“A good runner leaves no foot prints.”

I was reminded by a work colleague that I hadn’t updated my blog for a while. Which is true. A combination of blogger’s block and a cold has somewhat cooled both my enthusiasm and my imagination. However I have continued running through my man flu “you should have a big pill of MAN UP” I was told by said work colleague and then given a slice of home made Victoria Sponge. Nice. 

I have to tell you my father looked at me the other day and remarked whether it was wise that a 15 stone man was running without proper running shoes and I ought not being doing that until I lose weight. I took serious consideration of his words although I was already aware of the paradox (or counter-intuitive adage) that the more cushioned the shoe the less protection it offers – or in other words – the more minimalist the shoe: the lighter you run. And let me tell you I have had my share of running in clompy trainers with wedge heels and I’m not going back to them!

With this in mind and given the extra pounds that I am carrying I really started to focus on the ChiRunning principles, which include straight posture, forward lean and mid-foot striking. Another really useful ChiRunning metaphor is that you should run lightly by imagining you are running on thin ice. Try it: it works!

So although I am the best part of 15 stone I am imagining I am running on ice, and running in my VFF’s my running is light, surprisingly light, in fact I can hardly hear my footsteps. And its all working very well. Now half way through week 8 I am up to two miles 3 to 4 times a week. That’s week 8 injury free. Not even a twinge. Nothing.

Injury free but taking note of what my body is telling me. Running in minimalist shoes works the calf muscles and the muscles of the feet and particularly works the Achilles tendon. However no arch pain! From personal experience I can say that arch pain can often be caused by a trainer which is too narrow and which does not give the foot the space to do what it does best – compress and spring back into an arch, and of course pronate. Since I am a little (but not much) overweight I still have to run with caution, my father was of course right, and the more over weight you are the more caution and less distance you should run. Really the distance and the time is unimportant it is the quality of your running form. Like Tai Chi. Its the form that matters.

...and as the ancient Chinese text the Tao Te Ching says “A good runner leaves no foot prints.”

My diet...

I have been supplementing my diet with baobab fruit powder (a superfuit) and chia seeds and eating a lot of Tempeh. Tempeh is a bland fermented soy bean product which can be sliced and stir fried; if the bland taste doesn’t float your boat, it can also be marinated (and it really soaks up flavours like a sponge), I have been experimenting with teriyaki sauce and noodles and a little rice with the usual stir fry veggies and this with proper portion control means I have started to lose weight.  I’m not going to insult your intelligence by giving a recipe on how to cook a stir fry. Just slice it all up thin and bang it in the wok. Sprinkle with soy or teriyaki. Job Done.

My Next Project...

Aside from the odious and seemingly endless amount of DIY I have to do, my next project is to make my huarache running sandals. As you can see from the photo they are essentially a piece of tyre tread held onto your foot by shoe laces. And when the film Born to Run comes out (starring Matthew Machoniewotsit) these will be the next big thing. Honest.

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: