consult professionals before making drastic changes in your health or your approach to exercise. Think back. When you were a kid, playing tag in the school yard. Rushing home before the street lights came on. Chasing your family dog around the yard. Try to recapture that feeling. One such experience has stuck in my memory since I was about 10 years old. We were visiting a family friend's cottage, which was built on a giant mountain ridge. The yard led directly into a forest, littered with trails from cottagers, campers and hikers. The ground was hard; layered pine needles, leaves and a solid rock foundation. I went exploring, as 10 year olds do. I remember the joy of running for what felt like forever. I remember feeling free, never running out of breath and never feeling the slightest tinge of pain or discomfort. Posture, arch support and timed breathing were not things I had ever heard of. I was running for the pure fun of running and it has never felt as good since.
In 2009 I began my personal journey back to that feeling. I've been a casual runner for a long time. My father was a triathlete and marathoner so I guess I was always drawn to it, running track in elementary school and high school. I even placed top 5 in Ontario's 4km trail run many years ago. Not bad for someone who didn't know what "pronation" was until last year. After high school I didn't run for a long while. I started smoking and eating poorly, though on the upside, I did get really good at Call of Duty. Then, after quitting smoking, I decided to try it again. Try to get back to that freedom that I remembered feeling as a kid, but it wasn't so easy now. Was it the extra 15 pounds I was carrying around my stomach or the cheap running shoes I picked up at SportsCheck? Maybe it was my smoker's lungs, McDonalds diet or lack of sleep? Turns out, it wasn't any of these things. I cleaned up my act. Having already quit smoking, the hardest part was done. I started eating better, bought some fancy Asics shoes and put myself on a schedule. I cycled 20km each day and went running, walking or hiking at least 3 times a week. Calgary's Nose Hill Park became my personal battle ground. Fighting off burning lungs and screaming muscles. My cardio health eventually improved. I could walk a flight of stairs and have a conversation at the same time. Riding my bike to work was the easiest part of my day, not to mention the least stressful. Things were going well. I ran a 10km race my first year, finishing in 52 minutes, give or take. The next year I did a 16km race, 1 hour 16 minutes. I was going further and faster than ever, but every kilometer I ran was just as much a test of my physical ability as it was of pain endurance. I had come to terms with it, I had a bad knee and weak hips. It was never going to change and running was proof that I could beat it, but never cure it.
Barefoot & Minimalist running isn't new. In fact it's very, very old. African tribes have been chasing down their meals for thousands of years with no shoes on. The Tarahumara natives of Mexico wear cut up car tires as sandals on their 100+ mile runs. Olympians have been earning gold medals without shoes for decades. In fact, many say that we evolved to the level we're at now, because of our ability to outrun our food. This gave us reliable access to meat and let our brains grow to the size they are. So I thought I'd give it a shot. I've purchased a pair of Vibram FiveFingers Bikila LS. Those are the silly looking toe shoes that look like a cross between a ninja and a weirdo. FiveFingers emulate barefoot, while protecting you from glass, hot pavement and snow. The theory behind barefoot and minimalist running is to take your body back to what's in our DNA. Return to what those African tribes and Mexican natives already know and do everyday. The human foot has 26 bones, 33 joints and over 100 muscles, tendons and ligaments. da Vinci once said “The human foot is a masterpiece of engineering and a work of art” and he's right. Used properly it is better than any arch supported, heel padding pair of Adidas. Your arch has a natural spring to it, with the correct stride your foot and bent knee take all of the impact of running and instead of transferring it into sore hips and backs they turn it into a forward spring, taking you further and faster. Supportive shoes not only allow, but encourage you to land heel first, pounding upto 6 times your body weight into your knees, hips and back. They are so padded that you can't even feel the damage they are doing, every step you take. Take away that restricting bubble around your foot and you'll be forced into proper human form within a few strides. Practice that for a few weeks or a month and before you know it, you'll be bouncing down city streets, along cottage trails and over sunny beaches, just like you remember doing as a child. I've found that 10 year old's joy again and all I had to do was simplify things. Strip out all of the extras and run.
If you're interested in learning to run barefoot or minimalist, here's some resources for you, that have helped me get started.
Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen
And a couple of Facebook Groups:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/bareminimum/
