My mojo is back.

I woke up not feeling well to run. The feet, lower legs, and
tendons felt tight from yesterday's 3-mile jog. My 2nd
4-month dieting came to an end. I lost 4 lbs and my weight
reached an all-time low (since college). But yesterday's
carb-fast seemed to leave me with a lot less energy this
morning. It could be just my imagination but, for the first time,
I didn't want to just go out and run. After an egg and a cup
of coffee, I felt better. I did my strength routine for 30
min. By the time I hit the trail, it was already 9:30am.

It was such a nice day. The morning fog retreated. In a
distance and under the sky were the brown hills embellished
with patches of oak trees. Closer were the bright
yellow canola fields on both sides of the creek. There was
an organized running event on the other side.

It occurred to me that sometimes replaying some of the
running videos in my head helped focusing. Today, I kept
playing Mark Cucuzzella's barefoot running. I also thought
about Chi Running. As a result, I was able to focus on
landing most of the time. Every foot strike hit the right
place and felt powerful and efficient. As much form-aware as
I tried to be, this didn't happen all the time (e.g., when
my calf hurt bad weeks ago, during previous injuries, or for
unknown reasons) but when it did it worked great. This was
the state I should always try to get into in a run.

I went the same route last week, wondering if the calf pain
would improve. It did and I felt I had much more control
over longer distance over my feet. (The control I'm talking
about here manifests better down-hill. The more sure-footed
the better. This has been hard to do for me at the end of a
long run, barefoot or not.) It felt great to run at a pace
of 8:10 over 9.6 miles, even faster than I did two months
ago on a flat trail. I had a strong finish and the last two
miles were covered in 8:01 and 8:09, respectively. It's not
much of a long run but, again, I'm still finding my bare feet.