Yabba Dabba Do

A new running fad was brought to my attention. Some are running in bare-feet. The thought behind this is that humans were made to locomote without shoes and therefor will be efficient without. There is a lot of research out there that essentially proves this. The researchers study the runners' gait as well as where their feet strike the ground. The evidence is very interesting and even has me sold....... almost. Humans were designed to run without shoes, but humans were not designed to run marathons, triathlons, etc. It did not take 26.21875 miles to hunt down the mammoth. Also, our muscular and skin tissue was not designed to run on cement, pavement, gravel, asphalt or dirty city streets. Plus, as we develope our bodies are conditioned to run with footwear. So going bare-feet will have a tremendous maleffect on the whole body. A runner could possibly achieve a better time, in theory, but I am not sure it's worth the consequences. I asked an ultra runner their opinion on this topic. (an ultra run is a 50 mile race, so you can just imagine the kind of training this person goes thru) His thoughts were that this was just the newest craze in the runner's world and that runners need to troubleshoot their handicaps without finding an easy way out that could hamper their sport. Interesting.