Afton 25K Trail Run Report
Learning what I didn't expect to learn
It rained. It rained a lot.
I had been hoping for the rain because in 9 years of serious barefoot running I’d never really been able to find out if bare feet in mud are any kind of advantage over footwear. I assumed it would be. After all, shoes can get caked with mud making them heavy. Plus, wet shoes and sock aren’t any fun at all. Running barefoot in mud is fun, too! So, bring on the rain, I thought. I’ll enjoy it more than anybody else and maybe even have an advantage.
I was wrong.
To be sure: nobody had an easy time of it yesterday. Afton’s trail is not at all sustainably designed. If you want more info on that check out IMBA’s sustainable trail building guidelines. The short of it is you never build a trail going straight up the fall line of a hill. That just creates a channel for water which means the trail gets rutted out over time. To fix that you usually need a shitload of gravel. That kind of trail layout ends up being expensive both in financial terms and labor.
Therefore: Afton’s hill climbs and descents are steep, full of gravel and rocks and really slick in the rain.
I’ve run this course many times before having completed the 50K four times over the years. This year I was only doing one lap instead of two for 25K. My grand idea for my barefoot training plan was to see if it can help me run those “shorter” distances faster. This was to be the first big test of that and the results to that end are a big, fat, goose egg! It was not a day for speed for most people.
I finished in 3 hours and 30 minutes. In previous years I would usually finish the first lap in close to 3 hours flat. Without any need to do a second lap I was a full half hour slower. My poor, poor ego.
At least I was in good company, ending up pretty squarely in the middle of the field (276/472 overall and 32/63 in the Grand Master Male aka 50+ category). That said I do feel I could have placed a whole lot higher had I not made one, specific last minute change: I chose my 4mm thick Xero DIY sandals over my 15mm thick Luna Origens.
The Xeros are great if you want something super lightweight. They also let me feel the ground due to being so thin and flexible. The Origens are literally made from car tires. Not only are they thicker but a lot stiffer. I decided I would only use sandals for the 2-3 miles of uncomfortable gravel in the middle of the course and therefore the Lunas would be overkill. What I really should have done was use the Lunas for the entire race.
I do not, however, regret my decision. One of the consequences was learning a lot about the specific benefits and hinderances of running barefoot on a muddy course. I’ll start with the benefits:
No blisters. Any experience trail runner will tell you that wet socks and shoes can often mean painful blisters on the feet. You end up trying your best to avoid puddles. Not me! I was seeking puddles out and having a great time … well, at first. My feet got wet but it was never a big deal.
No heavy mud buildup. I’m sure you’re familiar with the feeling: the soles of your shoes are caked with mud and it’s now like running in work boots. Bare skin just doesn’t let the mud build up like that. And any time I needed I could splash through puddles to wash them off.
The bad news:
No traction. Yes, most people didn’t have traction yesterday. I saw a few slips and falls and many runners had visible signs of having done full body slides in that stuff. I only fell once and I’m really surprised it was only once. The advantage everyone else did have over me, though, was being able to get that tread on the exposed rocks. I was specifically working to avoid those rocks. To find traction I often had to go way off to the sides of the trail ducking under branches and running through weeds or rough, untracked forest floor.
And that’s about it for bad news. It’s only one item but … hoo boy … it’s a doozey of an item! I do still wonder if the course doesn’t have hills quite as steep would bare feet be a benefit but in the case of Afton State Park here in Minnesota I can definitively say: use some kind of footwear when it’s muddy.
Despite that experience I am still curious if one of these years bare feet might be the trick to running a fast lap. It’s just that the conditions have to be perfect: not too dry so it’s overall harsh and rough but just wet enough to provide some give for the gravel while still having traction.
The thin, flimsy Xero sandals hurt me more than helped. The best decision would have been to keep the Luna sandals but second best would have been to use no sandals at all. When I put on the Xeros it was to handle a rough, gravel stretch that goes from the hike-in campground down a 1/2 mile hill and along an old, 1 mile long railroad bed. I’ve done that in bare feet before, had to slow down for it and it sucked. But I could do it and I knew better. I wanted a little extra comfort so I slipped on the sandals.
When it’s wet and muddy a pair of flimsy, thin sandals are worse than nothing. The mud cakes onto them, they slip around because it’s wet and you’re spending all your energy trying to find stability but they give you none. I literally could not run with them on. I stubbornly kept at it as I do with all things and kept trying to get going running in them. My exhaustion would spike, breathing got harder and I’d have to stop to walk. Once I finally took them off I was able to run again and felt significantly better.
This also spoke to another mistake in training: not enough time in sandals. I knew I was going to have to leverage sandals to a greater or lesser extent in the race but hardly did any running in them. It’s a rookie mistake: untested equipment on race day. Technically they were tested but just not at all enough. If I did more runs in them I would have found the faults earlier and either adjusted the sandals properly or decided to stick to my trusty Lunas.
About 90% of my running has been in bare feet on paved surfaces. There are myriad benefits to that and some of those are even applicable to trail running, especially with how much I learned about dancing and dodging around small rocks and debris. But it’s still not actual time in the sandals. I’m very well trained for a 10K or half marathon on the road, sure, but not the muddy, wet, rocky mess that was Afton this year.
A better mood
The last time I ran at Afton was two years ago for my 4th 50K. I just didn’t enjoy myself. I really worried I’d lost the spark for running. I finished about middle-of-the pack same as this year but knew I could have done far better if I had spent more time in training. I shifted to a focus on shorter runs for now to regain that spark I feared was lost and do believe that’s worked. I’m actually looking forward to trying this all over again next year!
I’ll do at least two more half marathons yet this year: the Circle the Lake Half in Faribault, MN and the Mankato Half Marathon. I’ll keep my eyes open for anything else that might interest me, too, but there’s also just a lot more going on in my life than running so I won’t be packing my schedule with a race every weekend or even every month.
My hope is I’ll finally get answers to my questions about whether a bigger focus on speed vs distance can yield better finish times as I age. A rough, muddy trail run is not the place to find those answers but a far more “civilized” road race is more likely to.