High Fives...

Well it's been 5 months in my Vibram Five Fingers and I thought it would be a good time to review where I was with them.

I have been running 3-5 days a week covering between 18 - 30 miles a week without a block of ice coming anywhere near my shins. I haven't had that sort of consistency since I was 17. The surfaces I have trained on have varied greatly from grass (45%), road/tarmac (35%), beach (15%) and forest trails/paths (15%). I have run on the flat, up hills, down hills and over all sorts of stones, broken glass, kerbs, tree roots, mud, muck, grit, gravel and dirt. I have broken PBs for a lot of my training runs that were  initially set in normal runners.

My primary training areas are as follows:

Glanmire's Pike - 2 GAA grass pitches making a half mile loop

Rochestown's Line - Old railway line turned into a tarmac walking/running path

Currabinny Woods - Forest trails - hilly, stony, muddy terrain, good for hill reps

Redbarn Beach - Compact sand beach, 3.5 miles long

My feet have gotten used to the varying terrain and there is little or no pain or awkwardness when I run on forest trails or gravel. There was a good bit at the start but my feet seem to have adapted accordingly.

In short, I'm thrilled with the Five Fingers.

I still have some questions though:

First of all, they get wet, which is fine in the summer but in the winter I'll freeze. Is the solution to run in Nike Free, which are more like normal runners, for the winter?

Secondly, what do I do with my orthotics in all my other shoes? Some of them were purchased big enough so that my orthotics would fit in well and would be too big without them. Should I stay wearing my orthotics in my shoes or take them out completely? What sort of shoes should I be wearing or does it matter when you are just walking around in them?

Thirdly, if and when it comes to it, what do I do for the MDS? Do I use the Fives as a foot strengthening mechanism and then run in normal shoes or do I try to find a minimalist pair of shoes good enough to get me through the Sahara?

Despite it's vast content, t'interweb offers few solutions to these questions. For the moment I shall crack on and keep my research going.

I bought a second pair of Fives before a recent trip to the Netherlands and trialled them around Utrecht. The Irish U18 hockey team thought they were hilarious. Despite the funny looks you get, they have been nothing short of superb. They feel even better that the first pair. I'm lovin' it...

The Only Way is Up...

A new entrant and straight in at number 85 in his first week in the charts is Phil Oakley...well in at 85 on the wait list at least. For those of you old enough to remember, "the only way is up baby" in the words of Yazz.

I sent off my deposit and was given my username and password for the site, allowing me access to the site's forums, my personal details and most importantly my position on the wait list. 

Doing my sums, I know that around 300 people signed through Running Sahara (RS) have gotten the confirmed places and so I need 85 of them to drop off in the next 12-18 months to get a place. My Saviour Steve from the previous post didn't think this would be a problem, but that's nearly a 30% drop out rate. The email you receive says not to worry too much until next year and that's when the list will start to move.

2 weeks later, I was checking out some information on the site and decided to check the wait list, I was up to 72...not bad going I thought to myself. A week later and I was up to 63 and the week after that I was up 10 places to 53, not quite Top of the Pops stuff, but positive at least. I have been at 53 for the last three weeks.

I've also been checking the forum. As you'd expect, the majority of entrants are from the UK, but there seems to be at least 2 other Irish people, both based in Dublin, who have signed up too.

"Arse Biscuits!" and My Saviour Steve

"Arse Biscuits"

If you have read the previous posts, you will know that I have been checking a website claiming to be "the official MDS website for the UK, Ireland and Israel" and that information for the 2013 MDS was forthcoming and forthcoming and forthcoming. Was it forthcoming? No.

By the time I had phoned them for the 10th time and finally got through to some random women wondering what the craic was, she didn't have a clue. Her response to my "false advertising" claim was that she didn't know anything. The following day, the website had changed.

So as it turns out that there's a new website, as a different company had taken over the registration for the MDS. "Arse biscuits" (courtesy of Fr. Jack Hackett pictured above) was how I summed up my disappointment very loudly when I realised that all of their 2013 places were sold out and I was 14 days too late, arse biscuits indeed. To make me feel even worse, they had started a registration list for 2014, compounding the guilt I had for not being more thorough in my research. Woe is me.

And so as I went home on the Friday, I threw all the toys out of my pram and I sulked, sulked at home, sulked my way through dinner with my wife Yvonne and friends of ours that night and then sulked my way through the weekend.

Yvonne told me that if I really wanted to get in, then I should get on with contacting charities etc. I sulked at that too.

On the Monday I thought it might be worth sending a "woe is me" email to the new website (http://www.runningsahara.com/ - RS) and to any charitable organisation that had ever anything to do with the MDS. One charity came back to me to offer me a potential place based on a proposal I was to submit around how I would raise money for them. Just as I was thinking how I was going to raise the money, RS came back and said it was no harm going on the waiting list and if that didn't work they said I could have a charity place with the official MDS charity - Solidarite - for 2013. Thank you to my saviour Steve at RS. Goodbye arse biscuits, hello smiley face. 



Questions & Answers

Niall O'Crualaoich

Shewer, shewer, shewer, we'd a man on there from the Cork area...After some futile attempts at trying to meet past competitors of the MDS from all over the country, I found just the man in Cork - Niall O'Crualaoich.

Niall is a bit of an endurance freak - he completed the 2009 MDS, which had it's first day washed out and they increased the mileage, he's swam the channel in nothing but speedos and some vaseline and is a veteran of more than one Ironman. When I asked him about the requirements in terms of physical competency to run the MDS, he said "you could do it now as you are, but you'd be f*cked by the end of it". Fair enough.

I had a list of questions for him, all of which were answered reassuringly for me:

Q: What about the heat?

A: It's not as bad as you think. Remember the Cork marathon in 2007? A guy I know did the MDS and then the Cork marathon that same year and said he suffered the heat more in Cork. But it is hot and you'll want to manage the water well.

Q: Is the 50 mile stage as bad as it sounds?

A: It's more than 50. Most people run to around the 40 mile mark and then eat and sleep for a bit before finishing, depends on how you feel. You might be tired afterward.

Q: How did you manage your feet?

A: Well the glue I used to attach the gaitors to my runners failed and so sand got into my socks and I got some blisters. I'd advise you to bring some extra glue.

And my list of questions continued until I felt much better about the whole experience. We left it saying that the best thing for me is to get in to the race and after that we'd meet and talk about training, gear, equipment etc.

So now just to get the entry and we're off...