Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Barefoot Running


Barefoot guru Ken Bob Saxton, webmaster of RunningBarefoot.org



Yesterday it snowed and this morning it was raining and cold so this tender foot stayed indoors and didn't get in his daily 3 kilometer run. So I did some weights, stretching and Googling. Something that I've been thinking about for a while now is barefoot running.

I've seen Ken Bob at last year's Los Angeles and Palos Verdes Marathons and thought it was cool that this old guy was doing this. Today while reading though his website I found out that we are both the same age! I also found out that he ran his first marathon in shoes and injured himself. He has been pretty much injury free running barefoot.

Barefoot running isn't anything new, in fact it is as old as humanity. Running barefoot apparently doesn't slow you down, Abebe Bikila from Ethiopia won the 1960 Olympic Marathon in Rome and Zola Bud, the "white" South African woman who set a world record for the 5K when she was just 16 years old, both ran barefoot. More recently Tegla Loroupe of Kenya, who held the woman's Marathon world record from 1998-2001, has run many races barefoot. Some studies have concluded that shoes actually cause most of the running related injuries. Here's one from SportSci.org - A Peer-Reviewed Journal and Site for Sport Research: SportSci.org Barefoot Running

So am I going to try it? Why not, I've been going lighter and lighter on the running shoes. The next step would be to take them off. But I think I'll wait until this weekend. In the meantime I'll try to post some Barefoot Running videos.

1 comments:

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