Oh the joys of a sack of potatoes....literally potatoes

Earlier this week, I took all of the kids grocery shopping and had a successful trip! Rarity. At any rate, thank goodness for car carts and mini-kid sized carts. They all took turns pushing the mini cart and riding/driving the car cart. The produce section set the premise for our trip, who would think that a 5lb sack (or two since they were buy one get one free) could bring such enjoyment. Immediately, Nyla claimed one of the bags as her baby (Olivia, playing with Nyla, followed suit...Max could have cared less, he had his eye on the prize, er free kids cookie over in the bakery section). Nyla immediately started talking every so softly and sweetly to her baby, carrying her baby around, buckling her baby in the seat and putting her baby in the mini cart and pushing her baby around. We had a bit of difficulty separating from baby long enough for the cashier to put the baby through the register, oh the relief to have baby back in her arms after that devastatingly long separation.
Baby rode in the carseat with Nyla on the way home, and was quickly welcomed into our house being showered with toys and more kisses and....well babies do need to eat, a sweet nursing session. They played under the fort together and read books, and baby was so thirsty that Nyla (good little Mother she is) shared her sippy cup of water with her baby (soaking the potatoes inside the bag). After about an hour and a half of baby potato sack enjoyment, it all ended peacefully and on Nyla's terms. We did have to let the bag of potatoes sit on the counter to air out for a good day or so. Let me conclude this by saying that no potato was injured during this production of imaginative play :)

3am Epiphany, Barefoot for Body Awareness!

After a brief 3am waking, Nyla needed an extra middle of the night snuggle, my mind immediately started racing into multitudes of thoughts that occupy my mind throughout non-sleeping hours (and are often translated into my dreams). I'm not exactly sure why I started to think about the importance of barefoot running, why shoes hinder a good wise run and how it's like swimming in a life jacket. False sense of security.

My thoughts were, running in traditional high tech, cushioned, stability, motion control etc etc shoes gives inhibits our natural tendency to become more body aware. Sadly, I think that our society has become so dependent on modern technologies that we lack the ability to build body awareness. We use Garmins and fancy watches to see what our pace is ( I challenge you to head out on a run, sans gear and pace yourself by how your body feels, by your breath and by your heart beating in your chest), GPS systems and online maps to map out exactly how far we are running and pillowy running shoes to "cushion the impact".

Is this really benefiting us, by not allowing us to learn more about how we're running in order to naturally cushion our own footfall with good running form? Lacing up a brand new pair of ultra cushioned stability shoes, will not help you learn how to run better no more so than putting a life jacket on to learn how to swim. Sure, it will keep you afloat and is an awesome safety device, I put my own kids in them, though it's much easier to learn to swim bare...without your life jacket. Likewise, learning to run without the shoes. Of course you're not going to jump right into the deep end of the pool and expect to crawl stroke your way beautifully to the opposite end of the pool. Of course you're not going to be able to take your traditional training shoes off for the first time and run a marathon.

It takes patience, a good bit of educating yourself, listening to and connecting with your body using feedback to better your run and your experience..did I mention patience. If you are not used to listening to your body and engaging in good "conversation-take and give" with your body, this may be frustrating and unmotivating. Be patient, it will come and the more you allow yourself to experience getting to know your body...the higher your body awareness IQ will become. Shoes are good, they're a means to providing protection on occasions when barefoot isn't most practical. Having learned and practiced the fundamentals of "barefoot running", at it's barest most pure form will become ingrained in your run and you'll then be able to put your shoes on when need be and still run wisely.