RE: 15K Race report

[Guest guest]

Good for you Ralph. I have read some interesting articles about running

barefoot. Better for the athlete, better for your pocketbook. I'm a bare

footer also. However, I can't run because I have knee problems, and also I

get these dumb tumors on my feet. So, I'm an indoor exerciser. But when I

was young, before I trashed my knees waterskiing, I was walking/running

barefoot EVERYWHERE. Even over HOT asphalt, and the bottom of my feet were

ugly, but, far better looking than any shoes out there on the market. And

they wash up terrific

I look forward to hearing about your marathon report in January! OHHH that

will be cold on those toes! Well, maybe not in Orlando.

15K Race report

Hi everyone. I run to earn APs and have run the first race in 4 or 5

years on Saturday. The race was a 15K (9.3 Miles) race held in

Orlando and the start/finish was downtown at Lake Eola.

I don't have a car and got a ride from a friend to the race. I

planned on taking a bus home so I brought some items in my backpack

such as a change of tshirt, my laptop computer (Psion Netbook) and my

sandles. I brought the Netbook because I wanted to check out the WiFi

connection at Lake Eola that is provided by the city.

I arrived and got my race packet then tried to find the bag check. To

my amazement there was no bag check. I am originally from Chicago and

every race held downtown has a bag check tent. Since I didn't drive

to the race I couldn't bring my bag back to the car and ended up

running the race wearing the backpack. I estimate the bag weighed ten

pounds but since I have lost 25 pounds I was used to carrying the

extra weight when I started running about 3 months ago.

To compete this mental picture I also must now mention that I run

barefoot. I read a newspaper article many years ago that stated that

our feet were made by our creator to be used barefoot and after

adapting your body to get used to doing it are no more likely and

possiblly less likely for foot injuries than by wearing running shoes.

The sporting goods industry obvious doesn't want anyone to know this.

Please see runningbarefoot.org for more info.

So there I was with my running shorts, a halloween tshirt and backpack

and barefoot at the starting line. Of course this created a stir and

was approached by several runners before and during the race about

running barefoot. Most were amazed and a few were rude and a few were

congratulatory for being able to run that distance.

My goal is to run a marathon on January 30th and hopefully run it

under 4 hours and to do this you must maintain a 9 minute per mile

pace so I ran the race with an optimistic goal of running it at a 9

minute pace. I finished at 1:30:10 or a 9:41 pace. My actual running

time was slightly faster but I walked through all water stations.

Maybe a 4 hour marathon is not realistic yet.

Next race, 30K race November 20 in Ormond Beach FL, will run just to

finish this one.

Ralph

220/194.4/176