So I came across this video on slowtwitch.com today. Not much new to anyone who has been following running the last couple years and witnessed the trend of barefoot/minimalist running. I have heard people that are in love with the whole barefoot thing and others that absolutely hate it, but this is my take on it. If you are in shape and have decent running mechanics you can get away with doing a couple miles a week barefoot on grass. As you spend more of your running time on the hard concrete you are going to need more shoe up to a point. Thousands of years ago our ancestors didn't need running shoes because everything was grass and dirt, the first asphalt road wasn't until 1824. To compact the hard surfaces obesity is an ever growing problem and this extra weight is extremely hard on the bodies. If an overweight person were to run barefoot for a couple miles and not die of a heart attack I think there knees would collapse. This is why I believe a shoe is a needed device to prevent injury and allow you to keep running. If bare foot running is getting more people to run then I am happy, but we will see what happens over the next couple years to the minimalist movement.
As an aside I did my first "hard" run since my Achilles problems in December. I did a 20 minute tempo and did about 5.4k. Not the fastest tempo by any means, but I am taking it as a good note because the only pain was in my calves running up the hill on Viscount Rd. There was still some snow on some of the smaller roads and bits of sidewalk I had to run on and it definitely slows you down a little. I can't wait for the race season to get here. I am hoping for a couple pbs in the 5k and 10k as well as triathlon.
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