Trail Monster Running

Visit the official TRAIL MONSTER RUNNING website for information on upcoming group runs, local trails, trail races and more, including the Pineland Farms Trail Running Festival and the Bradbury Mountain trail Running Series.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Changing Twin Brook

The Tuesday Night crowd is growing and the trails at Twin Brook are getting some work done. Last night we had a god sized group that included Jim, Erik, Blaine, Erin, Jeff, Four, Tom, Nicole and Shauna.

Despite a lot of rain recently the water level in the brooks isn't particularly high, although some of the trails are particularly wet, especially the one leading up to where we jump across (or into) the brook. Last week we found a number of trail closures on the northern section of trails, no signs of any new work being done but we were still able to get in the same distance without violating any of the closed trails.

Following the 'usual' 5.5+ mile route Jim, Tom, Blaine and I headed out for a little barefoot running in the playing fields. It seems like everyone (except myself) has been reading Christopher McDougall's book Born to Run and is jumping on the barefoot running bandwagon. This was my first attempt in more than a year at running without shoes and I was pleasantly surprised at how good it felt. I think that doing a lot of my running, and all of my long running, in Inov-8's has helped me develop good strength in my feet and throughout my legs to be able to handle barefoot running. I still didn't want to jump into doing too much too soon but I got in about 1.25 miles at a 7:43 pace.

time: 59:18
distance: 6.96 miles
pace: 8:31

1 comment:

Blaine Moore said...

Hey, don't bandwagon me!

I've been running barefoot (in moderation) since high school, and have been building up my barefoot time more regularly over the past couple of years.

I did read the book, though; well worth taking a gander at.