People's reactions when you run

yesterday tried to run. some man slowed down and lowered his window. i stopped thinking he was going to ask about my feet. nope. wanted to know about the dogs. i was a little miffed.
 
I have seen two guys walking dogs on my early morning runs - 5:45 - 6ish a couple of times. This morning on my BF run with my dog, one of them starts telling me that I ought to go out and buy "those 5 toed shoes." I replied that I have a pair that my mom gave me and I was wearing them. I didn't look back to see what the reaction was.

Then I started to wonder - what was the motivation for saying that? Maybe next time I see them I will ask.
 
I'm not used to the stares yet. Don't like them much to be honest! Maybe it's my imagination but parents seem to huddle round their children, couples stare, older kids go "eh?", as they pull their trousers down to even further expose their underwear, (now THAT'S weird), and one old lady coughed and spluttered and shook her head as I passed, I gave the biggest smile I could muster. Oh, and I'm sure I hear dogs howling at the moon! So far, only one person has smiled at me, others runners stare scornfully, even blanking me (to be fair, round where I live they all seem to ignore everyone, too intent on their regime. Perhaps they should loosen up by taking their shoes off). Yesterday, another runner called out "you'll never get along there" as I approached a very muddy trail path with deep puddles all along. she may have been giving advice but she was quite rude in her tone of voice, quite smug. Of course, I did get along the path wearing Sockwa which got muddy and wet and one hour later were in the washing machine looking as good as new..wonder what happened to her used-to-be-white trainers?
Not even my family are on board: my mum imagines I step on glass and doo poo all the time "I take off my shoes Mum, not my glasses". My husband just rolls his eyes! My son says I'm embarrassing so I say "job done", but my daughter gave just a slight glimmer of hope when she took her shoes off, when her and I ran together the other night.
I knew it would be a learning curve, I just never imagined that it meant for the whole family too!
We'll see...
 
Responses I've gotten from random people in my neighborhood:

"Are you trying to toughen up your feet?"
"You must be part of the barefoot revolution!"
"Adam forgot to put his shoes on again!"

Never had anything openly negative. I sometimes "feel" silent judgement from some people. But then I figure maybe it's in my head because I'm a little self conscious about it. I mainly just don't want people to think I have a foot fetish. (No offense or judgement to those who actually do have a foot fetish.)
 
Last week, as I was leaving my office to run-commute home, I passed by a couple of people smoking outside in the cold in front of the neighboring building.

One of them exclaimed, "barefoot?!"

I shot back, "cigarettes?!"

A case of mutual incomprehension.


If this story were about me, I would have thought of that witty reply about 5 steps too late. Well done.
 
i wore shoes to school the other week when the snow was melting. a guy walked in late and looked at me and exclaimed "you're wearing shoes". everyone turned and looked at me. no need to call out who since everyone knew.
 
Another "Wow, shoes" comment this morning during my run to work at -12C. The guy spoke to me as I was waiting for a light and we ended up chatting for a couple of minutes as we walked a block and a half.

He was very intrigued by the barefoot concept and said there was obviously something to it as he'd been noticing me for the last 4 years and said I'd not missed much in the way of running time because of injury.

He'd just left his gym where he'd been re-habbing from a running injury!
 
tuesday walked by a girl going to school as i was going for a run. she was in shock that i was wearing shoes. i told her i would deny it. thursday i went to the cafeteria to eat bfast and was bf. she saw me and said that was better. i apologized for upsetting her so much.

walking around school bf the last two days. lots of comments and head shakes from teachers. so what. my knee feels better from it.
 
Over the weekend I was running on a snow and ice covered paved trail at the local state park. The trail runs right along the edge of Presque Isle Bay
which is currently covered with about 15 inches of ice. Air temp was about 30F with wind chill about 20F. I ran right past two ice-fisherman unloading their gear from their truck, and they just stopped and stared as I approached, and one of them said, "Hey buddy, I think you forgot your shoes!"
I said, "Oh no, it's much more invigorating this way!" He replied "Yeah, I'll bet".
 
I was BF, running the indoor figure-8 loop at the Y last Monday evening and > Shock and disbelief >>>there was a girl there running in VFFs! We circled nearer and farther as we went around, and then as I came up to her once more, she dropped her earphones and told me how much she admired my footwear..er...lack thereof.

She said that her Mom won't permit her to go really BF. Apparently she's much more docile than I ever was, but I'm confident she'll get over that in time, maybe even before she gets out of High School.
 
One has to be amused when the plump lady sitting smoking while she is fishing scolds you that you might step on a fish hook. She wasn't smoking right when she said it, though. The tone of voice, too, like it hadn't occurred to me, even though I'm probably 10-15 years older than her, to watch where I'm going. *rolls eyes* I did stop and show her my soles when I was done with my 9.25 miles, and mentioned that I've run over glass and goat heads with little or no problem. She grudgingly conceded with a curt, but unintelligible response, that I might know what I was doing.
 
Funny how we become these local figures without knowing about it. Kind of like DNEChris's observers, I guess I have a few of my own.

Yesterday heading home, close to 50F, two smokers were sitting on a wall outside their building.
One guy, a twenties-something hipster, says something like:

"Good to see you without shoes man, now I know it must be getting warmer."

Me: "Yeah, hopefully."

Hipster: "You're like our groundhog man, now we know spring is around the corner."
 
Funny how we become these local figures without knowing about it. Kind of like DNEChris's observers, I guess I have a few of my own.

Yesterday heading home, close to 50F, two smokers were sitting on a wall outside their building.
One guy, a twenties-something hipster, says something like:

"Good to see you without shoes man, now I know it must be getting warmer."

Me: "Yeah, hopefully."

Hipster: "You're like our groundhog man, now we know spring is around the corner."
That's awesome! So funny!
 
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