I always felt that running with slim sneakers (very thin sole) was best for me. Of course I never run on asphalt (somehow it always seemed to me crazy). So, running barefoot is not that crazy if you run on grass or sand. Running on asphalt with or without shoes doesn’t sound right to me.
The Great Barefoot Running Hysteria of 2010
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Re: The Great Barefoot Running Hysteria of 2010
#22Anecdotally, I see a lot of people wearing minimal shoes in their daily lives. But pretty much no minimal/barefoot runners anymore
I know a guy who has been no shoes for almost 20 years now. I think he does use the shoes with the toes when running, but in everyday life, he's just no shoes, no socks. The exception is situations where he's in a formal wear, in those cases he does put on shoes. Most others who didn't the barefoot running have all quit.
You guys wear footwear at home? I never wear anything (not even socks, except when it’s really cold outside, so like 2 weeks per year).
Re: The Great Barefoot Running Hysteria of 2010
#23I bought a pair of the original Vibram Five Fingers while living in London, 2007/2008. It was more out of curiosity than anything. They were displayed in a shop window in Spitalfields and looked bizarre in an appealing way. I was never a runner/jogger. But I do walk a lot. Especially in summer. For example, if something is 20 walking minutes away and public transport takes 15, I walk. I wore the Five Fingers all summ…
> I have exceptionally strong feet and I attribute it to these shoes.
It’s probably more because of this:
> But I do walk a lot. […] For example, if something is 20 walking minutes away and public transport takes 15, I walk.
Re: The Great Barefoot Running Hysteria of 2010
#24My girlfriend at the time got into this. I didn't run but expressed interest in giving it a go, so I got a pair of lightweight running shoes and she instructed me how to run "properly" like dogs and other animals, that is on the balls of my feet and not on my heels. I injured myself on my first run and couldn't walk for two weeks. I still don't really know what happened. Nothing obvious happened on the run; I didn't…
Forefoot running helped me tremendously, but the people in the shoe store advised me to use proper shoes for that (I guess I took the Nike Fly thing, which was good for that) and to start slowly with it. I used months to slowly adapt myself to it, starting with no more than 50 meters on these things per day, and I was already an experienced runner at that time.
Re: The Great Barefoot Running Hysteria of 2010
#25The whole mythos of running barefoot got me and my wife into running! We did actual barefoot just a little bit before switching to toe shoes. We ran in those until 2021. We only switched to Xeros because of the "grass stuck between the toes" effect when hiking and the ability to get slightly thicker soles with lugs.
From when we started in 2009 to today, we both had to increase two shoe sizes.
She just finished her first 50 mile ultramarathon using Xero thin soled shoes. It was half on the AT, and she had no issues with that.
I'm a less serious runner, just enough to be able to knock out a few miles on demand and the annual Broad Street 10 mile run.
We both hiked 1000 miles of the AT on a thru in 2022. We've also clocked around 3O00 miles of other small day hikes and overnight trips. All with Zeros or Altras, and with a 30lb pack.
Over the years, she's had some minor issues with plantar fascitis that went away when she added in regular stretching. She's had a few bouts of hip bursitis when ramping up mileage for the ultra.
I've had some issues with knee pain that started on the thru hike related to scoliosis. My one hip drops lower than the other, twisting the knee and causing issues on both. Regular single leg exercises and heavy lifting keeps that in check (hard to do on the trail unfortunately).
Neither of us have had any issues with ankles, calves, or typical runner knee issues. I'm not sure I can credit the shoes for all of it, but I'm very glad we started with them and neither of us have any reason to change. Regular thick foam trainers now feel very uncomfortable, it's hard to describe. They squish my toes (which are very wide). They change my gait which feels awkward.
It's funny, now I feel like I see lots of runners in my area using these thin soled shoes, like the Merrel Vaporglove, Xeros, or alternative. Maybe it's cohort bias? Either way I am glad I found them when I did!
Re: The Great Barefoot Running Hysteria of 2010
#26I don't think it's fallacious to appeal to nature. Sure, not all things natural are good for you (deadly viruses etc.). But when you have something that works for millennia, and has been optimized (by evolution) for that specific purpose, making changes to that specific thing is likely to ignore the context in which that specific thing was created. It's like trying to change a legacy software system with no documentation. You have to be very careful not to introduce bugs, and in most practical cases, "how the legacy system does it" is GOOD, and you should hold the burden of proving that the new system is actually better.
Re: The Great Barefoot Running Hysteria of 2010
#27My girlfriend at the time got into this. I didn't run but expressed interest in giving it a go, so I got a pair of lightweight running shoes and she instructed me how to run "properly" like dogs and other animals, that is on the balls of my feet and not on my heels. I injured myself on my first run and couldn't walk for two weeks. I still don't really know what happened. Nothing obvious happened on the run; I didn't…
I had a similar experience, except at the time I was an avid distance runner. I had run a number of ultras and was training for a marathon. After a single 15 minute run in a pair of Nike Free shoes, I was unable to run for two weeks. It felt like a combination of shin splints, knee problems, and calf cramps. It was horrible.
The strange thing was that I never really favored the big, bulky shoes anyway. I always sought out the lowest cushion, lowest drop shoes I could find. And in 2010 I was already 20 years into running regularly.
The fad did have a lasting effect on me though. I can now buy nice, low cushion zero drop shoes, and I love them. But no-cushion is definitely out for me, and I can’t imagine running shoeless at all.
Re: The Great Barefoot Running Hysteria of 2010
#28I'd alway been prone to avoiding shoes. I started running when I was 16 (1986). During high school I'd run 10-14 miles a night about five days a week, mostly barefoot.
I didn't start regularly wearing shoes until after college. Since I started wearing shoes there has been a significant change in my foot structure. My big toes have moved outward by at least 10 degrees. Before then they were directly in-line with the bones and ligaments running down the foot.
When you walk and run barefoot your foot soles get much thicker. You learn how to respond to your feet. I tend to not get splinters or glass slivers because I can feel them before I put my full weight down. Even when something does pierce the skin, it doesn't penetrate the sole, and I can just pick up my foot and grab it out with my fingers.
One of the most interesting benefits seems to be resistance to fungal infections. If I ever start to feel itching in my feet, then I go for a long walk barefoot on concrete. It just ends.
Re: The Great Barefoot Running Hysteria of 2010
#29I bought some unstructured shoes last fall, which I ordered online because none of the shops I went into sold them, because "too many people were getting injured". When I forst got my shoes the forst thing I did was go for a 2 mile walk, and sure enough I hurt something under my left arch, which gave me minor grief for a couple weeks.
When winter arrived I started using them for the real reason I bught them: winter trail running, and for that they're great. Like mocassins, your foot conforms to the ground and they provide provide pretty excellent grip on snowpack. I consider it an improvement over lugged trail runners for winter.
I previously owned some Converse high-tops and found their lightly structured soles worked well in winter, which is what first got me curious about unstructured shoes. That and the 6 months I spent surfing in Mexico, in which I was barefoot 90% of the time. To note, I am not a serious runner. I hike and cycle, but for running the trend over the last 5 years has been to go for trail runs in winter 1-2 dozen times a season.
Re: The Great Barefoot Running Hysteria of 2010
#30It's a pretty good article. In that era I saw two major misconceptions around minimalism in running footwear. The first is the idea that heel-to-toe "drop" is the the main important metric -- of course, a shoe company thing. Actually what matters a lot more is proprioception -- the feeling of knowing where your foot is in space relative to the ground, and also the feedback your foot is getting from the ground. The se…
Same experience here (though I probably skewed more to barefoot than you did). There's a certain amount of immediate painful feedback for a heel striker once you start running barefoot. There's a certain amount of reconditioning and retraining of under utilised muscles that needs to happen so I think your advice to gradually introduce is make a lot of sense. What I've always found interesting is that even for runners like me that had poor form, as soon as the shoes come off we naturally shift towards a more efficient and lower impact technique.
After a few years of regular barefoot running my running gait had changed enough that I didn't feel the need to keep doing it and have been doing runs in race shoes almost exclusively for the past decade.