I keep finding myself writing a history of my barefoot/minimalist running while working on the race report for last weekend’s “Hundred in the ‘Hood” PCT100. It seems that story needs to be told first. Some of it was told in my recent interview with Aaron from Transcend Bodywork. Some I haven’t shared before. Here it is.
I tried my first jogs without shoes in 2004. During the marathon training clinic I participated in while preparing for a marathon that Fall I heard the recommendation to do short barefoot runs in the grass as a way to improve form and strengthen muscles. I was intrigued enough to try, running on the road rather than grass. I was not intrigued enough to weather past the blisters I would occasionally get when something was a little different than the days where everything went fine. Usually on hot days.
Occasional forays into barefooting. Blisters. Back into shoes for fear of sabotaging my next race. This was the pattern for a couple of years.
When I wasn’t barefoot I was running in the motion control shoes that I
was fitted with at my local running store. Watching me run on a treadmill with a video camera trained on my feet, they showed me conclusive proof that I was one of the biomechanically flawed masses that had to be fixed by science in order to run without injury. I seemed a bit crazy to give barefooting a chance.
In 2006, at the Angeles Crest 100 Mile Endurance Run (AC100), I spent some time on the trail over Mt. Baden Powell with Barefoot Ted. He was doing his first 100 miler wearing Vibram Five Finger Sprints. They looked rediculous to me, and I figured he was somehow equipped in ways that I must not be, but it furthered the intrigue I had for this way of running.
One of the hats that I wear is that of a physical anthropologist. I would like to have thought that this would lead me much more quickly to the conclusion that we are made to run barefoot, but first I was busy working on the simple idea that we are made to run. This was not the foregone conclusion that I thought it should be. Our culture tells us that we have weak feet and that running destroys our joints, that we are apparently not made to run. Anthropology had no standard answer to the question. Eventually I convinced myself that we were made to run, and found compelling anthropological studies that supported the conclusion. From there it was an easy step to conclude that we were made to run barefoot. And then it became the goal.
If we were made to run, then it was not a few biomechanically blessed who did not need special shoes to run. If we were made to run then it was a few biomechanically disadvantaged rather than the masses who truly needed modern designs to let them run. Most of us were just weak from lack of using our feet. If we were made to run, then I should be able to run barefoot.
I picked up some of the Vibram Five Fingers I’d seen Ted wearing at AC100 and started running occasionally in them. About once a week. I would run around 10K in them about once a week for much of the next year, letting my tissues and form rehabilitate and adapt to the different demands of running without running shoes. The following Fall I decided to cross-train over the Winter on a distance unicycle, the roots of Distance Minimally were being laid. This worked great except that when I ran my first ultramarathon of the year in February my feet were sore from peddling a wheel all Winter more than they pounded the ground. I decided to do all of my short runs in my Vibram Five Fingers as a way to keep my feet strong while cross training by unicycle. Soon my definition of “short” got longer and longer, until a couple of months later I toed the line of a 55K race in my Vibrams for the first time. I was certain that I could do at least half the distance without shoes, and was prepared to change if I needed to. The run went great, the full distance in Vibrams, and a personal record on the course to boot. I was hooked. I wanted to see how far I could take this. I prepared for my next race, a 50 miler on the Pacific Crest Trail, and set a PR for the distance in my Vibrams. Confidence increased, I did a 100K the next month with success. I was ready to toe the line at AC100.
I was still a bit concerned about a 100 miler without shoes, unsure about going from 15 hours on the trail that was mostly in the light of day to over 24 hours on the trail including a full night. But I wasn’t confident about wearing shoes for 100 miles either. I hadn’t run in shoes in months, and even when I was used to them I would get horrible blisters on my toes and other damage to my feet from shoes. I wore VFF KSOs, but I put shoes in several drop bags and included shoes in the gear that my crew brought to each of the aid stations. Around 40 miles into the run I slipped into a stream in Cooper Canyon. Soon blisters formed on my wet soles. At mile 54 I changed into shoes in hopes that they would be easier on my blistered feet through the night. Then I threw up. I ventured slowly into the night with multiple goals having fallen out of reach. I finished the race, and had a chance to chat with Ted about my effort at one of the aid stations down the trail, but I regretted that I had fallen short of my goal of a 100 mile trail run without shoes.
Weeks later I qualified for the Boston Marathon and set a marathon PR in my Vibrams, and then I repeated the buildup the next year, this time successfully including true barefoot running as well. I ran 85 miles in a one-day race wearing my VFF Sprints. I ran my 50 miler in VFF KSOs again, and won the “Show Us Your Waldo” award at the Where’s Waldo 100K for my repeat finish in VFF KSOs there. And now I was ready to try the 100 miler again. This time I ran it with success, lucky to get my toes into an early pair of KSO Treks, and set a 100 mile PR in the process. It felt like graduation day, but I had one more goal in mind. Tomorrow I toe the line for my first barefoot marathon.
My feet still show some wear from my 100 miler last week, but hey, we’re made to do this. I’m giving it a shot.
