Maybe. Maybe not. But I dare say that because I didn't do any recovery walks I actually ran the 2 miles faster than I have before.
It is also worthy of mention that I did this mainly because of how much my feet had been hurting, probably mostly from using my skeletoes - which saddens me because I loved them so much. The thing about those shoes is that it's basically a think rubber sock. There really is not structure to the shoe. For someone who is used to walking barefoot and has strong feet, used to the beating it takes from hard surfaces, these shoes are probably a good deal. If you are like me, whose feet are pretty much raised by shoes, this might be a bad choice.
Going back to the run: I really did take it easy, in fact, if you saw me at any point of my run you could have said I had just started and I was warming up. That's how low of a pace I was setting. Breathing was easy, checking my form was easy, and adjusting was easy. In fact, my breathing was great, I never felt out of it. If anything what was failing me was my muscles because I had never gone that far at once. But muscle fatigue is mental, you can push yourself farther than you think - which is what I did. About 2 blocks away from finishing my loop I wanted to stop and call it good. However, I knew I was also only 2 blocks from a great story. I stuck with it and I finished.
If you are having problems hitting your distance, remember: Make it easy!
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