A new parkrun, barefoot running and a lesson in upping my cadence!

This morning my phone woke me at 3 am. The plan was to drive the 2 hours 40 minutes to go and visit a new town and collect a new parkrun.

Soon after 3:30 we were in the car, driving in the dark through the rain showers we weren't expecting. It took the best part of an hour and a half before it was light enough to be able to enjoy the view.

Dalby was our intended destination and, thankfully, we arrived a full 30 minutes before the start of parkrun as planned.

It gave us time to stretch our bodies after sitting, to go to the bathroom and for me to change out of my comfy travel clothes and into running clothes!

The parkrun is almost entirely on concrete path. It's three laps that includes a short and out back section on each lap, and an additional wee bit to get to and from the start/finish area. It runs alongside the Myall Creek which saw us go under two bridges and over those same two bridges on each lap.

Given the route and the mild weather I decided it was a good opportunity to run barefoot. If you've read any of my recent or not-so-recent posts on running here on Hive you'll already know that 'me minus shoes' isn't that strange. I started transitioning to less and less stuff between me and the ground twelve years ago.

Today's course was a pretty good choice for my bare feet, though there was a little but more glass than I would have liked my eyes were into it and my feet survived. Yay!

Apart from watching out for glass (from idiots drinking down by the creek at night and then smashing their bottles for "fun", as seems to be the local Friday night ritual) I was also focused on not running too hard and trying to get my cadence up to 180 steps per minute.

Turns out I did reasonably well at both of those. I remembered the last time I ran barefoot too fast on concrete at a parkrun and hurt one of my calves. So I didn't want to repeat that.

And it made it easier to go slower (and avoid shards of glass on the path) by actively trying to up my cadence.

Guess what?! Smashed it!! 👇

I think it must be easier to up the cadence when barefoot because there's more feedback/sensitivity/acuity and thus less accidental over striding. Amazing. I wasn't even trying that hard.

So, more barefoot running done, new parkrun and town visited, and I'm now up to 135 different locations.

Not that I'm counting 😉

Live photos by @new.things, my beloved partner in crime adventure. Photos used with his full permission and blessing. The screenshot photo of my cadence data is courtesy of Garmin Connect.