Yes folks, it's time again for a new coat of paint on this website. Actually, this is the first new coat of paint on barefootrunner.co.uk since I launched it way back in September 2008 and I've decided to go for a super lean and mean look and layout.

For those reading this via a feed, you'll have to pop by to see the new design.

Let me know if you spot any problems.

Somehow I missed this when I added my last training run, but check it out, I've tipped over the 1000km mark for my running this year:

Assuming I put in about 200km a month for the rest of the year (not likely), I could crack the 1000 mile mark this year. I'm not going to aim for it, but we'll see how we get on.

My new 30 day challenge has already helped my running... it's given me the motivation to actually starting doing long runs on the weekends again. Today I headed out for my first weekend long run in a very very long time and I really enjoyed it.

I didn't push things too hard and just aimed for 15km or 75mins, whichever came first, over as much offroad terrain as I could (I wore the Merrell Trail Gloves). In the end it was the 15km mark that came first, but only by about 2 mins. I kept things at a pretty consistent pace (around 4:47/km) and it was only the last 4 up hill kilometers that I really slowed down.

It was really enjoyable and great to be back out on the roads early on a Sunday morning when no one is around, though that said I was quite surprised at the number of families already taking a stroll around the local lakes and ponds.

I'll definitely be looking forward to next weekend's long run.

Oh yes, and this long run completes what has ended up being a bumper week in the mileage front: 58km in total this week which is pretty high considering I also had a 10k race on Wednesday. Today's run also ticks off one of my goals - a 15km long run. Lets see if this can become a habit.

Well, we find ourselves in the middle of 2011, not quite slap bang in the middle, but near enough for me to provide a mid-year update.

Training

So far my training programme has suited me well, though I will be making a slight change. Since the beginning of December last year, I've been working on the following schedule:

• Monday: run - usually a hard session
• Tuesday: swim - usually about 2.5km
• Wednesday: run - varies between easy and hard, depending how I feel
• Thursday: full body weights session
• Friday: run - usually a longish tempo run
• Saturday and Sunday: either race or rest

All training has been almost exclusively barefoot and when it hasn't been, as with all racing, it has been in either my Vibram Fivefinger Bikilas (road) or Merrell Trail Gloves (off-road).

Now we're in race season, this format has changed slightly, only in as much as weights sessions are dropped before weekend races and after Wednesday races. For the rest of the year, I'm going to switch the swim and the weights sessions around, unless I'm racing on the Wednesday in which case I won't do a weights session. I'm also going to start adding in at least one more run, probably on the weekend, to try and up my mileage a bit.

Mileage

Talking of mileage (or should I call it "kilometerage" as I do everything in metric?), last night saw me click over the 500km mark in training and racing this year. I've been quite good at recording my training and racing, but realised I've not been tracking my warmups and cooldowns for races, each of which is easily 2 - 3km each, whilst I have been for training. I'm going start recording these now too.

If all goes well, I should tip over the 1000km mark by the end of the year. Nothing in comparison to what a marathon runner may clock up, but certainly a long way for someone who runs mostly barefoot, is concentrating on speed and who only clocked up 668km last year.

Racing

Now with all this training and some pretty good mileage, how has the actual racing been going? Well, actually very well. Here are my results so far this year:

I didn't expect to get back below 40 mins for 10k this season but so far I've managed it twice and once so far on the Yateley 10k which is considered a bit of a harder run. If I'd thought I was capable and aiming for it, I think I could have dipped below 40 mins for my first 10k too. That will definitely be on the cards for next year.

I've got a couple more interesting and fast races scheduled for the rest of the year so hopefully I can get a few more sub-40 10k's and hopefully that sub-19 5k. I'd love a sub-18 5k this year, but I think that's pushing it a bit. I had originally planned a sub-18 5k this year, but now I'm in full swing, I've come to realise this is a bit of an unrealistic goal for this year.

Rest

So as you can see, so far so good. However if I want to keep this up I need to rest, and it's time for a rest. I haven't had a rest since the week starting 14 March when my wife and I had a lovely week long break in the Lake District so I'm taking the next week off to give my body a chance to recover. The intention is to do absolutely no exercise at all, bar cycling to and from work. If I get the urge, I may do some exercise which is not running or commuting, so either a swim, indoor rowing or possibly a weights session, just no running.

Oh yes, and Tuesday this week saw me tick off another goal I've had on my 2011 list, but haven't actively been gunning for: I've dipped below 80kg in weight for the first time in years. I'm not a svelte 78.8kg. Down over 20kg since 29 Jan 2010 and down 5kg since January this year. And best of all, I haven't been on any specific diet. Exercise alone and my usual healthy diet has done it all.

All in all, the first half of this year has gone well on the running front and hopefully the second half will be just as good, if not better.

Autumn, whilst not quite here, is certainly starting to make its appearance. There's a slight nip in the air, the leaves are starting to fall and the squirrels are out in full force gathering nuts and seeds for the winter ahead. This is quite a stark contrast to what I've just been enjoying for the last two weeks: hot sunny Spanish weather with no running, lots of swimming, food and beer, and not much else.

I've just got back from my first run in just over two weeks following my belated summer holiday and what a wonderful run it was. I felt full of bounce and seemed to just glide my way along. The cool nip in the air punctuated by dappled sunshine was very refreshing, and the feeling of the cool tar under my feet broken up by intermittent patches of freshly dropped leaves quite exhilarating. Of course, I don't think the squirrels were too happy with me suddenly appearing behind or right next to them completely unannounced: there was a lot of squirrel screeching and scurrying and not too many happy squirrels, but hey-ho, that's what happens when a nutter like me works near a nice wooded area.

I'm looking forward to running barefoot this autumn. Autumn is one of my favourite times to run and this year will be my first year completely barefoot. I'm also eager to see how far into winter I can go before I feel the need to wear shoes because of the cold. If we don't get the snow we had last year, I may be able to make it all the way through. Time will tell.

No, I haven't dropped off the face of the earth or been booked off running due to my back. I've just been incredibly busy at work and when not at work, I've been frantically coding a new PHP based API wrapper - phpZenfolio - for the guys at Zenfolio. All this busy-ness saps inspiration, but I'm feeling a bit inspired to write an update, so here goes.

Running

First, the important part: the running. What's happening with the running? Well, I'm still doing it and am now back on track and running as I was before my injury. I'm diligently sticking to a 5k training programme from Brain Training for Runners to ensure I don't push things to soon, but also to actually give me a proper progressive and measurable training programme.

I've gone for the 5k programme for a couple of reasons:

1. It's a moderate volume programme so I'm not likely to be doing too much too soon.
2. All the training runs are well within the limits of being able to do them completely barefoot. The 10k programme starts to push things to the point where I would likely be running on sensitive feet quite often which would severely affect my ability to actually train at the required intensity, but also affect the build up of the skin and flesh under my feet.
3. I've always been better at the shorter distances than the long and I think concentrating on 5k for a while will do me the world of good in the long run. The increased emphasis on speed will definitely help with the 10ks later.

I'm also still running barefoot, though I am starting to "warm up" my Evos and huaraches in preparation for winter. I plan to run for as long as possible barefoot, but just in case we get another severe winter like last year, I want to be sure I don't get any blisters when I switch to using one of these for any extended period of time later when my mileage is higher.

My Back

Things are going well with my back or more precisely my right SI joint and lower back. I now have a diagnosis: a hypo-mobile right sacroiliac joint most likely caused by the use of my abs and hamstrings when I should be using my glutes and pelvic muscles.

I've been given some SI joint stretches to do 3 times a day along with a progressively longer list of pelvic exercises designed to strengthen my pelvic muscles and teach my body to engage my pelvic muscles rather than handing control to my abs or hamstrings. These are surprisingly simple exercises, but they take a bit of concentration to do right and it takes a while to get into the swing of things. Things like pelvic tilts and pelvic bridges. Simple exercises, but in someone "hamstring-centric" like me, it's tough forcing myself to disengage my hamstrings and let my other muscles do the work.

One thing is for certain, the pain is significantly reduced and I think I'm starting to notice the benefit of these exercises in my running. The physio did mention this would be a consequence and would actually benefit my running. With this bit of news, I have some renewed enthusiasm to keep performing the exercises and make sure I'm doing them right.

In a "toe bone is connected to the finger bone" sort of way, my hip problem is likely to have contributed to whatever caused my foot injury, if not being the primary cause.

Racing

I've decided to put all racing on the back-burner for the moment to concentrate on training and sorting out my hip/lower back problem. This includes the Reading Parkruns. Whilst these aren't formal races, they do have a race feel to them and I can't help but push and race them, especially now I've cracked 20 mins more often than not.

Depending on the weather and how my training goes, I may pick up running the Parkruns in November, maybe December. I'll certainly be picking them up again before summer next year

So all in all, things are going well with me. I've got a few weeks holiday coming up, so running will take a bit of a backseat but I'll be back refreshed and rearing to go.

For several years now I've had a recurring discomfort and sometimes searing pain in my lower back and right sacroiliac joint. I can't pin-point any one action that causes the discomfort or anything that aggravates it, but it seems to crop up every 3 to 4 months and then hangs about for a month or two. Then all is well until it's next occurrence several months later.

I have managed to work out that if I am feeling the discomfort, it's easier for me to take things one step further into the world of excruciating pain if I sit a bit wonky on the sofa and get up without correcting my posture first. Thankfully I can catch this just as it starts to pinch and avoid the pain, though I have caught myself 3 times "pinching" something without any warning. This has left me almost immobile for a week at a time.

As this seems to be a recurrent thing that isn't going away, I'm off to the physio today to get a full assessment. Hopefully that will shed some light on the cause and provide a means to resolve it. I suspect it may be due to my slightly wonky spine.

On the running side of things, the last two weeks have been good. No problems with my running at all and I'm feeling great. I'm deliberately taking things quite slowly so I don't introduce any problems and have decided to follow a more structured training programme. Hopefully the gradual increase in volume and pace will keep things on course for a cracking race in about 16 weeks time. Until then I'll be keeping the racing to a bare minimum.

Well folks, I'm back online and trying to get back into the groove again. I technically wasn't completely offline, just lacking the motivation to write or get involved due to recent events on the home front. Sadly, February has been a very tough month for my wife and I: our baby daughter, Lara, unfortunately didn't make it through the open heart surgery she had to undergo in order to rectify two congenital heart defects. I'm not going to go into the details here but if you're interested, I will be posting a series of posts, building up to my daughter's funeral on 12 March, on my main site. Suffice to say we were devastated and completely knocked for six by this, even though we'd known about the heart condition before she was born. The loss of a child is something you really can't prepare yourself for no matter how much forewarning you received.

I've now had several weeks to grieve and I think I'm starting to come to terms with it all and am getting my motivation back. I'm back into the office tomorrow so we'll see how I get on. On the plus side, I have still been running - it's a brilliant tool for coping with stress, anger, sadness and the loss of a loved one - and completely barefoot too. Yes, EVERY ONE of the 41.45 kilometers run this month have been completely barefoot and I've loved it. My feet are toughening up beautifully and I'm sure every run is getting easier and more comfortable. That said I do sometimes doubt it when heading out in the cold and wet: these are still the toughies which tend to result in a blister or two on a few of my toes but they're very quickly outweighed by the ease and comfort of the dry warmer runs. I'm really looking forward to summer when all my runs will be in the warm.

The last week has also been quite an eventful one in the barefoot running world thanks to Terra Plana. They've just released the first ever barefoot running shoe, the VivoBarefoot EVO (remember all the other minimalist shoes we use weren't originally designed with barefoot running in mind). I gave everyone a sneak peak before and now they're finally available to buy. I've not put in my order yet as I'm still debating with myself as to if I buy another pair of Vibrams (I really like my Classics), get my grubby paws on a pair of these bad boys or skip the shoes completely. Initial reviews of the EVOs (Harry here is giddy with excitement about the EVOs here, here and here) have been very positive and it sounds like Terra Plana may have just hit the nail on the head with the EVOs and at the same time being the first to market in what could potentially be a very lucrative niche.

Terra Plana do however have one potential thorn in their side with the EVOs - the price. Whilst £100 is quite reasonable and competitive in the UK where a pair of Vibram FiveFinger Classics cost about £90; $160 is just extortionate in the US where a pair of Classics cost about $75 (ignoring discounts and voucher codes). That said, it's quite refreshing to see product prices vaguely taking into account the exchange rates. So often we see products sold for $100 in the US and then sold for £100 in the UK. Anyway, time will tell how successful Terra Plana are in coaxing people away from highly cushioned and supportive Nike/Adidas/Asics/Brooks/whatever shoes.

If you've shelled out for the EVOs, I'd be happy to hear how you find them.

Just a short update to say I had a glorious 15 minute drills/run session in my Vibrams on Monday and it felt FANTASTIC. Sadly my feet were quite tired the next morning, so I've not been out in them again since. I think I'll stick with once a week in the Vibrams until such time as I'm getting in some good mileage with shoes on, and then I'll start weaning myself off the shoes and back into the Vibrams.

Ooops. I've just updated the backend Habari code that runs barefootrunner.co.uk and in the process seem to have broken the date as displayed for each post. This appears to be purely cosmetic, so it's probably something in the theme code, as the database shows the correct date.

I'll try and resolve this as soon as possible.

Update: Well that was simpler than expected. All fixed now.