Subsequent to my post regarding the “Militant” group of barefoot runners, I have been in contact with Barefoot Ken Bob who runs the site. His site has some very interesting things to say about running barefoot and he particularly directed me to an article on his site, by Dr Nicholas Romanov (who wrote The Pose Method of Running) regarding his take on barefoot running.
Since reading a bit more I have decided to introduce more barefoot running into my weekly training. I don’t have a beach near me any more, meaning that sand running is out of the question so today I began the process of adaption by taking off my flats for a kilometre and a half of my run while I was on a rubberised walking track near my home.
I was immediately surprised by how quiet it all sounded. My feet made only the slightest sound as they lightly padded the ground at each step. I freaked out a few early morning walkers by inadvertently sneaking up behind them silently and then passing by. They were completely shocked to see someone without any warning, and particularly when it was a foreign guy wearing only a tan mark where his shoes normally go.
Tonight the balls of my feet feet a little burnt but that is no surprise. It has been quite some time since these feet have braved the pavement without at least thongs to protect them. It will take some time for them to toughen up. All in all it was a positive experience and I have no idea where it will lead but I expect to see some benefits if I stick to it for a while as part of my training.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Jesse // Jul 10, 2007 at 8:08 am
I read a book by Jeff Galloway that recommended running on Golf Course grass barefoot. Interesting to hear it’s more popular than I thought.
2 Tom O'Leary // Jul 10, 2007 at 5:33 pm
Hi Jesse
I understand that a lot of people, from all different running philosophies, are making progress with barefoot running. Are you one of them? I think golf course grass would have to be the perfect surface for barefoot running. Unfortunately golf courses that people can run on are very, very rare here in Japan. I think it would be like trying to run laps of Buckingham palace or the White House.
Thanks
Tom
3 Barefoot Ken Bob // Aug 5, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Our ancestors would have had to run barefoot on all types of surfaces, soft, hard, smooth, rough, to find food and get to where they were going.
The problem with just running on nice cushy comfortable surfaces, is much the same as running in nice, cushy shoes - limited feedback!
Blocking feedback from our sole, feedback which should teach us to run very smoothly, gently, and efficiently - just as it has taught many great runners from Africa and other places - is the sole purpose of shoes (pun intended).
Instead of learning to run gently on any surface, we either block the feedback with artificial soles, and once the feedback moves into our chronically damaged knees and back, we take pain killers.
Don’t shoot, or imprison, the messengers! Listen and learn from the messages. If it is uncomfortable to run barefoot on MOST ANY surface, you probably aren’t running the way humans are designed to run.
Those arguments that we aren’t designed to run on modern paved surfaces, just don’t stand up when one looks at the great plains, after baking in the sun for months, or just from my own experience of running barefoot in more than 60 marathons, mostly on roads. Besides, there’s nothing natural about putting our feet inside shoes either!
Granted, after years of pampering our feet, it will take a bit of time to learn and be able to run any significant distances barefoot on most surfaces.
But, then those Africans, who grew up learning to walk and run barefoot, didn’t start out running any great distances either!
Have fun,
-barefoot ken bob
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