Sunday, Jan. 23rd . . . hill after hill after hill . . .

A tough 11 mile run on continuous hills at about 6,000 ft., at 8:03 pace. This is one of my tougher workouts. My legs are pretty trashed as this was not only a hilly run but on all roads and I don't do a lot of hard surface running other than racing. As such, I will need to do a very easy run tomorrow. I also stretched for 30 minutes specifically focusing on the hamstrings, quads and glutes.

Around mile 6, I felt the last of the scar tissue break off in my right foot (plantar muscle area) which was great news and I just smiled because I knew exactly what was going on. It was another reason I did an all hill workout as that would give my plantar muscle and Achilles a good workout. Now I feel great and I can start to really add back my pace work albeit slowly and conservatively. I ran in the Nike Katana's which was a wise decision for this type of workout. I'm also pleased to have found a company in AUS that sells the successor to the Katana so I can buy replacements in the future. I'm very close to returning to full strength.

After all these years of experimenting, I've finally isolated what I must do to stay healthy and continue to race competitively. I can't run exclusively in regular shoes, nor can I run exclusively barefoot or in minimalist shoes. I must do all of it. I must run barefoot and in minimalist shoes and I must train in a couple different racing shoes, all based on the type of workout I'm doing on a specific day as well as the type of surface. At the end of the day, I think answer is in the middle of the two extremes.

HHH