10 August 2009: Shoes

Following a quick look at a very interesting link on Doug's blog, I decided to try it for myself. The original link was to a video comparison of running styles of a not-trained-to-run-barefoot runner:



"It's got to be the shoes," says the narrator. Interesting stuff. But is it repeatable? Well, I've never run barefoot much, although we used to have to run in those plimsoll things at Cornwood School (I note these are now brightly coloured and sold at ridiculously inflated prices under the name 'Converse' shoes). So, given the proximity of our local gym (just the other side of the bathroom at home), it was time to set up the camera and see what the difference would be.



These are slowed to half-speed and you can slow it still further in YouTube if you like. The interesting thing to me was the difference in angle of landing foot: when shod, I land heavily ankle-first; without, I land on ball of foot. Further thing is that the centre of gravity shifts further forward - with no shoes, the foot isn't so much in front when it lands as below, thereby allowing me to use gravity rather than quad-muscles to propel forwards. Doug also pointed out that (especially towards the end of the video) there's a lot more backlift without shoes, perhaps three to four inches.

Why do I post this? Firstly to say that it seems - as I remember when Kevin and myself went to Pompey to buy running shoes - that there's no effort on the part of the shoe manufacturer to correct running style, ever. Instead they aim to compensate for your running style, adding more padding and taking you consistently further away from the natural technique of no-shoe running.

Secondly, however, to say that if you DO change running style and attempt to land ball-first, you will notice several things: your calf muscles will ache, your shins might get sore, your calf muscles will ache more and then your calf muscles will scream out in agony saying stop stop please stop please stop now.

And, if you run barefoot-style while continuing to wear heavily-padded running shoes, you'll get shin splints and generally struggle. Just socks lead to blisters; nothing at all on feet leads to blood and possible sectioning.

Instead experts such as Barefoot Ted (and Doug, come to that) recommend these Vibram Five Finger things:



Me, I'm just wondering where my old Plimsolls went.

Footnote: Some very bizarre synaptic event occurred in my brain five minutes ago, leading me to think "where was I ten years ago today?" And I found out - well, not so much today as tomorrow: 11 August 1999, it turns out, was the day there was a total eclipse of the sun over south-west England. Remember that? I was in London (no vacation time left from QAS), watching a 98.5% partial eclipse from the courtyard at old town, while my family were down in Devon, under heavy cloud.