First Barefoot Run

I have continued to run a few times in my wetsuit boots and felt, on the whole, pretty good about it. I have still kept it very short (400 to 800m) and worked on form. A couple of times doing two circuits of http://www.favoriterun.com/298785 and a couple of times while at my parents doing two repetitions of http://www.favoriterun.com/298786 in the dark with a headtorch and getting spooked by chickens.

Also, I got an unexpected gift of Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. It is no exaggeration to say that this book has had a profound effect on my outlook on running, and a number of subsidiary subjects. I am on my second reading, and I’ll try to review it properly at some point.

My biggest takeway has been that we are not designed to run how I have always run (with a heel strike), and the modern jogger’s running shoe does not aid injury-free running. It is the same information that I have read at http://runningbarefoot.org/, and in a number of forums/mailing lists that I have joined. Most recently, I found a book by Gordon Pirie which was freely available as a PDF until GeoCities went under. I have mirrored a copy here. I would highly recommend it.

My head is all a bit of a jumble about it at the moment, with information overload. I’ll try to write something coherent soon.

Since reading Born to Run I have continued to run, and have even incorporated some barefoot running in the snow. It sounds insane, but I have limited it to 100 or 200m at a time and it feels amazing. The feeling of running barefoot through the snow is incredibly liberating. Running on frozen hail was..interesting