Frozen VFF’s

Now that the temperatures have fallen to single digits, I noticed something about my VFF’s, they’re not warm. Actually, my feet don’t get as cold as I thought they would. Besides any snow that comes over the top, the main problem is the transfer of cold from the frozen ground through the thin rubber soles to my toes. The main portion of my foot does not get that cold but my toes start to go numb. You don’t have to be a native of Colorado to know this is not good.

I have had several runs which I had to cut short because of numb toes. All the years of frostbite from skiing in below zero temperatures has decreased the circulation in my toes and has made them more vulnerable.

Now I’ve seen the videos of other barefoot runners running in the snow and that’s great for them. If they can do that for an hour long run, more power to them. I am not a barefoot runner to show people how tough I am. Even Barefoot Ken Bob said it’s okay to wear something in freezing temperatures. I run barefoot because it eliminated decades of knee pain. It gives me an incredibly deep relaxed feeling that lasts throughout the day. I have more a Zen outlook on my surroundings because of barefoot running. Frozen feet do not have a place in this equation. Since I want to keep my toes, I’ve looked for winter alternatives to VFF’s.

One alternative are my Teva sandals with a warm pair of socks. This actually works quite well with the only drawback being snow coming over the top or wedging between my foot and the sandal. On dry cold days, this will be my go to shoe. If there is snow or just a lot of wet, I’m going old school with the shoes I wore when I got married. My Converse Chuck Taylor high tops. They are flat, thin, and offer no arch support. Yes, when they get wet they get cold but so does any shoe. A warm wool sock goes a long way to help out here.

If you have any alternatives for keeping your feet attached in the winter, let’s hear about them.

1st Hash Run

RU?

After months of trying, I finally was able to attend my first Hash Run.

I tried back in August but that’s when I first tore a muscle in my leg. In September I re-injured it again right before a hash and in October I was in Mexico. Even though I’m still nursing the same muscle tear, I decided to give it try.

The group met in the parking lot of a city park. Judging by the number of international Hash Run shirts, it appeared these people were not just casual hashers or maybe Hashing is not that casual. We did a chalk talk to go over the symbols to mark the course, I was introduced as a virgin along with a few other people and off we went.

Right from the start we came to a check which meant the course could go in any direction from there. A few people split off in the different ways until one found the route and yelled, “On on.” Over the next two hours we ran through residential neighborhoods, fields, paths, parking lots, and crossed a very cold river. This was easily the most fun I’ve had running in decades. We even had a beer stop half way through the run. The small piles of flour that marked the route led us behind a grocery store where an ice chest filled with beer waited for us. After a quick drink, it was back to the run.

Several people brought their dogs on the run. Apparently, these dogs had acquired a taste for beer as they felt the beer stop was just as much for them as it was for the humans.

When we finally arrived at the end of the run, which was someone’s garage, I realized I had no idea where I was. My car was parked back at some park I had never been to before and I spent two hours weaving around a part of town I had never seen. Lucky for me the first item of business was to shuttle everyone back to the park so they could get their cars.

Once everyone was back at the house, I got to take part in my first circle. It started off with the Hares, (the ones who laid down the route), doing a down down while the group sang an R rated song. A down down is where you have to drink all the beer in your cup and invert the cup over your head when you are finished which gives you incentive to finish every drop. Next, the virgins, including me, had to enter the circle and do a down down for being virgins. Once we inverted our cups, the Hash Master said, “Congratulations, you are no longer virgins.”

The circle went on for another hour giving out down downs for all kinds of reasons and singing many more songs you don’t want to repeat in front of the kids. Some people had been caught running road races, some sent the Hash Master a stupid email. The people who came in first and the people who came in last were punished with beer. The people who had skipped a race had to do a down down as did the guy who celebrated 25 years of hashing. I had to do another down down with all the other men who needed Rogaine. During the down down for people with new shoes, I was called to the circle for wearing my Five Fingers because they were strange and yes I had to drink a beer from my shoe.

The evening ended with a chili dinner and some socializing. It was such a great time, I know I will be hashing for the foreseeable future maybe even starting my own collection of international Hash Run shirts.

Relaxing on the Beach

I never thought anything could be more relaxing than lying on the beach doing absolutely nothing. It appears I was wrong or at least as far as my well being is concerned.

While spending a week on the beach in Mexico (it was rough), I was feeling lethargic and not that well rested. It didn’t make sense, I was doing the ultimate relaxation activity. After three days of this, I decided to go on a nice long barefoot run on the beach. After my first quarter mile, it was as if my body was saying, “Yes, that’s what I’ve been wanting.” I felt more energetic and relaxed all at the same time. The more I ran, the more my body relaxed deep down and felt better overall. I don’t know if it was due to my focus on relaxing while I run or that my muscles needed the blood flow. Either way, running felt better and more relaxing than the lounge chair on the beach.

Another strange occurrence while I ran was breathing too much air. At home, I run between the altitudes of 5,770 and 6,100 feet above sea level. In this thin air, I breathe with a certain cadence of two quick breaths in, per stride, and one out. This helps me set a pace and lets me know how hard I am running. At sea level I couldn’t begin to breath heavy enough to start my two quick in and one out rhythm. I tried to use slow long breathes and became light headed from too much oxygen. I actually had to pay attention to not breathe too much while running. How weird is that?

Race Report – Red Rocks Scramble

I ran in the Red Rocks Scramble a part trail, part road race. There was a good group of barefoot runners, from Boulder, running the 5K.

The other barefoot runners from Boulder at the starting line.

I was the only bf runner entered the 5mile race. Since I was not sure what I was going to encounter on the trail sections of the course, I wore my VFF’s. My goal was to finish the race with an 8:30 mile average.

It has been 27 years since I last ran in a race, but as I stood in the crowd at the starting line it felt like business as usual. The excitement of the start caused me to come out way too fast. By the half mile mark, I was sucking wind hard. I tried to slow down but the trail had so many little hill and

quick turns, it was difficult to fall into my relaxed normal pace. By the time the race moved onto the road, I was ready to loose my breakfast but lucky for me I didn’t eat breakfast this day.

On the smooth asphalt encased by the emblazoned trees at the peak of their multiple fall colors, it was all too easy now to relax and run at my pace. I moved into what I had practiced all summer letting my feet feel the ground and tell how to move.

Hill climbs; I did my round bicycle steps and passed a few runners with ease. The down hill side; I let the road push me as fast as it wanted. Most of the runners around me thought I was racing them and pushed themselves to keep up with me.

On the flats, I stayed relaxed, caught my breath and reserved energy and strength. At the 5K turnaround point about thirty of the fifty people in front of me turned back. For a brief moment, I could see the front runners and entertained thoughts about going for it. But my age and wisdom kicked in and reminded me to run at the pace I trained at or else I will not make my 8:30 mile goal. So I pushed the competitive me aside and let runners pass me as I stayed at my pace.

A few hundred yards past the 2 mile marker, I saw the front runners coming back towards me. This meant they were close to a mile ahead of me and now I’m really glad I didn’t try to run their race because I wouldn’t make it to three miles at their speed. I did count the runners that passed me until I reached the turnaround. There were 25 runners in front of me, not bad for someone who thought about never running again just four months ago.

Two runners ran with me for the next half mile. We were in sync with our strides which kept us linked together. I was on cruise control and didn’t want to push any harder but I didn’t want to stay step for step with them. I wished there were more bumps and cracks in the ground that I could use to my advantage but the asphalt was fairly new.Without any increase in effort, I did something they could not do because they wore running shoes. With each step, I pressed my big toe into the ground which gave a minor extension on my stride similar to the clap skates speed skaters use. It worked wonderfully, I slowly pulled away from these runners and didn’t see them for the rest of the race.

I'm closing in on the 4 mile mark.

Just past the four mile marker, the barefoot runners, who ran the 5K, were on the side of the road and cheered me on. With less than a mile left, I thought, “what the heck” let’s go for it. I started moving up, passing runners who were breathing hard and struggling. Once I entered the woods and back on the winding trail, I was on the heels of a man with short gray hair and a red shirt. I thought to myself, he’s me in ten years. There was no doubt he knew I wanted to pass him and he wanted to keep me behind him. The trail in the woods was too narrow and winding for me to make a move. I stayed right on his heels waiting until after we crossed the bridge and were in the open ground.

Not me, but this is the turn onto the bridge.

As we came out of the trees to the sharp turn onto the bridge, I tweaked the groin pull I had been battling for the last month. It made me stutter for one step but did not slow me down. Across the bridge, we were in the open and I was ready to make my move. As I pushed myself to about three quarters of my full speed, the gray haired man in the red shirt took off like a rocket and left me in the dust.

I did keep this fast pace for the last half mile and finished feeling strong as if I could have run several more miles. I stopped so the race officials could take the tag off my number. When I walked away, I realized that groin pull tweak I did on the bridge was worse than I thought. I could barely move my right leg. Checking the board, I finished with a time of 38:23, a 7:31 mile pace.

Latter, when I saw the bulge above my leg, I realized it wasn’t a groin pull but a hernia. It looks like my future races are on hold until I get this fixed.

UPDATE: What I thought was a hernia turned out to be just a really bad groin pull. In just two weeks I'm already back to running 4-6 miles daily.

My Old Cruel Shoes

Later that day, Carlos was overheard saying to a new customer, "Well, that's every shoe in the place. Unless, of course, you'd like to try the cruel shoes." –Steve Martin-

Once upon a time, when I was a kid, I used to ski every weekend all season long. I would ski the bumps and I hit them hard. I noticed some pain in my knees around age fourteen and by the time I turned fifteen, my knees were in horrible shape. They clicked and grinded and wiggled and hurt all while it felt like I had sand in the joints. Not the normal fifteen year old knee or the normal twenty something year old, or thirty something year old knee. Obviously, this condition came from my love of pounding moguls every Saturday with my friends.

Wait, looking back I now realize there was another event at this point in my life. At age thirteen, I started running track. I really didn’t want to run at all but my friends told me they need me on the track team so our moms could carpool when picking us up. So I ran track and I ran in my blue Adidas gym shoes.

Aren't they awesome.

I didn’t have any trouble running that first year even though I didn’t have the coolest shoes. So I begged and pleaded with my parents to buy me some new shoes so I don’t have to suffer the social embarrassment from my peers which at that time was worse than death. They caved and bought me the most popular brand at that time, Onizuka Tigers.

I had the yellow ones.

If you look at those primitive shoes, you can see they knew nothing about modern running. They were flat and had very little padding. Yet, my knees still felt fine but hey I was still young and had new knees.

Then came 8th grade track and I ran in what I thought were by far the best shoes ever. Nike Daybreaks.

I really loved these shoes.

Look at that big padded heal. How could it get any better? It’s a good thing running shoes just started padding their heals because it just so happens that particular year, (age 14), my knees started to hurt. By age fifteen, I had full blown old man knees and yet I still couldn’t buy beer. But, I couldn’t give up skiing, I loved it so much even though it was tearing my knees up.

So I continued to run track through high school and even went to the Junior Olympics for the 400 meters. I did all this with that painful grinding sand feeling in my knees. After high school I cut back on how much I skied, because of the cost and how much it was killing my knees. But to stay in shape, I kept running, not much maybe one or two miles a few days a week because it hurt too much to run more than that.

Around age thirty I decided it was time to get some decent running shoes and I forked out $115 and plunged into even more pain as I ran. Realizing Nike suckered me for the flare and flash of the new model, I bought another pair for $30. The pain reduced with these shoes but I still could not run more than three miles or thirty minutes due to all the damage I did to my knees skiing when I was younger.

Friends would ask if I could recommend good running shoes. I told them to buy what felt the most comfortable. If that was the top of the line or bottom of the line, go with the ones that felt the best. I made it clear not to fall for the salesmen’s push to go with the most state of the art model and i felt the most comfortable in the cheaper shoes.

Another decade passed and my skiing turned into one or two snowboard trips per year and my running remained at no more than three miles or thirty minutes with the last ten minutes of me hobbling back home from the pain in my knees. Walking stairs hurt, walking hurt, sitting for long period of time made them stiff and overall my running days were coming to an end from all those early years of skiing damage.

One afternoon while I took my 10 year old son for a run, I tried the best I could not to look crippled when I ran. He asked me why I ran so funny and I told him I had old man knees. While we ran around the track, I saw these two guys running barefoot in the grass on the outside of the track. These guys looked like real runners and not someone who was just trying to be “Green” while they ran. I couldn’t understand how they could do something that went against all we knew about running and exercise but it appeared they knew what they were doing.

With my curiosity up, I did a few Google searches and stumbled upon Barefoot Ken Bob. I drank in every word he wrote about why we should run barefoot. I couldn’t wait to try it, in fact that very day I ran my first barefoot mile in the grass. What I absolutely could not grasp was why my knees didn’t hurt. I knew for sure that the damage from skiing would not allow me to run without shoes but here I was running with no pain.

Hundreds of barefoot pain free miles later, I’m walking up stairs with no pain, sitting with no stiffness and apologizing to my skis for blaming them all these years for hurting my knees when it was the shoes. Those evil devil cruel shoes.

Running with the Earth

Growing up in Colorado, I skied every weekend up to the last day of the season. By age twelve, I had mastered the bumps and had no difficulty maneuvering down any black diamond slope which later became double black diamonds so you could doubly impress your friends as you drop the names of the slopes you mastered that day.

It wasn’t all that difficult. I learned to pick the lines between the moguls and let the bumps do most if the work. I knew this bump would throw me around this way into that bump which in turn would throw me that way… and so on. All I had to do was keep control of my skis.

As I started barefoot running this same concept came back to me. I realized on certain surfaces, (down hill on concrete) I ran with a strange form that looked like my feet hurt. My vanity didn’t want people to see me and think of course his feet hurt, he’s not wearing shoes.

So, going down hill, I shortened my stride and let the slope determine how fast I went. All I need to do is keep control of my balance. I learned to watch for any variations in the ground that might help me propel myself forward. Small bumps I use as stairs when going up hills, harder surfaces on flat ground, using downhill momentum to push me back up the hill, any small bulge, crack, or indentation I use to my advantage.

As this technique became common to all my runs, I thought I had stumbled on a new style of running. Then I came to the part in the book BORN TO RUN by Christopher McDougall, where Caballo Blanco explains how the Tarahumara taught him not to run on the earth but to run with the earth. How he uses rocks and the ground to help him run through the hell-like terrain of Copper Canyon. Well so much for my big discovery. But, I do enjoy using the ground to my advantage.

I would love to hear from other runners, (shod or barefoot) who use this technique and any tips they could share.

Why I Run Barefoot

At first, when people asked me why I ran barefoot, I couldn’t keep my answer to less than 2 hours. I went on about how we are designed to run, muscles, joint pain and on and on and on. It would usually end with someone yelling out, “no more beer for this guy.”

So I started this blog and told people, “If you really want to know, check out my blog. You can read all you want or just nod your head politely like you intend to read it but really won’t.” Even then I had a hard time condensing my answer to under fifteen minutes.

Finally, I have it down to one short sentence.

“Why do you run barefoot?”

“It eliminated my knee pain.”

That’s it. If they have follow up questions, I point them to my blog. If they continue to be interested, I usually fall into my two hour monologue that includes sections of interpretive dance and a drum circle.

The legendary Groin Pull - No Hash Run for Me

Yesterday, I did an easy three miles and decided to finish it off with a set of wind sprints. Even though I always do a very thorough stretching routine, I pulled a groin muscle and had to limp home. Normally, I would just deal with it and let it heal but I had planned on running my first Hash Run tonight. I am so bummed. Now I have to go to back to school night because apparently that is what responsible parents are supposed to do.

My Feet are Connected to my Ears

I have never been a big subscriber to reflexology, but I did have an experience that makes it hard for me to ignore that there might be some legitimacy to this practice.

Many years ago, I had this problem with my right thumb. It just started getting real stiff and stayed in a permanent hitch hiker position. Not only did it hurt if I tried to bend it, it just wouldn’t bend. I had some cortisone shots that worked for a few weeks but the stiffness always came back and the doctor said too many cortisone shots would start to do some damage to the joint.

With no other choice, I went to see an acupuncturist. To eliminate any thoughts you have of a placebo effect, I went to this guy’s office fully convinced it wouldn’t work and I was wasting my time.

He started by, as you already guessed, placing a whole bunch of needles in my hand. It felt like someone placed a whole bunch of needles in my hand. He had me sit there for twenty minutes with some meditation music. If you know me, you would know that at this point, I’m in opposite world. When he took the needles out, he asked, “How does that feel?” I told him, “No change.”

The “doctor” decided to try another approach. He explained that just like your feet, your ears have nerves that connect to the rest of your body. After pulling out what looked like a fat ball point pen connected to a battery pack, he said we needed to shock the Hand Area of my ear. At this point I realized that I’m getting the level of medical treatment one would usually expect to get at Taco Bell.

He pressed this device into the top part of my ear and turned it on. Instantly, the stiffness in my thumb melted away. I looked like a total idiot, holding my hand up and moving my thumb around saying, “look I can move my thumb around.”

The stiffness never came back so I guess you could say the reflexology approach worked.

As I run barefoot and stimulate all those nerves in the bottom of my feet, I have noticed other areas of my body feeling the effect. At night when the muscle protein synthesis activates and the nerves in my feet and legs start firing off, I can feel the effects in my shoulders, neck, back, and arms. Perhaps it’s all my imagination but I’m going with the reflexology explanation for now.

Weeks Six, Seven Eight…

In terms of sore muscles, blisters and overall adjustments, I seem to have reached a plateau. I get a bit sore and stiff when I push it to the next level but nothing new to report. So I’m going to cut back on the weekly reports and post other items of interest.

The Great White Shark of BF Running – Broken Glass

The two most common questions I get from people are: what if you step in dog poop and what if you step on broken glass?

To answer the first question, it doesn’t matter if I am running, walking, sleeping, or taking a shower, I make it a policy to not step in dog poop.

As for broken glass, some day I might cut my foot. Even in this day of plastic bottles, there is still broken glass on the ground, mostly beer bottles.

However, there is not the vast never ending supply of broken glass that we had back when I was a kid in a time when everything came in a glass bottle. Perhaps, that is the image most people still have of the ground.

When I see broken glass, I try to run around it. Wow, that was simple. Most of the broken glass I see is not the brand new broken glass with big sharp shards that will chop my leg off and make me bleed out in seconds. If I confront that situation, I will stop and do what is needed to not cut my foot off.

Usually, what I encounter are small pieces that have bounced around on the ground for a while dulling all the edges.

Recently, I ran through, and directly on, a patch of this type of broken glass. Fortunately, my feet had leathered up enough that no damage was done. I did feel some sharp pain and thought I had cut my foot. When I stopped to look at the damage, I saw it was not the glass causing the pain, but a tiny pebble embedding in my skin. These little rocks combined with concrete mean a whole-lotta ouch.

So it’s not glass or poop I’m worried about; it’s those innocent looking little pebbles. I hope one day my feet toughen to the point that I can run on these small rocks and merely give a manly laugh and say, “I fear you no more small pebbles.”

Usain Bolt

My workouts consist of both distance running and wind sprints. When I made the conversion to barefoot running, I noticed how I had no choice but to run in a more vertical position.

In high school I was a sprinter and always ran in that just past vertical position pushing myself forward. Now that I am more perpendicular to the ground, I find that instead of pushing my body forward I am pulling it forward. This is most apparent when I am running sprints. I cut a half second off my 100yd splits in this new position which is crazy for someone my age.

Before I continue, I want to make it clear I am not comparing myself to Usain Bolt. The only comparison I can make to him is that we both come from the same planet.

I don’t know if Usain Bolt grew up running barefoot on the streets and beaches of Jamaica but I’m going to speculate that he did his share of BF running along with all the other kids in his neighborhood. Or, at least he was taught the Pose method running form. It’s not because he lands on the front part of his foot when he runs, all sprinters do that, there is more to my theory.




Sprinting shoes generally have little to no padding in the heel because sprinters run on the forward part of their foot.





If Usain is accustomed to BF running, I’m not saying that is the only reason he runs so fast. I believe that if you tie two bowling balls to his feet he would break two world records. One: a new record in the 100m, Two: a new world record for 100m with bowling balls tied to your feet.

What I do find interesting, when you watch him run, is that he comes out of the blocks as fast as all the other runners. He doesn’t turn on the afterburners until all the competitors become upright. Usain goes vertical and the other sprinters go just past vertical and push themselves forward.

Why would Usain go vertical and the other runners go past vertical if they are all top class sprinters? Not all their workouts are sprinting, they also do distance. The majority of sprinters put on their distance shoes and run mile after mile landing on their heel. Since sprint shoes do not last long, they will also do a good number of sprint workouts in distance shoes. To sprint on the front part of your foot when wearing distance shoes, you need to lean forward just past vertical.

So let’s recap: All sprinters sprint on the front part of their feet. When they run at slower speeds, BF runners still land on the front of their foot and shod runners will heel strike.

Take a look at this picture where they just finished a race and are slowing down. You can see the finish line behind them. Usain and the runner from Trinidad & Tobago (in the red) are in the exact same place in their leg stroke. Usain is still landing on the front of his foot and the other runner is landing on his heel.


Remember when I speculated that Usain would run around barefoot with all the other kids in his neighborhood? Well the person who held the world record in the 100m prior to Usain Bolt was Asafa Powell from Jamaica.







Asafa grew up, literally, down the street from Usain. While jogging, and running at less than sprint speed, Asafa also lands on the front of his foot.

Week Five

The blisters I got in week two have finally healed, thank you Body Glide.

Over the weekend I went with the family to the mountains. I wore some nice hiking boots that go up to my mid-calf. Numerous times during any hike, I will roll my ankle and the only thing stopping me from a bad sprain is the boot. Not this time. Any time I stepped on a rock that made my ankle roll, my new found strength stopped my ankle before I put any stress on the boot.

I’m finding it harder and harder to wear shoes especially after I run. It’s like my feet are rebelling and saying, “hey, we had a good thing going here, what are you doing?” I will start to get some minor pains in my ankles. As soon as I take my shoes off and walk around the house some, the pain goes away. The same goes for when I run after wearing shoes all morning. I have some aches in my ankles but they disappear after the first minute of running barefoot.

Since I live in Colorado and don’t want to loose my toes from frostbite this winter, I will begin the search for new shoes to wear outside that will not hurt my ankles and keep my feet warm. For decades my focus on shoes was how they would make my back feel. Those concerns are gone with my newly aligned spine and stronger core. If anyone has gone through this same process and found that perfect pair of shoes, let me know what you have found.

Leather Feet

I would like to hear from other BF runners about leathering up their feet.

The soles of my feet are leathering up pretty good. I've been BF running (No VFF's) 3 to 4 miles a day on grass and 1 mile on concrete and asphalt. Gravel and thorny weeds are not a problem for me. But, the heat on the concrete and asphalt make my feet rather sore at the end of my hard surface mile. Even as my soles get thicker this soreness does not seem to get better.

The other issues I have are tiny pebbles. When I run on the sidewalks and streets, one or two of these little rocks will stick to my feet and work their way into into my skin. I can't just brush my feet on the ground; I have to stop and pull them out.

Am I the only one this is happening to? Is this how it is for all you other BF runners and I should just get used to it? Or, will it eventually go away?

Week Four

Good bye skinny ankles; hello caveman legs.

For decades, I’ve had problems with weak ankles and have had several intense sprains. Some sprains made me spend months in a cast. In the end the cast did more damage than the torn ligament. For me, one of the more important elements I looked for in running shoes was a wide sole. I needed this to keep me from twisting my ankle.

I have felt the strength in my ankles and calf muscles increase tenfold over the past weeks. Recently I notice how big my lower legs have become, rather caveman-like. When browsing through pictures of other fellow barefoot runners, I can see that same effect. I’m not knocking it, I like the way my legs feel so strong. I also think it looks real good on women. Not that I like cavewomen, it’s a curve thing.

Think about it. Women wear high heels to get their calf muscles to pop out and make their legs look better. With stronger lower legs, that muscle accents the leg just fine without the high heels. But, that’s just my opinion.

Back to my legs, or really my feet. When I wear shoes, I am more aware of the top of my feet because they press against my shoes now. It appears I’m building the muscles in the top of my feet (Extensor Hallucis, Extensor Digitorum).1

Another activity I have noticed in my muscles, the nightly muscle protein synthesis. This is the rebuilding of muscles that occurs after the breakdown during exercise.2 Normally this occurs while you sleep. While I am relaxing, watching T.V. and generally unwinding from the day, I can feel nerves firing throughout my legs.

One lesson I learned this week, even though I was in good shape before I started barefoot running, I should have listened to the warnings about pushing too hard too fast. This is my fourth week of BF running and I feel real good and thought it was a good time to start increasing my endurance and pushing myself to the limit, which for most runners this is actually very minimal.

As I have stated before, for decades I have not been able to run more than three miles and thirty minutes due to knee pain. Now with the pain gone, I ran for 1½ hours, don’t know the distance. It felt good while running, but that night and the next morning, ouch! I’m too old to make that kind of jump in performance. It’s back to baby steps for me.



1)http://www.footdoc.ca/www.FootDoc.ca/Website%20Muscles%20Of%20The%20Foot%20And%20Leg.htm
2)http://jap.physiology.org/cgi/content/short/106/6/2026

Back Pain – Gone

“I can’t run because I have a bad back.”

This is why you should run barefoot.

All my life I have had this strange concave curve in my lower back called Lordosis. It was so bad, that growing up my doctor couldn’t decide if I had scoliosis or not. Going back to the 70’s I can’t remember sleeping through a night where I didn’t have to change positions every ten minutes because my back would become uncomfortable. Plus no matter how good of shape I was in, I always looked like I had a big beer belly because the curve in my spine made me push my stomach out.

This condition caused me to throw my back out all the time. One week before my wedding, I worked for a mud-jacking company and messed up my back so bad that I couldn’t stand up straight, couldn’t sit in a chair, and couldn’t lay in on position for more than five minutes. This meant I did not sleep well all night long. I did recover from this particular injury quickly because my soon-to-be wife told me I would be better in time for our wedding.

After some forty years of not knowing what to do about this condition, I decided to start a stretching routine that focused on my lower back and building up my abs. I saw positive results just after a few weeks and I started sleeping better. But, I couldn’t completely get rid of the curve even after several months of stretching and crunches. My abs did begin to show some definition at this point and that was cool.

Without thinking this would have any effect on my Lordosis, the barefoot running came along. I noticed after the first week a dramatic improvement in my posture, plus my lower abs were sore (meaning I was pushing my hips forward making my back straight). As I ran, I thought I could feel my back straightening up but wrote it off to my imagination.

After the second week of running barefoot, I noticed my lower back now rested flat on the mat when I did my crunches. The curve in my lower back never allowed this to happen before. I ran through the math in my head as to why this would happen all of a sudden. Several months of crunches and stretching produced some change but what variable came along to make such a dramatic difference in just two weeks. Oh yeah, I started running barefoot.



1)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lordosis
2)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lordosis#Treatment

Week Three

This week the soreness and stiffness in my ankles and feet is about the level I should expect for someone my age when exercising this much.

I went back to running barefoot on the grass at the park. While traveling to the park I wear the VFF’s but take them off once I get on the grass. The all natural feeling is something I missed. Towards the end of the week, I decided to start building up more calluses on my feet. On my way back from the park to the rec center, I took my VFF’s off and ran bare foot on the concrete and asphalt. Each day I ran a little farther until I was able to run the entire mile barefoot on the concrete and asphalt. It wasn’t as difficult as I thought. All those miles on the grass toughened up my feet more than I expected. The occasional small rock would hurt, but I’m sure I’ll get used to them soon.

I’m actually thinking of entering one of the many local 5K road races. This was never a consideration for me just a few weeks ago. There was no way I wanted to torture my knees more than I had to. Now that they are relatively pain free, I’m looking at the schedule of races.

One more effect I have seen from barefoot running. Last spring my work started this fitness program to last through the summer. I won’t bore you with the details. This program forced me to buy a scale that measured my weight, fat%, water%, along with muscle and bone density. I have been tracking my progress all summer.
When my workout consisted of 20 minutes of weights and thirty minutes of running (with shoes, that’s all I could do), my weight and body fat stayed pretty much the same. In three weeks of 20 minutes of weights and 30 to 45 minutes of running barefoot, I have dropped 9 pounds and lost 3% body fat while increasing muscle mass 1%. I’m sure the increased time in the running category has helped, but this is a big jump for someone who is 45.

Barefoot? Are you Crazy?

Here are the more common responses I get when I tell people I run barefoot.

Response: “That’s stupid.”
Answer: “Well after all the hours I have spent researching the subject and studying the mechanics of the foot and ankle, combined with the numerous miles I have run without shoes and feel great, I find no way to penetrate your stellar argument.”

Response: “What happens when you run in dog poop?”
Answer: “Do you normally run in dog poop?”

Response: “What happens when you run on glass?”
Answer: “Do you run on glass? If you do, let me know, because I don’t want to run there.”
“No, I mean what happens when you step on a piece of glass?”
“Oh, the same thing that would happen to you. My foot would explode into a giant fireball. Six weeks later a shiny new foot would grow back only with pretty green lizard-like scales.”

Response: “You’re going to burn to feet on the hot asphalt.”
Answer: “Actually, when I run, right before my foot touches the ground, I lift it back up.”

Response: “Hey, where’s your shoes?”
Answer: “I’m chasing the guy who stole them. If you see a guy between 5’9” and 6’1” with an average runner’s build, running in dirty white shoes tackle him and take his shoes.”

Response: “I could never do that because I’m flat footed.”
Answer: “No you’re not, because I’m flat footed and I haven’t seen you at the meetings.”

Response: “I can’t do that because I have really high arches.”
Answer: “Good, that means you have great built-in leaf-springs and should be able to run faster than me. Now go make me a sandwich.”

Response: “Are you crazy?”
Answer: “Yes, and that makes me fun at parties but all of this is completely unrelated to this subject.”

Week Two

The first week I would put on running shoes in order to run to the park where I would do my miles barefoot on the grass. I purchased some Vibram Five Fingers KSO’s (VFF’s) and have ditched the running shoes for good.

When I went to the store to buy my VFF’s, I asked if they had any in stock. The salesman looked at my legs and said, “Those are the legs of a barefoot runner.” After I tried them on, he told me if I was going to do serious miles in them to use Body Glide because the inside seam would give me a blister. My wife and two of my kids got a pair. My wife has been walking in them and has noticed a difference in her ankle strength. My kids are just starting to get into running and like the barefoot feel better than running shoes.

Completely forgetting what the salesman told me, my first run in my VFF’s was a total of five miles, part on concrete, part on grass. By the end of the run, I had some intense blisters on the inside (medial) of my feet. I have been using a combination of duct tape and Body Glide until the blisters fully heal. It appears the Body Glide will work just fine by itself once the blisters heal.

As for the running, I’m feeling stronger than ever before and I’m losing weight faster than I have before. You should know I have worked out five days a week for the last ten years and had reached a plateau in weight loss. I have broken through that barrier and I'm shedding pounds fast.

My Knees

From the time I was 8 through my twenties, I skied almost every weekend for the entire ski season. I was not the average skier of the day, I pounded the bumps all day. Add to this, at 13 I started running track. By 14 my knees felt like I had sand between my tibia and femur, (knee joint).(1) As you can guess it did not feel good. I’ve had this painful feeling ever since. I’m 45 now so what’s that like a 115 years?

When other people would complain to me how bad their knees were, I would say, “Really, feel my knees.” I would then grab their hand, place it on my knee and move it around. They would yank their hand away completely freaked out. One, because they would say, “It felt like you have sand in your knee.” Two, I just made them feel my knee.

So as you are thinking that your knees were worse because you had surgery, or you had them replaced, or your legs were bitten off by a shark, all I can say is try filling your joint with sand and see what kind of fun that stirs up.

I will stop complaining now. Since I started barefoot running, the sand feeling has disappeared. The pain is almost completely gone.(2)It feels like I am building up areas around my knee that I normally did not use.(3)These places started of as really sore but that is going away. Every day when I climb the stairs, I notice it getting easier and easier. By the end of my third week of barefoot running I was able to climb the three flights of stairs to my office feeling strong and with no pain.



(1)http://www.bartleby.com/107/pages/page341.html
(2)http://www.coachr.org/barefoot_running.htm
(3)http://runningbarefoot.org/?p=1483

Barefoot Running Form

Since running barefoot goes against everything you have ever learned about healthy exercise, you are thinking the same thing I did when I first read about this, “this guy is crazy.” So let me point something out right away, you don’t land on your heel (calcaneus). You land just before the ball of your foot, (metatarsal-phalangeal joint) and then roll over the ball of your foot. When you land, your ankle will tighten and with the arch of your foot will act as a natural shock absorber. Your heel only slightly touches the ground. At the point where you would place all your weight on your heel, you begin lifting your foot again. This is why there is almost no impact on your joints. Trust me why I say my knees where in worst condition than yours. Now they are stronger than they have ever been.

The Start Of It All

After decades of running and suffering from knee, ankle and back pain, It didn’t matter how well conditioned I was, I could not run more than three miles. My knees would hurt too much to let me go any farther. I limped through the third mile and spent the rest of the day avoiding any strain on my knees.

No matter how well padded the heel of my running shoe was, there was still too much impact transferred from my heel through my ankle, through my leg, through my knee, hips and into my back. Overall, I was shaking my body apart.

I thought about bringing an end to the running portion of my life but then I read several articles about barefoot running. They talked about all the benefits to your body and joints but I had heard that before about the latest and greatest running shoes. What made me interested was how one barefoot runner mentioned it forced you to run the way our ancient ancestors ran, the way your body is designed to run. Just for fun I thought I’d give it a try.

It only took one run for me to realize the problems I’ve had all my life were from running in shoes. I did my usual three miles, this time on grass, only to find I had absolutely no pain in my knees.

The next day I ran five miles for the first time since high school, (twenty seven years ago). Again, I had no pain in my joints. I did have stiff sore ankles and some blisters on my toes. The soreness was not from the impact of no shoes, it was due to the fact I was using muscles in my lower ankles that I have never used (peroneus longus, and brevis, gastronemius, soleus, posterior and anterior tibialis). Our shoes have compensated for these muscles all our lives.