It turns out that January’s barefoot 50K at the Rock ‘n’ Roll Ultra 50K with a time of 4:14:52 was enough to earn the title of “World Record” for fastest barefoot 50K kept on Barefoot Ken Bob’s Running Barefoot site.

I have to admit, this didn’t even occur to me, even when I realized that my run had a place on his results page, until Ken Bob responded by pointing out that it was the fastest on record.  This got me wondering, what am I really capable of as a barefoot ultrarunner?

At this month’s One Day Run For Hunger, I will be running barefoot/minimalist for 24 hour hours to raise money to fight hunger in our communities.  I’ve run a 100 mile mountainous trail ultramarathon in Vibram Five Fingers, so I’m confident that I have what it takes to run at least 100 miles in 24 hours without running shoes.  My question becomes: how far can I go barefoot?

Long ultramarathons are already full of unknowns.  Adding in the factor of extending my barefoot mileage would increase those unknowns, but could well earn me a world record for farthest barefoot run in a 24 hour timed event.

There are challenges that I would not have included if I set this up to set a world record.  Existing records have been set on smooth cushy tracks, while this is a groomed trail with a stretch of gravel on the loop course I’m a bit concerned about.  I’ve done gravel on similar courses without issue, but I don’t know how happy I would be happy to run over it 100 times.

Tell me what you think.  Play it safe or set the bar high?  As I’ve already said, I will be toeing the line barefoot and running the whole thing without shoes.  I already have it in mind to see what I can do with just me feet.  But I’m curious to hear from you.

Let me know here, on the Facebook group, or even on the One Day Run For Hunger fund raising page.