Puma Mobiums, inspiration, motivation and vibram five fingers

I thought I should, you know, talk about my running history and my inspiration to be a barefoot runner. Well, I can honestly say that I never ran a race as I am not at all competitive, and I usually end up with an overuse injury such as shin splints or knee pain or ankle pain etc etc, so my running never lasted for more than a year or two at a time, then it got forgotten then I would start again. Seventeen years (!) later and I find I haven't got anywhere. I've just older and my hair's fallen out and I have grown a beer belly.

The main inspiration for the barefoot thing is the guy in the photograph here, Uncle Joe.

As you can see Uncle Joe likes to use a mattock in a field with no shoes on, in fact, he hardly wears shoes at all. In his mid-eighties now and he is as strong as an ox, because no one has ever told him that he is old and should be in a home. If you get a cold he will look at you and say "it's because you wear shoes" or he would say that if he could speak because he is a deaf-mute, so he communicates with a sign language that he invented himself. He is an awesome chap, and I don't think I will ever meet a person as awesome as him. He is my hero.

The next person, well occasion that inspired me, I was on holiday and chasing my two year old son bare foot in a grass meadow, as I was doing it the paleo running thing sprang to mind, and of course the book Born to Run which I had read years before. Oddly I was on the estate of the paleoanthropologist Bernard Grant Campbell and these two things sort of fell into place the barefoot paleo caveman, that fundamental quality of being a human being. It has taken me another six months from this point to ease myself back into running and boy is it hard work when you are unfit.

So I don't have any running credentials, I learnt to trail run in the sugar cane fields of Reunion Island, have had gait analysis and owned many of the brand trainers including Adidas, Brooks and Asics, and have suffered from shin splints, runners knee, ankle pain and a strange but debilitating pain between tibia and the muscle. I have an almost professional interest in the foot being a "retired" chiropodist (more about that later) as well as having studied (neuro) art history, in particular Leonardo da Vinci who wrote that the foot was “ a masterpiece of engineering and a work of art.”

So that's where I'm coming from. Oh, and my Vibram Five Fingers KSO arrived, they look like a piece of tyre tread fused onto a spandex glove - and I can't wait to try them out! Check out the photo:

Couch to Barefoot Running in Six Months

This is the plan - to go from couch to barefoot running in six months, I'm not stipulating any distances, it could be just around the block but that's not the point, it's all about a lifestyle change, and healthy living and reducing my beer belly. If I get more spiritual or philosophical about it would be about some sort of freedom, getting out there, becoming one with nature... OK moving on.

What have I done so far? I have downloaded a beginners regime for running and adapted it for my own lifestyle and health level, downscaling it to less miles, less distance and with more rest days than the average couch potato can manage. (It's OK my ego can take it). And I have got to the end of the first week, hurrah! I've covered less than six miles on three occasions but so far so good.

What shoes am I running in: Puma Mobiums.

What are they like: uncomfortable (I have hobbit feet)

Running style: once likened to Kermit the Frog I am attempting to go for a relaxed gait with forefront / mid foot strike with a high cadence, concentrating on what my foot is doing.

Result so far: I appear to be aching in the right places, all good, and looking forward to week 2...

....and for some extra motivation I have ordered my Vibram Five Fingers and for summer some Huarache running sandals. Can't wait.