I work up at 4am because the dushbags nextdoor were laughing on their balcony next to mine. So I was tired and really, honestly considered to not actually go into the gym!

I figured that If I was tired I’d not have a good workout. Thing is, I know that once I’m in the gym or when I get out of bed, nothing can stop me – no tiredness nothing. So knowing that I decided to go and it was as I expected – fine. But what is really amazing is how much I was fighting with myself to not go. I dont usually have that problem – I just go. Its amazing how tiredness can affect you and your mind. The reason why I had this dilemma was purely because I was tired. Amazing how that can affect you, practically and physically. Amazing. Lesson learned = if you’re tired, you’ll find an excuse not to do it. Force yourself to get through it.

The other thing that I have realised is that sleep is only really important at the end of the day – not at the beginning. Think about it. You’ve got to get up and you’ve got to get through your day, right – regardless of the amount of sleep you had. If you lost say 2 hours sleep or more – well you’ll still need to manage in excess of 8 hours to get through your day. Same if you’ve had a good night’s sleep – only you’ll get further without feeling tired. So my point is that lack of sleep wont affect your immediate morning but will start messing around with you near the end of the day. So you should be able to get through the morning or training without the lack of sleep affecting you. So there is no need to use sleep and feeling tired right now(in the morning) as an excuse not to train.

Boom.

So I’ve not been running to work recently. I decided to stop owing to a calf strain. Its actually not that great running with an issue like this – I get a bit down when I dont run at all but I’ve come to actually rather enjoy not having to run with this pain in my calf. Sounds obvious but I’m the kind of guy that will run because I said I’ll run and if I got a calf strain or whatever, well its not as important to me as completing the run I said I’d do. Pig headed? Absolutely.

But anyway, So I just did my normal commute and thats substantially less running. I think the long distance running aggravated my calf.

I changed things a bit in terms of how I worked my calf: I didn’t work my calf at the gym, even though its part of my routine(which might be the reason its been taking a while to heal – I worked it last weekend). Also I did cycling instead of running. The rest over the weekend also helped. But is it ok now? No unfortunately not – its better but its not healed. Better means I can actually feel my calf and its not just a dull numb/pain sensation with each “plod” of my shoe. I can actually feel that I can push down on it. But its not perfect. So I’m going to keep backing off the longer runs.

The leg press has been annoying me recently so I switched to the Hack squat today and It felt easier but more importantly I wasn’t bored with it which it what I’m getting with the leg press.

I watched the new Sky Wars this weekend – Rogue One. It was an interesting/good film but I wanted more from it. Made me feel that perhaps Disney is just churning Star War films recently to recoup the costs for obtaining the rights to it. Learned about the theory behind cloud computing – very interesting. I upgraded to fedora 25 and installed Eclipse Neon.1 which is good.

I have quite a list of past running shoes. For 2 years, I ran with minimalist-barefoot type running shoes ranging from a heel drop of 0, 3, 4, 6. As you can see I’ve totally tried, tested and embraced bare foot running. Then I got a stress fracture in my foot, So I figured I’d get a more padded shoe and that's where I’m now. I used my last pair of barefoot-type of running shoes just a couple of weeks ago when I went on casual runs while on holiday. Its safe to say that I’m now running a lot more than I ever did, so I’ve decided to add more cushioning to prevent any kind of overuse problems (like a stress fracture) not that its definite that it was my 2 years of barefoot running that caused and as I found recently, running barefoot is still pleasurable and not painful but seeing that I’ve changed the amount of running quite a bit, I decided to step up the cushioning and really just for a change.

Here is the list of my past running shoes from my first to my last(current).

1. 10 March 2014 Inov8 F-Lite 195 Running Shoes - 8.5
2. 10 March 2014 Inov8 F-Lite 262 Running Shoes - 8.5
3. 25 February 2015 Inov8 Road-X-Lite 155 Running Shoes - AW14 - 8.5
4. 10 June 2015 Mizuno Wave Universe 4 Racing Shoes - 8.5
5. 15 August 2015  Mizuno Wave Ekiden 8 Mens Red Running Shoes Size UK 8.5
6. 16 August 2015 Mizuno Wave Universe 5 Men's Running Shoes Trainers  
7. 29 December 2015  Merrell Vapor Glove 2, Men's Trail Running Shoes, 8.5 UK (43 EU)  
8.  28 February 2016 Merrell Vapor Glove 2, Unisex-Adults' Running Shoes, Racer Blue/Bright Green, 8 UK (barely current)
9. 25 May 2016 ASICS Gel-Hyper Speed 6 Running Shoes - AW15 - 8.5 (Shoes) 
10.   Nike Free RN motion Flyknit run (current)
11. Nike Pegasus 33 (current)

My best barefoot running shoes are the Merrel Vapour glove 2s – you can see I’ve bought two of them. I wear out my shoes to the point that my toes are showing and in some cases are actually falling out! So every shoe I’ve used I’ve broken.

The last pair I’ve worn-out is the Asics Gel-Hyper Speed 6s which was the first running shoe geared up with more cushioning. When I broke those, I decided to try more ‘conventional’ running brands. Up until this point I’ve been choosing shoes by their heel drop and looks: Inov8(3 shoes) and Mizuno(3 shoes). I switched to Asics and now I’ve tried Nike. Nike never has had a barefoot type running shoe and that is what dissuaded me from choosing it.But now. I’m all Nike(except for my busted up Vapour gloves which are on the brink of destruction).

And really I must say my Nike Pegasus 33s are really wonderful, heavy, but wonderful. I was anxious about wearing heavier and ‘normal’ running shoes as I’ve been used to minimalist shoes(and still like ‘em) but with the weight comes confidence and padding and not having to land a special way or think about it on concrete(I run a lot on concrete so bashing barefeet is less useful) is a plus, definitely.

Barefoot running is cool but running barefoot ALL the time is strenuous and I needed a daily concrete-bashing training shoe. And has the Pegasus 33’s delivered! I love them really.

So here to you Pegasus 33s – and all the shoes that came before!