EZ run today with the sketch ankle and new shoes.

The Merrells felt pretty solid.

I was taunting this thread about humidity a while back but my god it sucked today. Joke's on me.

Nice run on treadmill this morning.

A fast dude on the TM next to me kept me honest, otherwise I would have slacked more than I did.

I've been pinging back and forth between 5k and 10k runs for the last three weeks or so trying to figure out what to do with my running life.

I'm like this in hotels. I always think someone will walk by and think I'm a slob so I make sure my form is good and I'm busting it.

I can't believe I'm saying this but those sky blue Nike Zoom Flys are looking pretty enticing. Might try them on at least.

Today's run was a brutal reminder that truly minimal shoes are a bad idea on a technical trails.

My feet are a bruised and bloody mess. I'll spare you guys the photos this time.

How minimal are we talking about

Your mile pace said it all

Are those the Nikes that have a ~90 return of energy?

I'm fairly tempted to buy those for half marathon training.

I ran with my phone tucked in this today and it made a huge difference in my mental game. The phone fits snug, I'm not tempting to look at it, and I can barely feel it on my hip.

Not my best run on the track, but I'm finally getting back to some old numbers from when I was younger and sprier.

Merrell Vapor Glove 2.

They essentially just have a Vibram sole. They're fine for my typical canal run.

And they'd be OK for some trails, but the desert trails around here are generally rocky and technical AF.

Help me out here, because on my rides to and from work I see a lot of runners: Why are they flapping their arms? Or swiping their arms from side to side? Is it a stride thing? or form? It just looks odd. When I run I look like I'm dying but my arms are doing a back and forth/front to back motion, not side to side or some weird x-form like wolverine.

They just have shitty form. Arm motion should be front to back.

In general, if your stride/form is side to side or "hippy" you're wasting a lot of energy.

OK. I thought maybe I was doing it wrong seeing so many people do it that way.

I mean, one person looks like she's being followed by a swarm of gnats or something her arms fly so wide.

Taking a couple of days off. My feet are still a swollen mess. Cankles!

Spoiler: show

Jesus! That's just from running, not a twist or sprain?

No.

I bashed my ankle on a rock a few days ago, then chewed up my feet even more wearing super-thin shoes on a rocky, technical trail.

Basically, I'm a dumbass.

The last time my foot looked like that I had stepped in a gopher hole wearing Keen sandals and turned it sideways. Can't imagine running on it.

The two weeks leading up to my two consecutive rest days at the end of last week were the best running of my life. The 3 runs since then have felt like complete shit. Lesson learned, I'm never resting for more than a day again.