Running Naked Against The Elements

I was woken up Tuesday morning by the wind rattling the windows of my bedroom. Running outdoors yesterday was going to pose a challenge. I don’t know why I decided to run outside when I could have done it on the treadmill in the comfort of my living room, but I couldn’t resist answering the challenge. Not only that, I also made up my mind the day before that I was going to run naked. Well, don’t get any ideas, I didn’t really mean unclothed. What I meant was that I was going to try to run without orthotics thus leaving my feet and ankles naked of extra support. I was doing this as an experiment to find out if it would work better for my stride and aching ankles on the premise that maybe I’m getting too much support with the orthotics. Running without orthotics and braving the elements…it was going to be an adventure run.

While taking the trash outside, I could already feel the bone chilling effects of the wind gusts. Starting the run, I was buffeted by flailing winds and even got hit on the face by a tree branch early on. Rather than running like the wind, I ran into the wind instead. It reminded me of the conditions during the 1987 or 1988 Long Beach Marathon when it was windy the whole time and also had spots of rain.

Although I wasn’t wearing orthotics, it felt like my new Brooks Addiction shoes gave enough support so as not to make me overpronate. It was hard to judge the effect objectively though because I was concentrating more on keeping myself upright while the wind was trying to toss me around. Besides, my whole body was too chilled to feel the pain in my ankles too much. I managed to run for 52 minutes even though my target was only 45 minutes. I didn’t want to go too long during my naked trial run without orthotics.

When I got home, I checked the temperature and wind speed and found out that I ran in 55 degree weather with winds blowing 20 to 30 MPH, with gusts up to 45 MPH. At 30 MPH, that would have resulted in a wind chill factor or 40 degrees. Who would have thought of talking about wind chill factor in sunny California?

Challenge accepted, elements braved, adventure accomplished, bare naked orthotics-free feet survived, joy experienced. Thank you.

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