New Zealand Barefoot

[Dirtbag]

Jus got back from three weeks in the land of the long white cloud and the short brown bird. Amazing country. Jealous of anyone who lives there.

Anyway, NZ is the perfect place to be barefoot and it seems to be socially acceptable there. After spending a few days seeing people in stores and walking around shoeless I decided to go for it. Spent at least 85% of my time from there out barefoot or in my VFFs (a product they've only had for six months according to one outdoor store salesman). Probably more since all the footwear I brought was VFFs and slippahs. Went on three barefoot trail hikes and did plenty of city hiking sans shoes. Also did one barefoot run on the beach, which seemed like a good idea at the time but running on loose sand barefoot causes friction, which causes (on me) blisters on toe tips. D'oh!

At some point in the near future I'll post some pictures, but we took over 1500 so culling through those will take some time.

If you've never been to New Zealand, you gotta go. I can't wait to go back and we just landed last night.

 

[Barefoot TJ]

A guy in my shod running club

A guy in my shod running club is from there, has relatives there, and says that it's unusual to see people running in shoes. The shod running is the odd man out. True! Look forward to the pictures.

 

[Neil_D]

Hi there,I've been there a

Hi there,

I've been there a few times as it is one of Australia's close neighbours. A fantastic place as you say. I did some barefoot hiking around Abel Tasman Nat. Park at the top end of the South Island and also around the mountains behind Nelson.

I do 50% of my running on sandy beaches, I remember getting blisters in the early days but I don't have any problem now and my longest beach run is around 15km.

Got a race in March called the Beach Bash which is great, last year the tide was in so we had to wade through 1m water.

I'd like to get to NZ at least once a year.

 

[DNEchris]

I tried to run BF along the

I tried to run BF along the harbour front in Wellington last September - had to put my Bikilas back on after a few yards as the 40mph tailwind meant I could not get my foot down clean and I was covering about 12 feet per step! When I turned around to come back, into the wind, its power was such that it took about 5 minutes to cover 500 yards. The girl I was with was clinging onto the railings to make progress!

They don't call it Windy Wellington for nothing!

 

[Dirtbag]

Yeah, Wellington was crazy

Yeah, Wellington was crazy windy while we were there. Captain Slow, our camper, was blowing all over the place and my wife could barely open or close the door. Good to know it wasn't like that just for us.

 

[kentox]

Was in Auckland in September

Was in Auckland in September and was doing my normal 5km run for the morning. Looked cloudy and might shower but ok for running. VFF Classics on and I was off. 1km it starts to rain and then hail and then stops and the sun comes out and I'm thinking sweet I can tack on a 1km barefoot run as well. Shoes off and the sun disappears, raining but with added head wind stinging my face. Classics back on and run back into the hotel.

That was what it was like for all of my runs that week but it was pretty bad weather even the local were complaining about it.

Pretty country and need to go back more often especially having relatives in Christchurch.

 

[tutaepaki]

Glad y'all like my

Glad y'all like my home

While going BF is not uncommon, running BF is. I get regular looks and/or comments when I'm out BF. And not all positive, unfortunately.

VFFs are a fairly new thing here, only becoming available in 2010. New enough that some mountain bikers took photos of my treks out on the trials last week.

I live in Wellington, and the wind has got to be >100km/h before I'd consider not going for a run in it. 120km/h is about my limit - after that there's too many flying debris about. But we've got great trails and hills to run in.

This is one of my favourites http://www.flickr.com/photos/57702187@N06/ (Santa gave me a little portable camera)

Marc

 

[Barefoot TJ]

Absolutely beautiful.  We

Absolutely beautiful. We hope to have a BRS NZ Chapter early this year. Just need someone at the helm. ;-)