4th Annual Thanksgiving Day Ultra/Marathon

I had the most amazing running experience of my life today. Julian and Alex Romero orgainize this guerilla style marathon running the LA marathon course every year at Thanksgiving. The one and only Ken Bob was the mobile Aid station in the car and sometimes running with us as his wife took the wheel. Those guys actually ran to the starting line!

I joined the group near my house..I figured I'd jump in and run a few miles until I couldnt keep up. Alex's marathon PR is 2:40 and Julian's is 2:47. There were 9 total people including the Ken Bob aid wagon in our clan. The only barefooters were Alex,Julian, Ken Bob and myself. I was in hog heaven! These are all the guys I have read about and looked up to and here I am running shoulder to shoulder with them!

I couldnt believe how light Julian, Alex and Ken were on their feet. Very gentle, yet fast and effortless. We got kinda lost at one point and I was having a blast so I didnt care. We ran some gnarly terrain and had some good hills in there too. When we make it the Beach, its a beautiful day, I am running with Ken Bob on my right shoulder and Julian is directly in front of us... as we hit the beach I am at mile 12 and the pace keeps getting faster it's sitting at 7min pace at that point. As we get to the boardwalk and hit mile 13 for me its mile 35 for them!! We decide to race the last mile back to the pier...we pick a starting point and we hit it and we are off and flying! Alex is immediately like....gone...Julian right behind. I am pushing at a 6 min pace and watching them disappear towards the pier. I am huffing and puffing and choking on my own spit at 6 min pace at mile 13 ... I finish, we all finish, joy!

I end up with 14 miles and Julian and Alex end up with 36 and the others 37! Those guys actually ran to the starting line!

Everybody there was so talented I felt so lucky and happy to be around such talent and such interesting folks!

The bonus was at the end Ken Bob gave us all Running Barefoot tye dyes!

Happy Thanksgiving!

52 miles

I am late entering last weeks miles as I have been crazy busy at work. I decided to cut miles as I was getting kinda grumpy and insane. 52 is easy at this point.

74 mile week

My biggest week to date, 74 miles. I was supposed to be tapering but I got bored and I am still not sure if I am gonna do the mountain race. I did manage to get in my first barefoot Interval workout at the track, which is my first track session since my transition. I noticed while doing the intervals that my posture felt so much better than it used to in shoes when running hard (5:45 pace). I didn't feel like the space shuttle re-entering the atmosphere! It will take awhile to get used that crappy, spongy, textured surface on the track but I do like not having to worry about cars. I also got in a hard farltek session on some trails in my Luna Sandals, a mini-long run of 10.5 mi. barefoot through the streets and a bunch of other miles! This week will be less. I hope. ;)

Quality control

Hola,
This past week had a lot of quality hard running in it. I reduced mileage to 43.2 but put the pedal down.

The week's speedwork was all done barefoot:
I did two 5 mile Tempo runs in the 7:28 range on the streets. I did an interval/fartlek session which consisted of 10x100 meter on a grass infield and 6x 2min. hard 2 min. easy on a concrete loop.

I was starting to taper this week for the trail mountain race but I dont think I am going to do it. I dont want to wear anything on my feet and the terrain is just gnarly and I will get blown away by guys I know I could beat if I either A. Had something on my feet or B. Ran on another surface.
I think I will shoot for a 5k on the streets in January.

I dunno...my buddy Shack is gonna be there.. I guess I'll barefoot the biatch!

Adios,BURT