Running Barefoot

The smoothest running systems are those that use every step as a test, get precise, immediate, and continual feedback along each step, and are capable of responding appropriately, immediately, and continually to feedback. This, in a nutshell, is what Running Barefoot is about. – Barefoot Ken Bob

Barefoot?

This is simple logic…

IF your foot is covered and If you believe you are barefoot – Then, you have been made a fool! Even a bigger fool, if you paid for  the shoes believing they actually are “barefoot” shoes!

IF you sell me shoes, and IF you have convinced me to believe I’m still barefoot while wearing them – Then you have made me a fool!

I’m not saying anyone needs to be barefoot all the time. I’m just saying, Don’t be a fool, and don’t try to make me a fool!”

When I talk about Running Barefoot, or Barefoot Running, or Walking Barefoot, or Barefoot Walking, or being Barefoot – I actually, truly, literally, mean that the feet are bare. When people start calling shoes, “barefoot shoes” or “barefoot footwear”, that begins to erode at the meaning of the word “barefoot”, and then when I talk about “Barefoot” people start to believe I mean “wearing minimal footwear”, and that isn’t what I mean.

So, when you start talking about minimal footwear as “barefoot”, you have distorted what I’m telling people – and that is why it makes me quite ANGRY!

Who is This For?

The Running Barefoot web site is for the majority of runners – those of you who will rarely, if ever win a race, age group medal, or a shoe endorsement contract – many of you may not even consider yourselves runners at this time, because you may have found that running in shoes was painful, injurious, or worse yet, BORING! No worries. If I was ONLY allowed to run while wearing shoes, I would not choose to be a runner either!

Whether you are experienced or not, Running Barefoot is not about being “tough”, or able to ”endure” pain, or conditioning yourself so you can run endless miles senslessly. Running Barefoot is the opposite of that. Running Barefoot is about embracing our sensitivity. Pain is our teacher. Pain yells at us, only when we need to change the way we run – teaching us not to cause ourselves pain, from the beginning.

Running Barefoot is about LEARNING how to run, not so we can endure pain, but so that we can run, gently, efficiently, naturally, and comfortably over most any terrain. Our bare soles, with thousands of nerve endings, provide the sensory feedback necessary to run sensibly.

Goals

RunningBarefoot.org is about enlightening people about the concepts behind Running Barefoot.

We would also love to see a transition of society towards understanding why anyone would want to go barefoot in public, and, ultimately, hope that our bare feet will someday become more acceptable in public.

No matter if you think we are “purists”, each of us is interested in a variety of ideas and activities besides Running Barefoot, and occasionally, perhaps frequently, we get sidetracked in our discussions. But when it comes down to it, there are countless other websites, books, magazines, etc., about running in shoes, and all the other activities which distract us – this isn’t one of them. THIS website IS about RUNNING BAREFOOT! This was the FIRST website about Running Barefoot.

Using this Website

Please, use the information here, if it helps you learn, and progress faster. Ultimately, the best way to Begin Running Barefoot is to take off your shoes, and like an infant touching the ground for the first time with their tender bare soles, start with baby steps feeling the way as you go, and stopping before you’re injured. Then much later moving up to walking  over a variety of surfaces and terrains, and Very, VERY, VERY gradually, working up to running longer and faster, as you take the time to LEARN How to Run Barefoot, from your own two bare feet, over a variety of surfaces and terrains (as this is what we encounter in the real world). The key to not getting injured (at least not seriously) from the start, is to pay close attention to what YOU feel, and to respond appropriately, by trying various techniques, and, if necessary, stopping and resting and healing.

Why Running Barefoot Works

The main difference between Running Barefoot, and many other coaching methods, is that most of our coaching – the feedback letting us know if we are running correctly – comes from our own senses, especially the sense of touch as our soles touch the ground.

It may seem that Running Barefoot would be uncomfortable. And, indeed, when we try Running Barefoot the same way most of us learned to run while our soles were protected by shoes, it certainly does hurt. The key to Running Barefoot, is that while shoes may protect us from sensations of pain, naturally associated with careless, thoughtless, and sloppy running techniques, it certainly would hurt, to run this way while barefoot. But rather than depending on shoes, soft surfaces, or pain-killing drugs, to block the pain of clumsy running, it is important to take personal responsibility for learning to run better, more gently, efficiently, and gracefully. Your bare feet have always been trying to tell you this. It’s time to set them free, and listen.

Free

The secondary difference between Running Barefoot and other coaching methods – and perhaps to many of you, the more important difference – is that your soles work for just their fair share of life, and do not charge any money.

This website is a collaboration of many who have and continue to run barefoot and share their experiences. Some of us have been Running Barefoot for most of our lives, some have been Running Barefoot for just the last few weeks, months, years, or decades. And we will always welcome, and share our experiences with those, who after years of imprisoning their feet inside shoes, are just discovering the sensations of Running Barefoot today.

Running Barefoot is free, as well as freeing. With this new found freedom comes the associated responsibility for your own health and safety, and how you react to the sensations as your feet touch the ground. You reap the benefits, but, if you refuse to listen to those who have already struggled through the transition, as well as to your own feet, you risk reaping the harm. As with any activity – or inactivity – as with life itself – there are risks. So, while you are carefully, slowly, and gradually making the transition to Running Barefoot, be sure to take time to read through this website, and our discussion group.

Now, after all this about how our feet can teach us everything we need to know about running, you might be wondering why we need this website.

1. The Running Barefoot website lets people know that Running Barefoot is an option – one that many of us might not consider.
2. It takes a lot of time and experimentation to learn everything about Running Barefoot from our feet. Except for the infants reading this, most of us are not willing to take the time necessary to start at the beginning, and learn everything by individual experimentation – so think of this website as a primer – a place where all of us can share our experiences, so that the rest of us can learn from the collective experience.

History

Running Barefoot office (2005)

Running Barefoot the website was founded in 1997 May, by Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton, in an effort to answer some of the many questions people ask him, again, and again, and again, about running barefoot, whenever he runs or races barefoot.

This website has become the hub of a community of barefoot runners. It is a central gathering point of information, stories, races, links, and running reports from many barefoot runners, writers, publications, etc… A place where we can look for most everything about Running Barefoot. As such, there will be a variety of opinions, voices, and experiences here. This is not a closed forum, or a place where we limit discussion to some rigid “party line” of thought.

Future

Running Barefoot is, in a very real sense, a real-world experiment in progress – can we run barefoot in the real world? If we can run barefoot, what does it mean? And why do so many people run in shoes? And, if we cannot run barefoot in the real world, how did our ancestors survive, before astro-turf?