Barefoot Divisions in Marathons

[jlaugh87]

So I want to do the marathon here in town (Omaha NE) and they do have a barefoot division. I am trying to find out what Barefoot division actually means... Is it for people who are completely BF? Would VFF users be considered in the barefoot divison? I heard the Omaha marathon, at some points, is not too friendly on the barefeet as far as terrain is concerned. I'm thinking about bringing my Luna sandals, but I'm not sure if that is considered "Barefoot" in the eyes of the marathon.



Anyone have insight or experience?

 

[Barefoot TJ]

I ran the half a couple of

I ran the half a couple of years ago, and from what I am used to running on, that pavement was awesome. I even enjoyed the brick road sections, but that's just me. Have you thought about running some parts of the course to get a feel for it first?

They don't allow any footwear of any kind for the Barefoot Runner Divisions in any of the distances (10K, half, or full).

To run in the Barefoot Runner Divisions means that you will be running "against" other barefoot runners. In the half, I placed first female, of course, because there were no other women running it, and I placed second overall behind Barefoot Benny Foltz. They did not separate us by gender, age, etc. He's a man, and typically, men are stronger than women.

Aaron took first place in the full, Barefoot Rick Roeber took second, and Hope took third, but of course, first female.

My avatar is a picture from that day. From left: Benny, TJ, Rick, Aaron. Cool, huh!

They also place you in the results with the shod runners.

 

[jlaugh87]

I probably will... and I just

I probably will... and I just did see the FAQ where they say you must be completely bare. I will inestigate the course. I appreciate the comments!

 

[Go_Blue]

I was hoping to do the

I was hoping to do the barefoot 10k this year, but I'll be TDY and won't be back until the day of. Pretty bummed about that since I was excited to try it, was looking forward to participating in a rare barefoot division, and to help get the word about about the new Nebraska-Omaha chapter of BRS.



Speaking of which, I sent you an invite!

 

[jlaugh87]

Glad to be in the group!  I

Glad to be in the group! I was actually trying to start a group initally before I discovered this site where you can have chapters.



If you're interested, I have a seperate website in the works where I am going to start trying to organize group minimal/barefoot runs and functions around Omaha. By in the works, I mean I got a domain name and activation for the site.



I have not gone more that 8 miles bare, but hopefully come marathon time, I'll be able to do it!

 

[Go_Blue]

I'm right behind you - I've

I'm right behind you - I've done a little over 7 mi bare. Most of my runs are between 3-7mi right now. I'm also trying to get some regular barefoot/minimal runs and activities going in this area (and ideally other parts of eastern NE too), so I'd love your ideas and input. Maybe we can use your site in conjunction with the NE-Omaha BRS chapter to get things accomplished. Seems like there should be a good response out of the Omaha area (at least I'm hoping so) given that we have a very rare barefoot division for our local marathon.

I'm also going to start looking into speading the word on Offutt as well. I know there's a group of VFFers I've seen around the gym that would love to get in on this sort of stuff. We'll get there!

 

[jlaugh87]

Cool, I'll keep you posted as

Cool, I'll keep you posted as I get the site more constructed. I'm using a blog site to host the domain, but I'm not sure if I like their layouts... To say the least... It will be there soon and I will refer to barefootrunners.org and the local chapter for new comers to the site!

 

[Go_Blue]

Sounds great!  Thanks for

Sounds great! Thanks for joining, I'm glad to have you with the group!