The running is less frequent than when we met

Last night the Danimal asked me to run with him. He's been doing all his runs by himself as of late. If you know the Danimal, you know it's killing him to run without a posse. He's about as social as a Labrador. When you suggest a run, man, he gets about as excited to run as one too. Since I've taken up barefoot running my feet have yet to reach the conditioning to run my old paces. I told him I'd try to meet him but that Shev was out running at the moment and I wasn't sure if she'd be back on time. She got back about 10 minutes after I called him back to say I'd better pass. I called him back but he'd already stepped. We passed one another at Junction City. I guess that will have to count as a run together. It's about as good as it gonna get for a while. On the up side, I ran the 6 mile loop from my house staying off the sidewalks. Mt. Hawley road and a few of the nearby streets have recently been chip sealed. Thought I'd take Barefoot Ted's advice and learn the surface.

Relaxing on this stuff is not easy. I think I had awareness of every hair on my body. Rather than trying to avoid the pain, I embraced the sensation. I enjoyed it like a hot spice on a favorite dish. Relaxing I slightly bent my knees and worked on my form. It wasn't fast or pretty but I did get through this rough patch. When I hit the sidewalk I still had a bunch of large cinders to navigate and from past experience, know they can hurt a lot when sandwiched between my forefoot and the sidewalk. Keeping my form I finally navigated through it. In the back of my mind I knew I'd still have to return on this road but for now I was able to open up my stride a bit. My feet had a not unpleasant warm feeling you from the rough surfaces.

I find I am landing a bit more flat footed on these surfaces because if I push off too much I'll do damage to the skin. When I returned from the run, I was pleased. I still need to get my mileage up but this was another breakthrough. 6 miles on a surface much rougher than I'd ever been on for that distance.

Not fast but I'll take it!