You down with OPP... Other People's Playlists

What do these artists have in common?

They all have at least one song on my running playlist

My legs hurt. I run with no cushioning so sometimes my feet hurt too. I didn't run today, but thinking about tomorrow's Fartlek training makes my legs and feet hurt more. I know I will get through my runs though, and I couldn't do it without my running playlist.

It's amazing how your mental strength can push your body physically. I have always had a pretty good ability to focus and tell myself to push harder or stronger when I felt like I couldn't go anymore or do any better. I personally respond well to people yelling at me too. Give me a coach or trainer screaming at me one-on-one any day. Some people fall apart under that sort of pressure. Some respond well to positive encouragement or general instruction to a group. Different things work for different people - we're all wired differently. It makes sense then, that a person's running (or workout) playlist would be as different from another's playlist as one person is different from another. I know I could never just use someone else's playlist.

I know some people who just play music they like to listen to in general or just upbeat music in general. Not for me. I do look for something upbeat and of course I want music I actually like to listen to, but there has to be something special that makes it work for me. Some songs just make me feel like I could  run forever. Some help me push through the pain. And some songs just make me smile, which is just what I need now and then. Other times I just want my a song to take my mind off of running. Different songs do different things for me, and a good mix of all of those things gives me, well my perfect running mix.

I pretty much use the same running mix every run and tweak it now and then. When I find myself skipping songs more than once, I move that song down the list or off the list. When I hear a new song or forgotten song that strikes a chord with me, I add it and try it. But overall, I have had a similar playlist for running (and cardio) for a while now.

So here it is. It's embarrassing, cheesy at times and geeky and dorky overall, and I feel like by revealing this in this public setting I am somehow being exposed. To be honest, Ryan is the only one who has seen this playlist and even he hasn't seen it all. If you see my running playlist, you might get me too well, and then you might stop reading my blog! Okay enough stalling... here it goes, 29 songs roughly 2 hours:

1. Get Low, Remix (Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz)
2. The Way You Make Me Feel (Michael Jackson)
3. OPP (Naughty By Nature)
4. Fight to Survive - The Kumite Song (Bush Stan)
5. Welcome to the Jungle (Guns N' Roses)
6. Just Dance (Lady Gaga)
7. Just Dance (Jamiroquai)
8. Fighter (Christina Aguilera)
9. Stronger (Britney Spears)
10. Suddenly I See (KT Tunstall)
11. Since You've Been Gone (Kelly Clarkson)
12. Man in the Mirror (Michael Jackson)

13. Where is the Love (Black Eyed Peas feat. Justin Timberlake)
14. School of Rock (from School of Rock Soundtrack)
15. Enter Sandman (Metallica)
16. I Gotta Feeling (Black Eyed Peas)
17. I Want You Back (Jackson 5)
18. Start Me Up (Rolling Stones)
19. Keep on Running (The Spencer Davis Group)
20. Supermodel (Jill Sobule)
21. Come On Over (Christina Aguilera)
22. Rock That Body (Black Eyed Peas)
23. Whatcha Say (Jason Derulo)
24. Run This Town (Jay-Z feat. Kanye & Rihanna)
25. David Duchovny (Bree Sharp)
26. Put Your Records On (Corinne Bailey Rae)
27. Wind (Akeboshi, a theme from Naruto)
28. You're Beautiful (James Blunt)
29. Somewhere Over the Rainbow (Israel Kamakawiwo'ole)

So there it is. Completely dorky right? It's wrong at times, I know: Britney Spears and Metallica? Lil' Jon and that Supermodel song from Clueless? The Rolling Stones and about half the Centerstage soundtrack? A song from an anime??? It's a strange combination of songs, but I love it. I don't know what I would do without it.

It's worth noting that I use Nike + Ipod, which allows you to choose a "powersong." You can hold down the center button at any time during your run, and your powersong will come on. Mine is Fight to Survive, the Kumite song. For those of you who don't know, it is from the movie Bloodsport, starring Jean-Claude Van Damm. It is a chant/song about the underground, freestyle fighting competition, the Kumite, featured in the movie. I love Jean-Claude. This song should be the most embarrassing song on my playlist, but I'm not even embarrassed that it is my powersong. It works so well for me that I can't be embarrassed by it. I used to play this song so many times during a run, I might as well have put it on repeat, but lately I haven't been playing it that much. To me, that means that my current playlist is working well for me, and I'm getting mentally stronger.

Don't judge me, but do share your favorite running or workout songs or even your whole playlist in the comments section. I can't wait!

The ever-changing Dorito

In recent years it seems like there is always a new flavor of gum, new candy bar or new flavor snack. I don't remember there being new flavors of snacks or candy all the time when I was a kid. The flavors were more or less set. There was minty gum OR fruity gum, not minty AND fruity. Orange, white, light green, green and red were the tic tac flavors that I remember from when I was a kid through college. Similarly, the only potato chip flavors I knew of were plain, BBQ, sour cream & onion, salt & vinegar, and garlic & onion. Plain M&Ms and peanut. Regular Doritos and the blue bag. BUT, that is not the case anymore. Every time I go into a grocery store or deli there are always plenty of displays of "NEW" flavored junk food. Now this is not a case of "when I was a kid blah blah blah." I know new flavors of things came out before I was a kid, while I was a kid and before I started noticing the trend of "NEW" junk food. New flavors and types of junk food just seem to be out there more and advertised as new a lot more than I remember.

I really like trying new things, so this is a good thing, but also a bad thing because I am shamelessly wooed into buying candy bars and chips that I wouldn't otherwise purchase (or eat). Ryan is even worse. I think he "needs" to try the new flavors more than me and needless to say, we encourage each other to buy and try new foods. I can't explain the feeling because it is not like I am looking for a new candy bar to love, and I don't even really like Doritos, but I am compelled to try the ever-changing new flavors.


What a brilliant tactic by these companies! Not only do they excite their already loyal consumers of their products and catch the eyes of children and adults with flashy displays, they lure new consumers to try their new products. Frito-Lay was never going to have me as a consumer of Doritos, but I don't know how many bags of new flavors I've purchased. I don't make a habit of buying candy in general, but do you even know how many disgusting new flavors of M&Ms (coconut and raspberry were especially bad) I've tried? I have never liked Milky Ways, but guess what? I tried the Milky Way Dark, which is really dumb of me because I don't like nougat and all they did was swap out milk chocolate for dark chocolate. I hated it just as much because the same nougat which made me hate the original was in the NEW dark version. I can't help it though.

Doritos seem to be utilizing this always new tactic quite a bit, and they have been for a long time actually. Remember 3D Doritos? I actually liked those. Anyway, there is always a new flavor Dorito. There were the duo flavor bags, Dorito Collisions: Hot Wings/Blue Cheese, Zesty Taco/Chipotle Ranch, Habanero/Guacamole, Cheesy Enchilada/Sour Cream, and Pizza Cravers/Ranch.  Then there were Taco Bell and Pizza Hut flavors. And yes, I am using Wikipedia right now. Then there was the mystery flavor bags, and those were the most disgusting flavor...cheeseburger.  I guessed that correctly, but yuck they were gross! The next year they did another mystery flavor, which I never had... it was Mountain Dew. (Dammit! I want to try them even though I know I'll hate them.) Then they released Late Night Flavors like jalepeno poppers. There have also been lots of other flavors beyond the originals like Spicy Nacho, Guacamole, White Nacho Cheese, and the weirdest of them all, Spicy Sweet Chili, in the purple bag. They taste like you are eating a flavor packet from ramen.

And finally, the most recent Dorito flavors, the burn series.  1st Degree Burn: Blazin' Jalapeno, 2nd Degree Burn: Fiery Buffalo and 3rd Degree Burn: Scorchin' Habenero. The most interesting thing about these new flavors is that they have a special pepsi paired with them, Pepsi Max Cease Fire, which is supposed to cool your mouth after you eat the burning hot Doritos. I tried these, of course, except I haven't been able to find 3rd degree burn anywhere. But, I tried the 1st and 2nd degree burn with the soda, and they are kind of good and bad. The chips taste alright, but they are pretty hot. Amazingly, the Pepsi really does cool your mouth. It is lime flavored and tastes alright, but I don't really like Pepsi or really drink soda very often, so I didn't think it was that great, but it works. I guess if you really really liked the flavor of the chips, you would like the combo. I kind of hope it works on any sort of hot, and I don't see why it wouldn't. There are plenty of things I like the taste of but am limited by how much heat I can take. I've had watery eyes and a runny nose while eating my favorite Indian and Thai curries countless times. I'm thinking now that maybe I should keep a bottle of this soda on hand just in case I add too much Sriracha to my food. At the end of the day, I've come back to the same conclusion as I always knew: I don't really like Doritos of any flavor.

Every now and then I discover something I really like from trying endless new products (Take 5 bar anyone?), but mostly I try things once and then never again. It seems that candy and snacks are the things to most often come out with new flavors, and as I age (ugh!) I buy and eat less junk food (or at least try to). I kind of hope this new flavor trend in junk food ends soon, and it will be that much easier for me to avoid junk food... or at least waste the calories on junk I KNOW I like.

I take it back

Quick note. I am watching last night's episode of The Marriage Ref, and I take back some of my good comments. They had Kathy Griffin on the celebrity panel, and I loathe her. She is the devil, not Jerry. Her voice irritates me, and I can't stand to look at her face. She was recently on an episode of Law and Order SVU where she played a very unlikable leader of a lesbian group, who turned out to be straight, and the lesbians and the straight people hated her. Even the other characters on the shows she's on hate her character. I stand by what I said earlier though, the show will be good as long as the celebrity panel is good and they continue getting funny married couples. In this episode, the married couples were actually kind of funny and definitely funnier than Kathy Griffin. Tracy Morgan was on the panel, and he was funny in a Tracy Morgan sort of way. I could see this show going downhill soon though when the novelty wears off and no one good wants to be on the show anymore. I can see this going the same route as Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, moving to daytime at some point.

TV TV TV!

(House is probably my favorite show)

I'm back. Sorry for the little break from blogging, but I've been really busy lately with all sorts of things to do and issues clogging and fogging up my brain. Luckily I have TV to numb my brain temporarily or at least to have on in the background to make mindless tasks more enjoyable. So, I thought I would write about the many, and I mean many, shows I watch. Thanks to tivo/dvr I can watch like 5 primetime shows on some nights in a lot less time because I can fast forward through the commercials and about 90% of American Idol and Biggest Loser.

I used to be embarrassed by how much TV I watch, thinking that TV=couch potato, but I'm fairly active, I read and am often productively responding to emails and blogging while enjoying my favorite primetime dramas. (I also addictively play internet backgammon and go on facebook for no reason while watching TV, but that's multitasking too!) So what if it's melting my brain - I think I'm smarter than the average bear, so a little rotting of the brain isn't going to kill me right? I'm not even embarrassed to say that I have so many shows to watch on Tuesdays that I have to download one because there are 3 shows on at the same time. So here's the rundown of the shows I generally watch:

• Mondays: How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory, House, Law & Order 
• Tuesdays: American Idol, Biggest Loser, Lost, 90210, Parenthood
• Wednesdays: Modern Family, American Idol, SVU, Top Chef/Masters, ANTM (sometimes)
• Thursday: Survivor, Project Runway & Models of the Runway, The Marriage Ref
• Sunday: Celebrity Apprentice

I also watch Jeopardy when I am home and remember, The Soup, The Hills when it's on and my guiltiest pleasure... I recently started dvring Days of Our Lives again, but I think that will have to stop soon. Holy crap I watch a lot of TV. Now some of those shows are not on for that long during the year, especially the reality shows and all of the shows are not on during the summer. So even though it is a lot of time, I'm just not ashamed. Here are a couple more rationalizations anyway: I watch all the shows recorded, so it takes a lot less time; this is my last season watching American Idol, The Hills and Lost; Project Runway, Top Chef and Celebrity Apprentice are hardly every on. Whoa, I what do I do with all that extra time in the summer and when shows take winter breaks? I can't even remember... maybe I socialize.

A few of the show I watch are fairly new. Here are my thoughts on them.

Modern Family is just about the funniest show I've ever seen. First of all, one of the stars is Al Bundy. Who knew he could be so funny? Second, it stars Sofia Vergara, who is just about as ideal a person as I can think of. So the jist of the show is that it follows 3 families, which are actually one family. Al Bundy is the patriarch, re-married to a Columbian women much younger than him who has a son around the age of his grandkids. He also has 2 biological kids, who are grown up, married/partnered with their own kids and live in the same town. I want everyone to watch this show so badly that I won't write more... yet. Download the episodes, watch it on hulu, whatever. Just watch it! You'll be laughing out loud, and that's a promise.

Parenthood is about a guy played by Craig T. Nelson, (you know Coach) who has a wife and kids who are all grown up with their own families and all live in he same town. Sound familiar? This show is basically the one-hour drama version of Modern Family, a not that funny Modern Family. It has it's funny moments and is entertain in general. I'm still not sold on it entirely, but it didn't start until after the Olympics, so I'm giving it a shot for this season. One of Coach's kids is Lauren Graham, who plays a single mom just like she did in Gilmore Girls (my favorite show of all time). Sidenote - has anyone seen Lauren Graham in any sort of interview or award ceremony? She is a complete spazz, unable to read a teleprompter and kind of annoying. The jury is still out on this show. Since it doesn't conflict with any other show, it's staying on my list for now.

The Marriage Ref is a new show by Jerry Seinfeld where a panel of 3 celebrities discuss issues that specific married couples are having and bring to the show, and the host (or ref) listens to their thoughts and then decides in favor of the husband or wife. The tiffs between spouses have been things like: should a husband be allowed to keep is stuffed dead dog in foyer, should a wife be allowed to floss in bed, and can a wife keep a formal dining room that no one can go into except for Thanksgiving. The problems run from mundane to gross to crazy. So far, the show has been really funny. The couples have been interesting people with interesting problems. The panel of celebrities have been funny. My favorite trio of celebrities so far has been Kelly Ripa, Alec Baldwin and Jerry Seinfeld. The three of them have been on together twice so far, I think. I was most surprised that Kirstie Alley was at times funny instead of being horrible the whole time like I expected. Ricky Gervais was another one of my favs. So as long as they continue to find funny couples with funny problems and funny celebrities, this show should continue to be entertaining.

So those are my thoughts on TV for now. I am sure I will write more in the future. Surely there will be rants on Lost and the disappointing contestants on American Idol and much more. When you watch as much TV as I do, you're bound to have a lot to say about it.

VFF UPDATE: Feeling good with my 3 mile or so runs. I feel completely used to running in them, having had them for 2 weeks or so. I haven't had any toe issues or anything like that.  All in all, my feet and legs feel better than with regular shoes. I'm tempted to put on my Nikes and go for a run to see what it feels like again. I am also starting a new training program that is has some Fartlek integrated (speedwork), so wish me luck with that!

A Blissful Run

Back to VFFs. I went running last night around 8, in my VFFs of course, and it was AWESOME! It was just that perfect run when all the conditions add up just right for an altogether pleasant experience. The temperature was 65 degrees with a slight breeze. My legs felt rested. I admittedly went a little slower than usual to try and focus on posture and how my feet were landing. Every step felt great though. I stood much more straight up than I have been. I think you are supposed to have a slight lean forward to run the way I want to, but as sloppily and slanted as I was running, it felt like I was standing up straight even though I had a slight lean.

By the time my little Nike+ man told me I had reached my halfway point I almost felt as if I had just started. Now I don't know if I am just getting in better shape or what, but I have been feeling a lot better running with VFFs, and it can't just be all coincidence. It makes sense too - you run more efficiently barefoot or close to barefoot because rather than completely stopping the forward motion upon each impact when you heelstrike in regular shoes, you land midfoot and you propel forward a little. (If this doesn't make sense to you, go back a couple posts and watch that video on barefoot running.) More efficient running means it should be easier, and it is. I hardly feel out of breath unless I really push the speed and even then, it's just out of breath, not that I'm going to collapse, heart-pounding sort of out of breath. On the other hand, my calves hurt a lot more. But if you are like me and love the burn when you work out, it's a good feeling, like I know my muscles are working. Back to the benefits of VFF running, my shins have not hurt at all and neither have my knees.

I have also been able to move down hills a bit faster. It's still not that gliding feeling that you get with regular shoes, but I've been moving more confidently and certainly quicker downhill. If anyone has tips on running downhill barefoot or in VFFs, please leave a comment. Uphill is still just so good. There is this one long hill on the path where I run, and if you are starting at Locust St and run north, by the time you get to the top of the hill it is about a mile, and it used to annoy me when I got to it. It's not very steep, but kind of long on this almost otherwise flat path. I noticed last night that I didn't even realize when I started up it. After I turned around, there is shorter, steeper uphill, and it feels so good to power up it. So uphill - good, downhill - getting better.

When I finished my run I felt like I could have gone on another. If it wasn't so dark I think I might have kept going. My favorite part about the run was that there almost no one on the path. I was out by the Schuylkill River Trail earlier that day to eat some bread, grapes and cheese and take a nap in the sun, and it was a disaster out there- tons of people running, walking and biking and just enough people haphazardly walking their dogs or toddlers and inconsiderate people strolling 3 or 4 wide to muddy it all up. I don't have anything against people moving any speed they like out there. I'm no Abebe Bikila, and think it's great that people are being active and out there at all. It is a nice place and I go out there to walk sometimes too. Everyone should be considerate of the others though, whether you're running or walking or biking. Please don't walk 3 people wide if the path is busy. Don't walk your dog without a leash if it's amazingly well-trained and will stay with you. When I'm walking home from a run with Ryan, we often walk single file when it gets busy and guess what? We can still talk to each other and be in eachother's company without taking up half the path. That goes for runners and bikers too. There is one thing I don't like though and that is rollerbladers. I don't want to discriminate, and I know that it might be one of the few places in the city that you can rollerblade, but it just takes up a lot of room. I kind of feel like people should just stop rollerblading all together. I sort of thought they had stopped some time in the 90s, but I guess there are a few stragglers.

Ok I think I am going to eat ice cream for brunch now. Next time look forward to some non-running related topics.

OOOHHHH MY GOOOOODNESS... The April Fools Prevail!

I know I'm trying to write about new things I try, and I've been talking about VFFs while I am still in transition and will continue to write about them, but I tried something else new tonight: WINNING QUIZZO! I'm still beaming with pride over it. Quizzo (also known as pub quiz) is lame, and I know it is so so lame that I so happy about coming in 1st place (yay!), but it's been a long wait and road to get there.

So I can't remember how it started, but my friends and I started going to Johnny Goodtimes Quizzo some time while we were in law school (maybe 3 or 4 years ago). It has been, at times, intense. There have been fights over team names, picking teams when we had to field 2 teams and of course over the right answer. Questions of morality have been raised, feelings have been hurt and being the douchebag law students-turned lawyers that we are, we have at times been a tad intense and serious about quizzo. That said, we have never been serious enough to "train" or study trivia or recruit quizzo superstars to join our team. We never cheat with our cell phones (except for once when some outsider was on our team, looked up the answer on his iphone and got it wrong - talk about instant karma). Some teams do some or all of those things though, and competition is tough at Johnny's quizzos (he runs like 5 regular quizzos a week at different bars). There is the favorite team or two to win at each quizzo. The top 3 teams at each quizzo win a GC to the bar they're at, so it's pretty cool if you can win.

Now my friends are in general pretty intelligent people, but quizzo isn't just about intelligece, it's about trivia. So someone can be pretty smart, but might be bad at trivia. You seem to need to have a collectively broad spectrum of trivia knowledge to always do well in quizzo. Just like trivial pursuit. I can answer the blue and green questions forever, and maybe even some orange and yellow, but I'm not going to win without a partner whose got a handle on pink and brown. (click here in case you can't remember.) So we are all fairly smart people, but collectively we weren't a trivia powerhouse. So in the past we probably could have counted on getting 6th or 7th place, solidly in the middle of the pack, with a 2nd place or 3rd place here or there when we happened to get a lucky topic some of us knew about. One amazing day when Ryan and I weren't there, our friends came in 1st. But overall, it was social, fun thing for us to do on Thursday nights since we certainly weren't favorites to win. I actually used to hate quizzo when we started because I hated losing, but at some point I lowered the bar and only expected to come in somewhere in the middle and started liking it a lot.

After law school, team members started moving away or their work schedules didn't allow for them to stay at a bar in center city past midnight on a weeknight, so we stopped going to quizzo. But, maybe a couple months ago a few of us were free and in the area and decided to go, and we got 2nd place! Pumped and enthused by what would have been a big deal to us before, we went again the next week and got 2nd place again! We haven't made it to quizzo every week since then, but we've been there pretty regularly, and I think we came in 2nd place every time except for once, plus tonight when we came in 1st! The team we beat almost always wins and was winning back when we were in law school coming in 6th place every week.

So when Johnny read the scores, and he read the 3rd place team and our team hadn't been called yet, I just assumed we would come in 2nd as usual. And when he called our team name, "The April Fools," as the winners, the 5 us (two of whom I should mention are not and have never been lawyers or law students) threw our hands in the air and cheered as loudly and happily as when the Giants beat the Patriots in the superbowl a couple years ago. My hands were actually shaking, and I had trouble texting past members of our team to let them know of our victory. Within minutes we had pictures of our $40 GC on facebook.

It's all so so so geeky. I know that it is, and I hate myself a little for being so happy about this, but it's just one of those things that feels good with no bad feelings attached. The kind of happy you get when you're a kid when good news doesn't come with a downside too, like it often seems to now. For example, you graduate law school - yay... except you don't have a job and the bar exam is looming over your head. Or, yay you get a promotion... but now you have all this extra work and no time for quizzo. This was high-fiving, smiling from ear-to-ear, hoot and hollering kind of happy, and it just felt good.

So congratulations to Ryan, Parveen, Todd, Elana and myself!

For you VFF junkies out there, I did wear them yesterday for a full, very long day of a lot of walking and standing, and my feet didn't hurt at all like they probably would have in regular shoes, but my calves were really tired at the end of the day, which I have never felt before just from standing and walking around.

Slinky is a barefoot runner

I woke up today, and the first thought in my head was, NOOOOOO! I can't get out of bed. It's going to HURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT! So I stayed in bed. That didn't last long though because my lovely cats cannot be fooled by people pretending to be asleep. When I open my eyes in the morning, it is the equivalent of ringing the dinner bell for little Slinky ("wearing" VFFs above) and Burt. They meow and walk all over me until I get up. So I cringed, sat up and got ready for a world of hurt when I put my feet on the ground. I gingerly placed them on the floor and stood up and Hallelujah!!! It didn't hurt! And, it hasn't hurt all day. I made it down the stairs no problem.

I did wear my VFFs for about 15 minutes today just popping out to the store, and my toe hurt from yesterday again, like a little tiny pebble was in there. It was annoying, so tomorrow I'm going to try putting a lot of Gold Bond powder in the toes tomorrow to see if maybe that will help at all. I'm not sure why it would help, but I like Gold Bond as a sort of cure-all. I'm hoping this pain isn't an issue tomorrow. I'll take the time to wiggle my toes in just right and with the Gold Bond, it might just do the trick. If not, Injinji socks might be necessary. They are socks with toes that cost a whopping $13/pair. Let's not hope for that.

On my short trip outside with the VFFs today, I noticed something that I didn't notice before. My feet were really cold. I ran in the rain yesterday, and it was cold out the other day, but today was rainy and cold, and that combo left my feet frigid. It's amazing how much cold passes from the ground, through your shoes and to your feet. Add that in with the cold rain getting in through the thin fabric that keeps me cool while I'm running, and my feet were ice. I'm hoping that winter is really truly over and this won't be an issue to think about for many many months, but I wonder how it will be come October or November when running in below freezing temperature. There is another style VFF made for colder weather, made with thicker fabric, but the cold you feel from the ground has still got to be an issue because the sole of the shoe still has to be so thin and minimal. If it's anything like this past winter (please let it be really be past) when I was out running with feet of snow on the ground in temperatures in the teens and below, extra thick neoprene isn't going to cut it. Right now, I'll just enjoy the warmer weather and be thankful I wasn't out running today.

This is my other cat Burt btw.

The Inaugural VFF Run: A Downhill Battle

So I know, I was cautioned against it. Told to take it easy and slowly transition from wearing to walking to running in Vibram Five Fingers. "Wear them at home for 5 minutes and then add a couple minutes a day until the pain goes away," cautioned some random VFF wearer. After reading all the forums and blogs, I had every intention to make the transition slowly. Run in my conventional sneakers and just walk home barefoot, or almost barefoot. Run for 5 minutes in them and then add a minute each day.

But, I couldn't wait! I love using my news things right away, so 6 days in I have walked miles and miles and already ran twice in them. Here is the history of my brand new VFFs in a nutshell:

• Wednesday: I got my VFFs around 5:30pm, went for a run in sneakers and then walked home in my VFFs. (felt great!)
• Thursday: I wore them all day, and walked all over town in them. (still felt great!)
• Friday: Had to go to NJ (blah) and wear heels all day (basically the opposite of barefoot) and no time for running or walking (felt sad to be without VFFs)
• Saturday: Walked to the post office and then to the Schuylkill River Trail (about a mile) and then ran for 30 minutes and walked home (felt great!)
• Sunday: Writhed in pain (felt like cutting my legs off at the knee)
• Monday: Went running in the rain for 30 minutes (back to feeling pretty good and scared about tomorrow's pain)

This is a really long post, so feel free to stop reading here if you're short on time.

So I wrote about the first few days walking, and this time I'll talk about my first experiences running, but here is a little background about me as a runner. I run with my boyfriend Ryan (see picture above of our feet). We are in the last few runs of an accelerated couch potato to 5K program. We did it last year, and then I started training for a half marathon, got hurt around the 11mile runs and was a sloth from September to December. Let that be a word to the wise, DON'T STOP RUNNING! And if you have to stop, try not to be as lazy as humanly possible during that break. Anyway, right now I run a few miles every other day, and once I'm used to my VFFs, I plan on slowly increasing my long runs and hopefully doing some longer races later this year.

Back to VFF running. Saturday I planned on just running and stopping when it hurt. Ryan was still sore and was sure he wouldn't go more than 10 minutes before dying of pain, but before we knew it, we finished our 30 min run for the day! It felt a little weird at first. My stride felt shorter (you're supposed to take shorter strides), and I was running a little cautiously, so it felt a little like I was going in slow motion. But as I realized it didn't hurt to run, I started moving a little faster with more confident strides, and it felt good. Every step felt powerful - like the way my feet were landing and the power of my toes were propelling me forward, and it kind of was. This video explains the physics of it well.

So the whole run felt great. My legs weren't getting tired and neither was the rest of me. Going uphill was amazing. That's worth repeating. GOING UPHILL WAS AMAZING! I felt like I was pushing off my toes, and it was powering me up the hill no problem. Plus, the shoes are so light that I just felt free. When going uphill you can't help but land on the ball of your foot, so it feels natural in VFFs. Now this is kind of an amazing thing because sometimes all I can think about on my run is how awful it will be when I have to go up the next hill, and it's not even very hilly where I run. But it's not all great - because while going downhill used to be a welcomed relief where you can plop your foot down and quickly glide down the hill while catching your breath, in VFFs, it's kind of hard. It doesn't feel natural because you are trying to land midfoot, and that sort of holds you back. It felt like I was stuttering down the hill rather than coasting like before. Now is this a fair trade-off? I think so. The disadvantage of going downhill is that it might take some time to get used to and I might not get that relief that I used to get. BUT, I might not need that relief if I don't feel like I'm going to collapse when I get to that top of a hill.

I didn't feel pain until about 20 minutes in. I started to feel like I was doing calf raises, except without ever lowering your heels. My calves felt clenched, but it was a little cold out and it was easy enough to push through for ten more minutes. Admittedly, I probably could have avoided this pain altogether if I didn't start to break out in a sprint to race Ryan to the turn-around point (I won by the way, but only by cutting through a parking lot). I felt pretty decent after the run. I felt pretty decent the rest of the night for that matter, but when I woke up the next morning and put my feet on the floor, well that was another story.

The next day, it felt like I did one trillion calf raises. It was as if my calves were flexed and wouldn't relax. After a few days of consciously not heelstriking when running, I was heelstriking while walking out of necessity. In fact, I was delicately walking on my heels without letting the rest of my feet touch the floor because it was so so painful. I stayed inside all day, mostly because I don't think I would have been able to make it down the 2 1/2 flights of stairs to get out of my building. (Going down stairs is the most painful.)

I woke up this morning, and I was still in pain. Walking a little robotronically, but after a couple Tylenol and some stretching, I was ready to run again. I ran for 30 minutes today at a slightly slower pace than usual. It felt good. It wasn't the free feeling run from 2 days ago, but it was good. My feet felt okay, other than a pain in my toe afterwards from the seam. I wasn't sore after the run, and I'm not sore now. I am not, however, looking forward to tomorrow. I'm scared for tomorrow. I have things to do tomorrow and won't be able to lay around like Sunday. So, I have my fingers crossed that I won't be quite as sore tomorrow as after the first run.

There were a couple things I noticed so far that I want to stay cognizant of:

• Posture - I noticed that I was leaning forward today. I think I was still sore, so I got sloppy with my posture. It kind of annoyed my ankle though, and I think I was moving slower. These things are supposed to help with posture over time so maybe it will just take some getting used to.
• Toes in the toe sockets correctly - There are seams on the inside of the toes, and I think that if your toes aren't in properly, it can irritate your big toe, kind of like it did today to me. It felt like there was a tiny pebble in my toe. I didn't feel it while I was running, but afterwards it hurt like I ran 3 miles with a pebble in my shoe. Now this is a flaw with the shoe, in my opinion and apparently Vibram's too because the new style, the Bikila is coming out soon, and it is designed for running and has no seams facing the foot. But seeing as it hasn't come out yet, and I own KSOs, I am hoping that spending some time getting my foot in just right will help with this problem.
• STRETCH!!! - Now I am not so good about stretching. I know I should be, but I often skip it. But, it is so imperative to stretch your calves before and after running. It helps with the pain so much that you will want to stretch, so I think I should be able to handle remembering to stretch now.
• Picking up your feet - When I get tired when running, I have a bad habit of shuffling. In regular shoes, who cares really because you are still getting the job done, but not so in the VFFs. When I started to drag my feet today, it sent really uncomfortable vibrations up my legs that I felt in my bones, and I got that feeling like you are about to trip and then you catch yourself. So, no more shuffling.

So let's hope I'm not regretting jumping right into my VFFs tomorrow.