My sleep was being affected by my lack of exercise.** Two weeks of no biking or running, I was sleeping 30 minutes to an hour more than before. I was getting home from work, eating, and by the time my head was screwed on straight again the sun was going down.
I determined to run anyways and did my third run with shoes, since it was getting colder out. As soon as I tied them up I was surprised by how heavy they were. I was afraid I was going to hate the experience again.
I was surprised by three things:
- My stride did not go back to the typical heel strike that is often attributed to shoes. I kept running the same as if I had no shoes on, I could tell this because my heel wasn’t hitting first, and because my muscles in my legs felt the same as when I ran barefoot.
- I didn’t hate it.
- It made the bouts of walking I did easier (because it’s HARD to walk without heel-striking and that does not feel nice when you have no shoes on).
So I’m happy to say that I’m OK to run with these shoes I have, but I still would like to get some barefoot running type shoes, either Vibrams or some of the more normal-looking “minimalist” shoes.
**I wrote these three posts a few weeks ago.
