Friday I did my regular Gym session, but instead of intervals this week I did a 4.5 mile steady run.
On Saturday I walked with my girlfriend and baby son around Rudyard Lake in Staffordshire. It was a cold day. Barely above 0C...brrrr. It was only a 5 mile walk around the lake, so I carried my son in his carrier-rucksack the entire distance to compensate. I'm not sure how much he weighs, I'm guessing about 12kilos. It was intesting to note how much more strain that weight puts on your feet. After just the 5 miles the ball of my left foot was just starting with a hotspot. More of that later. Somewhere on the walk I lost my Timex data recorder. I left my phone number at the visitor centre, but there's no chance i'll see that again. They're £50 as well...ouch. I'll do without one for now maybe and just post the results straight from the timex watch instead.
I got back to the house after the walk and I'd had a delivery...a book from Amazon; "Fixing Your Feet, by John Vonhof". I've been reading this for the last couple of days. It's highly recommended. It deals with all proactive and reactive measure to help keep your feet in shape before/during and after an event. Blisters are a big focus as you can imagine. It lists countless methods of prevention and suggests trying a few to find out what works for you. I ordered some Injinji socks from the USA too about 10 days ago. These are toe-socks so each individual toe is covered by the coolmax wicking cloth, as well as the rest of the foot as normal. Be interesting to see how I get on with them. I've also found that the Asics socks I've been using are excellent too. They have a left and right foot, with cushioning matching up in all the right places on each foot. They are quite thin, much thinner than the 1000 mile socks i've been using. I'll trial a few different pairs and see what works best.
Today I ran an easy 9 miles. It was a trail route and was very wet indeed. My shoes and socks got quite wet and after about 4 miles I could feel that hot spot returning. Rather than push through and risk a blister I remembered some advice from the book. I took a minute to sit down and take off my shoe and sock. I got rid of all dust and dirt from the sock and shoe. Dried out the sock as much as possible and dried and wiped the foot clean. After than I had no further problems whatsoever! I'm sitting here soaking my feet at the moment and using a pummice stone to buff hard skin away. Reading accounts of all the ultra distance athletes in this book (including some from the Marathon Des Sables) makes you really appreciate just how important foot care is. I'm going to make a lot of effort to keep them in good shape now.
Same time next week...the last data record below..from Wednesdays 5 mile.
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