Well, not the real winter you hardcore guys from Midwest with single digit temperatures run in but the local variation we are blessed with here in the Northwest.
I sign up for 10k Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day. The race is on a paved trail in a park, the temperature is 32F and there are some icy patches mixed with a little snow on the trail.
I have gathered all the information I could find about running BF in winter on the Barefoot Runners Society forum before so I dress warmly, put vasoline on top of my feet and stay in my flip-flops until the starter gun. I am a little worried about running on the ice but the organizers make a bypass at the very last moment to avoid the largest icy section so we can run on grass instead.
There are a lot of runners so the first two minutes everybody just walks and I start worrying about my cold feet but when I finally manage to get to my tempo my feet warm up and I feel great and pretty confident about the rest of the run. I pass a lot of people and this is the first time I actually notice and wonder about how most of the shod runners loudly slap their feet with low cadence huffing and puffing.
I finish easily in 50 minutes with a big smile at the finish line hearing a guy with a megaphone announcing: "We got a barefoot runner here, it must really hurt to run barefoot especially in this cold weather". I wish he knows how wrong he is.
My feet are just fine, not a single blister, I only feel a bit of soreness on my front pads afterwards but that is gone by evening that day.
More races like this !
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