Did 2.5 miles on the treadmill last night. I got my new (and working!) HRM yesterday, so I finally got recent HR data for running. I did my last 12/18 run (run/walk) and as should be expected, I was in the watch defined zone 3 for 12 minutes. Avg HR was 139 with a peak at 165. My run interval averages were around 144. I need to read up on how to manually adjust the settings in the watch, but I did input my max HR and age before I started.

Anyway, way more exciting is that I tried something totally new last night! When I first started, I ran for 3 minutes barefoot. I did one minute at 4 mph, 1 min at 5 mph and 1 min at 6 mph...with NO foot pain. It was really fun and I found getting into the Chi Running technique extremely natural and easy without the shoes.

Then I did the 12/18 workout. Near the end (the last two walking intervals), my foot started to hurt in the usual spot. I thought maybe that it was from the barefoot experiement, so I tried another one. As soon as I hit 30 minutes, I kicked off my shoes and ran another two minutes barefoot. The pain disappeared immediately! I'm sold.

Today I'm going to buy some cheap insoles for my running shoes so that I can lose my orthotics. I threw away all the insoles for all my athletic shoes ages ago because I was told to ALWAYS wear my orthotics. I'll use my same running shoes minus the orthotics until I can condition my feet/legs to the barefoot thing (and for cold winter runs until I can get something else).

Oh, and today my lower legs are kind of achey and tired (like after a day of walking at an amusement park all day) but my feet feel great!