The 2016 Bay2Breakers was fantastic. I was able to enjoy end
to end barefoot and carrying my backpack (about 10lbs). It
was much more of a festival than a race. I remembered
chasing a group of runners dressed up as Roman legionaires
(called a centipede) in Golden Gate Park. It took me 4 days
to recover from that 7.5-mile run.

Other than that, in the past several months, I did very
moderate running, about 10 miles a week. My plantar
fasciitus was mild but annoying. I realized now that
physically I had never been great to run. The stamina and
the cardio capacity were there but my symmetry, flexibility,
and joint mobility desperately needed work. Running barefoot
fixed some posture issues but that's obviously not enough.
Well, after almost 40 years of sitting, who can blame me?! ;-)
Early this year, when I told Mark I gave up running a
marathon this summer, he told me that it was a good idea as
he thought I could get injured. I have been relentlessly
stretching since then.

Meanwhile, I read and re-read, among others, the book "Body,
Mind, and Sport" by John Douillard and started to practice
nasal breathing and lower the intensity of my runs. I threw
away my Garmin Forerunner GPS watch (Its bands broke after
one year. The vendor's trick, no doubt.) and focused totally
on feeling it. I'm not going to buy a heart-rate monitor for
that matter, even though it is recommended in the book and
pretty much everywhere else. If I'm going to be self-reliant,
I'd do it with as little "help" as possible from modernity. So I've
been counting steps per breath cycle and found it most
comfortable with 4 steps in and 5 steps out.  And more
importantly, such runs have been fun.

I kept running longer at low intensity and recovery got easier
Secretly, I have started to entertain the idea of a marathon
later this year.