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Barefoot and zero drop

This is neither a shoe review, nor expert advice. Just an observation.

There are so many theories out there about barefoot running and zero drop shoes, that it gets tangled up and one can easily just lump it all together as one concept. However, this is not the case, as I was sorely reminded of this week.

But first let me backtrack a bit. For the past five or so years, I’ve run in Altra. Since I always walk around barefoot in the house, going zero-drop was a no-brainer. No fuss, not frills, no getting used to it or gradually phasing it in. To be honest, I don’t think interchanging between zero-drop and six to eight or even ten millimetre is something that will really affect the average runner (if a blind test was done). But according to the experts, this is not the case and one shouldn’t just jump into zero-drop shoes.

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Mini long loop from home

Date: 4 September
Distance: 30km
Time: 4.07

During last year’s Level 4 lockdown, we ran short out-and-back stretches in our tiny neighbourhood. So this year, we went back to doing this the moment the second (in 18 months) Level 4 lockdown started on 18 August. Running in our neighbourhood means that we are running more hills, which is good. Longer might make you stronger, but so do hills – perhaps even more so.

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Mukamuka Munter

Date: 15 August 2021

Distance: 32k (we measured 31.7k)

Time: 5:48

Since our eight months hiatus last year, we have been running reasonably consistently from the beginning of this year, working on a decent base. It has been tough, and slow going. We’ve had some setbacks, some no-running weeks, and times where the weather just made getting out of bed a challenge, let alone trying to be active. As the event date drew nearer I realised that I wasn’t nearly ready, which seems to be a recurring phenomenon. And then I made the mistake of ‘not caring’ about it anymore either. The Mukamuka Munter would be our first event in two years, but for the past couple of years, I am feeling somewhat over events. Not sure why that happened. 

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Nelson runs

After three weeks of 70k per week, it was time for a cut-back week. Luckily this coincided with a work trip to Nelson. With all the best of intentions in the world, it remains challenging to try and fit in runs while out of town for jobs. That also goes for travelling. When your holiday involves tents and lots of different campsites, it just gets too hard with super early runs, fitting in a shower, and still pack up and vacate the site by 10am, not to mention the pile of wet, dirty running gear. This, of course, is much easier if you can afford (and are that way inclined) to stay in somewhat more luxurious accommodation for a few days or weeks at a time.

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Pouakai hut, Holly hut and back, with a twist

For some time now we’ve been keen to walk this stretch in the Egmont National Park with friends who live in New Plymouth. Gerry and I have walked this twice before, but each time coming from the mountain side, walking out to the carpark. As we know, doing the same route in the opposite direction often proves to be a different experience. But, as it turns out, the mountain looks exactly the same as the previous times – rainy, windy, cloudy and cold! Again, we did not see the mountain’s reflexion in the tarn on the way in, or out two days later.

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