Recorded seconds after the completion of my first 6 mile barefoot run.
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I’ve done a number of Half Marathons in the past. In about a month I will be doing the Birmingham Half Marathon. The difference with this run will be that this one, I’m going to do it barefoot.
It will be an interesting experience since I’ve only really being running barefoot for about a month and my legs have not as yet finished re-designing themselves for the requirements of unshod pavement pounding.
It’s been quiet a journey so far. After switching to barefoot I, like most people experienced days of exhausted calves. This has now subsided and has been replaced, as I have increased my distance by pains in the little muscles I didn’t know existed. They’re no being called upon to do all sorts of stability work they next had to do when my feet where encased in trainers.
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I started running late. At school I saw cross country as an exciting opportunity to not be in school for an hour or so. I would go for a walk with mates, scoff sweets and tried the odd cigarette. After I left school I didn’t run for about half a decade. It was only when I joined the Army that the running bug took hold. I started to run because I had to. I had to make it round a one and half mile course in less than ten and a half minutes, so I would pull on my shoes, walk out the door, turn left and run round the block three times. About 12 minutes later I would get back home hot tired and happy that the torture was over. I didn’t like it much.
I did however always have an interest in barefoot running. I don’t recall now what peaked my interest but I still own a pair of the first Nike Frees. I ran in them for years. During those years my interest in running broadened. The distances I ran increased, as did the pleasure I got out of it. I would run out the door up the hill to the Wych and round the Malvern Hills. I never worried about the time it took and was never interested in racing. I ran in the frees and in my issue low tech “HiTech”Army trainers. Then a couple of years ago my then girlfriend started getting me into the idea of running half marathons.
One day she took me to the local running store where I walked and ran barefoot on a treadmill while they camcordered my gate and the fall of my foot.
At the end of the testing the told me that I pronated with the best of them and that I needed a good stiff running shoe with good padding to correct the problem. I was worried. They told me not to be. Most people had a similar problem. I paid up and got the shoes.
I started doing the half marathons. Over the next year I suffered from plantar issues and knee pain. I told myself it was the extra distance I was doing.
Some months ago I read about Vibram Five Fingers and again my interest in barefoot, or minimalist running was reawakened. Over the next weeks I started reading everything I could find on barefoot running. Finally I caved and bought a pair of Brown size 10 KSOs.
I no longer think the problem was the distance. I think the problem was the running shoes.
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