KSOh No!

Swim Day- Recovery Week

1 x 150- Warm-up
4 x 200
1 x 500

total- 1450yds

My biggest problem during recovery weeks is my brain shuts off the hardcore part of itself resulting in underwhelming workouts. I know they should be easy, I know my heart rate should stay down, and I know its important to have workouts like this. But a swim when there is no drive to push is kind of boring. Then it's just laps. So this was an ok, unmotivated, uninspired swim.

Run Day

My Vibram KSOs are wearing out in the toes! Oh no! I love these shoes and I can't believe I've worn through them. This says nothing about the make of the shoe, they are as sturdy as they come. But I've been wearing them a minimal of two times a week for over a year, running, teaching, and just being out and about. These shoes have earned their wear marks. In fact, as soon as I get a good look at the Dirtbag FundBox I'll be heading over to rei.com and grabbing myself a brand new pair. I can't not have my Vibrams.
If you remember, for Christmas I was given a nice new pair of VFF TrekSports. I wear these hiking and to school for the most part. Any trail runs I go on, these will get me through. They were one of the two pairs of shoes that did New Zealand with me, my KSOs being the other. So why not just use these? Because they aren't built for road running and while they would work I don't want to use them for that. It would wear out the tread which makes them trail-worthy and (and this is a minimalist shoe-person gripe) the ground feel isn't as good in them. It's still better than your average pair of, well, anything else, but not as good as the KSOs. I don't think I'll be going with the VFF Bikila either, even though that's the company's "running" shoe. I run just fine in my KSOs, thank you. The Bikila's are on my list, but not at the top.
What about looking outside Vibram, you ask. Excellent question. Normally I am not a whore for one company. But its hard to do better than what I've got. The only thing that looks like it comes close is the Merrell Glove series. Every review I've read has had nothing but positive things to say about these shoes. Unfortunately, Hawaii is just barely part of the United States and as such it takes forever for us to get nifty new shoes. So, while the wife and I have look and looked for a running store that carries them (she's interested too) we have yet to find one. Lame. When I do get to try a pair I see them being on my Christmas list as well.
As for my run today, it was an easy 2.4 mile recovery week run. What made it fun was I did the second half barefoot. I forgot how nice it is to run naked, with nothing between my feet and the ground. Freeing. Can't recommend it enough. If you pay any attention at all to the running scene you plenty of people are doing that for me anyway. ("Running scene?" I'm such a dork.) Right nor my feet are a little tender since I haven't barefooted in a while, but its ok. Barefoot is a form correction mechanism. I feel good.