This morning was a typical base run of 6.5 miles, nothing fast, nothing slow. I felt a bit draggy this morning before I ran, but I knew once I got going that I would be fine and I was.

There was one thing I did differently this morning. I have been reading Born to Run by Christopher McDougal. In his quest to figure out why his feet hurt so much (sounds like a similar journey, eh?) he discovers the amazing Tarahumara runners of Mexico and their fantastic ability to run long distances. The book turns into a discussion of barefoot running and the advantages of using the natural foot design as opposed to all of the fancy running shoes, orthotics and inserts we runners hold dear. It made a lot of sense and I would really like to try the Vibram Five Fingers shoes he recommends. I have some reservations though, I wear a half inch lift in my right shoes to compensate for a shorter leg, I wonder how that would work with these and I also wonder if running without my lift would be a bad thing. So with barefoot running on the brain, I did the absolute opposite for my run today and embraced the evil cadre of podiatrists and wore my orthotics for the first time in a couple of months. My feet feel a bit more achey after my run and I don’t know if I want to go back to wearing them. But we’ll see.