Run Free? TBC...

Nike Free

So the barefoot debate continues - not only in my mind, but also in the minds of my fellow 2013 MDS competitiors. There has been a lot of discussion on t'interweb regarding the training for and completion of the MDS in minimalist shoes amongst the 2013 group. It seems there are quite a lot of people training in Vibrams (me included for the most part, more on that later) or an equivalent minimalist shoe and all have the same question - how do get through the desert's sand, snakes, bugs and rocks in shoes that will essentially leave your feet open to various bits and pieces and in turn lead to pain and blisters? Looking at my Five Fingers Bikila, I think it would be near impossible to run the MDS in them and expect my feet to survive and I'm not even sure if I could get a pair of gaitors (the standard sand defence) attached to them to keep stuff out.

With this in mind and due to a small cold snap in December where my feet froze in my Five Fingers during a 6 mile run on Cork's old train line in heavy rain, I decided that wearing Vibrams for the winter was out of the question, with or without the special finger socks that you can now buy to keep your feet warm! So I decided to try a pair of Nike Free (pictured above) - these are essentially light barefoot runners but with more support than the Fingers that should, in theory, retain the barefoot style I have become accustomed to in my ridiculous looking foot gloves.

At first they felt great, really light with a nice rebounding action during runs over tarmac, and I even managed to run a PB for one of my regular routes. They feel awkward if you heel strike in them, almost pushing you off balance and so they force you to land with a mid-foot strike, with the feeling of cushioning, rather than feedback through the balls of your feet as you get in the Fingers. This gave me great hope of course, but it wasn't long before I began to feel a little bit of pain in my shins, which worried me. This did coincide though with a slight increase in mileage up to and during the Christmas period, as well as my understanding that my luminous yellow, ridiculous looking hockey shoes were doing me no good at all. They have since been donated to Cork County Council for use by their road crews when working at night. I think as well that because they were new and felt great initially that I probably pushed myself a little hard in them, rather than take it slow as I did with the Fingers for the first month.

Overall they went through some long adventures - a good ten miler through Cratloe Woods on Christmas day, a long hungover run across the city to collect my car the day after St. Stephen's (Boxing) day and a 12 miler up and around the Knockshanvo hills at home in Clare, where at one point I was knee deep in a large pool of "mucky muck" in a bog (I would have been goosed if I had been wearing the Fingers), not exactly Sahara conditions. As well as that they went through a good few shorter runs as well as a couple speed endurance sessions on a sand-based astro-turf pitch, slighltly more akin to Sahara conditions (I know I'm grasping at straws).

By the first week of January, the pain was back in my shins, albeit not as bad as it was in late November. This was then compounded by a long, wet, foggy jaunt of a hill walk to the west of Galtymore in Tipperary (which I consider part of training - long hilly walks are meant to be good preparation, especially those with a back pack weighing you down) in my old hiking boots.

The switch back into the Vibrams was immediate and coupled with a long cycle to make up for mileage, my legs were significantly better by mid-January. I've also switched to an old pair of Salomon shoes for hockey, which seem to be doing the trick considering you cover up to 6 miles during a match (yes, I sadly strapped a GPS onto myself for a couple of games).

So where am I now in relation to Nike Free? I'm not really sure as to whether or not I should give them another lash. Should I use them in my bare feet (I had been wearing socks) and take my time, nice and slow, to see if I can run in them injury free over distance? Should I abandon them now and stick to the Fingers? Blog readers, if you have any thoughts I'd like to hear them. Nike Free - TBC.

Furthermore, what do I do for the MDS? One possibility is Merrell's Trail Glove, the Goretex version should keep sand out and also should allow for a gaitor to be glued on to protect from sand getting in. It's an option anyway.

One highlight of my January training was the bike ride - it gave my legs a nice rest and a nice distraction from another day running on a road or over a grass pitch. Replacing a run with a cycle has a lot of merits but in terms of monthly mileage, how do I incorporate miles cycled into miles run, or can it be done? I had originally thought of simply dividing by 3 - i.e. 30 miles cycled is 10 miles run but as usual the internet provided a far more complicated method of conversion taking into account things like average speed, how many dogs chased you, wind resistance from periods cycling behind JCBs and the pothole quality of the backroad between Glanmire and Midleton (it was very specific), all of  which seemed far more accurate. 

After all of that, January 2012 finished with over 120 miles (up from 105 miles in both November and December) in the training diary (running, cycling, hill walking and hockey miles included) but with a lot of questions in  my mind over footwear and the like. Not a bad start to 2012...      

Down in the Dumps

Tramore Valley 5k
"And We're Off"

Amidst a flurry of Movember moustached men (and some women), the inaugural Tramore Valley 5k in aid of Marymount Hospice was hosted in the former Cork landfill site or city dump, which will shortly be opened as Cork's new "super park". Despite a slight smell of methane from what I suspect are badly capped landfill cells (yes I am an nerdy environmentalist), nearly 300 people ran the 2-lap course on a fairly windy day.

The new park, once officially opened, should be a superb facility and will have a link by footbridge to Vernon Mount, so there are high hopes for it to be a decent running facility, especially if they put in some lights for night running. This is good news given that the long term future of UCC's Farm is in doubt (apparently).

This was the first 5k I had raced in over a year and it was always going to be a good test to see if the consistent training due to a lack of shin splints (more on that later, some bad news I'm afraid) was having the desired effect. The course itself was relatively flat, with a slight downhill at the start and a slight drag at the end, so all in all fairly even.

The road, however, was a different story. There was relatively new paving for the best part of 3k which still had a lot of loose chippings, not great for the Five Fingers, but manageable despite the odd stone jamming into my heel, and with only one tight turn near the start slowing down the pack, it was a relatively fast course. I ran 20.06, which is my fastest for a while, so things seem to be moving in the right direction for the most part.

Coming In To Finish (Red Long Sleeve T-Shirt)

For the other part, my legs, in an act of submission to my training demands, decided it was time to familiarise me with an old injury, the shin splints have returned to my left leg. I don't really think it has been anything to do with my barefoot approach to running, rather it has coincided with my return to the hockey pitch and my clod-hopping astroturf shoes.

So off I went to the physio and after an hour of varying degrees of pain, there was an improvement. Between the shins, having my it band and iliopsoas released (whatever that means) and dry needles stuck into my legs, I felt much better (thanks to Sinead Murphy). There is still some tenderness after I run in my left shin but Christmas will bring a break from playing hockey, so we'll see if my astroturf shoes are the cause of the pain or not.

Dry Needles - Great Craic

Apart from that, it's been a good month for training, running over 25 miles a week, including one long run per week and a speed endurance session.  I'm hoping December will get that number closer to thirty and the new year will bring even more miles (at least that's the plan for the resolutions!).

No movement on the old MDS waiting list, still stuck at 48 but not too worried about that for the moment.

Where's That Sinking Feeling? - Cork to Cobh 2011

Icebergs Ahoy!

Given the race destination. it would have been easy to include in this post comments like "I didn't hit the wall, it was more of an iceberg" and "as Cobh came into view, I got that sinking feeling" but the fact of the matter was I never hit a wall, nor an iceberg and there was no sinking feeling.

The historical significance of our destination however, meant that the irony of the situation was not completely lost on me. It was after all the route that many would have taken from Cork to join the Titanic at it's last port of call before they drowned in an icy sea. It was also the last journey for many prisoners were taken from Cork Gaol to be deported to Australia (thank you Wikipedia). So all in all, safe to say it was essentially a punishment route, a very long Green Mile (thank you Stephen King) if you will.   

Having not ran anything over 10 miles since 2007 until the Cork Half Marathon in September, the 15 miles Cork to Cobh race was going to be a whole new challenge. September was a miserable month in terms of training, a combination of laziness, work and an occasional lack of motivation, meant that the half marathon was about as good as it got, and if you read the previous post, you will know that it was no highlight for me, with my legs exacting retribution on my body at the 10 mile mark.



Having seen the photographs from the Cork Half Marathon (see previous post), I was disappointed by my poor heel-striking form in the Five Fingers. It therefore meant that I would have to alter my approach to the race to try and maintain good running form, so as there were no pacers for the race, I thought I would try an hold a steady 7.30 mile pace for the 15 miles. It was going to be a little bit slower that what I thought I was capable of, but it would ensure that I ran with a decent foot strike.



Heading Out the Lower Glanmire Road
Check that foot strike!

My only time constraint was that I had to be in Cork Harlequins to coach my side in a Peard Cup clash with Bandon. The match was to start at 1.00 pm, which meant meeting at noon. The race started at 9.30 am and would take somewhere under two hours to finish, so there was little margin for error, but I was still conscious off heading off too quickly and struggling after 10 miles.

The plan was to finish, grab my bag from the van that takes your bag from the start, jump in the car (which was dropped down the night before) and high tail up to Harlequins. Nice and straightforward. All this while I missed the Ireland V Italy rugby world cup match, mind you the stewards kept us well informed during the race, even if you had recorded it and were hoping not to hear how it was going.

The route was fairly flat, straight out of the city from near the train station, out along the Glounthane road, passed Fota and straight out to Cobh. There's a bit of a drag once you got passed Fota and another one coming into Cobh.

Two sachets of energy gel, 3 bottles of water and a segment of orange from a nice lady on the side of the road saw me home in 1.53. I came through the half marathon distance a minute and a half faster than in Blarney and held my 7.30/mile target pace. That's about as exciting as it got! Another triumph for barefoot running, well Five Finger running.

It was after the race when the real punishment began. As soon as I finished, I started looking for the van and was then told the bags were in the community hall. "Grand" says I, "where's that?". The man pointed at the long, very steep hill rising out of the square in Cobh. "Up to the top of that hill, turn right and then up the other hill".

It must have taken 15 minutes to walk up the hill to the community hall and get the gear, before running down to the car, getting slightly lost and driving along the back roads (as the main roads were closed) to get to Harlequins, in my singlet, short shorts (I wear them) and my Five Fingers, my classic coaching outfit! Delivered the team talk, out onto the pitch to watch a 2-2 draw, extra time golden goal win. Happy days.



In other news, I'm up to 48 on the waiting list, slowly but surely getting there, and am looking at doing the "Run the Gauntlet" Gap of Dunloe Half Marathon in November, so trying to keep the head down training.

Barrack Hill, Cobh: "Up to the top of that
hill, turn right and then up the other hill".
The route to collect your bag. Balls.





No Sand, No Pack and Over 140 Miles to go...2011 Cork Half Marathon

Cork Half Marathon:
Spoon Shaped Course

There is an awful feeling you sometimes get when running road races – it’s the feeling that you’re close to the red zone and you are not even half way. Your body starts with “hold on a minute here, we’re running a bit longer than usual” and then for me it goes “screw you Phil, I don’t like this pace”. This is followed by “I know what will slow us down, I’ll threaten to cramp your legs and while I’m at it, I’ll mess with your breakfast and upset your digestive system, that’ll wipe the smile off your face.” I don’t think I was smiling anyway but I was in relatively high spirits finding myself slightly out of my depth with the cheery pair of balloon carrying runners leading the 90 minute pace team for the Cork Half Marathon.

The course is spoon shaped, going out and back on the same 4 mile stretch with a 5 mile loop in the middle. My plan was straightforward – keep the pace team in sight until half way and then hang on and try to get in around 95 minutes or so. Simples! 

The Smiling 90 Minute Pace Team in Orange with Balloons
(That's me on the left trying to hang on)

This was the first time me and my Five Fingers took to the road for a race, which made me a little bit nervous. After 4 miles I had been dropped from the pace group, but they were in sight, the lead runners laughing, joking and smiling for the occasional camera. That’s when the awful feeling set in, not even half way into the race. I was neither laughing nor joking at that point and I didn’t want to see a camera. I knew when I was driving to the race that I hadn’t trained to half marathon distance and that I would treat this as a training run, a starting point for increasing mileage in preparation for the MDS and so I decided to take it easy, but you get carried away with the pace group and before long your swimming against the tide, or to be more accurate running slower and slower as the pace group drift further and further up the road.

Chasing the Pack - Dropped After 4 Miles
Note the Right Foot Heel Strike - Poor Form

And I mean up the road. The first miles to the end of the spoon handle were over a relatively taxing but gentle incline, but you felt better knowing that you had to run back down the incline after the loop section. At the start of the loop the incline became steeper, still ok to run but slowing down the average pace by a fair bit. Just as it levels out, there’s a blind turn off the road to the right and you find yourself at the bottom of a punishing increase in incline into the village of Grenagh, a hill-top village overlooking the Mallow Road into Cork.

I set off with optimism, which quickly changed to that feeling you get when you question your own sanity, but I eventually found a rhythm and ploughed on for about half a mile. As you entered the village at the top, the crowds were unbelievable – there must have been 8 or 10 people clapping on the runners – you could barely see the road.

Onward and downward we ran out of Grenagh, down a steep hill past the 7 mile mark. It then levelled out thankfully and I had time to assess the situation – 6 miles to go, feet ok, legs a bit tight but it’s all downhill for the last 4 miles!

More lies from my brain - it actually wasn’t downhill at all, more flat from there to the finish with the odd incline. And somewhere between 9 and 10 miles, Team Phil disbanded, my body had had enough of me and thought that it would be good to tighten all my leg muscles as much as possible and so it did and it lasted until the end of the race. My last 3 miles were all well over 8 minutes, pushing my time to 1.38.38 and disappointingly away from my 1.35 target. I did meet Niall O'Crualaoich at the finish though, and he assured me I was on the right track for the MDS.

It was the first time the fingers had gone beyond 10 miles and the first time they had raced. My feet were a little sore afterward, mainly because of my neglectful approach to training in September, having had a very good and positive August of running. On a positive note, I had at least avoided BNS (Bleeding Nipple Syndrome!) as I got to grips with a tub of vaseline prior to the race - I learnt my lesson from the 2000 Dublin City Marathon.

Still haven’t decided whether to run Cork to Cobh 15 mile race on October 2nd, although having run the half marathon, it doesn’t seem as daunting.

My last thought was that if it was the MDS, I’d only have around 142 miles to go! And then I thought that I’d have been running on sand carrying a 10-12kg pack...well at least it's a start.

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.