Hello barefoot community!
I grew up mostly barefoot and loved it. Once I joined the local youth track club it seemed like shoes were the name of the game. It wasn't until I got injured about 7 years ago that I started running barefoot again - I'd just do short 3-4 mile jogs on the indoor track. Once I recovered I put my shoes back on and the pain came back. It's only been running in the last 3 or 4 years that my feet have strengthened to handle higher mileage sans shoes in addition to speed work (most of my intervals on the track are barefoot).
In the early stages of getting acclimated I got overzealous (sound familiar?) and ran a couple of longer races - an 8 miler and a half marathon. I got top of the foot pain (tendonitis) and had to take time off. I decided to hold off on racing and now I'm at the point where I can comfortably race barefoot. I've had lots of success to, even breaking my old college PRs while running road races barefoot - dropped my 5k down to 14:51 and 5 mile to 24:48.
It's a bit of a desert up here in Vermont for barefoot/minimalist runners so I thought I'd expand my horizons and join this community. I've already enjoyed browsing through the forum and reading stories from other folks - so much great info here plus lots of wonderful encouragement from the community. I'm looking forward to learning more as well as sharing whatever knowledge I've gained from doing lots of speed work barefoot.
~ Teage
I grew up mostly barefoot and loved it. Once I joined the local youth track club it seemed like shoes were the name of the game. It wasn't until I got injured about 7 years ago that I started running barefoot again - I'd just do short 3-4 mile jogs on the indoor track. Once I recovered I put my shoes back on and the pain came back. It's only been running in the last 3 or 4 years that my feet have strengthened to handle higher mileage sans shoes in addition to speed work (most of my intervals on the track are barefoot).
In the early stages of getting acclimated I got overzealous (sound familiar?) and ran a couple of longer races - an 8 miler and a half marathon. I got top of the foot pain (tendonitis) and had to take time off. I decided to hold off on racing and now I'm at the point where I can comfortably race barefoot. I've had lots of success to, even breaking my old college PRs while running road races barefoot - dropped my 5k down to 14:51 and 5 mile to 24:48.
It's a bit of a desert up here in Vermont for barefoot/minimalist runners so I thought I'd expand my horizons and join this community. I've already enjoyed browsing through the forum and reading stories from other folks - so much great info here plus lots of wonderful encouragement from the community. I'm looking forward to learning more as well as sharing whatever knowledge I've gained from doing lots of speed work barefoot.
~ Teage
