Thursday Night's Run Was Good

I have to admit I was curious how my feet would react to the wet and colder road. I had a mid-week long run to do. I went 14 miles barefoot with no problems. I was pleasantly surprised to complete the run with only a bit of soreness in the feet. My hips were still not functioning like I want them. I took an ice bath followed by a warm shower, dressed and headed out to a great party with the PATFC F.A.S.T. runners at Olivers in the Heights.

14 Miles 10:09 avg pace.

Barefoot Running Hurts So Good

Barefoot running makes me happy. It's not because it's more comfortable than shoes. In many respects its not. Like most things in life there is both pain and pleasure to be had here. There is an upside to pain and suffering; feeling alive. By making myself uncomfortable I appreciate the pleasure on a deeper level than I ever could without knowing these two sides of the coin. By getting out of my comfort zones I make new personal breakthroughs. To really know a thing means to also know it's opposite.

When I go too far with my barefoot experiments I experience pain. It starts out small like mild sunburn and over time gradually increases. If I go too far beyond what I've done prior and before I am ready, I develop sores on the bottoms of my feet. It's a fine line. As I practice being barefoot by running more and more miles, I push back the time until injury occurs. Like pressing a knife, you have to know how far you can go. Although frustrating, I enjoy the challenge. You have to try and sometimes fail if you hope to get better at anything. On a normal run, without a new limit to be found, I enjoy the warmth of road worn soles in the same way someone might enjoy hot peppers. It's pleasure of a much more natural feeling than running in shoes. I get a lot of feedback from various surfaces; texture, temperature, moisture, etc. My feet grip and release and I get all kinds of sensation. You might be surprised how good running without shoes makes you feel.

Needing A New Tire

Last night I needed 6-8 easy and got 6 easy and 1 hard. The last mile was brutal as my right foot scuff re-emerged as a painful reminder it is not healed. I am considering putting off my long run until Monday giving myself one more day for god to re-tread my sole. am making slow progress but this is the kind of issue you run into when you pursue the barefoot scene. Ouch.

Matt Jenkins, that Marathon Maniac (see his blog Runningsocks) who runs in the Make it By Midnight marathon tells me he's dressing like Cinderella this year. What a hoot! Only a small group of folks compete in this grueling event. Just too cool IMO! Shev and I flew out of Chicago enroute to Boston this year with the guy in the middle of the picture below. He, like Matt was a Maniac. Matt J., do you know him? His name escapes me. Maniacs rock!

The Official Digg on the Big Pig Gig

Pigman Splits: (19 out of 60 in age group)

Overall time -- 5:41:44

Swim -- 36:20

Bike -- 3:10:40

Run -- 1:49:04

Oink! Most things that start with the word half are lame by design. They denote something not even close to complete. Half done. Half Hearted. Half Eaten. Half Assed. All are less than complimentary terms for something that could have been so much more. So you would figure a half-ironman would be an easy event for a me to do on a whim. I mean, it's not like doing a whole one. You really don't even need to seriously train right? I figured maybe I'd just get lucky. Well, here's what I noticed about the whole "luck" concept. Luck played a much bigger part before and very early into the race. Luck, meant I got a great place in transition area. Luck got me cloud cover. Luck put me in the last wave. But as the day wore on, luck almost didn't exist at all, at least in the "good" form. A crash, a flat, a broken bone or a stroke were still un-lucky possibilities as the day wore on. Luckily, that didn't happen.

The big Pig Dig this year was marked by driving rain and winds at the start. This made the bike portion challenging for all. By about 11 am the weather improved and the rest of the afternoon was pretty good for racing.

Team Faster Than Schroff pulled off a big upset and destroyed Team Way Faster than Schroff. Shev came down from Wisconson having ridden 96 miles of the Ironman Wisconsin course to swim for team Way Faster Than Schroff. Being the good parents we are, we left the kids in the car during this part of the race (hey it was raining). They paid us back by completely de-pantsing our vehicle (all in a matter of about 30 minutes). A water bottle was filled with Germex. All the band-aids were used up. Crayons were smeared into the upolstery. Food wrappers were used to polish the dashboard and my phone battery was completely used up by my daughter calling her best freind who recently moved back to Britian. I can't wait to see the roaming charge for that call.

Back on the course, I was still in transition, shivering uncontrollably and waiting to get started when shev came up to wish me good luck. She had started and was out of the water so fast I think she must have cut the course. "Honey, you better get going your missing this!" was my first thought when I saw her. My official start was supposed to be 7:50, but at 8:15, I was still on the beach waiting. Being one of the few without a wet suit standing in the pelting rain and wind, I wasn't so much concerned about how much faster all the rubber guys in my age group might swim than I as I was envious of how warm they seemed. Purple lipped, I tried not to look too cold. As it turns out, Shev had already beaten me by plenty on the swim. Still, the whole race was really fun and cool. Once I got going, I was not cold again. The highlight of the day for me was actually spotting both teams on the run after a whole morning of racing. Helgeson and Krause were on thier way back home when I saw them. I was still going out to the turn around on the run. I was too tired and to high five em. I believe I saw Mike H at about mile 4 for me (8 for him) and Krause about a two miles later. The upset came in spite of Schroff's flat tire on his debut bike race. Which lead one to wonder; Can Shroff be Faster Than Schroff? The concept sounds zen.

Emily Dewalt, a local girl turned bad ass super hero tri-chick mananaged an impressive 2nd overall for the women beating me by almost an hour. Thoughts of me racing her in the Firecracker 5k two years ago come to mind. That was the first time I ever heard her name. She was having a terrible race, and I was having a pretty good one. Back then, I was able to stay in at least same solar system as her. Yesterday was an entirely different matter. Shev thought about putting her picture in her cubicle at work after she gouged out the eyes and wrote bad thoughts on it but then reconsidered. She's not convinced that even voodo hexing will do any good. She's WAY to fast for even the witches to fix this.

Reid Hansen had a great day as well taking 3rd in his age group. I tried to bow down before him in the parking lot after the race but was afraid I might not be able to get up. Anothere notable local was Anna Breaux who placed 4th in her age group. Mike Gudat thumped me soundly by about 20 minutes. He had an epic swim and bike. Way to go Mike! Larry Grenvik had a great race placing in the top 20 of his bracket. Other locals of note, Beth Haynes placed 6th in her age group and Carlton Admas placed 10th. Way to represent Peoria. Go Tri-P! I was pleased with my debut at the half ironman distance. I know now, that I can do this distance and I have a relative feeling of how much it hurts. Another first for me was doing a half marathon run barefoot. I have much more confidence about being able to hoof the longer distances and my ability to run pre-barefoot paces is getting a lot better. My feet were sore but not too beat up. The worst injury came 1/2 mile from the finish. I was running in the grass and mud. I nicked my foot pad on something sharp embedded in the mud. It really isn't too bad. It just hurt at the time. I managed an 8:20 something pace and finished with a decent 1:49. Now, that's much slower than my best 1/2 marathon but given the 4 hours of racing prior to the run, I don't know that I'd have been much faster had I worn shoes. My feet didn't hold me back nearly as much as my legs.

Overall, a great day and I can't wait till next year!

Somethings Different Now

I first noticed it last Tuesday at Brad's FAST workout. I was still slugging it out at a pre-barefoot slog. I run so slowly without the shoes. Sometimes my pace is 10:00 per mile. But that night, I noticed something was different. Sure my feet still hurt when I stepped on a sharp rock but the skin seemed to be holding up much better. This enabled me to stop obsessing over every chip on the road and focus on my form. I still had to stop to break at about 5 miles but it was because my feet were so tired. THAT IS DIFFERENT.

Barefoot Julian asked me a month ago how strong were my feet. I nonchalantly replied that it wasn't a problem. I've been running in minimal footwear to include the vibram FF's for years. My feet were strong. WRONG. That night I entered a new phase of my barefoot running. The phase where I start focusing on strengthening the feet. That night my feet hurt but I didn't have any noticeable trauma to the soft tissue of the sole.

Now I get it, Julian! I'm gonna need a lot more mileage before I get to Huntsville. But I am excited. Now I'm developing the muscle structure to give proper support to the bone. On Wed I walked around in Vibrams at Six Flags for 10 hours hardly sitting. That was probably one of the best things I could do for the feet.

Thursday, I completed the ENTIRE group C FAST workout with the exception I wasn't correctly hitting the tempo pace parts. That's an improvment though over Tuesday where I couldn't finish it. And Friday I did a 75 minute bike workout followed by a 6 mile run. Today I swim and tomorrow I do my last EPIC brick workout. 3 hour bike and 12 mile run.

The feet are getting stronger. The legs are not there for sure. But now I have the platform to build on. Hopefully this will result in fewer injury. The foot is a remarkabe double arched structure. Here's a video of the biomechanics. It was produced to show patentients needing surgery how the biomechanics of the foot function but It's really good. I'm energized!

Barefoot Milestone

I was going to hit the pool this morning and swim a workout. But I just slept in. Some days its just not worth the effort to chew through the restraints and get out of bed.

Last night was a milestone of sorts for my barefoot running. I went to Brad's FAST practice and decided to try the group B workout. It went really well. The workout consisted of a 2 mile warm up through the cemetery followed by a double series of ladders on the Glen Oak hill. I was only able to muster a 9-10 minute pace and wasn't able to accurately do the 60 second pickups on the last 2 mile segment but I did complete the distance and I didn't have any major delamination issues.

I've decided to run Huntsville in December barefoot. My goal is to run the course entirely barefoot at a pace fast enough to qualify for the Boston Marathon (3:20).

Tellman Knudson Completes 101 mile week of running. Barefoot.

I'm still working on my barefoot technique. Last night I completed the FAST group C workout on the goose loop. The feet held up quite nicely. I no longer feel as if my feet are going to scab up after a workout. I'm able to do some speed changes and run some hills without shoes. I'm getting accustomed to barefoot running. Mentoring this group of runners enables me to go slow and work into my barefoot running while healing my other injury. So I'm making gains but trying to get a grasp on how much progress I should expect for my BF running and I come across this:


Tellman Knudson must be a remarkable human being. I admire his virosity on many levels. He's a visionary with the grand ambition of running across the country barefoot. To do this he will have to run about 150 miles a week. He's organized himself with enough success to get invited to dinner with former US president Clinton. I've stumbled across his blog Run Tellman Run

What I find remarkable is when surveying his blog, he was just beginning his bf journey by running in Vibram five fingers in April. In these posts he's doing about 20 minutes of barefoot running with another 30 in the shoes. By June he's completed his first 100 mile (101 to be precises) completely barefoot week!

Maybe he'll fail but maybe, just maybe, he won't. I find his quest uplifting.

Great Video -- Running Central Stocks These

No Evidence for Cushioned Control

I have been challenged by some who see me running barefooted or marathon training in flats. They insist I am setting myself up for catastrophy. They have been taught a marathon shoe should consist of lots of padding and control to be safe. I worry just the opposite may be true and that we are actually creating more problems because we are using these shoes. Recently, a scientist at the University of Newcastle set out to answer the distance shoe question. Research of the scientific literature supporting a heavier marathon shoe was done by Dr. Craig Richards. Dr. Richards found that although many manufacturers of running shoes were making claims supporting the use of cushioned control shoes, the global pool of sports medicine research contained nothing to support such claims. I found this article the other day. It's very interesting. See this link for more info.

I've been fascinated by this subject because I have personnally noticed that runners wearing these types of shoes tended to run unnaturally. They would often heal strike and it appeared the energy is directed not toward propelling the runner forward, but up and into the knee and hip. It looked to me as if the legs were being thrust into the torso. It just didn't look right. To get at what I am trying to describe, I found a video demonstrating the difference between how natural running is altered by such shoes. Dr. Richards calls such shoes a PCECH shoe. It is defined as a running shoe with pronation control to prevent thee ankle from rolling in and an elevated cushioned heal. The video does a great job of illustrating how such shoes alter the way we run by making a recording of the same runner on the same day. The clip is two videos side by side demonstrating how a runner uncoached alters their gait based on wearing a PCECH shoe.

The subject demands more scientific research. Based on my personal experience and review of the current literature. I do not to use such shoes. I have moved toward a more minimal lowered heal shoe for long distance running. My marathon shoes are considered by the conventional running shoe community to be 5k flats. When I am running very short distances I may even go completely barefoot. I wan't to go fast and be healthy. Until I discover hard evidence to support such shoes, barring serious injury, I am sticking with this strategy.

Making Hurache Sandles (because if you want a pair, you have too)

If you're a regular reader you may have recently watched Chris McDougall author of the book Born to Run running in his Herache sandals. Someday I want to try a pair of these out. These sandals are a favorite for the Tarahumara indians. A tribe famous for their ability to run ultra long distances. These shoes look so awesome!!!!

Problem is...YOU CAN'T BUY EM! You have to make them. Here is an interesting video from a blog called brickhousebodymind.com showing just how its done. I can't wait to get a copy of the book either. Barefoot Ted calls it "the strongest argument for barefooting since Percy Cerutty." I have no clue who that it :-)

One foot at a time. One sole at a time. One hell of a good time.
Barefoot Ted's Adventures
956 10th Ave E #306
Seattle, WA 98102
www.BarefootTed.com
206-792-9636
Skype:tedmcdonald

Barefoot Running -- Improve Mechanics For Good!

The picture above is of Barefoot Rick's feet after completing the Chicago Marathon is 2006. To many, the thought of running 26.2 miles on pavement without shoes conjures images of bloody stumps and permanent disability. But look, he's fine. How could this be?

Runners having experienced problems buy expensive running shoes are told the shoe selected will aid in correcting pronation or providing more cushioning.  In reality studies suggest they will experience a greater prevalence of running-related injuries than wearers of less expensive shoes (Robbins and Gouw, 1991).  Granted, it could be the runners in the less expensive flats are by nature more naturally inclined to run or younger (or both).  Regardless, a correlation has been established between expensive athletic shoes and injury.   In fact, runners will on average incur more than twice as many injuries from expensive shoes than those in cheaper shoes.  These tend to be the heavier highly corrective or supportive shoes with lots of technology.  Are shoe companies deceptivley advertising athletic footwear capabilities (e.g., "cushioning impact") that create more problems for runners than they had before?  Or, are they simply over enamored with thier engineering prowess and losing sight of the big picture.  Without a crytal ball its hard to say what exactly is going on.  

Ever worry about hanging all this bling on your hoof?

I wear shoes all the time.  I run for Team RC.  Mizuno sponsors the team and I am proud to be affiliated.  They make great gear and not just shoes.  Team RC represents the competitive arm for Running Central.  Adam White owns Running Central and helps feed my addiction to the sport of running.  His professional team are experts in footwear as well as all aspects of running and triathlons.  They understand everyone has unique running requirments and there's NO one solution.  But here is where they differ from the run of the mill athletic foot store.  When you come in with a mechanical problem be it over pronating or knee problems they try first to get athletes in a mindset to first fix the underlying condition before treating it.  Think of it this way.  If your tires on your car were out of alignment you could do a lot of damage just running mile after mile like this. You have two options, change the flatform or change your form.  The latter takes more time but will yeild the best long term results.  Running without shoes gives you the best feedback on what mechanically you are doing wrong.   Your feet hurt long before you do serious hip or knee damage.  Running shoes have a place (even in my life).  They protect my pigs from painful objects but they aren't corrective devices and the capacity for shock absorbtion and prevention of over pronation is limited.   But the running shoe is not all positive.  If you never get out of your shoes you will face a the downside to shoes, reduced sensory feedback.  This is especially dangerous when you understand the research points to less protection thereby increasing the injury-inducing impacts.   You may be having a false sense of security that may contribute to the risk of injury (Robbins and Gouw, 1991).  Here's the long term rub: once the natural foot structures are weakened by long-term footwear use, you will  have to rely on the external support of the footwear, but the support does not match that provided by a well functioning foot. When it comes to racing, team RC takes a less is best attitude.  If you are interested in knowing more.  Go see Adam at Running Central and talk with him about how best to proceed.

  

Read More on Shoes and Barefoot Running

Barefoot River Run -- My First Barefoot 5k

Today I ran my first barefoot 5k.  I admit I was a bit nervous about the attempt.  I have run this far barefoot before but never tried to go even as fast as tempo pace on the road (I did try it on the track last year).  Having been grounded by my doctor with Osteitus Pubis, I haven't been running at all. I expected to pay big time.  I figured the bare feet might aid as a govenor to keep me from trying to go out too hard but was worried I hadn't properly prepared for a barefoot race.  I was pleasantly surprised to end the race feeling as good as I did.  To be honest, I never got to that point of total discompfort one normally associates with the 5k.  I finished around 20 minutes.  Chillicothe hosts a great race.   

Drill Baby Drill!

Runners can learn a lot from swimmers! I know its sounds ridiculous, but swimmers understand the importance of technique drills. Conversely, runners tend to work with what god gave em. Swimmers know good stroke form will trump hours of training. You can run from almost anywhere. Just lace up and step out the front door. Pool time has to be planned. A pool is often shared by many groups. It's a scarce resource.



Swimmers need to make good use of their limited time. To maximize what they can accomplish, they drill, drill, drill. A typical swim coach will incorporate stroke drills in nearly every workout. Swimmers understand that drilling is important because it trains the nervous system and muscles to be most efficient. It's purpose is to challenge the imprinted memories. By drilling you reinforce good technique and thus eliminate bad habits.

Compulsion of good form is built into the sport of competitive swimming. Often at a swim meet will have not one but several stroke judges who are monitoring a single event. A swimmer knows, one false stroke and your disqualified. Running's not like that. A swimmer also knows how much faster you can be if you have flawless technique. Conversely, you don't have to be pretty and there is nobody watching your stride at the local 5k. Plus everyone knows how to run already, right? WRONG!



If you have bad form, you will have to work a heck of a lot harder than a more efficient runner. It's not so much the resistance of the atmosphere, albiet air is much less dense than water, that slows you but more it's the resistance you have that's internal to your body. Muscles are firing in opposition. You are bending at the waist. You are striking with your heel. Some are born running better than others. I have friends who run an awful lot of miles who can not beat others with efficient running form. Granted, genetics does play a role. Factors from the amount of fast twitch vs slow twitch muscle fiber to the length and symmetry of the leg will play a part in your overall ability to get to the finish line. But when it comes to making performance gains, regardless of where you are starting from you have basically two options. Get more fit or become more efficient. Consider how busy you are with all the non-running activities in your life. Your time is limited. Make the most of your time to train. Be the best you possibly can. Knock back a few strides or do some bounding drills. There are dozens of drills for runners to practice. Most take a few minutes. The gains can potentially make much more improvement than hours of running to improve fitness.

One of the best things you can do to train your brain and body to run more efficiently is to run barefoot. Listen to the pain receptors and make adjustments to your gate and foot strike. Now if you have spent most of your years in shoes I caution you to go slowly. You might even need to spend a couple of months just walking around barefoot before your feet are strong enough to run. The sensory feedback can also be quite overwhelming. Don't panic, your feet are very tough. After a few minutes you will adjust to all the sensations. It really quite a rush!





Running Central sells an amazing DVD with core strengthening exercises and drills to improve performance. Consider cutting a few miles from your schedule to make time for them and you might surprise yourself! Drill baby drill!

This is the shoe I intended on running the 2009 Boston Marathon in. It is the Mizuno Wave Universe 2. I like the shoe for it's minimalistic characteristics. It's about as little a shoe as you can find. It's definitely not for everyone but if you're into the less is more philosophy of running, this is a not too distant step from barefoot running. I weigh about 165 lbs and am 5-9. As such, the soft rubber soles don't last very long. I only have about 100 miles on my shoes yet they are showing quite a bit of wear. A big problem with this shoe is it's scarcity. I am having a really hard time getting another pair. Adam at Running Central is my dealer. He's trying to find me a pair. When it comes to minimal flats they tend to be difficult to find. Overall I really like this shoe and recommend it to anyone who ocassionally runs barefoot but wants a shoe for long runs and marathons.

Rob's Pigs Burn While Kevin Bacon's Facebook Page Brings Down Internet

*** SHAMELESSLY PROMOTING Running Central HERE ****


Saturday was the big 20 miler. Have to say I was dreading it. I am so tired of the cold weather and having to go to bed at 9 on Friday night so I can live through another zero dark thirty meat grinding long run. I was doubly depressed because I got my cholesterol checked at my doctors office and the results were not promising. Basically my blood is the consistency of peanut butter. So when I get cold I figure its twice as hard as normal people to run. I had to listen to my doctors sarcastic comments. "Wow, Rob. Do you really run marathons? You've got the blood of Orville Redenbacher and Colnel Sanders combined!" Look, I said. I don't know. I eat ok. I must come from a long line of dead cholesterol gorillas, that's all.

McGangBang

Anyway. The run was tough. Neltner and Matt Eckberg beat the living daylights out of me for 20 miles made doubly tough for me because of the Kiełbasa sausage grease masquerading as blood and not exactly coursing through oozing through my arteries. I will say that if you have to run 20 miles. The Saturday point to point from the tower to the EP admin buildign is a great route.   IVS has this route with options for 9, 12, 16 and 20 miles.  We had lots of downhill running and that definitely helped me to run a great pace. I'm wearing new shoes! Adam at Running Central sold me these SWEET kicks! Basically they are a pair of spray on thin as paint flats made by Mizuno named the Universe 2.

I am really into the less is more philosohy of shoes. So when I saw these I knew it was love! The Mizuno rep Matt, later told me the longest recorded run he ever knew of anyone logging was 13 miles. Evidently I set some kind of freak show record that should help them stem a liability issue. I am willing to testify in court Matt if you need me! I gotta get the story straight from him but he mentioned they were intended as some kind of concept shoe and were originally priced through the roof. It was basically a $150 shoe to last 150 miles kind of thing. It was supposed to only be in production for about 6 months. That was 2 years ago. The shoe's categorized by the factory as an "expert" series running shoe. My wife fell on the floor laughing about that one (thanks for all the support honey).

SO WHAT if I top out at a svelte 170! So I am not exactly what you might call thier "target" demographic, but I thought I'd try em out and go long. Game on Mizuno! I'm putting 400+ miles on these puppy's! I have to admit my feet were barkin pretty good when I reached the EP Admin building. I definitely had some skin in the game this Saturday. I don't blame the shoe but rather the fact I just haven't done much barefoot running because it's been so cold. My pigs are winter wusses!


So Sunday I spent nursing the wounds and checking the internet out. I cant think of a better way to kill a perfectly good opportunity to do something useful. I like to check out Facebook to see what everyone's doing. Guess they are all wasting their time too. Now, I've been using Facebook for only a couple of months.  Krause first told me about it.  After a few weeks hoping none of the really strange people in the world that I have wronged would find me.  I started just accepting everyone who wanted to be friends.  I think I am up to 6.  No kidding. Then my sister Karye found out about Facebook.  THen she told my sister Gayle, then my DAD! Arrrrg!  Then my mom.  Whoa! Enough is enough!  Can you hear the fun being sucked right out of the ethernet?!?  



Now, with all these people, I gotta watch what I say.  Only here in this corner of cyberspace is it safe to write my most intimate thoughts....here alone where I enjoy total and complete privacy....here where I can hatch my evil plots and not be detected.....(come back rob, you're getting distracted)

Then I started to wonder.....remember those crazy 6 degrees of separation sayings they used to talk about? You know the ones with Kevin Bacon?  It was one of those first date topics back in high school.  As the theory goes, it's said you can tie anyone to Kevin Bacon in 6 degrees of separation or less?  His facebook page would be a thing of wonder! Would it tax the limits of cyberspace?!?  Any you thought the stock market crash was big news.  Stranger things have happend.

 

Ballad of the Barefoot Runner

Are Your Shoes Causing Injuries?

Here is an excerp from one of my favorite sites, The Science of Sport on the benefits of barefoot running:

To date, we have not really tackled the running shoe subject directly here at The Science of Sport, but it has come up incidentally in previous posts.

For example, it came up in the first post on our series on the Pose Running technique, where it was pointed out that ever since the "boom" in the running shoe industry about 30 years ago, the percentage of runners who get injured each year has remained pretty much the same.

So despite technological advances and developments in the industry, injury incidences have remained largely unchanged. Shoe companies make many promises, such as:

"Anti-pronation devices limit movement of the foot, reducing the risk of injury in overpronators", or "Forefoot and rearfoot cushioning devices reduce impact and the risk of injury"

Yet there's little reason to believe that this is true. The latest studies suggest that anything between 40% and 70% of runners are injured every year. And fascinatingly, in 1989, a study found that runners who ran in shoes costing more than $95 actually were twice as likely to get injured than runners who ran in shoes costing only $40! That was even after correcting for training and racing mileage! Of course, it's impossible to conclude that "expensive shoes CAUSE injury", because there are other factors that can't be accounted for. And one might argue that the typical runner of 2008 is quite different from the runners of the 1970's, who tended to be lightweight, biomechanically very different athletes. So maybe the fact that the injury rates are the same is actually a positive for the shoe industry? But let's pursue it a little further...

http://www.sportsscientists.com/2008/03/running-shoes-solution-or-problem.html

Iceman Runs 1/2 Marathon North of Arctic Circle Nearly Naked & Barefoot

This man is simply amazing! Able to withstand extreme cold temperatures barefoot.  To prepare, under the supervision of a physician he was lowered into a pool of nearly freezing water after seven minutes, when most people would nearly be dead from hyperthermia, he was actually able to increase his internal body temparature just by thinking in his mind of generating heat. The scientist was amazed, and said that it would probably be safe for him to attempt his half marathon.

Getting Barefoot Running Right

More art than info this is a really cool animation!

I’ve been running a few more miles barefoot this year. I am experimenting in an attempt to master the art of running “au natural”. I’ve noticed changes to my feet allowing me to go further and faster barefoot but I am not quite yet there. People often ask me why I do it. The answer is basic; derived pleasure. I don’t care whether you are talking about reading poetry, drinking coffee, eating a great meal, or having wild sex. It’s all about the quality of the stimulation. Just like the tongue, the soles of our feet function as a wonderful sensory organ. Just as food gives us pleasure through taste, texture and smell, running barefoot can give you sensory pleasure in a different but no less satisfying way. On the trail, the sensations from earth, grass, moss, pine-needles and other ground textures can both fascinate and delight. Barefoot trail runners appreciate the ground textures as much as their visual vistas of hills, mountains, forests and plains. Going barefoot adds a rewarding tactile dimension to any run. Even the "dreaded" uban environment of man made surfaces illicit pleasurable and satisfying feedback throughout the run. The trick is to learn to run on the surface and build up to the surface.

In short, going barefoot is as much about liberation as sensual enjoyment -- the very same reasons people who own houses choose to camp. Once you get over the barefoot stigma, going shoeless is not only possible but preferable.

Currently, I am only halfway there.

Your feet are pretty tough as demonstrated here

My biggest shortfall to date seems to be the durability of my soles. They just don’t seem to be durable enough to handle the street surfaces for anything longer than 2-4 miles. Slowing me in my quest is the fact I tend push the envelope. All too often I over do it. It’s a two step forward one step back transition. I sometimes end up with blisters forming on the forefoot ball of my foot or a blister that requires I wear shoes for a few days. It’s somewhat frustrating that it’s taking so long to build enough durability in the skin.

Cheers,

Rob

When Pigs Fly

This looks fun!