Article: A Brief History of Barefoot Running By Roger Robinson, Running Times Magazine

[fredvp71]

This is a nicely researched article, but for some reason it has the tone of "You kids don't know anything with your barefoot, we were running barefoot through 4 feet of snow in blah blah..." I guess he's jealous of Born To Run's success. I'm certainly not a McDougall sycophant, but for heavens' sake, the man wrote an entertaining book about running, it had some barefoot running info in it which was revelatory to a lot of runners like myself, struggling with injuries. I've still never seen more than one barefoot runner (me) at an Ohio 5K, so if this is a fad, it's the most unsuccessful fad in history.

No need to take potshots at Born To Run, just write a cool article about "the forgotten history of barefoot running". This article contributes a lot of good information, but the snide opinions I could do without. I wish there were more pictures, it would be cool to have a gallery of old-timey pictures of people running with no shoes. Thanks for posting this!

 

[Bare Lee]

Thanks for an interesting article. I also found the whole 'lost tribe' sensationalist angle a bit offensive. Still, I think barefoot / minimalist running can legitimately be called a new trend in the context of over thirty years of over-engineered running shoe silliness. To place that in an even wider historical context, as this article does, is great, but in no way diminishes the importance of the current trend towards a more natural style of running. In my own case, I'm more of a barefooter than a runner and, while aware of people like Bikila and Budd, have no real interest in running as a sport. So I never considered the possibility of running barefoot for exercise, despite the fact that I spend most of my time barefoot and ran barefoot 20 years ago as part of karate training in Japan. Like so many others, I let some guy at the shoe store talk me into some cushy 'stability' shoes when I complained of knee pain whenever I tried to run consecutive days. The current trend, coupled with the possibility of internet disemination, has made it possible for average-joe-type runners like myself to consider barefoot/minimalist running as a viable option for exercise, and that is something new I think.