8th Annual Silicon Valley Turkey Trot

Right, then…

[This is something that I posted on TheBarefootRunners.Org]

I started to regain feeling in my feet after about 1½ miles. Up to this point, they were fairly numb due to the cold; after all it’s Thanksgiving Day. Well, maybe I should qualify that: The numbness was due to the “cold”. I have to put that in quotes because cold means a lot of things to a lot of people – so if you live in the Northeast, cold means temps are hovering around 0 F. But I wasn’t in the Northeast, I was in San Jose running the 8th Annual Silicon Valley Turkey Trot and temps were in the mid 50’s. Me and 8039 other folks were tooling through downtown San Jose, trying to make a caloric dent in forthcoming grotesque exercise in extreme gluttony to commence later in the day. This is the third year I’ve run this.

Overall, the run was good. I’d run 10K before BFR, but that was a trail run; this was all pavement. I hedged my bets by carrying a pair of Invisible Shoes with me, lest the road surface be too much to tolerate. Fortunately, they were not needed.

Also, I applied [ahem] “Nail Paint” to my toenails to make them aerodynamic.

 

Orange and brown seemed to be somewhat seasonal, but folks did not notice my nice Earl Scheib-quality paint job (or if they did, they felt awkward saying something). Regardless, bolder colors for maximum “Dig Me” effect are in order.

Interestingly, it took a bit before I was able to settle my mind into just cruising down the road. Normally when I run, I’m somewhat familiar with the surface, but this was all new. In addition to that, I had 8000 other people to contend with. So it was a lot of random thoughts: Watch out for the pothole; run in the center of the road at the top of the crest; the manhole cover has drain holes in it, don’t get your toes stuck in one; pass this dude; pass that dude; pass this chick….no – wait – let’s hang back behind her, what’s the rush?; I can run on the painted lines if the road surface is too rough; I think I just stepped on a LEGO; that guy has a tattoo of either Pat Robertson or Andy Rooney on his calf – can’t tell which one.

I’m not positive I was the only one running barefoot, but I would not be surprised if that was the case. At first, while waiting for the race to start, I’d get the random sideways glances, or someone would whisper something to their friend who’d turn around and look at my feet. After the race started, more folks felt comfortable saying something. I’m happy to report that the comments were along the lines of “Hardcore!” followed by a fist bump, or the general “You’re running barefoot!” I’d ask if they tried BFR – some had, some hadn’t but said they wanted to – fair enough. I happened upon a couple of folks wearing min shoes but they weren’t up to chatting too much about footwear. I must have intimidated them with my aforementioned hardcoredness.

In the end, I’m happy with the outcome – I did 10K in 1:08:14, which gave me 10:59/mi. Being that shod, I normally run 10K in about 62 min, I can live with the 1:00/mi slower time. All this got me back to my friend’s house in time to start setting up for a meal that could choke Henry VIII.