The beginning of each winter is always hard on my feet, as they acclimatise to the freezing surfaces beneath. By the end of the season I’m happy with temperatures as low as minus 10 C (15F), but those first few weeks of December are usually nothing other than pure pain…
So it was today. A couple of degrees above zero, it was drizzling slightly. I always find a cold, dry, frozen road surface easier to tread than a slightly warmer, wet one. Yes, there’s the question of wind-chill on damp feet, the fact that water underneath draws the heat out from your soles, but there’s another factor too. A long run on a wet surface softens your pads, making them much more sensitive to everything, whether temperature or the type of surface you’re running on. During this first period of winter, I also find that, below a certain temperature, I need some time to power up my circulation to the point that the blood-flow fully opens up to the extremities, warming them up. After twenty minutes or so, my feet feel as good as any other time of year, but until then the process is always the same. First, while my core temperature warms up, my feet grow colder. That’s par for the course, but if the weather is too cold, they also begin to get overly sensitive as a consequence. I feel every unevenness in the surface beneath my feet – every twig, every pebble, the texture of anything but the smoothest asphalt – and it all hurts. Then, if the conditions are extreme enough, they’ll start to go numb for a few minutes until they warm up and everything’s alright again.
Knowing that this was the last day before the first major winter front of the season was due in, dropping temperatures by 10C / 20F for at least a week, I decided to go for my longest barefoot run yet: about a 10 mile circuit over a hilly course with about 300 metres worth (1000 ft.) of incline, first all up, then all down. I also wanted to reach the forest at the edge of the city – something I’d only ever done in shoes. As expected, my feet cooled and softened on the damp surface of the road. I could feel every pebble, every crack in the asphalt – and it all hurt. A couple of miles in, a cop car pulled alongside and shadowed me for a couple hundred metres. No word, no greeting, no arrest. That was fine by me. Then it pulled over and stopped, no doubt radioing in for reinforcements or making the usual report… I kept going as a slow, painful buzz began to grip the entire underside of my foot, a kind of recurring electric shock every time my feet touched the ground. If it weren’t for the determination to run this route – possibly my last chance before spring – the inescapable discomfort of every footstep would have begun to wear me down, and I’d almost certainly have cut short the run and headed for home. As it was, though, the pain actually served to focus me. I was going to do this run, and that was that. So I had to learn how to live with it. In a way, though, there was nothing to ‘learn’. It was just a question of staying absolutely, fully, one hundred percent in the present moment. But neither was this a choice. It just began to happen by itself. Determination. Sensation. Go. And keep going. It’s at this point of pure presence where things just happen – a point so here and now that it totally envelops you, that it carries you forward through time itself, from moment to moment, without time to get side-tracked and react with emotions of like and dislike. Without time to react by labelling the sensory input from your feet as ‘pain’.
Determination. Sensation. Go. And keep going – because, as it turned out, the wet and cold temperatures combined with the rough surface of today’s road both served to prolong the period of over-sensitivity. As my core warmed up, my feet also began to receive an increasing flow of warm blood, but, in parallel, the temperature up the hill towards Normafa was steadily dropping. After half an hour I had reached the house-line which runs around the city, and was running up a deserted forest road. Every footstep still felt as full of nerve endings as it had done for the whole run. When I wasn’t actually totally absorbed in the flow of my tempo, it was a fine line between torture and ecstasy. Because what, really, is the difference between the two? Both are ultimately just the experience of an over-abundance of energy. How we interpret them is our decision to make, if only we can stay conscious and present. Traces of snow from the night before were dusting the road now, and, on either side, sheltered patches in the forest were draped in sheets of white. I headed off the road and onto a frozen, snowy path which leads up to the summit at Normafa.
Man walking dog. Man dressed to the hilt in insulation and furs. Dog barefoot. With a pained squint in his eye, he comments: ‘kemény…’ (‘tough’) to me as I pass, while his dog happily sniffs here and there, oblivious – or simply more accepting – of the temperature. The ice is smooth and slightly slippery underfoot, but barefeet grip better than shoes and a midfoot strike also provides more stability. I love this forest. I’ve run here for nearly twenty years, but it’s the first time in years that I’ve had the legs to make it back. Up, up… In the intervening time, water runoff has deepened the erosion next to the main path, etching a metre-deep wrinkle into the surface of the earth – just as time has begun to do the same with my own face. Up, up… I love running on snow. There’s something exhilarating about it, especially when it’s not too deep and doesn’t slow you down… I’m convinced it releases endorphins. You feel weightless and strong, like a wolf in the wild.
Normafa covered in a thin dusting
I reach the top. To many people, a 350 metre differential isn’t anything to write home about. It wasn’t for me either, in the old days. But for me, barefoot, it is an accomplishment. Only half a year ago, such a run would have reignited the Achilles tendonitis and plantar fasciitis in an instant. No doubt about it. As it was, though, I returned home intact, exhilarated by tired, healthy quads from the full-on descent, as well as by the full sensual intensity of every agonising footstep.
For the next few days, I had something to remember that run by, with the soles of my feet continuing to softly buzz, sensitive to the touch, a little sore, stained literally red from so much stimulation!
I love it. Can’t wait until the next time.
Joy of Barefoot Running 