Barefoot running

So a friend of mine recommended reading "Born to Run" by Christopher Mcdougall. I'm always looking for something a little different, so I checked it out.

The book centers around a 'tribe' in Mexico called the Tarahumara. Basically, a tribe that runs for fun in some of the most forbidding terrain in the world. Miles and miles of running. They start at marathons, and they run for fun, dozens of miles at a time.

A great deal of the book covers information on barefoot running. Particularly how it is a more natural style, because, after all, we already have our feet. Parts are about how Nike created the running shoe market when there was previously no real need for it; people ran in more flat footed-type shoes.

A bunch of stats on how if running shoes are so good for us, why is the injury rate the same or quite a bit worse than before we had specialized running shoes.

Of course, running barefoot presents its own problems.. such as running over sharp objects (especially street running, like most of my Chicago-area running would be.)

There is a great deal of info on Lee Saxby's videos, etc. There really is a great case for it from what I can see and read... so far.

I guess the essence is to start slow. After all, we have encased our feet in shoes most of our lives (except a number of us in the sailing community,) and those stabilizer muscles and the like have not had a proper workout in quite a while.

I had problems last year with plantar fasciitis, and have recurring long term training problems with tendonitis in my right knee. So far, I have worked up slowly, and am only to about a half mile+ for running/walking, but not a single complaint from my feeds or my knees, and they would show up pretty fast.

I am going to continue taking this slowly, but if anyone else has tried it, had success, had failure, let me know how it goes.

From what I can gather, starting off barefoot is the best way to go; it forces you to walk/run carefully, since naturally you will start running correctly because heel striking on bare feet can be a wildly unpleasant experience as your body weight loads up at jog/run speeds. you will naturally gain proper form, but go slow to prevent injury.

Yet another step on moving forward by starting out looking backwards... ;)