barefoot running: my 47 cents

Are you a runner—>if yes—->have you been living in a cave?—>if no—->then:

You or someone you know has tried out the phenomenon known variously as ‘barefoot running’, ‘minimalist running’ or ‘natural running’.

Last week, I read an excellent article by Dan Empfield at slowtwitch that emphasizes the need for rational discussion on the subject.  I say ‘rational’ purposefully because, just like any movement, there is plenty of dogma and plenty of zealots out there.  They are easy to recognize, in any movement/belief:

–Movement XYZ can solve nearly any problem

–They’re not open considering the ‘opposition’ as potentially right, nor even able to make any sort of meaningful contribution to the discussion

–The opposition is a conspiracy/coalition out to get you; ‘they’ don’t have your best interests in mind

–There is an overabundance of evidence, both scientific, empirical, and anecdotal, for just how right Movement XYZ is.

The thing about movements, or perhaps more appropriately, revolutions, is that in the process of overthrowing the establishment, they come to take on the characteristics of the establishment they overthrew.  I’m absolutely not saying this is the case with barefoot running; I’m “just sayin’” as the youth say.

I don’t intend, in this space, to exhaustively address this, or even cover any appreciable aspect of it.  Indeed, expect to see a number of future posts on this very topic.  I don’t pretend to be a scientist, or an authority on the biomechanics of running.  I’m simply a concerned observer; I’ve had 3 sets of podiatrists/physical therapists prescribe various shoes and orthotics to correct my running woes.  I’ve got terrifically flat arches and long term relationship with patellofemoral pain syndrome, aka runner’s knee.  Naturally, a methodology that offers relief from the cost (and weight!!) of orthotics and motion control shoes and an end to pain has me interested.  But I’m also a skeptic, which hopefully insulates me from too much bias and emotional gooeyness about barefoot running and it connecting you to the “heartbeat of the earth”–not a joke, I read that in a book about barefoot running.  Unqualified, unsubstantiated statements suck.

So I will end this post with a question: what do you want to get out of running?  Or put another way, why do you run?  One benefit of the barefoot running trend that I believe to be beyond debate is that it asks us to look a little bit closer at the fundamental elements of our running; go past all the paraphernalia that builds around the periphery.  Knowing why we run, and hence knowing ourselves can be of benefit to anyone, whether clad in rubber tire sandals, candy colored Newtons or nothing at all.