Well, sort of.
Unless you’ve just met us recently, you probably know that we are runners. We ran a marathon back in June and loved it. Well, all except the pain part. Running 26 miles hurts. But we’ve heard rumors that there’s a way to run without pain. That in fact, it was a way that humans have been running for generations and generations. This way is barefoot.
Well, not entirely barefoot. Minimally clad is more of an accurate term. We just finished the book Born to Run. This book tells the story of a tribe of super-runners in Mexico who can run exceedingly long distances with no major knee, foot, leg, or back problems. They run their entire lives.
Here’s just a small piece of the theory behind how these super-runners run.
The foot is designed to absorb impact. It is why it is padded in the ball of the foot. But most runners run striking on their heels. The heel has very little padding comparatively. Plus, when you land on your heels, you are hyper-extending your knee and unbalancing your body.
In addition, when you land on your mid-foot, as you land, your foot figures out how to balance itself and also figures out whether or not your footfall is stable. This can help prevent injuries.
John follows people on Twitter who run this way and he’s been interested in it for a while. After reading the book, I couldn’t wait to try this. You see, I’ve had a variety of injury issues. None overly serious, but ones that have limited my running progress.
While searching for people in this area who teach this style of running, we found out that Barefoot Ted, who is featured heavily in the book, actually teaches in Seattle. So last weekend, we had an intro session with him.
VFF Shoes
Wow. This is a very different type of running. You use muscles that you have never used running before. I was very sore for a few days afterwards. We have exercises to do to strengthen our legs and feet and we need to start running minimally clad very slowly.
So onto that minimally clad part. John has to watch his feet because of being diabetic. Plus, it is damn cold out there some days. So we have invested in “barefoot” shoes. These are Vibram Five Fingers (VFFs).
These are not the exact shoes we ordered. These are ones I borrowed from a coworker (after washing of course) to try them out. They aren’t all that warm, but they do allow you to walk and run with just a tiny bit of protection from sharp objects while still using the barefoot principles. We’ll be starting with quarter and half mile runs in these this weekend and next week (our shoes don’t arrive until Wednesday) and trying to build up our stamina “barefoot”.
Our goal is to run the Jingle Bell Run in December in our VFFs.
If you’re a Seattle Tweater, join our team! We’ve got 4 members so far and as added incentive, we will be picking up Frost Doughnuts for after the race. Doesn’t a salted caramel doughnut sound like a good incentive for running 3.1 miles?
