Hello from Virginia

[Barefoot Chuck]

Hello from Virginia!!!My name is Chuck Richards. I gave up running a few years ago because after doing it for 20+ years in the Army, it always hurt.It was a shame because I loved the mental floss running provided. A coworker told me about barefoot running so I did the research and it looks like something I want to try. I don’t expect it to be the magic fix but if I can run again and not cripple myself then why not give it a try.I’ve been running in socks on the treadmill and it seems to be doing ok. Santa is getting me some VFF’s for Christmas. By next spring I hope to be able to do some distance. Speed was never my goal so no harm no foul.Looking forward to hearing from you. I apologize ahead of time for the truck load of questions to follow. Any suggestions for the newby????????

 

[Barefoot TJ]

Welcome, Chuck!  You're in

Welcome, Chuck! You're in the right place.

 

[Phil Hart]

Very similar to my situation,

Very similar to my situation, Chuck. I just started a few months ago, and I'm on the bench with a stress fracture in my foot. So here are my suggestions.

1. Ask lots of questions.

2. Listen to the answers.

3. Learn barefoot first (start with no walking or very slow running, no more than 1/2 mile 3x per week, allowing recovery days in between run days to build your soles' resilience and to start to re-train all of those parts your feet haven't had to use in the last 30+ years since you regularly went barefooted. Add no more than 10% per week to your mileage, and you may want to go a few weeks at 0.5 mile before adding any at all). VFFs are great, but can easily help you go farther and faster and sooner than you need to go, resulting in injuries which are a real bummer.

4. Find someone to run with you, watch you and give you feedback if at all possible.

5. Don't do too much too soon; it can result in stress fractures in your feet. Trust me on this one. Go slowly, and "stay alert, stay alive."

Welcome to the crew, Ranger Buddy!

 

[JosephTree]

Yup!  As Phil says, start

Yup! As Phil says, start with your bare feet on the ground. They're better teachers than you understand at this point. Find some good surfaces to let your feet train on and go for it a bit at a time. It's goin g to be an amazing experience for you. Find the joy!

 

[miker]

Chuck, as much as it may not

Chuck, as much as it may not be what you want to hear, DO WHAT PHIL SAID!! If you do, you will be fine. If you do not do as Phil outlined, while you are nursing an injury, you will have time to reread WHAT PHIL SAID!! It is your choice. Like the old Pennzoil commercials used to say "You can pay me now, or you can pay me later". Having said that...Welcome to the BRS! And don't forget to check out a lot of newbie material on the "Library" tab at the top of this page.

 

[Phil Hart]

Amen, Mike and Tree.  Phil

Amen, Mike and Tree. Phil didn't take Phil's advice, and Phil is now 4 weeks into nursing a still-slowly-healing stress fracture. Learn from Phil's stupidity - Phil has already paid for this very expensive lesson on his and your behalf. Don't go getting all Hooah; leave that stuff for the young and the bold (or old and still stupid).

 

[Barefoot Chuck]

Well I'm not young so I guess

Well I'm not young so I guess I know which category I fall into.. I've been taking it slow and running on the treadmill at work. Short time, short distance. So far so good. The only issue so far it that the treadmill is upstairs and we don’t have a pole in our firehouse. Treadmill to stairs to Engine bay is a long haul. My short term goal is to run a 10k in April. It’s a memorial for one of our only fallen firefighters and it’s the kind of thing he’d get a kick out of doing. If I train inside during the winter in VFF’s how much of a transition will it be to full on barefoot?

 

[Phil Hart]

Probably a pretty good bit. 

Probably a pretty good bit. That's part of where the starting barefoot comes in. It gives you the chance to build up the skin on the sole of your foot (plantar skin) gradually. The VFFs will help to develop the musculature and unused connecting tissues that have lain dormant for lo these many years, but they will not develop the soles of your feet, which will quickly become your weakest link without parallel development.

Some folks advocate running barefoot on a treadmill, others do not. Some suggest marching in a bucket full of gravel, but that sounds a bit wacko to me. Some just go minimal until it warms up, then build the plantar skin back up slowly before starting fully back into barefoot again in the spring. I try to walk a short ways every other day or so barefoot on the concrete. It's a little chilly, but it keeps the skin thickness from fading away. This has worked for me even through a stress fracture, although the heel and outside edge of my left foot (the injured one) are in much better shape than the inside of the ball of that injured foot.

The more you can go barefoot, the better, although I know you've also got to be ready to go instantly, so while on duty barefoot may be pretty impractical.

 

[Blind Boy]

Phil, isn't it the other way

Phil, isn't it the other way around? I mean, if you're only going to run minimal and never barefoot you don't need the thicker plantar skin. The reason we, or at least I, advocate starting barefoot is that since the skin is so thin starting out in most cases you'll get blisters before you do any serious damage to your feet so you'll pretty much have to stop. Thicker skin isn't a necessity or necessarily a good thing either, skin tends to thicken when there's a lot of wear in an area and that's a sign of excess friction. With good form, avoiding friction is one of the key things.

 

[Phil Hart]

Blind Boy:You are certainly

Blind Boy:

You are certainly correct from one perspective. Any part you use regularly and vigorously will tend to develop either thicker skin or callouses to protect itself, and our soles seem to be very specifically designed to do so in my experience. I'm still working on my form anyway, but I fully expect my soles to be thicker if I continue to use them this way regularly.

I just threw my opinion out since Chuck asked about how to transition to true barefoot for the 10K he's looking at in April.