Naked (foot) Running!

Ran along the Esplanade at the beach today in me bare feet.  Wasn't too bad though did get some strange looks from old people. It's a lovely Sunny but windy day today, to the extent that I may have burnt my little freckley arms.  

I started off by running on the grassy verge bit as I wasn't sure about running directly on the pavement since I don't really have the appropriate hard skin coverage on my soles yet.  Once I felt like I had my technique down - no strange strains in my knees from leaning awkwardly - I hit the pavement.  Well, some of it.  Not all of the Boully (as they call it here) is tarmacked over.  Some of it has broken down to little hard stones sitting on otherwise flat tarmack, and other sections don't have any tarmacked cover at all.  I didn't have the confidence to go onto those sections but I was finding that on the covered sections I could feel a 'thump' that I didn't on the grass and you're supposed to land softly.  So worked on that. 

I was all honestly trying for half a mile, and expected it to get really difficult, like perhaps I wouldn't be able to get the technique down and I'd have to start doing drills, or perhaps my legs wouldn't be able to take the change in exercise (because you do use different muscles between cycling and running) but I got .8 into a mile and I thought I'll go the other .2.  And then I thought 'I'll run to to the Giddy Blonde' (who was holding my trainers on standby) When I reached him we had a little chat over where I was sore/how I was finding it etc, and then I went the other half mile back to the car.  So that was 2.4 miles!  Which is a bit of a Woop Woop!

My feet do feel tired.  Nothing is sore per se but there is a tenderness just before the foot bends for the toes.  It is right at the very top of the ball.  I think this is probably due to the skin not being uniformly tough, and I don't want to give myself any blisters.  My intention is to keep the miles short for now.  To check that any niggles I feel from tired feet aren't actually bigger issues, and to toughen up the soles slowly.  

Here's the bare metrics (I was trying to get my heart monitor to work so the map looks a wee bit mental and not intentionally so):

Distance:	2.4 mi
Elevation:	+ 48 / - 57 ft
Avg. Grade	-0.3 %
VAM	82 Vm/h
Ascent time	00:10:47
Descent time	00:17:37
Moving Time:	00:28:24
Max Speed:	6.1 mph
Avg. Speed:	5.0 mph
Moving Pace:	00:12:03

Mx