In mid-2011 a friend of mine who works for a leading footwear brand gave me a sample pair of minimalist shoes to try out. The footwear in question were light in weight and dark in color, specifically designed for off-road use.
This was around the same time that the whole "barefoot-mania" was gathering momentum in the wake of the iconic and almost cult-like book Born to Run, which I had yet to read that stage. My choice in footwear up until that point had always erred towards the realm of conservative and basic. This could be directly translated as conventional running shoes exhibiting both neutral and entry level traits. I personally had never seen the benefit or point of dishing out a small fortune in the latest cushioned footwear. One shoe company made a particular entry-level model that for me was the in ultimate footwear: light, basic, soft and inexpensive. Luckily for me this particular model never seemed to be taken off the market as is so often the case in the running shoe industry. Whilst my shoe choice was indeed basic, I always seemed to be able to use a pair for about a year before it was time to replace them.
When I tried out the aforementioned gifted minimalist footwear, I was immediately struck by their lack of weight and support and wondered how on earth anybody could contemplate running a half-hour in them let alone a marathon. I had marveled at a couple of runners that I had come across in the local forest running in shoes that resembled little more than socks. Whilst I had always embraced the benefits of strengthening one's feet, this seemed a little over the top.
I can remember reading an article around that time by a renowned physiotherapist who had since developed her practice into a more radical form of treatment called Lynotherapy. A great proponent of minimalist running and walking, Bentia de Witt related a great example of how the shinsplints epidemic, so prevalent in high school and university athletes, had developed by the sudden transition from conventional running shoes to track spikes in their pre-season. These youngsters were not conditioned to run hard (or easy) in such flimsy footwear after spending the summer holidays training in well cushioned shoes. She went on to explain that by her estimation, track spikes, racing flats and any shoe that had a slight - if any - heel raise were in fact minimalist in nature and comparable to anything branded as "barefoot".
Whilst initially skeptical about my new shoes, I decided that I would use them primarily for walking and only a little jogging, terrified by the thought of incurring an overuse injury of any sort. Nevertheless my inquisitiveness about this "new" phenomenon grew and whilst en route home from a work trip to Kenya, I managed to buy a copy of Born to Run. Whilst an entertaining read, one thing that stood out was a particular passage were the Chris McDougall is getting advice about how to attain maximum running efficiency over rocky terrain. His mentor advises him to take three steps to his normal one when crossing an obstacle like a pile of boulders or a stream, thus softening his landing and maintaining proper balance and posture.
Whilst the advice in this passage relates specifically to the arid terrain of Mexico, it is essentially the basic recipe to all round efficiency, be it on the road, track or trail; beginner, experienced or world-class runner. The more steps the better, to a point of course. Many people make the mistake of over-striding and I include myself here. It was not necessarily the fact that I was running in conventional shoes but more a case of feeling more comfortable with a longer, seemingly more loping stride. This is comparable to the cyclist who always seem content rising in bigger gears at a cadence of 60-75rpm, which is comfortable but not very efficient. If you have ever tried running barefoot on a grassy field or on the beach, you would immediately notice that you take far more steps than you would do wearing shoes. I would even go as far to say that faster turnover is the true advantage of minimalist running, even more so than the notion of landing on your forefoot.
Even if your current running form is less than textbook in nature, it is actually quite counterproductive and even dangerous to make conscious or radical changes in the name of efficiency. This relates especially to foot strike, an area where many neo-minamalilst runners make their first mistake. If you don't normally run on your forefoot, how are you realistically expected to retain optimum running form and not strain your lower leg muscles and tendons by suddenly converting to landing on your toes?
This was the perhaps the single factor that I had trouble in accepting during initial foray into the barefoot world. That together with the constant question lingering in my head of how the hell can anybody expect to accumulate a respectable amount of mileage in those lightweight things?
It is almost three years since my acquiring that sample pair of minimalist shoes and I now do 99% of my running in them. Several things influenced by gradual transition to this sort of shoe, perhaps the most important of which was reading a blog post of the 2012 Ironman World Champion Pete Jacobs. Well before his fame and notoriety were enhanced by capturing triathlon's crown jewel, Jacobs had been experimenting with various forms of minimalist running, even going as far as completing several training jaunts in self-modified slip slops! This was unsurprising given his unconventional approach to the sport in general but it certainly got me thinking. More intriguing was an announcement several months later that Pete was doing all of his run training in a pair of ultra-light racing flats, his decision directly influenced by his then recent reading of Chris McDougall's iconic book. When you think of world-class athletes it is easy to conjure an image of highly scientific and structured training under the supervision of several coaches. It was thus refreshing to see that an athlete of Pete's calibre was experimenting with techniques inspired by his reading of a book available to all.
Needless to say that if minimalist shoes were good enough for Pete Jacobs, then I could at least try to make the transition from my conventional footwear very gradually. I remember a small setback being my running a cross-country race in my old racing flats. As we came into the final lap I lengthened my stride to clear a small stream and felt a sudden strain in my right calcaneus bone, meaning that I had pulled my soleus muscle slightly. After some dry-needling in the lower-calf area from a chiropractor friend of mine and a few very easy days, I was back on the road with more caution and more thoughts on my journey to greater running efficiency and less cushioning. Maybe I needed to slow down my daily running and let my feet decide how they wanted to land, which I managed to implement over the course of the ensuing months.
This adaptation period has been and still is an ongoing education for me. I can honestly attribute a large part of my new lease on athletic life to the minimalist trend, but not exclusively. Minimalist running has perhaps been a catalyst of sorts to a greater evolution, which could be summarized as follows:
- slower overall training pace, in turn allowing a smoother transition to lighter footwear. How slow? Approximately 50% of maximum effort.
- Losing the ego and embracing Bobby McGee's run-walk protocol, which goes hand-in-hand with the slower training effort.
- better efficiency due to minimalist footwear forcing more steps.
- thinking about this efficiency whilst enjoying the sights on foot.
- observing the styles of others.
- saving hard efforts for the odd race, the easier overall efforts meaning that I'm fresh and hungry when I do race.
- sticking to soft surfaces as much as possible and where practical.
- adding some "quasi-speed work" from time-to-time, things like 5x100m on a slight downhill with a tailwind. Free speed without taxing the anaerobic system, effectively fooling the body (similar to motor-pacing in cycling).
Train slow and light. Race fast and heavy. I'll explain this mantra in a future blog post.
