As those of you who have been reading my blog will know, I had hoped to run my first marathon in April this year.  I have been following the ChiRunning Beginner Marathon Program which I was really enjoying but I simply wasn’t able to get in the required long runs due to circumstances beyond my control.  I could probably still run it but I would not be as well prepared as I would like to be and I really want to be in the best place physically and mentally before I take it on. (more…)

On Super Bowl Sunday I ran in a 7 mile race, aptly called the Super Bowl Run. It’s a unique and fun race, with staggered start times and individual handicaps. Part of the fun is all the pre-race begging and complaining and bribery that goes on when runners receive their handicaps, which are not revealed until race day. There are great prizes too — the top 25 runners receive a bottle of red wine. Good wine.

Fast forward to the finish line. There I am, running as hard as I can and the race director is yelling “Hazel, you got the last bottle of wine!” I’m happy, I’m proud and I look down at the finishing stick that was handed to me. Even without my glasses the number looks clear: 26. Bummer. (more…)

Recently there has been a lot of discussion on the concept of running barefoot. There are some purists who suggest we should all be running barefoot, period. Personally, I don’t care for the word ’should’ in any context. It implies someone else telling us what to do or be, when we all have to decide that for ourselves.

But can we just go run barefoot? To help you answer this, consider how long it has been since you ran barefoot. 20 years, 40 years, 60 years?; most of us have not been running barefoot since we first learned how to run as toddlers (*). How many years of shoes, dress shoes, high heeled shoes, perhaps periods of inactivity, or of modern running shoes do you have in you? These are just a few examples of all the stimulus the body is adapting to every minute of every day. This adaptation happens slowly and if we want to reverse the resulting changes in posture, muscle strength, flexibility, balance and confidence; then (more…)

A few days ago, my boss forwarded a Nature magazine article to me that he thought I’d be interested in.  Thinking it was about something we were working on, much to my pleasure, I found it was an article by Daniel Leiberman et al regarding barefoot running. By now, most of you have probably read about this article, (more…)