Yes, Julian is mentioned in this article (as is Alex).
We all have heard about "Born to Run" and listened to Julian's encouragements. What are your thoughts regarding barefoot running? Here are two of mine (based merely on hearsay and speculation):
1. Barefoot running is either unproven or disproven to be effective for competitive (high-mileage) athletes. If this were not the case, more elite athletes would have ascribed to it throughout the history of competitive running.
2. Altering your gait to accommodate running barefoot may result in one that is suboptimal for achieving maximum performance. In other words, running barefoot can make you slower by messing up your stride.
3. Running on grassy fields feels great until you are stung by a bee.
Post your opinions!
6 comments:
I am going to read that book soon... barefoot running does seem a mixed bag. It feels nice sometimes, but 30 milers on pavement from pasadena to the beach? I dunno! People just get so preachy about this. My feeling is that everyone's different, and everyone needs a different amount of support. I think running barefoot will injure some people, and running with shoes will injure some people. Some people will be more efficient with shoes, and some without.
Ditto about the bee. I had that happen to me once on the south field and it was awful.
Agreed. I think everyone is different. It's the same thing with training, people just respond different to different stresses. So what works great for some guys might work well for others but nothing is guaranteed. Although, the only way to find out is to give it a shot.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8483401.stm
Perhaps the Nature article will be interesting (once it is published).
This is an old(er) topic, but I'm going to continue to place relevant information here for the sake of completeness:
From the authors of the aforementioned papers: http://www.barefootrunning.fas.harvard.edu/
Also, one of the co-authors posts on the LetsRun.com thread (scroll down) here.
runbikethink.blogspot.com; You saved my day again.
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