Barefoot Experiment

This year's challenge is to get back to barefoot running. As a kid in Kenya and Zambia I went barefoot except during term time. Two years ago I was having real problems with various lower leg issues and finally, in desperation, abandoned a brand new pair of road shoes (they are still under my desk in mint condition) and started running in a pair of trail shoes with no pronation correction at all. The issues went away and I even ran my first (and last) ultra training largely on roads in lightweight shoes.

Then last year I read Christopher McDougall's Born to run and an article in Nature snappily titled: "Foot strike patterns and collision forces in habitually barefoot versus shod runners". The ideas on the problems caused by heel strike were compelling and matched my experience the year before. I continued to do my road running in trail shoes, my hill shoes are of course already pretty minimal and I did some actual barefoot work on the beach. I tried to buy a pair of Vibram Fivefingers but my feet don't fit them.

So this week after seeing an advert for Merrell Barefoot shoes in Trail I've invested in a pair of their trail gloves and am giving barefoot style running a real shot.