Besides a first place finish, the time puts my VDOT at 52.

I haven’t specifically been training for a 5k. I do tempo runs once a week, but no speed work to speak of. My goal in July is to break 1:28 in the April Sorensen Half Marathon here in Albert Lea, and my 52 VDOT puts me at 1:28, so there’s a chance I could hit it.

Note: I wore my new Asics Piranha 3 racing flats, which I’ve also been training in. They’re expensive shoes, but I got them used on eBay for $30. A guy wore them one time on a training run and didn’t like ‘em. I love ‘em! They’re my second pair of Asics Piranha running shoes. I also have a pair of the second generation shoe of the same name.

I really wanted the first third of the race to feel as though I were running at a medium effort. The first mile was around 6:15, but I felt very relaxed so I wasn’t overly concerned with the possibility that I might be going out too fast. The first half of the next third, I started to push myself into a medium hard effort and then settled in to medium hard for the rest of the second third, making sure not to over extend myself and dip too far into anaerobic energy systems.

The last third of the race, or actually the last three miles, which is slightly less than a third, I prepared myself for running hard, with measurably hard breathing and a feeling that I couldn’t keep my current pace up much past three miles. My strategy worked well and I had more left at the end than I figured I would.

Amazingly, too, I ran in my 4 oz. Asics Piranhas, which are about the most minimal pair of shoes a person can run in, outside of something like Vibram Five Finger shoes, etc. Most of my training has been in those shoes as well. So far no injuries.

I felt some tight tingles in my left achilles tendon, but those were resolved by doing calf extensions off a step on the stairs up to the kitchen from our main back entry way. I extend my heel down below the edge of the step and back up. This gets blood flow to the area and prepares the tendon and surrounding muscles for use.

My biggest lesson from this race is on the importance of taking a regular inventory of effort levels, categorizing them as I go.

Also, as far as training is concerned, it’s amazing how I can still maintain and improve my race fitness levels by simply doing some medium long runs and tempo runs that aren’t particularly long. I find it is enough to simply stimulate those energy systems rather than expect to really hammer them.

Do my lower leg muscles feel stronger as a result of having trained in minimal footwear? Absolutely. Every step felt far more solid than in past races. I noticed I felt particularly comfortable on the downhill portion of the race. Steep downhills sometimes cause me to feel slightly out of control. This was not the case on Monday.

I did notice in the last mile that my form started to fall apart, which is a result of a weak upper body. My goal this summer is to do a little more strength training: core work and some upper body work. Recently I’ve read a few articles that stress the importance of doing deadlifts. One of my favorite books, “Healthy Intelligent Training” by Keith Livingstone, argues that a runner can address up to 90% of his running muscles using the deadlift. Low repetitions with heavy weight. Who would have guessed?

According to Lieberman, the running shoes we wear these days encourage us to land on our heels first. The initial heel strike sends a great deal of stress up the leg and into the body. For barefoot runners, there is less of this stress…though there is more stress on tendons and muscles in the lower leg, especially for those who were formerly heel strikers.

But once the proper muscles are developed, it would make sense that landing on one’s forefoot would yield less overall stress. For one, because we’ve been running barefoot for millions of years and this is how we’re designed to run. And two, by displacing downward energy slowly (forefoot to heel) there is less of sudden impact when our feet hit the ground.

Is it better to keep rolling when you jump off the train or better to stop suddenly? If you stop suddenly, you’ll break your legs. If you keep rolling, you’re spreading out that momentum and giving yourself a chance to survive.

The same is true for running. A heel strike is much more like jumping off the train suddenly while a forefoot strike is more like rolling a bit before coming to a stop.

As a preventative measure for shin splints, the Penn State coach had his kids run on grass from time to time. This makes perfect sense because shin splints are caused by over-functioning shoes replacing the work that should be done by feet and muscles in the lower leg. The form closest to the form we should use when we run in shoes, is the form we have when we run without them.

Is running really all that bad for you?  And are we all so poorly constructed as runners that we need copious amounts of “support” and “motion control.” Maybe our predecessors didn’t run on concrete or pavement the way many of us do today.

But even for people who run on dirt trails through the woods the assumption is that we need hi-tech shoes in order to run properly.

My latest experiment is to minimize my footwear.  Currently, I’m running in a pair of Asics racing flats.  These are shoes that have a minimal heel to toe drop.  In these shoes, your feet are more like they would be if you were running barefoot. There is little cushioning under the heel, but enough to get the job done.

It’s been a couple weeks on this pair and I’m blown away at the scores of new muscles I’ve activated just by running in shoes with less “construction.”  Has my lower leg really been this weak for so long?

More later…