What do you wish someone had told you when you started out?

[Angie Bee]

So in hindsight for some, what do you wish someone had told you when you first started barefoot running?
What would you tell a noobie? Noobies, whats your big burning question? I wonder if they are all the same or if there is an avenue of thought that I have not explored yet.A friend of mine, Barefoot Neil, gave me an example of learning to run barefoot. He said "would you stand on a curb and jump off onto your heels" "No, of course not. Then why would you run that way?" I look forward to reading what you think.

 

[saypay45]

You dirty cross-poster

You dirty cross-poster you!

After I commented on this same post in RW I realized something. Everything that I would want to tell a noob, I do tell noobs. And everything that I would want to know, you guys told me, and I didn't listen because I wasn't ready to hear it.

The whole go barefoot first message gets lost on noobs because they don't believe it at first. I would want to tell a noob something that actually made this sink in. I'm not sure what that would be.

 

[Angie Bee]

 I am a dirty cross poster!!

I am a dirty cross poster!!

 

[Angie Bee]

 I think that bringing to

I think that bringing to peoples attention that the fact that maybe what you think you know to be true about running as in wearing big heavy shoes may be wrong does not make you a failure. That letting go of preconceived notions of how to do things and exploring new ideas is exciting and fun it the way we must morph into better runners and better people for that matter.

Change in general is hard especially when its done by the minority.

Letting go of shoes totally to find your form is the way that worked for me but reality is that many people just wont do that and the principals of barefoot and minimal shoe running are pretty much the same.

TMTS, midfoot landing, strong straight posture exct really go across the board.

Rambling I guess. I have a unique opportunity coming my way and I am going to get a chance to teach barefoot running and be funded by a really cool shoe company. I am going to be making videos for them about barefoot running and want to know if what I think is what people would want to know is correct. What am I missing sort of thing.

 

[Barefoot TJ]

You can provide them with a

You can provide them with a sheet/handout that has a list of resources on it to help them on their way (such as this here site) and a link to the BRS Iowa Chapter's home page and Iowa Chapter's forum link.

 

[Danjo]

I wish someone had told me

I wish someone had told me not to bother buying huaraches, I only wore them for a week, haha. Oh well, I'll probably wip them out again when it snows, just because I hate wet foam flip flops. I think I pretty much heard everything that I needed to hear, but like Saypay said, I didn't listen. And heck, I'm still a noob, I'm only 3 months into this, so I've still got a lot of stuff to figure out. A lot of stuff I think you just have to figure out for yourself, but you have to not be afraid to try new things (which you shouldn't be, because you've already made the biggest change, not running in shoes), and when you figure something out that works, don't be afraid to do it.

 

[Abide]

I wish someone had told me

I wish someone had told me about Crossfit right when I started transitioning. Then I would have had something to do other than too much too soon.

 

[Barefoot TJ]

There was a thread here

There was a thread here earlier about this same thing. Does anyone remember the name, or part of it would could search for, for Angie? It had a lot of good feedback in it I'm sure she could use.

 

[stomper]

I wish I had just gone

I wish I had just gone straight to barefoot instead of the "reasonable" path of slighter shoes, moccasins, water shoes, whatnot. It wasn't until I really went barefoot that my step got lighter.

 

[Shacky]

I wish I was told to try 100%

I wish I was told to try 100% bf running instead of using Vibrams as well as conventional shoes. May have saved me a couple broken bones.

Who am I kidding? I wouldn't have listened any how.

 

[The Ramzev]

I wish more people had asked

I wish more people had asked me for advise because I'm awesome and maybe there wouldn't be as many TOFP injuries.

 

[fetish4running]

I'm glad to see that I'm

I'm glad to see that I'm totally not alone. I really wish that I would have gone all BF instead of starting with VFF. I knew people said to go bf, but I thought that they were just bf snobs who thought they were better than minimalists. While that may be true for some, I now know that bf is the best way for me to run injury-free.

 

[Barefooting Bob]

I wish someone would of told

I wish someone would of told me that a running on a variety of surfaces is better for figuring out proper form, and not just running on sidewalk and grassy areas. Bring on the gravel roads and limestone paths.

 

[Go_Blue]

Add me to the growing list of

Add me to the growing list of people who wish they had gone BF instead of trying VFFs first. People suggested it, and my genius self chose to ignore them because I didn't understand how different VFFs were from true BFR. If I had just listened, it would have saved me many long months of struggling in VFFs, and a couple of minor injuries.



Live and learn, right?

 

[Longboard]

One thirty-something lady at

One thirty-something lady at Sunday's race stopped me afterwards and asked how the barefoot running was going.

I of course had only positive things to say, but get this:

She said that she really is starting to believe in it, and that although she ran the half in "real" running shoes AKA boat anchors, she is just about ready to give BF a try, but wants to run a few more weeks barefoot on the treadmill as she has been doing for several months already before plunking down the cash for the shoes. The shoes? She was running barefoot on the treadmill as a "poor woman's" Vibram five finger to test the concept out before investing!

I told her that she had it backwards, but then I back-pedaled and said she had it right in that really going from barefoot to Vibram is better than Vibram to barefoot, and then explained that treadmill is not the best way to develope barefoot form, before finaly writing down "barefootrunners.org" for her.

Many here are talking about the mistake of a time wasting "minimalist" transition to barefoot, she has been trying to transition to minamalist FROM barefoot!

 

[pbarker]

Newtons $180. I can not stand

Newtons $180. I can not stand them now. I keep them in the locker room at work along with 5 other pairs to show to inquiring minds. It is my evolution of a barefoot runner display. ~ $500 worth.

 

[zapmamak]

I read some article somewhere

I read some article somewhere that mentioned something about going BF first. I actually did that. Am still doing it. And only recently bought my first pair of VFFs for transitioning to trail running and random weather. You guys posted here something very insightful for me which totally made sense: minimal shoes are tools. That's how I've been using mine. If I don't need them, I don't wear them. If it aint broke don't fix it.

As a noob, some really important pieces of advice that stuck with me were the whole listening to your body and relaxing concepts as well as how to work through the calf issues like bending the knees more and trigger point massage.

I wish someone would have told me how much of a commitment BFRing was and the potential for never wanting (or even being able) to go back to running in shoes after trying it. Not sure I was completely ready for the mental challenge (temporarily losing my longer runs), but so glad I did it and continue to do it. It has been much more of a journey than I anticipated.

 

[Jimmy Hart]

 telling me i would be better

telling me i would be better off doing it all the time would have been nice. of course 14 years ago when the usa track coach told me to do it they weren't thinking that way. at least i was told to run bare to keep my feet strong.

 

[Blind Boy]

What I would say is that foot

What I would say is that foot strike isn't important. Do everything right and your foot will land in a certain way but once you start messing with the foot directly, your form breaks down most likely.

 

[andymuk]

 I should of listened.....no

I should of listened.....no minimalist shoes at all until you know how to run barefoot.....could have saved me a few months of misery and frustration. My 'running' shoes are now locked away until next year!Bring on the winter!