Hi fellow barefooters, I thought I'd come on here and ask for any advice that you can give on running a half marathon barefoot? How does it compare to running with shoes on, for instance? I ask because I am due to be running the Bath Half Marathon, in the UK, on March 3rd barefoot. I have a dodgy hip, so barefooting is really the only way I can see forward without giving myself a large dosage of scar tissue through surgery. Here's an article done on my run by the local newspaper today: http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/Student...hon-barefoot/story-18011806-detail/story.html (please do share around/send to your local press if you wish - if it can, I would love for it to go 'viral' [in respect to all the other stories in this newspaper]). I would love to hear from some of you on your experiences of running distances barefoot compared with with shoes on. Any suggestions would be gratefully appreciated. Blessings, Simon
I Read The Article And Wish You All The Best, Be Sure To Drop Back And Tell Us How You Went... Cheers Glen.
If you have no experience in barefoot running you should really reconsider if you should run a half marathon in five weeks from now. Especially with a dodgy hip or any other dodgy body part. You injured your feet because your shoes were too flat? Minimalisic or barefootstyle running shoes are flat. When you start running barefoot or barefootstyle, you should take it slow, especially the first six months, maybe longer.
If you've never run barefoot before, don't even think about it. However, you should start training barefoot a bit at a time (like 5 minutes the first few times, increasing only when you feel confident). There's plenty of literature on the subject that will help you out. But absolutely no barefoot half marathon in 5 weeks!
I think it's great that you want to try this. BUT if you've never yet run barefoot, particularly this distance, then you should reconsider The first thing to do is start to go about your daily life barefoot. You'll toughen your soles fairly quickly. Keep the emergency shoes with you whilst you're toughening. When you can spend full days and weeks barefoot, you can probably then start to build up your running by doing short, bursts and increasing your distance. You will be able to run 13 miles barefoot, no question, but I just doubt whether you'll be able to do it in just over a month. I live my none work life totally barefoot and can run long distances without the dreaded shoes, but it took a while to get my feet into the right condition. Start slow and persevere Good luck! BB - Manchester
Hi again everyone, Sorry, I should really have clarified things a lot more in my previous post. I have been barefooting for about a year, on-and-off. I started barefoot running last summer, on the warm roads of southern Spain. I then started going for a lot of barefoot runs in September and October, but things got busy and cold to stop me going in November and December. I started barefooting again about halfway through last month, and have had a fair few barefoot runs of about 3 miles each time (just for commuting purposes so far). I plan to barefoot run to everywhere that I have to go to in the daytime now, although this obviously won't always be practical. My feet are well hardened from it all (although, I did get my first few shards of glass all in one foot yesterday, but I've had glass in feet before and so feel quite experienced to deal with it, and it wasn't so painful anyway...). I feel confident in running on any surface except gravel/other stoney stuff now. When I have been for runs recently, my hip hasn't been showing any serious signs of tiring (amazing, as it tires sometimes even when just walking for a while with shoes on!). I had some acupuncture last week, and was able to walk for four hours with only one short break last night, and no effects on my hip until the last 10 minutes or so when it tired. I feel the acupuncture did something significant... Anyway, yeah I've ran barefoot on and off over the last 8 months or so. Of course, I will run the half marathon no matter what the risks are - I feel the urge inside of me that says that things will be okay, and that I am ready for it in some kind of way. People around me are mixed about it, and that's okay. What I've come on here to ask is just for any kind of tips that people have picked up from running distances barefoot. For instance, how do I deal with that achey feeling in my toes when I've been running barefoot in the past? Or do the toe muscles just need to be strengthened? Also, has anyone ever strained a muscle in their foot through barefoot running? Could it be a possible thing to prepare myself for the possibility of? Or would I be just as likely to strain a muscle in the foot whilst wearing shoes? And lastly, does anyone have any post-distance run warm down exercises for the feet? Is there a special kind of substance to use in a foot bath (something herbal/natural)? And yeah, I would really appreciate any other tips that people can offer Blessings, Simon
p.s. BarefootBlokey I have only just come back from your parts! I was walking around Manchester all evening barefoot on Sunday! A lovely place, I might say, it was my first time visiting. People seemed a bit confused by my bare feet, but they were lovely in opening conversations, I had many people interacting with my throughout the evening stroll..
A little update on my run (it is due to be this Sunday): Training is going fairly smoothly. My feet are loving it. I had two blisters last week after an 8 mile run, and the feet felt awesome. They were my first barefoot-related blisters since scorching my feet in Spain last summer. My legs are feeling really quite good. I feel my calves getting tired and stiff, as they're not used to running so much as this, but I feel like they'll pull me through very well on Sunday. My hip is the sore spot - but for this I'll be taking some herbal anti-inflammatories (devil's claw root) with me on the run to have if and when. I have also learnt a fantastic chinese technique for getting blood going again in stuck places, which I have been using on my runs when my hip has got stiffer. Some of the local press have had a great time with it. I recently got interviewed by a new internet-based tv thing called Bath On TV, which is linked below: http://www.bathontv.co.uk/bath-half-runners-stories-simon-jilley-goes-barefoot/ All in all, everything feels like it's going very nicely for things at the moment. However, I would still appreciate any shares of tips etc that could come in handy. I recently learnt about the steps-per-minute thing (180 per minute being the guide), which has helped me to improve my technique somewhat. I've also read a bit about 'The Pose' technique, where you use gravity to project you forwards, and I have used this fairly successfully a little bit when running. Any further ideas would be much appreciated. Also, if you do feel like sponsoring me, with all money going to the local sustainability organisation Transition Bath, then please follow this link: www.justgiving.com/barefootsimon Blessings, Simon
Hey everyone, Just thought I'd tell you how my run ended up going: Although it was my first barefoot distance run of its kind (in training I'd only ran up to 8 miles, 5 miles short of the half marathon distance!), and I injured a muscle in my left foot two days before the run......I went for it... AND Finished in 2 hours 4 minutes. Absolutely gobsmacked by it, I was taken aback by the bewilderment of it all. I couldn't quite believe what I had accomplished, for by all logic and reason I should've collapsed probably about halfway round due to my osteoarthritis in the hips. This barefoot running business, though, is proper serious. It IS the way forward, absolutely completely, for me. There is no turning back, EVER, for me. I was running faster than everyone I was running alongside for about the last 5 miles, as I got really into the groove. My body felt like it was just doing its thing, without me needing to interfere at all. I had felt a little bit of stiffness on a few occasions in my right hip (the dodgiest one), but the devil's claw root capsules I'd prepared beforehand seemed to help a lot to bring the inflammation down. The only thing that actually bothered me for the whole race really was my recent foot injury, as the foot began to cramp without just a couple of miles to go. I thus had to stop and stretch it, losing vital momentum and allowing many people to pass me in the process. I thought, in fact, that at this moment I was going to have to pull out of running any further, as I worried that I'd broken something. Luckily, I was able to continue fairly okay, and got my pace back up to continue overtaking, and end with a very emotional sprinted finish. The part that I was most concerned about, though, was the after-effects of such a run. This is where the story gets absolutely incredible for me. I have had no noticeable negative effect of the run on my hips. In fact, the run seemed to loosen things up in the hips, and it has only been in the last couple of days that the hips have begun to seize up a little again (as I have been resting for the past week, due to what I will next explain). My foot was very, very stiff for a couple of days after the run. I told myself I would give it 4 days for some kind of recovery to happen, and if not I would take it to the hospital. The foot has loosened up over the last few days, but I still don't feel comfortable to run on it. I believe that I pulled/tore a muscle in the foot, rather than having broken anything. The only muscular problem I had was with my groin muscle on the left side. This just inflamed for one day, and was easily sorted with some ice. Overall, I was walking a lot better than any of my friends who also ran the race. They all seemed to be struggling a lot with very stiff muscles or injuries that they had contracted during the race. I have been asked by dozens of people about how my feet are doing, and I always answer with 'absolutely brilliant', because they have been. They felt like they just had a very long massage, a somewhat soothing one at that (the road surface was, really, quite plush...). One thing about the feet that I noticed immediately after the run was that they didn't adapt very well to having socks and shoes on them again. I only put these on as I felt that it would give my bad foot extra support, and because I was due to be going into church for a service. During the whole service my feet were absolutely boiling, and I had a huge craving to get them in a cold shower (I hadn't had time to wash them yet...). So, all in all, this has been a terrific experience for me. I don't see myself possibly stopping here, either. I see that I have got to keep with my momentum of getting into running barefoot. I see that barefoot running is very much holistic, whereas conventional running, as we all know, is catastrophic. I have been given the clear belief, through my experience last week, that running can be a part of my healing and strengthening process for my injury. Despite all the medical professionals I consulted (which were a fair few - I went to the holistic side of medicine too, and the professionals said the same as the mainstream) requesting that I do not run the half marathon with my hips in the condition that they are in, I have found myself to have proven them all wrong with barefoot running it. Perhaps they all only know about the negative effects of conventional running, and do not know about the amazingly positive effects of true barefoot running. Regardless, I feel like I have shown something to both myself and to the world that is on the verge of ground-breaking. I hope that you join in trying out barefoot running if you don't do it already, and conduct your own observations of its effects on your body, and your life in general. Love & Blessing to you all. Simon
Thanks for the kind replies! free30 - yes, I am mainly barefoot on a day-to-day basis. The exceptions seem to be when I am very busy, and when I have formal meetings to go to. I'm getting into the habit, though, of going out barefoot anyway but bringing shoes with me. I aim to get some very compact shoes shortly so that I can do this all the time, and slip the shoes on whenever needed. Also, I tend to be less inspired towards barefooting in the colder weather. I love the wetter weather, but the colder weather seems to be a lot more hardcore on my feet. Love & Blessings. Simon
