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.