It’s the 7^th August 2009 and after 30 years of cushioned shoe running the reality is accepted that a barefoot style is the only way to run. A quite common running story of severe knee injury and the verge of having the customary knee operation bought me to the point of looking for a better way to run a few months previously to this point. Internet searching and a few books coupled with some physics knowledge pointed to major leg muscles taking the shock and forward momentum generated by a light but positive interaction of forefoot on ground clearly made sense to me.

I tried to ease in by wearing a minimal cushioned/racing shoe and landing on forefoot with snappy strides. It felt ok but quite hard to achieve the pace I could manage before, the knee was good no pain. But I was unsure after a few weeks so returned to my cushioned shoes but tried to keep the style, it was awful, feeling squishy and unstable, back to the race shoes with the aim to buy some proper minimal shoes I had seen on the web. An off road kind of sandal was chosen, Vivo Spartan, by now I had read Born to Run, reinforcing all I had worked out, sandals sounded right and the weather was fine so why not. Really hard at first, some days after a short run my calves and shin muscles were so tight I could hardly flex my feet at the ankle, but it always eased off with a days rest. Gradually the pulsing contact with the ground was more evident and what a contrast to that quite pleasant but energy sapping heel strike style of the past 30 years.

I should have known when I felt good running in a shoe called Freedom of the City (Reebok), it was like a track spike with a slightly raised hexagon rubber sole pattern. I ran for 5 miles breathing through my nose all the way, one of those runs where you feel you are at your limit but it just flows, with Vienna by Ultravox playing in my head, a Walkman was too bulky to take on a run. But the Nike Tailwind was out, the air cushioned sole and the scare stories of 3 times body weight made sense to a 17 year old, my club teammates had them and so I had to have them. With no internet and so unknown to me at the time, the international athlete Gordon Pirie was trying to convince his sponsors Adidas not to go down the heel strike and cushion route, but commercial pressures and some poor sports science (still debateable I know) were too strong it would seem.

Now in 2013 and as Vet 50 I am running faster over distances from 5k to 29 miles off road and on road all due to the barefoot style, no significant changes in mileage, some more attention to core strength (barefoot style kind of does this anyway) and absolute minimal shoes, vivobarefoot being my preferred shoes if barefoot is not realistic for me.

Photo from CTS Flete race.