Welcome To Natural Running!

I'm at St Mary's Hospice, Ulverston.  From Ulverston you can see Morecambe Bay,  a wilderness where sea-scape, skyscape and landscape sweep together in swathes of openness.  It's a dangerous place, a place of fast moving currents and sinking sands.  My plan is to run the 24 miles or so across to St John's Hospice, Lancaster, taking in the Cross-the-Bay half marathon organised by CancerCare, somewhere in the middle of my run.  My aim is a simple one, based on 25 years of exploring barefoot running.  It is to Go Well.  Runners universally want to go faster, further and better (less injuries).  Running barefoot puts an interesting context to this and some different challenges.  To achieve what I want to achieve, I'm going to have to be more continuously careful than a shod runner – a bit more thoughtful how the foot does down and picks up.  OK here goes.  The first step of the journey in which every step has to - modulate and respond to the changing underfoot terrain. After only four mindful step a car pulls out mindlessly.  I have to nimbly leap out of the way to avoid a quick end to the trip.

'Going well' means linking all the senses together, feeling how head and body synchronise into a smooth flowing action.  Through the town – aware of the usual urban hazards, dodging the dog shit and broken glass.  It's a kind of dance. There's a mile long canal before I reach Canal Foot and along the way I pick up some of the usual comment barefooters get and - great some sponsorship money for CancerCare, who I work for as an Alexander Technique Teacher.  I tell them I'm really only doing it to pay my wages!

From Canal Foot I'm ready to head off into the estuary. I've already been guided through the crossing by Ray Porter, the local guide, as to the best place to cross the day before.  Now I'm heading across the fast flowing currents of the Rivers Crake and Levens.  The sea washed turf on the other side is a barefooter's dream.  The time that I can cross safely and the race start time make it just a little tight, But I'm enjoying getting the timing good so that I don't have to hang around and let muscles go cold before the start of the race. Onto the tarmac lane that leads to Flookburgh – a delightfully smooth surface and perfect running weather conditions.

Yes, the timings work out perfectly.  I arrive 3 minutes before race registration which closes at 1.00pm and now an easy amble to the start line.  I like the contrast between the solitary experience of those first 6/7 miles and now the usual pre-race hub-bub and hype.  I note that I'm really a solitary runner.

Now we're off. The track to the shore is full of sharp stones but mostly I can use the grass fringes and then it's out into the Bay.  I've done this run before.  Its part of the treasure of estuaries – that they change incessantly.  The sand seems more ribbed and harder than last time.  Strangely this is quite a barefoot challenge and not as innocuous as it looks.  The waviness is very unpredictable, the eyes can't compute the corrugations that well.  It stretches the plantar fascia in the sole of my foot this way and that.  Even so I'm putting in comfortable 8 minute miles and finding a really flowing stride. Enjoying the wilderness.

I like to listen to my feet.  It helps to connect head and feet together.  I'm trying to hold a reserve in the tank for the 4 or 5 miles at the other end – keep attending to my running form.

Over the Rivers Keer and Kent and then the course zig-zags around to make up the half-marathon distance, so near yet so far.  I resist a temptation to go with the other runners around me who are experiencing that surge you get as you start to see the finish line.  The talk around me is of the usual finishing line fantasies – the hot shower, the golden hour of feeding your face with steak or whatever.  Partly because my bare feet become obviously more vulnerable as my body fatigues it now requires a special and focussed effort to attend to my running form – to keep going well.  Barefoot/natural strides are naturally shorter lighter and the cadence is quicker.  The last infuriating zig-zag is over – perhaps more frustrating to me because I'm really in a different event.

Crossing the finishing line in about 1 hour 50 minutes but hey - it is still not the end for me, but I'm definitely on the Lancaster end now with 4 miles of canal towpath or pavement running to reach my goal. I wanted to arrive before 4.00pm and I did with 10 minutes to spare making a total journey time of 4 hours and 35 minutes.

I enjoyed every step – except for one dark moment when the tiny sharp gritty stones of the canal towpath caused a momentary wish for some shoes.  A guy cycling home from the race stopped.  He gave me some water and said how much he admired my effort.  As a barefoot runner of 25 years I tend to run to the beat of my own drum and I love to let the changing underfoot terrain direct my pace but this last lift from a fellow runner made the world of difference to me.  I found my light responsive stride again– the sharp tiny stones became nothing more than a foot massage.  I finished without any aches and pains.  As I write (the day after) I have a little stiffness as I get going but no joint pain so I reckon I've stayed flexibly to my plan and Gone Well.