400M Repeats Barefoot

I feel pretty lucky that my being able to run again is coinciding with the high school cross country season. I can adjust my speed when I work out with the team as I see fit, and the mileage is pretty adequate for my own selfish purposes at this stage.

Today was a pre-meet practice, so it was a very light workout and afforded me a good opportunity to run with the team barefoot. I wore my shoes sans heels for the short warm-up run to the park and then unlaced those suckers and ran the 400M repeats barefoot.

I decided to pace myself along with our top girl runner, which equated to about a 6:46/mile pace on average (they don't run full throttle for this type of practice, she's faster than that). Terrain was great, pretty much all grass and the feet handled it fine.

It was nice to put down the pedal a little barefoot. My only other barefoot run last week was over 9:00/mile. Nice to know I can push the pace a little and do so comfortably.

Warmup in shoes with heels cut off: .8 miles @ 7:47/mile pace.
AHR/MHR - 147/160

400m repeats barefoot: 6X @ 6:46/mile pace (average).
AHR/MHR - ~150/170 overall during the repeats

Cooldown in shoes with heels cut off: .6 miles @ 7:24/mile pace.
AHR/MHR - 162/170

Paved roads for warmup, grassy field for repeats
Slightly hilly.
Lower 60s, partly sunny.
Shorts, short sleeved shirt.