Any podiatrist, or other foot specialist here wanna chime in on barefoot shoes?

And I have been walking more lately to get into shape for this trip… though not in these sandals but my Carsons without the insole (roughly equivalent of Vivo Breathos with insole).

Walking more lately — do you think this might have contributed to the problem?

My main footwear for 60 years has been flip-flops. I will actually wear out an expensive pair of flip flops in a year. I often go barefooted and have been wearing less than the typical minimal footwear (cross country racing flats) for 10 years on almost every backpacking trip. I’ve never had a foot problem in my life. But each of us is different and I just might have good genes, aligned hips and spine, and a bunch of other things that are simply good luck.

Thanks, DK.

And Nick, to answer your question: I don’t think walking in itself contributed to the problem. I don’t really know what the heck happened. I suspect though, that maybe, due to my particular bone structure, walking in my paper thin sandals on concrete may have pissed something off… and that increasing my walking time (in other thin shoes) pissed that something off even more. But… that’s just speculation that comes from my observation last year that my feet were uncomfortable in said sandals.

My gut thinks that shoes, except for protection in very adverse conditions, are bad for people. But, we now live in concrete jungles, and shoes are strapped on before we’ve stopped mess’n our britches. Maybe another way we’ve outsmarted ourselves….

Concrete and thin shoes – yeah, my body really screams at that. Interestingly, I can run OK doing this, but walking, and even worse, slow walking on concrete – not good.

Same here, Ryan. Not sure what it is, or how to articulate it, but I’ve felt for a while now that going barefoot on hard surfaces is easier on my feet than wearing ultra thin footwear on hard surfaces. Something about the proprioception being changed just enough that something changes in the way I step, walk, move. Of course, I’m sure being on hard surfaces/concrete sans shoes for any length of time would take it’s toll too…

There are two common explanations to the problem.

One is that you the fatty cells under your heals. Either carrying to heavy load or walking with to “hard” force on hard surfaces. It this case you need a sole in the shoes as supports the sides of the heel to make it more round underneath.

The other possible reason is that the tendons are getting shorter. The tendons  are getting stretched when the muscles are working. The body protects tendons from being overly stretched by shorting them afterwards when they are at rest. This can result in that the tendons gets too short. When this happens on the tendons that are connected to the calves, the feet is pulled. This is very pain full. The common solution to this is sole as is supporting the arc. An alternative solution is the massage the calves so the muscles gets relaxed and stretches out, so the tendons does not get shortened. After some days the pain is reduced but you need to continue for several months to help the feet to recover.

I’m sure being on hard surfaces/concrete sans shoes for any length of time would take it’s toll too…

Maybe?

When I was a kid no one wore shoes in the summer, except those who went to church on Sunday. We lived on the streets. Stickball, football, hide and seek, cowboys & Indians, army, etc., you get the picture. No one got injuries other than a stubbed toe once in a while, or scrapes if you fell. Also when I was in junior high it was very common for me to walk 6-8 miles round trip to the beach and back, often 5 days in a row, and of course barefooted. Some days I would even carry a surfboard round trip.

Are kids, who are still growing, more resilient? I have no idea.

Were our feet better conditioned for going barefoot than people today? Probably.

Nowadays do I do long walks or run on cement or asphalt barefooted? Heck no.

As a kid you might weight 20 kg but now maybe four or five times more. Add another 20kg for the backpack.

Add another 20kg for the backpack.

That’s not very light?

Anyway, in my experience, it’s not just the weight. Years matter too.

“I was also told one’s shoe should not flex like a barefoot shoe but instead, be more stiff.”

I kind of expected that answer as well but I don’t agree that it applies to everyone, especially to those who are used to being active in minimal shoes. I do think there is validity in Roger’s observation that there could be some kind of physical compensation going on as well. Tight hips? Tight calves? Maybe you’re just sore from activity and your feet need recovery time. I’ve needed to pay more attention to this as I have gotten older – but I am also more physically active now than when I was 10-20 years ago.

I have an excellent doctor here in SoCal that I trust with these issues as they have popped up for me over the years and he’ll spend an hour with you if needed. Those practitioners are nearly impossible to find.

Thanks, Harry. I don’t think it’s my pack weight. I felt the issue arising when hiking with no pack. Just recently did I start training with a pack… and only around 5 pounds at that. It has been ~6 yrs or so since I’ve carried more than 10 pounds total. And I’m thin and generally very flexible… though I wouldn’t rule something being too tight in me.

Nick – Yeah, I don’t really know. If I had to guess though, I’d guess that people like you, who grew up without wearing shoes in their growing yrs, probably have developed a better foot/leg foundation than those who grew up wearing the type of shoes most people wear today. Maybe you lucky folks who didn’t wear shoes growing up are less apt to develop issues to the lower extremities in their later yrs. Might sound wild but it wouldn’t surprise me.

At 50, though I’m fit and might not look that old, I have to face the fact I’m no spring chicken any more. Perhaps my age is playing a role and maybe I have some predisposition. I have after all, had a lot of tendon/muscle/fascia injuries in the last ~25 yrs.

Mike – I was hoping I just needed some rest but it’s painfully (no pun intended) clear now that there’s more going on. Given the results of the fascia treatment the other night, I’m leaning towards that being the issue… or a big part of it. I just think I need a lot more manual work done to my feet. You’re lucky to have a good Dr who’ll spend an hr with you. Here, most are owned by a big hospital and with wait times of many weeks or months, they have an allotted time of 8-10 mins per patient (15 if you’re new and lucky). Frustrating.

I agree with Roger – these kind of issues are complex. After decades sitting in chairs and walking in over-engineered shoes, some of us will have developed issues that go beyond simply transitioning to minimal footwear.

Personally, the transition to minimal footwear has been painless and I’d never look back. But if I ran into problems, I’d be thinking about consulting the type of physio trained in functional movement assessment. These are professionals with the skills to evaluate your body and gait as a whole, because the cause of the issue may be well away from your feet. Someone trained by Gray Cook, for example.

And I’m learning that we also have to be pragmatic about how hard core we are as we take our minimal footwear into the hills. In the first flush of enthusiasm some years back I did 6 weeks in the western alps with very minimal Vivos. What I learned is that the bruising gradually built up till it became an issue – not enough to spoil the trip, but I was clearly damaging my feet and I wouldn’t have lasted for a major thru-hike. For the occasional day hike or weekender on rough terrain you can get away with a hard-core minimal shoe because your foot has time to recover, but if you are bashing your feet pretty much daily, then trouble will begin to build.

So now I’m working on a system of inserts which I can tune to the conditions – staying minimal on foot-friendly grass and dirt, but providing more protection when I’m bashing across significant stretches of rock. I recently had indirect contact with Lee Saxby though his wife. Lee is a recognised authority on barefoot running technique, with extensive practical experience in the field. These days, his strong advice is that barefoot enthusiasts should protect themselves from rocky trails using some kind of rock plate or they are at high risk of injury. The trick is to achieve this without sacrificing too much ground feel or stack height.

These days, his strong advice is that barefoot enthusiasts should protect themselves from rocky trails using some kind of rock plate or they are at high risk of injury. The trick is to achieve this without sacrificing too much ground feel or stack height.

I would agree if a person is running on rocky paths.

8 years ago I was wearing cross country flats on a trip and must have stepped hard on a pointed rock. I didn’t really notice any pain. Keep in mind my shoes weigh about 5 ounces each, so they are more minimalist than what people here are wearing. 10 miles later, at the end of the day, I had a blister that covered the entire ball of my foot. If one walks barefooted enough, you can extinguish a cigarette with your foot and not feel it, which is probably why I didn’t notice I had such a serious foot injury.

So I drained the blister and went to bed. The next day we had to walk over 20 miles to our camp. It was a rough day for me and the last 8 miles I had to walk, limp so slowly that we got to our campsite hours later than planned finishing in the dark, but we had to get there because it was our only water source.

The third day was okay even though it was a 21 mile hike with 6,000 feet of elevation loss. A little pain starting out but it went away, even when we had to walk a longish section of lava fields.

After this incident I experimented with a few pair of minimalist shoes with rock plates and didn’t like any of them and went back to my racing flats. I actually hated the rock plates because the shoes were too stiff. I haven’t had a single problem since.

I’ve done a bit of hiking in Five Fingers. They have tougher soles than my flats, but have two features that are a “no-go” for me. First is they are incredibly hot and begin to stink after a few days on the trail. The second is your toes splay out and it is easy to kick the tiny toe against a rock or other object. Over time, the last issue seems to go away as your body gets used to these things and reacts quickly via the feed-back mechanism.

The more one walks in minimalist shoes the better (or quicker) the mind and body reacts to feedback from the feet. Even at 67 I am probably more lithe on my feet than most hikers, meaning I step more lightly on the ground as I walk — if that makes sense. However, most people can’t operate at home on a daily basis as I do. It never snows here. For example, over the past 2.5 years, other than backpacking trips, I haven’t worn a pair of shoes except once, when I went to a funeral. At home I wear only flip flops or nothing. I even go to fancy restaurants in flip-flops. When my wife and I go camping, I do most of our day hikes in flip-flops. Walking 10 miles in flip-flops isn’t uncommon because my feet are conditioned to do that.

Most people probably shouldn’t wear really minimalist shoes if they can’t be shoeless most of the year or walk several miles every single day in these shoes.

Many people wear shoes that are too small or too narrow. My flats are too big. A proper fit using a Brannock device and an ample toe box would be a size 11 for me. I buy size 12; some shoes are 12.5 or even 13. 30 years ago my proper size was a 10.

I haven’t paid much attention to the current offering of shoes over the past several years. It seems that the Hoka brand might be a good option for many people with the extra cushioning, assuming one can get a good fit. However if one has a “mechanical” problem as Roger suggested, then changing shoes doesn’t solve the root cause of the problem, nor do custom shoe beds (or whatever they are called).

I am wary of foot doctors. Seems humans didn’t need them until the 20th century when marketing became a successful profession and people no longer had to walk everywhere or were unwilling to walk because they now had the option not to. Take that with a grain of salt. I don’t think we need dentists either, if we properly brush and floss everyday — I go once every 5 years. Dentists want us to visit them every 6 months so our over abundance of dentists can stay in business and make a very good living.

So take care of your feet, meaning exercise them daily… we need to walk several miles EVERY day, which for most people is incredibly difficult to make the time to do it. I walk 7 or 8 miles almost every day, which is usually around 3 hours daily. This will help alleviate problems. If problems occur, it can be difficult to figure out what the problem is, as this thread confirms.

Sounds like Rusty has a hard to diagnose problem. What I would do in his “shoes” would be to walk very little for a few months and the pain will probably go away — if it doesn’t then there is a serious injury. If it does go away then I would slowly and carefully get my feet back in shape by walking. But we’re modern humans and we (myself included) are inclined not to exercise patience with these kinds of things.

Preventative maintenance is walking daily, but one has to start out slowly if it hasn’t been part of the daily routine.

There are so many variations to feet and foot problems that I think it’s wise to never take any one person’s (or any one doctor’s) opinion as gospel, nor should you assume that what works for someone else will work for you. I do think that as a generalization, if you start out as a kid going barefoot a lot you have an advantage – but that goes way pretty quickly unless you maintain it , as Nick has, through regular walking and  a lifestyle that allows/supports that. On the other side of the spectrum, if you started out as I did with you feet being shoved into shoes that never fit properly because no one recognized that you have shorter than normal toes (didn’t find this out until I went to work at REI around age 21 and the skilled bootfitter used me as an example in the training), and combine it with some real heavy weight training for a few years, and then jobs that involved a lot of standing but not so much walking (retail, cabinetmaking, carpentry), it’s easy to find as you approach 60 that your feet are pretty damaged and restoration is a daunting process. I just try to avoid pain and avoid getting worse. If I were retired and had plenty of free time I think I could make real headway by doing a lot of barefoot walking on soft surfaces (sand, grass). But I still have to put another kid through college so that level of free time is a few years away at best. My feet get better the more I walk; I backpack in running shoes – typical trail runners, not minimalist; I have orthotics made for me by a podiatrist that are essential to keep the pain level down. I can’t walk barefoot on a hard surface even in the house without pain; And wearing soft but no arch support things like Crocs will have me hurting pretty quick.I

I guess what I’m saying is that everybody has a different situation, that the answer to my problems is not the answer to yours, trial and error is generally required to find the way, and most importantly, there is a big difference between your feet being weak from underuse and your feet being damaged due to abuse, ad the remedies are not the same.

Thanks to the additional replies, Geoff, Nick, and Paul. It’s very nice to read while giving my feet some rest. I’ve also taken this time to reflect, ponder, read old foot related articles I read yrs ago, and to read new stuff.

I remember reading something a long time ago (based on scientific study as I recall) that said even placing a pair of socks on an individuals feet altered the way they moved, their mechanics. This in mind, and thinking about how I’ve always felt I’d walk more comfortably barefoot than with my super thin sandals…I really believe my proprioception was changed enough to cause me to walk wrong which, in doing so with such thin soles… I think this is where it began for me… or at least has contributed to my current issue, to a large degree. In other words, I think my sense of foot positioning was skewed enough with these minimalist designs that I was walking as though one would while wearing a conventional highly padded shoe… whereas I should have been walking the same as I would barefoot. That said, I don’t know that that is an easy task when our brain is to automatically adjust based on what we’re feeling. I think it would require, at least on my part, a very conscious and tiring effort too alter things….being complicated further by my fast gait and focus on moving, getting from point A to B. Hope this all makes sense…..

Also, I’ve been thinking about our societal ways, and how we can get so entrenched into a belief after many generations… how we just go about our ways without questioning. Yesterday, the thought crossed my mind how nutty it would be to spend as much time and effort shodding our pet cats and dogs as we do ourselves. I mean, think about how absurd it would be to say those animals need support, cushion, heel lift, etc, etc. In line with the podiatrist telling me that no one should go barefoot any more than necessary, I envision people’s cats and their dogs bumbling around in the various specialty shoes the “experts” and marketers tell us we need. Most would be shod in Nikes, Reebok, and Adidas… but the outliers… those cats and dogs would be wearing Altras or, if really radical, Vivos… so they could move more “naturally”….

Some of you I’m sure have read the following article published 10 yrs ago. For those of you who haven’t, it’s pretty good in my opinion. I remember reading it shortly after it came out. Just ran across it again yesterday. “You Walk Wrong, It took 4 million years of evolution to perfect the human foot. But we’re wrecking it with every step we take.”

http://nymag.com/health/features/46213/

This is long by please read it all, there is a conclusion in the end that might be an eye opener for many.

The question is what causes the problem, thereafter it is possible to solve it.

It is so easy to say it is my genes, or none structure. And then accept the faith.

Thirty years ago I used earth shoes. The sole was design after how the foot depressed in sand. They were the best shoes I ever had. I year after I started to use super thin and flexible shoe. That was many years before bare feet shoes was invented as a fashion.

Started to get pain in one foot and then the other. It got so pain full that I some days could not walk more that 10 meter and then had to sit down and massage me feet. I went to a specialist and I get inner sole and recommended stuff shoes or sandals. I accepted my faith and did as he said.  It was like a miracle. The pain disappeared instantly. One of my favorite shoe became the North Face hedgehog as is trail running shoes. Low and light weight.

I noticed I rather massage the calves than the feet to reduce the problem, if I had not used proper shoes. I also noted that stretching the feet in the stairs to be very good.

My calves does not feel tight, just big. I few years ago I tried 2xu calves support. They measured 41cm. After a few months I had gone down in size to below 38 cm. I had less problem in years.

Recently I tried Nike Training Club on the phone, and “yoga ready” exercise. It is a lot down dog position with “pedaling the feet”. It is intended for runners to do after being out running. After that the calves get more relaxed than ever for the last thirty years.

During these thirty years I been thinking a lot. I don’t believe the bare feet is neither the cause or the solution, nor is the stiff shoes. The Inuits and people in the north like Scandinavia would not exist with out shoes.

I also reflected that many women were thinn shoes at work. Still they often got problem the older they got.

I been thinking of my father in law and his friends who never wore even slippers during their working life, but never got problem with their feet. This even if their feet looked strangely disformed. Recently I realized they not only walked bare feet, but more squat. And that with both feet firmly on the ground. Not on their toes but the heel firmly on the ground.

After training squatting and Nike exercise mentioned above I can now walk both bare feet and with slippers long distances. That was not possible a few years ago.

My conclusion is that modern people are not squatting as people done for thousand of years and that causes the problem with our feet, not if we use boots, shoes or not – that I depending on environment ie they are need in hot and could climates.

Extra problem for women.
Old friend, gear shop owner, experienced boot & shoe fitter, once told me: most women buy shoes a size or two smaller than their feet, for vanity reasons. Result: pages and pages of ads on womens’ magazines for foot baths, massage sandals, bunion cures, etc etc. Of course their feet ache at the end of the day: they have had them in a vice for most of the day. Ever see any similar ads for men? I thought not.

Sue & I go bare foot at home. No problems.

Cheers

Thanks for the additional replies, Harry and Roger. I haven’t visited this thread for a while.

UPDATE: Believing in the bodies amazing ability to heal itself, I decided to just give up all summer backpacking plans and rest my feet, stretching along the way, letting my body take care of itself. I found that my calves were very tight…particularly so on the side with the worst foot. Weeks of stretching made a positive difference. Got to a standstill though. That’s when I decided to begin walking again… just short distances, around the block for instance. My feet felt up to it.

I could barely tolerate 1 mile so went back to my PT friend whom I asked to look for other areas in my body that may be contributing. She gave me some stretches and sent me to one of her colleagues who is their foot guy. He gave me some foot exercises. They really pissed off my feet and today, they are not significantly better than 6 months ago. Can’t walk barefoot. Can’t shower without Crocs on my feet.

Traveled yesterday 2 hrs one way to see a certified pedorthist whom the region’s renowned foot orthopedic guy works closely with. Tried to see the orthopedic guy but he’s retiring and not taking new patients. :-( The pedorthist, who seems well respected, is a big proponent of flat shoes with large toe boxes, no/little arch support, and lots of cushioning – Altras. He thinks barefoot is the best but feels it and barefoot shoes are the worst thing for modern humans walking/standing/working on hard surfaces to the extent we do. Said he sees one person a week like me come in with foot problems due, he thinks, to “barefoot” shoes. That opinion seems to be the general consensus amoungst the “professionals”.

Complicating factors, in my case, seem to be Morton’s Toe… or a short big toe and long second toe. And who knows what else…

I still have the opinion that my particular feet, and super thin sandals on concrete and pavement, were a very bad mix. I think the “barefoot” shoes ran with this issue and finished my feet off…maybe doing permanent damage. Hope not!

So, having talked to several folks now, and done 6 months of on-line research, I think it’s safe to say I have a neuroma on top of other issues. One can find and watch Youtube videos for days, made by “professionals” who claim they know hot to fix these problems. Everyone has their own technique it seems…knowing “the secret”. There’s bickering back and forth between these pros and pissing matches on credentials resembling middle school mentalities.

When I started this thread, my goal was to get back to wearing minimalist shoes. Now I’d do anything to get back out there in any sort of footwear. Hell…I’d hike in cowboy boots if that’s what it would take! Or Hokas. Anything! But here I am, still hobbling around, feeling no closer to a solution than 6 months ago.

So frustrated I feel like screaming then crying……

Feet are nothing to take for granted!

I saw a podiatrist because of pain in my foot that felt like it was actually coming apart or something. He told me to stretch my calves. I thought he was crazy and unhelpful, but I did it and it did help a lot. Also, I injured my knee last February bombing down a mountain. I was running. It felt great because my new shoes were gripping the trail really super good (ironically to your previous post, Altra Timps), so I just let go. Somewhere I must have landed hard and hurt my knee. It has hurt ever since. I bought this knee thing recently that’s supposed to prevent the patella from getting out of place. I wore it over the Christmas/New Years holiday walking miles and miles and miles all over town. I swear to god not only did it help my knee but my foot stopped hurting too. I didn’t wear it yesterday and my foot pain came back. The body is connected really weird. Go to the podiatrist anyway and see what they say.

” He thinks barefoot is the best but feels it and barefoot shoes are the worst thing for modern humans walking/standing/working on hard surfaces to the extent we do”

That was precisely my conclusion. The asphalt, concrete, hardwood, and tile that most of us walk on aren’t getting any softer either.

Fwiw, I’d suggest seeking out a good Rolfer to see if they might offer some insight.

In my personal experience, Rolfers tend to have a big picture mindset about the mechanics of the human body that specialists may not contemplate. I’ve gone to a few Rolfers for a myriad of issues over the past 15 years (mostly back, neck & shoulders), and have had great experiences every time. And I know they can work on any part of the body from the top of the heat to the tippy toes.

Best wishes on your path to healing.

NOT easy at all.

My very biased opinion is that a lot of feet are damaged by wearing shoes that are too narrow. Many of the cult brands of shoes do not even specify the width – it is usually about a D, and just focus on the sole pattern and the pretty exterior. Which is not so great if you happen to have a EE or 4E foot! Those shoes are not made for the serious outdoors market; they are made for the fashion market and the pseudo-outdoors market.

Morton’s Neuroma is almost always due to shoes which are too narrow. Nerves and cartilage between the bones gets crushed. I don’t know whether there is any cure for the damage. For sure, you can make the problem worse!

Minimal drop shoes are not what the average person has spent 20 odd years wearing, so changing to them from ‘heels’ has to be done very slowly and carefully – which few people have the patience for. That can cause tendon problems. Mind you, given that half the world does not even own shoes, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the barefoot concept. At home my wife and I go barefoot most of the time.

Nike’s obsessions – arch support, pronation control and gel soles, are all great marketing devices but orthopedically disasterous. Each of them will damage your feet, ankles, tendons and even knees and hips, because each of them attempts to change your natural body mechanics. No serious athletics coach will touch them.

Running (and even walking lots) on asphalt, concrete and other hard surfaces will be hard on your lower body if you are not used to it. Again, getting used to it can be done – slowly, more slowly than most people are willing to accept.

Finally, for office workers who live in shoes, one simple fact: your feet are basically very unfit. Suddenly launching into high-stress outdoors activities from cold is only going to have one result, and it is not pretty.

</soapbox>

Cheers

Rusty

Sorry to hear that you’re still having a rough time.

I would second Matt;s suggestion that you see a Rolfer or some other professional with a holistic approach to the body.

The problem with podiatrists is that they only know about feet. If you read Gary Ward’s excellent book “What the Foot?” you’ll quickly understand that your problems may originate in some part of the body far from the location of the pain. Someone who can evaluate your gait from a whole-body perspective may be able to help you make better progress.

Roger and I would both agree that anyone with a healthy gait would be better off transitioning prudently towards a minimal zero-drop shoe. But in our culture, were we don’t squat or sit cross legged and have spent most of our lives in damaging footwear, our whole power-train may be out of sync in quite fundamental ways. As someone with a bit of training in Yoga and movement, it’s quite distressing to see the great variety of strange gaits on the street or on the trail. I’ve also  spent time among tribal people in India, and the grace and ease of their walking gait is a stark contrast to ours in the West.

As you’ve discovered, once things go wrong, the road back to health is going to involve much more than a simple change of footwear. Finding the right practitioner is going to be the key, I suspect.

Hi,

Sorry to hear you that you still have pain.

When I got the problem 20 years ago, I got custom made inner soles to my shoes. I came to the conclusion that I got least problem if the shoe was stiff, like low versions of North Face Hedgehog. With this combination I had no problem walking anywhere, but had pain when I walked barefoot at home. Another shoe brand as could be interesting to try is Keen. Their shoes has wider shoebox, and if you choose their half sizes it gets even wider. For example size 40 and 40 1/2 has the same length of the inner sole, but the 40 1/2 is slightly wider.

I also found that massaging the calves reduce or took away the pain, This did not solve the problem but reduced and I still had to where the soles and stiff shoes.

I the soles as I use are made from mold made of my feet. I have tried ready made sole and also the one as is heated and formed after my feet, but these were no good and I returned them after a week.

A year ago I noticed the training it did with Nike Training Club app on my iPhone made the arc lower and I could where shoes without the custom inner sole. If I don’t do the exercise for a couple of weeks, I get back the problem. in the exercise as I found to help, “Yoga ready”, is made for runners and includes lots of stretching of the calves. So my confusion is that the exercise do help, but one year is not enough to get rid of problem for good. I use stiff shoes with custom inner sole on regular basis.

I hope my experiences can help you to find a way to avoid the pain. I know how it can feel and being forced to walk in the knees because it been too painful to use the feet.

Seeing how many foot specialists have chimed in on this one, I might as well throw in my 2 cents also….

It’s not lost on me that the world’s fastest runners, those logging 100+ miles/week and putting down sub 2:20 marathons tend to train and race in modern, full-featured running shoes.  Galen Rupp wears “stability” shoes (the bane of all barefoot science) to correct pronation.  The East Africans (Ethiopians and Kenyans specifically), known for their dominance in the marathon, often grow up running barefoot or in sandals at best, and tend to snatch up running shoes the second they can.  The promise of shoes is often an incentive to join training camps.  Even hand-me-downs with thousands of miles on them are considered a come-up for many aspiring runners in these regions.  So if going barefoot/minimal is so good…Why did Eliud Kipchoge wear these to log the fastest marathon in human history?

Meanwhile in the United States, we have people struggling to walk their 10,000 steps a day, logging casual 10-20 mile jogging weeks, often overweight and trying to get back into shape, concluding that their shoes are causing their problems….and trying to get rid of them!  “Born to Run” in 2009 had a lot to do with this; suddenly everyone imagined themselves barefoot persistence hunters on the savanna while jogging 11:30/mile 5Ks in the park on Sunday.  Granted, there’s a seductive (but arguably incomplete) logic to it: We evolved without shoes, why complicate things now?  I know I sound harsh but I justify my sarcasm and cynicism because I was one of them.  I learned a lot by running barefoot/minimal for a few years, namely about my form.  But nowadays toe protection, rock plates, arch support, and a heel-toe drop save me grief and injury.

It all seems such a strange paradox.

“So if going barefoot/minimal is so good…Why did Eliud Kipchoge wear these to log the fastest marathon in human history?”

I can’t speak or opine on running barefoot in any sort of competitive sense….and I can’t speak for proponents of barefooting in everyday life. Personally though, I’m of the belief that feet are better off bare… **if** they don’t touch modern hard surfaces. Of course, **that’s highly unlikely to be an option for anyone who’s reading this**. I can’t imagine any bare feet lasting too many years when training for competitive racing. That’s probably different than chasing animals bare foot for food with a team.

Don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before in this thread but I’ve had a keen interest in Anthropology for yrs. Not once have I seen any ethnographical mention or evidence that natives had foot issues. Of course, their life expectancy was way lower than modern humans…so maybe they didn’t live long enough to experience foot issues. And of course, they grew up wearing nothing and went through life walking on dirt, sand, and grass…mostly…. not concrete, asphalt, tile, and hardwood floors.

All that said, at this point in time, I’m not arguing with anyone with the shape my feet are in. This is serious business for me that has me really worried. At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, I’m not just concerned with being able to backpack any more but rather being able to walk period without pain… and knowing what comes with a sedentary lifestyle, both physically and emotionally for someone whose life has revolved around walking…

Thanks for your post, and thanks to the others who have responded.

One of the reasons people brought up barefoot like to wear joggers is very simple, and obvious to anyone who goes bush barefoot. With joggers you miss out on all those little stones and thorns and sticks and other things that can stick into your feet. Instead of having to watch carefully where you place your feet every step, you can crash through regardless. It makes a difference.

Cheers