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Michael Arnstein AKA the Fruitarian Interview

Michael Arnstein eats fruit. Only fruit. Oh, and raw vegatables.

He also runs 150 – 180 miles per week without injury and hasn’t has a cold in 5 years.

Last year he ran the Vermont 100 ultra in sub 18 hours, and then won a marathon 2 days later in 2:39 – He recovers fast.

The Ultrarunner podcast was one of the most intriguing listens I’ve heard in a while, and Michael’s enthusiasm and energy comes across really well.

I couldn’t manage a fruitarian diet, but I’m sure going to be eating a lot more fruit instead of nuts as snacks!

www.thefruitarian.com

Tonight’s run was fun, with no pacing or distance goals. A stark change from all the marathon training runs for this year. The vibrams went on, came off, went on and finally off  again, with lots of photo / video stops too.

1/4 mile in, just over the canal and shoes come off.

Turning around I realised I was being followed by a giant’s shadow!

At the foot of a Lubenham Hill…

…and the view from the top.

Unfortunately it looks like things are changing. The start of a massive housing development covering a large portion of my run.

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Some video of a barefoot run over a track. I was surprised by how much my balance felt  restricted with trying to holding the phone stationary. Look out for the dog poop!

Garmin data (just to see if it works really)

Towards the end of my lunchtime run yesterday, a slight tingling indicated my form had been off.
I had been landing too far on the outside of my feet, and pushing off too aggressively.

I have a desk job so didn’t think too much more about it until I got home. Sure enough I had a decent sized blister on the right second toe.

I think the hundreds of miles over the last few months in vibrams has caused the toe off issue – you can get away with a lot in them.
Another factor is my feet have grown this year! I assume the vibram mileage is the culprit, but my toes protrude further than before, relative to my big toe.
But probably the biggest factor was the temperature of the tarmac. The run was at the hottest part of the day at about 28°C and my feet haven’t experienced that for a very long time.

I decided to leave it be as the blister is clear and there’s no pain.

This barefoot thing is a continuous learning process and I’ll just put it down to experience.

Just after the postman delivered my vibram bikilas, my daughter’s kindly christened them ‘froggy feet‘, and probably changed their opinion of me forever 🙂

They were soon changed to ‘toad shoes‘, cleverly incorporating the original frog theme while highlighting the ‘toed’ pockets. Genius! (Well for me anyway)

The vibrams at a little over 900 miles

After thinking about starting a running blog for a while (well all right – a couple of years) I’ve finally created one.

Initially I set up a blogger account but I found this fairly limited, although the dailymile widgets are nice and easy.

I then tried a WordPress hosted blog, which is more flexible but doesn’t allow plugins or widgets “for security reasons.”

So I eventually settled on my own domain and hosting, with a WordPress installation.

I just need a few posts now!