Barefoot Running, Conspiracies and the Camino.
I am not one for conspiracy theories but there’s something strange going on.
Every morning when I get out of bed I have an initial pain in my lower legs upon putting weight on them, not an injury as such, more of a stiffness I suppose. I had put this down to getting older but I can’t help but feel this is avoidable.
Particularly in Asia, their older generations seem to be almost as nimble as their grandkids but over here in the Western world people’s bodies seem to be giving up so young, 2 new knees at 50?
We’ll soon hear about toddlers with backache, no doubt.
Sure, sitting is one of the culprits but it’s not the whole story. We seem so gullible, so blind to what’s really going on in so many aspects of our lives when the truth is often right in front of us.
Back in 2012, I walked the epic Camino de Santiago. Made famous temporarily by a movie and a very woo-woo book. I had started off the trip in a pair of leather boots, not hiking boots, more or less timberland-style boots. My thinking being that in the cadets as a teen we walked miles and miles in army boots with very little problem.
This it turned out was a terrible fucking idea and an express ticket to gold in the blister Olympics.
My feet after just one day were truly in a horrific state resembling having been in a pencil sharpener rather than on a hike. I ended up in basically an expensive pair of trainers kindly given to me by my brother who was accompanying me for part of the trip. When I asked him what he was going to wear (as he had literally given me the shoes from his feet) he whipped out a pair of Vibram 5 fingers which looked possibly even more ridiculous then than they do now. But he had no problems and this planted a seed in my mind that lay dormant for some time.
The thing was that as silly as his feet gloves looked, the idea almost immediately made sense to me. It was like I had amnesia and everything had just become clear.
The shoes we wear generally are so protected that our feet and particularly the muscles in them are weak and sensitive due to them being constricted and over-supported. It seems we make shoes as if we don’t have feet that are already designed to walk and run. Imagine wearing thick gloves all the time!
The repercussions of this can affect our backs, posture, knees and the way we walk. Perhaps, this could be the source of my discomfort? I literally wore shoes all the time, even Birkenstocks around the house.
For over a year now I have used Merrell barefoot shoes for running and where possible either no shoes or those with minimal support the rest of the time. It took a long time to adjust and regain strength in my feet but I must say I’m cured. No more knee pain or stiffness.
New Balance says on their website you need to change running shoes every 300-500 miles and they are not the only ones, this is the figure that seems to come up over and over. What a load of horseshit! but I ate this up, I once ran over 1000 miles in a year and changed my shoes 3 times.
This is a conspiracy and one of so many in our lives.
It’s hardly surprising that the running shoe company and their doctors are telling us we need to buy more shoes. It’s the same as pharmaceutical companies making money out of people being sick. Neither are interested in the cure. Which, for needing new trainers all the time, is likely improving your form by reducing the support in your footwear.