Wheww....

Remain calm… all is well. REMAIN CALM… ALL IS WELL!!

Yes I am channeling a little Kevin Bacon there but that is how I feel this morning. Reading through my last post I feel like such an alarmist. Well, I guess I was my own personal alarmist because everyone I was wining to was saying “you’re fine, it’s nothing”; so nobody was worried except me. But you have to understand that for YEARS I have been in a running / injury / recovery / running again cycle. The pain in my foot is almost gone after two days and it will take every fiber of my being to take one more day off before my planned 12 mile run tomorrow (even though it will be a beautiful day here in South East PA today). So now I can remain calm and say “Thank you sir, may I have another…”

As I continue to scour the web and research this crazy barefoot running thing I am feeling like the last guy to the party. All this time I was the trend setter and the discoverer of this great new theory of running barefoot because I was lucky enough to stumble upon the book “Born to Run” (see my post “Thank you Mr. McDougall”). It was my new cause and I was going to spread the word! Well guess what Ken? The word is already out there. Not that I mind at all. I am thrilled that I have people that I can read about, get ideas from and use as confirmation that I am not insane for going sans running shoes. But as I join these blogs and Facebook groups, I am personally a little embarrassed. “Hey everyone, barefoot running is the greatest…… oh, you already knew that…”

This reminds me of the movie “Silence of the Lambs”. I spent four years in the Navy after high school to rid the demons of partying too much, skipping school too much, ect. The Navy was a great experience and I was lucky enough to have participated in the first Gulf War (yes, I said lucky enough. At the time I never would have said that, but looking back, it was one of the defining times of my life). After 8 months overseas I came home and some buddies and I saw “Silence of the Lambs”. It was such an awesome movie that I told a bunch of people how great it was and that they too should see it. The responses typicaly fell into the “That movie has been out for months and yes, we ALL know it’s great” area.

Maybe I am not the last one to the party, but I am trilled to be joining all of you and I promise to keep spreading the word because I feel sorry for every poor soul I see out on the road bouncing up and down on those silly cushions.

Here are some great sites / people I have found:

http://barefoot-angieb.blogspot.com/

http://barefoot-running.com/blog/

http://www.barefootrunners.org/

http://www.facebook.com/BarefootRunnersSociety

There are others (MANY others) of course, but if you are ‘me two months ago’, these sites and people will be very entertaining and informative.