Member Profile of the Week - “Barefoot Cassie” Howard - She Ran Barefoot From a Running Shoe Store

cassiegreg.jpg

Member Profile of the Week“Barefoot Cassie” Howard She ran barefoot from a running shoe store
Barefoot Cassie is a long-time resident of Elgin, Illinois, where she has lived about half of her31 years. Previously, she lived from birth until the age of 7 in Denver, Colorado. She attended Western Illinois University where she obtained a Bachelor’s of Science in geology. Cassie is presently a SAHM (Stay at Home Mom), raising two very young sons with her husband Greg, and sharing residence with their two cats, Freiya and Mani. Her non-running hobbies include reading, gardening, sewing, and anything crafty or artsy. She also likes a constant variety of color in her environment, since she enjoys repainting the walls in her home fairly often!
Cassie has been a runner for nearly five months. In July, she decided to try running for the first time and was five weeks into a couch to 5K program when she started having hip and knee pain. A trip to her local running store to do what runners generally do, buy a pair of “running shoes,” yielded only foot numbness when she tried to run in them. Thinking they were too tightly laced, Cassie loosened the laces, but it didn’t help. The only way she could get home was to take the things off and run it barefoot. She says that not only was there no pain at all, she felt fantastic. Well, but it didn’t quite click because she took the shoes back to the store to try a second pair, and wait, yes, she repeated the entire experience, including going back to the store for a third time for different shoes! By then,however, she had done a little research into barefoot running, and well, the rest is history. “When those shoes didn’t work for me, the store told me I was 'Out of options,' and 'I needed to see a doctor about my issue.,' and 'It was not a shoe problem; it was a problem with my feet.' Well, I decided to go barefoot from there on out instead!” I think many of us wish we had started bare after several weeks of running and only then trying the minimalist running, which she says she does “only sometimes.”Cassie’s most memorable running experience was, in her words, “taking my boys out to the forest preserve and putting the youngest in the stroller and then running on the grass paths with my 3 year old. He only had the stamina for .59 miles, but we had the most fun ever.” Her favorite distance is 4 miles, and her favorite race distance by default is the 5K because, as she says, “it is my favorite because it is all I have done!” Her 5K PR was 39:52, and her mile PR is 12:41.It’s the enjoyment of it though that keeps Barefoot Cassie running. “It is such a freeing experience. I get to run away from all my troubles and the stresses of life (even if it is for only 30 minutes at a time)! The connection with the environment around me really helps to ground me.”A member of the Barefoot Runners Society for the past couple of months or so, she joined in order to share her experience with, and to get to know, a great group of people with the same interest.We definitely look forward to sharing in your progress as a runner Barefoot Cassie!
Cassie'sChildren.jpg