Barefoot Runner

What do most people do when their foot starts to hurt after running? They go see their doctor and most of time they're told any number of things from they need a new pair of shoes, their form is bad, they need orthotics and maybe even that they, and all humans just aren't made to run.

That's precisely what happened to Chris McDougall and rather than take his doctors' (both of them) word for it, he set off on an epic journey to discover if man really was meant to run, especially when both doctors had just told him that he just was not meant to run (he's a big lad, like me).

The whole book evolves around the build up to a race between a random group of America's best ultra runners and the Tarahumara tribe - reputed to be the best long distance runners in the world who literally wear pieces of rubber strapped to the bottom of their feet - in the Copper Canyons of Mexico.

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Same runner, same day, with no instruction given in between videos.

Whilst this lady's barefoot form isn't brilliant in the first place (better example of good barefoot form), it's very clear what a difference wearing shoes makes and it certainly helps to explain (not the same cause though as I definitely strike forefoot in shoes too) the niggles I encountered following wearing shoes for one run.

That's it, I've decided I will NOT be running in shoes ever again, if I can help it. By shoes, I mean those heavy, expensive things with huge wadges of foam and rubber and laces - not Vibrams or other minimalistic "foot protectors".

The reason is plain and simple: it hurts.

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Following on from my post about whether Peter should start with shoes and then transition to barefoot, or start barefoot from the go, I stumbled upon an article - The Barefoot Route - about running barefoot in which the following useful bit of advice is given on starting out...

According to exercise physiologist and Olympic marathoner Pete Pfitzinger, the key to starting out is to go slowly. He advises walking barefoot for a few weeks to toughen up the skin on the bottom of the foot as well as the muscles in the ankles and feet. Once you are ready to run, start with a mere five minutes, increasing slowly and running barefoot every couple of days. From there, build to up to 20 minutes over a month. After a few weeks of this, the feet and ankles will be stronger, thus reducing the risk of injury. Possible places to train include sandy beaches and golf courses. The barefoot running technique has been described as falling forward. It has also been described as gently kissing the ground with the balls of your feet. If you need one more concept to meditate on while running barefoot, imagine that a log is lying across the path in front of you; you don’t want to kick the front of the log with your toes. You want to step over the log with each step, keeping your knee bent and placing the ball of your foot immediately behind the log as your chest moves over the top of it.

The article is a good read and provides some useful information and answers some questions people have about the thought of running barefoot My favourite question answered is...

“What do you use for arch support?” some might ask. “My arch,” is probably usually the first answer that pops out of the mouth of die-hard barefooters.

Damn right. That's what it's there for . Time for another barefoot run for me.

Oh, and if you think you get strange looks running with Vibrams, you should see the looks you get when running completely kaalvoet.

I received a great question in the comments on my post about my first completely barefoot run, and rather than reply in the comments where it may be hidden from others, I thought I'd reply via a post.

The question is...

Hey guys - never really been into running but have been thinking about getting into some serious running! Have seen quite a number of links and websites about barefoot running, and given that I'm barefoot a lot during the summer I'm wondering whether I should go straight for Vibram/barefoot running rather than learning and then un-learning with running shoes. What advice would you guys give?

First off, welcome to the world of running, and it's great to hear your considering barefoot running.

My advice would be to start running barefoot from the very beginning. As you're not a runner now, you won't have any bad habits, expensive shoes or any anxiety about getting back to previous fitness levels and speeds, so the only thing really holding you back is your body. And that's the important part as it's going to be your biggest limiting factor at first and if you're not careful, it will be the part that will scare you away from running.

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I've just come back from my first completely barefoot run and WOW!!! It felt fantastic to feel so free and to really feel the earth beneath my feet. It was also very surprising how comfortable it was at first.

I managed to run in my normal style for about 1.5km on tarred pavements before the bottoms of my feet really started to feel uncomfortable with the new surface. I then finished off with another 1.5km or so on grass, just to give myself and feet a good workout.

I think I'll leave it at least a week before I have another go completely barefoot. One thing is for sure, I think it's here to stay.

Sorry about the lack of updates - work has been crazy and I've not really had much to write about in my little world of running, but now I do .

So far the running has been going well. I'm slowly building up the "time on my feet" to get my body and feet used to running. This is mainly an injury prevention measure. I'm also trying to stick to the old adage that you shouldn't increase your mileage by more than 10% a week.

At the moment I'm up to 2x 18-20 min gentle runs a week with one in Vibrams and one in shoes, and 2-3 weights sessions in the gym broken up into upper body and lower body workouts (this is actually a major cut in the amount of gym work I used to do so is also taking a fair amount of getting used to). The runs have been going really well and I've not felt the slightest bit of pain or discomfort in either my feet or calves.

That is until I tried something different on Monday. Foolishly, I thought I might see if I can start throwing some speed work in to the mix and to get things going, thought I'd determine my Billat pace (aka vVO2) (mistake 1), in my Vibrams (mistake 2).

I took a leisurely jog down to a nearby park which has a path around it that is about a mile long (mapmyrun.com route) with 100m markers all the way round. As is needed for calculating your Billat pace (I first mentioned it in the context of rowing before), I blasted my way round and managed to cover about 1570m in my six minutes (for those that are interested, that makes my Billat pace about 6:09/mile or 3:49/km). I stuck to the grass verge and actually really enjoyed running fast again, but sadly my legs and feet weren't too happy the next morning.

The muscles in my feet are feeling very tired and my calves very stiff. Based on this, I'd say my form goes to pot when I run fast (need more practice ) and I really need to concentrate on building my base a bit more, so no more grease-lightening runs for a while.

All in all, the gently-gently approach is working very well and I'm getting in a good mix of shod and Vibram-ed runs and will continue building up a good solid base before diving back into speed work.