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It's simple, I love running and most of all I love running in bare feet!  While I did start in shoes like almost all runners, I quickly moved into barefoot shoes.  Then, after about 5 years of road marathons I took the plunge and threw the shoes away altogether!  Since then I have run two road marathons in bare feet without a scratch.  Rocky trails were much harder and after about a year of trying I couldn't get past 25km without doing damage so I'm now back in minimal Vibrams which seems to be the perfect compromise.  I still do grass oval speed work barefoot which is awesome.  Fast forward a couple years I have completed two 100km ultras in Vibram V-Trails and while my feet were mostly fine for that distance, my goal of completing a 100 miler is not going to happen in such minimal shoes.  Research led me to Altra's Lone Peak shoes, which so far have been amazing.  Zero drop and barefoot feel might be the next compromise I need to reach my goal.  Guess we'll see!

 

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Tuesday 11th September 2018
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By JP

With the success of last week I was keen to keep picking up the metres but of course, still play it safe.  The inside of my foot had been sore but I think that's mainly due to overcompensating and nothing to do with the recovering fracture.

Tuesday I kicked off with another 5km walk but this time I was able to run 500m each

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Tuesday 4th September 2018
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By JP

The time has finally come for the hop test and hopefully run short intervals during a walk which would be a massive blessing.  I wasn't bold enough to launch straight into a one–footed hop so I instead did a couple quick calf raises.  That felt fine so I stepped up to one–footed calf raises.  That also felt fine. 

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Tuesday 28th August 2018
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By JP

With 8.5km of walking under my belt I was feeling confident of increasing my distance a little further this week.  In the very least I'm just really happy to be moving again.  The plan for this week was to get through about 15km building up 500m per walk until I reached a 4.5k walk on Saturday.

Tuesday kicked off with

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Tuesday 21st August 2018
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By JP

After two weeks of complete rest I was itching for a walk and thankfully this week I was allowed to start.

Tuesday morning I was up early for the gym and home by 6:30am for my little walk.  I'm only allowed to walk 1km but hey, it's better than nothing!  I left my house and headed very slowly for the lake. 

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Tuesday 14th August 2018
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By JP

I'm now two weeks into my own little hostage crisis—me being the hostage that is!  I was under very strict instructions from my physio to do the least amount of steps as possible or I'm in a moon boot or crutches, which I wasn't keen on so minimal steps it was.

The first weekend was OK.  I managed to give

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Thursday 2nd August 2018
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By JP

And then tragedy struck...  Just when I was in my longest training weeks before tapering for GNW50K something in my left foot felt a little off.  There was a pain there that just wasn't normal.

My foot was a little sore after my Saturday long run but I didn't think much of it.  I still went for my Sunday

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Saturday 28th July 2018
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By JP

GNW part two—taking on the Jungle!  Man I was so excited for this stretch.  My coach made it very clear that I was going to get lost through this section so be super careful and take note of where the trail ended before I got lost.  Obviously I trust her instruction but I had no idea how true those words would be!



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Category: Training Runs
Saturday 21st July 2018
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By JP

Since I signed up for GNW50K my coach thought I'd better spend some time out on the course and I couldn't be happier as I had been itching to check out some of the GNW.  Now with Raffertys out of the way it was time for some new exploration.  The first leg I was to explore was from Wakefield Rural Fire Service through to Heaton

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Category: Training Runs
Saturday 7th July 2018
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By JP

I had been super excited for this event as it was officially my longest trail race to date and a taste of a longer event.  In the weeks leading up to the race I had been spending quite a bit of time on course just to be prepared plus it's simply spectacular coastline.  Speaking of being on course, we've had so much rain the last

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Category: Trail Events
Sunday 6th May 2018
Date:
By JP

Now that I'm back in shoes I've been able to really pick up the kilometres and get out exploring rocky areas I couldn't before. Well, I could but it was slow and after about 20km I would get tired and kick the end of my toes off and that's simply not fun.

With the Rafferty's Run coming up I thought I might spend

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Category: Training Runs