Barefoot Going Beyond Marathon: My First Step

25 Jan 2014, day 0055, 25C, cloudy, windy.
It was strange despite I felt sluggish past few days. When I got up and began taday's long run, I felt geared up and decided to going longer (42km+) than planned (38km). The good condition might come from the sound sleep (I woke up at 8am, had 8hrs+ sleep, not as I did previously that only had 6hrs sleep); and good breakfast as well: roasted oats soya milk porridge and a slice of toast with peanut butter. Later I discovered that I ran so comfortable with these foods, not any gas generated in my guts. It should be included in my ultra racing meal.
I started at 8:40am, doing loops in Pasir Ris Park. My form was perfect and felt effortless. Weather was great and wind was strong so that I was almost sweatless. I plan ran 5hrs+ so I ran back home for refeul after 3hrs, with a cup of milo and another slice of toast. Told my wife I would not have lunch at home and went back to run. The rest 2.5hrs was tougher: my barefeet were wearing out and the sense of pain was becoming more and more significant, partially due to quads and calves wearing out and landing becoming no longer lighter. I had to be focus to filter the sense of contact from the stingy pain for each landing. And command the body to stay in correct form. At noon the temperature rose to around 30C, and sun also came out from clouds. Some part of the road became hot. All these was what I need to take care in the late part of an ultra race. The only thing I could do was let my brain dictating the run. My brain would judge the terrain and road temperature and compare with previuous experience. Then tell the body that it would not hurt except the sense of pain. The whole body then gave up protection action that going to deform my running form and get back to track. That was what going to happen in the later part of a ultra race. My mission was to practice more of this part, let body gave up the natural protective reaction and retain good running form. At the same time, prolonging distance of training run, not only let body and mind familiar with the situation, but more importantly, let brain gain experience of judging the situation if it is injury free when there was signal of pain. As many ultra training plan stated, long run was the most important in an ultra plan. And it was even important in barefoot ultra. From now on, I'll increase my weekend long run as long as I could recover in 48hrs. Today was the first step, my barefoot long run went beyond marathon distance, to ultra. The distance clocked should be 43km (not as shown in watch, that was due to inaccuracy of footpod in first two hours, I forgot to turn gps on), duration 5:40. I wish the record grow in the following weeks.