Losing 50 kilos

I was born with club foot (or so I was told), so I’ve always had problems with my right foot. Usually a pair of shoes always break down on the right side first, and sometimes I feel nerve pain on my right foot as well - the toe next to big toe goes all numb on the tip I also have flat feet, so I’ve worn orthotic insoles most of my life.

Due to my foot problems I was rather sure I could never run like other people. I’d like to complete the Iron Man triathlon competition someday - consisting of a 2.4-mile (3.86 km) swim, a 112-mile (180.25 km) cycling and a marathon (26 miles 385 yards, 42.195 km). But that’s the ultimate dream - the Sprint distance (750 m swim, 20 km bike, 5 km run) is though doable maybe already next year :)

But back to the running experience. After reading a lot of barefoot running on the Internet, I just realized that the park across the street from my house is actually perfect for barefoot running training - it has big grassy fields. I went to the park after sunset (when there’s not that much people) and put my shoes to my backpack, starting just to walk around the grass field to get myself warmed up. I guess couple of times I hit dog poo, but it got washed away by the dew on the grass.

Just walking on the grass with bare feet felt really sweet, and I noticed how different I walk with no shoes against a soft terrain. When I had warmed up enough (about 10 minutes), I decided to take couple of running steps.

WHOAH!!

I would had never believed how smoothly I started running. My legs were working quite different from running with shoes on hard surface (like trying to catch a bus) - on the grass my ankles were more mobile, and the ‘pushing’ force of every step came from the ball of the foot. I’ve never before been able to run so much (and so long) than out there on that grass. I don’t think that running on the grass is “cheating” - I can tell you, my shirt was all wet on the back after an hour of interval (walk a bit, run a bit) practise.

Funniest thing is that even though I carry 113.8 kg of mass on top of my feet, I didn’t feel pain at all - not on my legs (though usually I get shin splints almost immediately), not on my knees, hip joints or lower back. The running was overall pleasant experience and I felt afterwards so euphoric that I just wanted to go back and do it all over again. I’ll though restrict myself and won’t do it again tomorrow either, to give my body some rest and to prevent myself of getting bored too fast.

Who said fat girls can’t run? ;)