Published by Ronald on Monday, 07 Mar 2011 15:57 EST
Weight loss is the highest priority for forty percent of beginner runners and usually it's not just a matter of losing a few pounds. On average, beginners want to lose around 20 pounds. Of course, we all want to lose that weight as fat and not muscle. According to television shows and books, we would need to make complete lifestyle change and only eat healthy things to reach the results desired.
But how do you go about this? I have heard lots of success stories from my family and friends, but I’ve also seen many people try and never lose any weight at all. This is the category I fall in to, no weight loss at all. Luckily losing weight wasn’t my only reason to run. The reason I started running was to get into shape and just feel fit. But why didn’t I lose any weight?
Published by RunningPoint on Wednesday, 02 Mar 2011 10:45 EST
I realized yesterday while writing my Back to Barefoot article that it may be interesting to some of you to read how and why I started running barefoot. As I have mentioned previously, I have had a pretty long relationship with running. It has most certainly been on again, off again over the years but every time I return to running I always wonder why I ever stopped the last time.
My first experience with running began 11 years ago. I was young and living on my own, and had just gotten my first real desk job. In the past, I had always had an active and physically taxing outdoor job which required no exercise outside of the workplace. The desk job was a total culture shock and I slipped into a pattern of sedentary work and copious amounts of snacking. One morning, I found that my pants were uncomfortably tight and decided that something had to be done. I was at my heaviest, roughly 220 lbs on a 5'-10" frame with my 36 waist 29 inch inseam pants cutting me in half. My father turned to running when I was a small child to shed a few pounds, and I figured if it worked for him why not give it a try. I went to the local mall and found the highest priced pair of Nike running shoes that were on the best sale and bought them (this is a habit that I continued until I started to learn about minimal shoe running, but I don't want to get ahead of myself). I usually set a goal of $50 maximum price price to pay for shoes. I started slow and ended up becoming a daily runner. Over a few years, I shed 50 total pounds and never felt better.
Published by RunningPoint on Tuesday, 01 Mar 2011 14:20 EST
After a long cold winter of running in shoes, I am ready to start back running "barefoot". I started my transition from traditional running shoes to barefoot running last summer and was sidelined by both weather and a stupid injury late in the fall.
I had the unfortunate skill of stepping on sharp rocks with my left foot only, and always in the same spot at the uppermost part of my arch. I decided foolishly that this was a normal part of barefoot running (not actually barefoot by the way, but wearing huaraches) and that I had to condition myself to deal with it.
On that last fateful run, nothing went right. The run ended early when a sudden and intense new pain shot through my left foot and I was left walking/limping back to the car. After a painful month of recovery from what I think was a metatarsal stress fracture, I decided to ease back into running and bought a pair of Saucony Kinvaras and a pair of Brooks Mach 11 spikeless XC flats. I had read reviews on both and consulted a local running specialty store and decided that the Kinvaras would be a great minimal shoe that was padded, and that the Brooks would be a good minimal shoe to ease back to barefoot running.
Published by Ronald on Monday, 28 Feb 2011 08:10 EST
I got this awesome HTC Desire phone a while ago with android and I'm really pleased with it. It can do lots of fancy things including keeping track of your runs. I'm a geek so I like keeping track of stats and measuring my improvement. I like to see how many miles I have run in a month or in a year because it keeps me motivated to keep going. I can see that about 8 months ago I could barely do 2 miles properly and now I can run 6 miles about three times a week.
Right now I'm using the simple but pretty good sportypal for my phone which is a simple app that tracks my runs and uploads them to their website when I'm done. On the website, I can check what I have run so far and keep track of everything it has recorded. It makes a nice overview of stats like how many calories I have burned, how many miles I have run so far, and if my pace was consistent etc.
Published by RunningPoint on Friday, 25 Feb 2011 13:25 EST
Here's a great video from the Natural Running Store on some quick easy changes to make you a more efficient runner and to help you transition to a minimal shoe or barefoot running. I love the huge change from before to after. Also, thanks to Altra Running for posting the video as part of their Learn To Run Initiative.
Published by RunningPoint on Wednesday, 23 Feb 2011 13:54 EST
For those who don't know what huaraches are, they are simply one of the most basic forms of footwear. The huaraches consist only of a material that protects the bottom of the foot and a lace to secure them. They have been used specifically by the Tarahumara Indians and have been popularized by Chris McDougall's book Born to Run.
Steven Sashen of Invisible Shoes decided to modernize the huaraches by using a high quality Vibram (yes that Vibram) Cherry sole material which is 4mm thick and has a smooth side for your foot to ride on and a tread side to provide traction. Here's the catch, there are only two ways to get these shoes: a DIY kit or have Steven custom make you a pair. I am a complete and total cheapskate and quite handy so I opted for the DIY kit and will now chronicle the creation of my huaraches from start to finish as part 1 of the review.
Published by Ronald on Tuesday, 22 Feb 2011 14:01 EST
I have been running on my midfoot/forefoot for a few months now using my old Adizero Ace shoes. These shoes were already very light and flat compared to my old traditional running shoes. I needed some new ones though so I looked for an even flatter and minimal shoe so I decided to get the Adidas Adizero Rocket.
The first Adizero Rocket model was released in July 2009 and the one I got were released on January 2011. It comes with forefoot adiPRENE+ which is supposed to provide extra support for the forefoot. It seems to make the sole around the forefoot pretty stiff so I'm not sure if that's a good thing.
Published by RunningPoint on Friday, 18 Feb 2011 16:12 EST
I was quite excited to find out that my local outdoor equipment store was planning to carry the Merrell Barefoot line and even more excited to hear that they would have them mid-February. As soon as I started reading the initial impressions from the lucky few who got a pair of these shoes early to test, I knew that I had to add these to my list of shoes I must own.
So now the big question is: After trying them on and walking around the store do I still have to own them?
