Why don't serious runners take up barefoot training?

Yeah, aside from the 15 or so reasons you give for wearing shoes, how about the fact that there's really no significant benefit? Why would any serious runner stupidly risk missing training due to, for example, striking a sharp pebble squarely with their heel?

Ok, but if you water it down slightly and go with minimalist shoes, you get rid of most of those problems and retain most of the advantages.

I think most people start off in chunky shoes without even thinking about it (due to the general culture in running and shoe marketing etc).

Once established, people are reluctant to make a change, especially one that takes a while to do safely and most probably entails a drop in performance in the meantime.

It is often those people struggling with long term injuries that give it a proper try. They have less or nothing to lose, and are happy to be ab run pain free (even when slow at the start) and so are less inclined to hurt themselves being in a rudh to get back to being fast.

I fall into that last category. If i was to start again, i'd be minimalist from the start.

Because, most don't think at all about their footwear and trust their kit sponsors implicitly.

Furthermore, present them with any situation in which they'll have a possible increased risk of injury/discomfort, and they'll run scared.

uh oh wrote:

Yeah, aside from the 15 or so reasons you give for wearing shoes, how about the fact that there's really no significant benefit? Why would any serious runner stupidly risk missing training due to, for example, striking a sharp pebble squarely with their heel?

Why risk running at all, you might get injured at any time from unforseen danger lurking everywhere you go?

uh oh wrote:

Why would any serious runner stupidly risk missing training due to, for example, striking a sharp pebble squarely with their heel?

It's almost impossible to heel-strike while running barefoot. Try it.

just because you don't heel-strike doesn't mean your heel doesn't touch the ground. You could still easily cut the bottom of your foot.

why would any serious runner not want a sponsor?

Drew Eckmann wrote:

uh oh wrote:

Why would any serious runner stupidly risk missing training due to, for example, striking a sharp pebble squarely with their heel?

It's almost impossible to heel-strike while running barefoot. Try it.

Like the first guy said: I could give a million reasons that make this a bad idea (add to them that YOU have arthritis) but you would refuse to be confused by my logic.

I live in Michigan and unless I could find a grassy-groomed trail about 10 miles long this would never work. WE have to run on roads most of the time, and they are covered by debris. I scoff at Eckmann's idea that only heel-strikers could hurt their feet. I encourage YOU to run barefoot in a typical suburban neighborhood and see how long you last. I have tried it and it doesn't work.

Now, for the real dealbreaker: For at LEAST SIX MONTHS A YEAR you couldn't run shoeless here. It is too cold, there is salt and sand spread on the ground, gravel from road and home contstruction cover the roadways, ice and snow cover parts of the ground at least half of the 5-month period we consider winter (Nov-Dec-Jan-Feb-Mar).

And for the last time: Arthur Lydiard advised us to get running shoes "with a thick rubber sole". I am not making it up, it is right there in his books. I will get you the title and the page number if you like. Maybe he recanted this idea later in life, but he espoused it LONG AFTER HIS GREATEST TRIUMPHS in the 1960 and 1964 Olympics and beyond. They are in a book from 1978.

Also, if this was such a great idea for "serious runners" don't you think that some of them would have figured this out as a better way and adopted it? There would be 25-95% of great runners running barefoot in races and training.

You always hear about some African who is supposedly running 13:37, at altitude, on a dirt track, barefoot, at 16 years old. As if that means that once he gets on an all-weather track at sea-level with shoes on, he will go 13:00-flat.

Guess what? It does mean that. Shoes (especially spikes) are faster.

Because you might strike a curb with your toe to avoid incoming traffic and end up with a debilitating arthitic toe.

darkness wrote:

Also, if this was such a great idea for "serious runners" don't you think that some of them would have figured this out as a better way and adopted it? There would be 25-95% of great runners running barefoot in races and training.

Actually quite a few "serious runners" have run barefoot, or minimalist, quite often -- including when racing.

mepost wrote:

why would any serious runner not want a sponsor?

Zola Budd, who famously ran barefoot and who even set world records running barefoot, ironically didn’t have much trouble being sponsored by a shoe company!

Ron Hill of England (2,09 marathon) won many major cross-country races running in bare feet.

Know your sport's history wrote:

darkness wrote:

Also, if this was such a great idea for "serious runners" don't you think that some of them would have figured this out as a better way and adopted it? There would be 25-95% of great runners running barefoot in races and training.

Actually quite a few "serious runners" have run barefoot, or minimalist, quite often -- including when racing.

Thanks for the condescension, but I have already had some today.

How many is "quite a few"? I have seen Abebe Bikila (who won one gold in shoes), and Zola Budd, and a handful of others over history.

I have witnessed tens of thousands of runners over the years at various Championships (Conference, State, National, World) who all wear shoes.

When the percentage is in the tenths or hundredths of a single percentile (which it is in America) ... then go back and refer to what I said about "There would be 25-95% of great runners running barefoot in races and training" and realize that you also will refuse to be confused by logic.

I think its pretty safe to say that the great runners up to at least mid 1970s wore very minimalist footwear by today's standards. The things Ovett, Coe, and Cram used in the 1980s would still be considered racers today.

Remind me when standards in running generally slid for the 'developed' western countries? When did shoes start to get thick and full of technological features?

In the early 80s, Tiger was putting out shoes like the Moscow and Ultimate 81, both re-issued now. They were very simple shoes. I think it was the tail end of Nike's pre-Air era. Brooks still had the John Walker shoe on the market. It seems to me that it was roughly the mid-80s when shoes started becoming technical instruments. I know that Peter Cavanaugh had this shoe research group at Penn State in the early 80s that was funded by Nike and it wasn't long after that that you started seeing thick and "corrective" shoes. I can't recall any real high tech shoes that were on the market much before the mid 80s, but maybe that's just because I didn't buy them.

darkness,

Lydiard definitely wrote that runners should get a shoe with a thick rubber heel. But you have to remember that he wrote that in 1962. I don't know how old you are, but a shoe that would have been "thick soled" then would have had much less of a sole than even racing shoes have today. Arthur didn't like most modern running shoes. He also wrote, much more recently, that "you'd be better off in gumboots" than in many of today's shoes.

darkness, your screen name is very appropriate. Open you mind and disregard all the shoe-company propaganda. I too live in Michigan and recognize that we can't very well run barefoot in 2 feet of snow when it's 8 degrees outside. But in warm weather months I train 1-3 days a week barefoot and feel much better for it. there's a golf course near my house that is closed on Sundays and I get out there every single week for 8-12 mile runs and sometimes workouts. Ran my first barefoot race last fall and would likely have PR'ed for 8k (previous PR was set on a flat road course) if the course at Ferris State (intercollegiates) had been measured correctly. The op is absolutely right that we should all try to run barefoot as much as possible (whether that's 3 miles a week or 120), building up to it gradually of course. If we were meant to run with bare feet, we'd be born that way.

I post this a lot on many threads but the Asics Tai Chi is the best shoe for those seeking a bare foot feel. I love them and log all of my miles in them.

They essentially consist of soft leather with a thin rubber sole, no overlays, no cushioning, very much like the training shoes of the 1960's.

Drew Eckmann wrote:

uh oh wrote:

Why would any serious runner stupidly risk missing training due to, for example, striking a sharp pebble squarely with their heel?

It's almost impossible to heel-strike while running barefoot. Try it.

Drew, you don't know what you are talking about. I do a fair amount of barefoot running in summer, and when I am coming down a steep hill, even at great speed, I am most definitely heel striking.

Golf course closed on Sunday? WTF?

What about pronators and supinators?

I'd love to try it out, but I know that in no time I'd be out injured.

After racing in flats my feet and legs hurt.

I know it's probably "because my feet are weak".

Any other nators out there who do it bare foot?