Barefoot running

So its a world wide craze for a couple years now and a study released last week suggests that it only is helpful if you actually fore foot strike  and that if you heel strike when barefoot or in minimalist shoes it can actually exasberate injury. I am and always have been a barefoot fan, as a kid i raced cross country and interchanged between spikes (about as minimalist as you get) and barefoot, when i ran as a 5 to 10 year old at sports meets (which were fading but still popular then) i always ran bareffoot and i can remember the feeling that over a 100metre sprint i never felt as fleet of foot as i did when bearfoot. I did over the years since go for the odd run on grass barefoot but not to improve my foot strength or technique or anything fancy and structured, rather just to feel the earth and grass beneath my feet, simply for the purity of it, it felt great to be outside of my sweaty shoes, some of these were in the USA in 2001 as i found my feet sweat at an alarming rate!

I just read 'born to run' and its a must read for anyone who has ever run! an absorbing read and even if you think the whole thing is pointless alternative hog wog, its still interesting to hear another view on what we all kinda believed as gospel, (wear cushioned runners, replace them every 500 miles, pronation neutralizers etc)he makes a good argument that its all just commercial marketing and totally unsubstanciated by any proper research. However there are runners who trot along for many many miles in modern shoes and do not get injured and whether you would be less prone to injury with or with out runners is down to more than just what is or is not on your feet. What i think is that the barefoot thing has clearly a part to play and everyone should do a little (20 mins a week) sans footwear. With this in mind i did a km onthe road! last sunday and yes it hurt but i was skipping along like i was on hot coals as they say but of course i got a bit of a blood blister, no big deal though, i did not run all week as i hal a shin splint type thing going on, (so aannoying) and on friday night i did 4 km bare foot in the local pitch, it was so wet and fun, i slipped on my ass whilst turning at one stage :) i felt lite and my cadence was definetly faster, so yeah a lot of fun and a great work out.

I still am injured though and will have to give it another week of total rest from running, so back on the bike for some more hills which i enjoy alot an dthank god too cause i would go mental otherwise, might even go swimming! so in a way it could be a good thing for me, in ther long term but god all i want to do is go out and run. I should be doing the cork to cobh right now and not sitting here writing this but sometimes things just dont turn out the way we want, still i can hardly really complain as i am healthy and happy and there is a lot of people with real problems and so much worse off than me.