Barefoot Runner

I've finally managed to get my hands on The Lieberman "letter": Foot strike patterns and collision forces in habitually barefoot versus shod runners reported in January's edition of Nature and I've read through it, the accompanying Harvard site and a lot of the reviews other people have made, and here are my observations.

First and foremost, I believe this paper has been over-hyped and misinterpreted (possibly deliberately as it makes "good news") in a big way. I think the main reason for this is it's the first major research paper in years that actually involves comparisons between barefoot and shod runners. There have been other recent studies that have documented the merits of different foot strikes (fore/mid/heel), but none have made the comparison between barefoot and shod runners. There's also the added attention barefoot running is currently enjoying thanks to Christopher McDougall's book: Born to Run (my review).

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Just a quick note to say, no, I've not been sleeping under a rock (sleep, what's that?). Yes, I've heard about the Lieberman Paper and seen/heard the BBC news article and all the other summaries and opinions cropping up all over the net since it was released earlier this week, I've just not had the chance to actually sit down and read it, or more specifically the Harvard site setup for it, yet.

The thing is my wife and I have just had our first baby and sadly she's got a heart condition, so I've spent most of my free time...

It's recently occurred to me that there is another benefit to barefoot/minimalist running and that's the wildlife encounters that I now get to experience.

I live in the UK, so I'm not going to be encountering any "cool" wildlife like lions, tigers, bears and wild dogs, but rather the more timid animals like squirrels, foxes, deer and birds. Whilst timid, these guys shouldn't be snubbed as they tend to hear you long before you see them and they're long gone by the time you get within smelling distance.

If "run regularly" is on your tentative list of New Year's resolutions, you may find Runner's World's (US) What Should I Wear? calculator may help you pick appropriate attire.

Are we hardwired to run efficiently, and NOT in the way the shoe companies think we should? I think these two videos prove we may well be.

First off, the kids. They haven't had a chance to be manipulated by fancy running shoes and as we can see from this video, POSE/Chi/Evolution running are all really stating what we already know before we even know we know it...

I'm a subscriber to Barefoot Ted's huaraches Google Group, and the other day one of the members started a thread about funny comments and retorts which I thought I'd share in summary:

OrionFyre:

I got stopped by a cop who pulled up along side me to see if I was OK.
"why do you ask?" I say.
"Because you're not wearing shoes..." he replies
I look down at my feet with a look of surprise. "Oh shit! they must have fallen off."
I stand upright and look back the way I had came covering my eyes from the suns glare. In the corner of my eye I see the cop turn around in the car and look back.
"dammit." I mumble aloud
"I knew I should have tied them tighter."

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As suspected last week, I didn't manage to get in the barefoot miles this week that I got in last week. I did try once, but the route I took turned out to be a lot tougher on the feet than expected, especially the chestnut and other tree debris in the early and latter parts of the route. The early morning cold doesn't make things any easier either, though my feet did warm up quite quickly.

One plus side of last week is I felt fantastic after every run, so kept on running. As a result I quite happily ticked ...

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm proud to say that today I ticked off the "10km per week in training completely barefoot" goal I set for myself, and I'm quite proud of myself.

I've had a great week of barefoot running this thanks to some great autumnal weather and being on the early shift. Being on the early shift means I have to go for my runs later in the day, when it's warmer, from home rather than bright and early from work, when it's cold.

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Looky looky what I received in my inbox from a kind lady at Terra Plana (click for full size):

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