Barefoot in Bristol

Enjoying a weekend down in Bristol at the moment and the weather is lovely. As you can see from the photo from our bedroom window, we're within spitting distance of the Clifton suspension bridge.

We'd planned to go running this morning and I'd brought my running shoes but in the end I decided to go barefoot again. I was a liitle worried about it but we'd covered quite a lot of the ground we planned to run yesterday so I had a prretty good idea what the surfaces were like. We started however by crossing the suspension bridge and running down a road that was somewhat akin to running down a cheese grater. NoT an auspicious start!

Once down the hill we worked our way across to the floating harbour and ran past the "Great Britain" (the Brunnel ship rescued from the Faulklands back in the 70s) and on to the swing bridge. From there it was back along the other side of the floating harbout and the uphill from Hotwells back to Clifton. Bristol really is such a great city for running. Superb hills everywhere!

From the feet point of view, apart from that first hill, I really loved it. We ran for 68 minutes and I could have gone on much longer. Running in barefeet adds a whole new dimention to your runs as you negotiate different surfaces, dropping back on the pricklier bits and surging forwards on the smoother stuff. The surging forwards feels particuarly effortless as you're not dragging extra weight on your feet. I really can't wait to try racing in bare feet to see whether this sense of speed is real or imaginary.