I sat straight up in bed…

…when I heard the loudest clap of thunder I have ever heard. Then it was a veeeeeerrrrrry long steady rumble of continuous thunder for about an hour along with torrential rain for the entire night. What does this have to do with this here running blog? Well, on our 10k run this morning, the steady rain and cool temps from last night, combined with NO wind this morning equals : Mosquito hell.

We run a 10:1 on our Sunday slow runs. Whenever we walked for our 1’s, we would get covered in hundreds of mosquito's, so we would start running again. It turned out to be our fastest 10k slow run in a long time.

About 1k left in the run, I told my mates, if I just run to the car and leave, don’t take it personally. They didn’t.

10k for me, barefoot, was the longest one yet. Starting to be very comfortable on the run again. I am looking very forward to the race next week now! No adverse effects at all today. My soles are a little hot at the end of a run like that, but the beauty of the rain last night was I could run straight through the big puddles on the paths! No need to worry about getting my shoes wet eh? *like*

It’s official, I will be “Shoeless Joe From Hannibal, MO” and if you see me out there and you say ‘Hi Shoeless Joe’ and I don’t acknowledge you… I am just focussing on whatever I am thinking about at that moment. Not personal. Actually I like Barefoot Zee. It feels like a superhero name, like I can be an alter-ego when I don my little foot capes on the run! Let’s go with that for now and see if that sticks. Now, should I advertise that? like get a cool old school baseball jersey t-shirt with my new nick on the back? Heck, now I need a number…

• Barefoot mileage since June 29th : 71.2km (44 miles to you Mercans)
• VFF mileage since July 7th : 11.8km
• Shoe mileage since SOBF (start of barefoot): 5km (25:30 5k race PR on July 1st)

running product makers, Please sponsor me! Notice the Sponsor link on the top left, for Good Earth Cafe! Local Calgary runners, go to the Cranston Location and ask for a Barefoot Mocha! (it’s an Iced Mocha with an extra Espresso shot)