ROCKIN "K" IN VIBRAMS!!?

Paula and I ventured out to the middle of Kansas in Kanopolis State Park to run her favorite marathon course. It's actually 27 miles, so that makes it an ultra:) This would be Paula's 4 time running this event. Still not sure why she loves this course. Our original plan was to run the 50 mile race but as sometimes in life things don't go as planned. Our training was just a little off, I think we could have ran the 50 but it wouldn't have been any fun at all. FUN is the most important reason we do this stuff. So after a little discussion Paula and I decided to drop down to the "marathon". Stacy Sheridan, co-race director with her husband Phil, was more than happy to make sure we were happy. I met Stacy for the first time at the event this weekend, Paula has raved about her since her first running of Rockin "K". I will say this, if every event had a "Stacy" it would be a wonderful running world. She truly cares about every runner out there. It was a pleasure meeting her.


So after deciding to drop to the marathon Paula had a "great" idea, lets run in Vibrams! We both do 99% of our running in them and don't really like running in "normal" shoes. The few times we have hit the trails we had ran in our trail shoe, Cascadias. A great shoe, we have just out grown them, so speak. Her logical was that since we dropped to the marathon there was no pressure as far as time restrictions. So why not run in what we are comfortable wearing. Made sense to me. The down side? We had NOT ran on the trails in our Vibrams:) So we went out on a short trail run in our Vibram Treks, the off road version, just to test the waters a little. It was a short test but a successful test nonetheless. So after running 30 minutes on the trails we decided to run a extremely hard course for 27 miles. We are brilliant!!

Race morning we realized we were the only ones wearing Vibrams, so we would win the Vibram category:) Now for some reason Paula loves this course, she was very excited to get going and enjoy the day. After race instructions from Phil we were off. The course was well marked and the volunteers were great. Paula and I both have ran long distances in our Vibrams, over 25 miles. That however was on the roads. My longest had been 30 miles, on a bad day that is 6.5 hours. So running time in the Vibrams up to this point had been 5-6 hours. We new on a good day on this course it would take about 7 hours. That is without factoring in the Vibrams. The course has a variety of terrain and more steep climbs than I care to remember. Really the only part of the course that gave us problems was the broken red bricks at certain crossings. They were never longer than 20-30 yards, but was very difficult to cross. We walked around them as carefully as we could. They did slow us down considerably, but we new this would be tough when we made the decision to run in the Vibrams. My concern, for some reason, were the 4 or 5 water crossings. There were only 2 deep ones but the others were ankle or calf deep. Not usually a concern and most the time a welcome cool down. My concern was debris getting into the Vibrams. We were wearing Injinji liners for extra protection. Our thinking was if something did get in it would have to go through the liner first instead of digging right into the foot. Overall this worked out great, no problems.

We actually cruised along for the first half without any real problem. We were about 30 minutes behind our original schedule. Once we made the decision to run this course in Vibrams all time schedules were void. We were happy with having relatively no problems up to this point. From the half way point aide station you run a 5 mile loop to the bluffs. This was the hardest part. The climbs were unbelievable but what caused the most problems were the downhill's. You really have to be careful descending, you can't just bound down because you don't have shoes to bear the impact when you land. So instead of using the downhill's to make up time they actually slowed us down some. Not a huge problem just another thing to consider when doing something like this. The bluff loop kicked our ass but is was worth it for the beautiful views that God blessed us with.

By about 7 hours our feet were killing! Which was logical since we had only put about 6 hours in during training and that was on stable road runs. Paula and I both run hills just about every day but the terrain is always pavement, very predictable and stable. On this day we ran through bushes, broken branches, rocks, bricks, gravel.... all of this over time took it's toll on our feet. The last few miles on soft single track were brutal. We felt like we had to run but our feet were throbbing. We toughed it out and finished in a blazing 8 hours, winning the Vibram category:) We weren't last, which is always nice. We could really careless, we finished!! All in all it was a successful test of the Vibrams off road. To be honest I wouldn't change a thing, we took up the challenge and succeeded. We plan to continue to run trails in our Vibrams and will most likely run Rockin "K" next year together. We had great weather. quality time together and a great experience to share. So you out there could learn from it as well.

NEVER STOP RUNNING!!!

Choose to Succeed

Koach Karl

http://www.koachkarl.com/

http://www.k2ultrarunning.blogspot.com/

http://www.k2rawrudeandright.blogspot.com/