Running Barefoot

Last night at Namban’s monthly 5k time trial I achieved a new personal best, completing 12½ laps of the track in 22 minutes, 9 seconds, and 54 milliseconds, beating my previous time by 17 seconds.  And I did it barefoot.

Like a lot of people I was inspired by Christopher McDougall’s book Born to Run to give barefoot running a try, and I like it. I usually do part of Namban’s training sessions barefoot, and when I go running on my own I usually take off my shoes for the last kilometer or so on the way home. I do sometimes wonder what people make of the guy in running gear carrying a pair of perfectly good shoes though!

While the skin on the bottom of my toes felt a bit sensitive after running 5k, the rest of my body felt better. I get lots of aches and pains from running, usually around my shins, ankles, and instep. When I go barefoot, however, I don’t tend to get so many. The only issue is that the soles of my feet haven’t hardened up enough yet.

Less pain is good, but aside from that I feel freer while running without shoes. It feels good to have your feet hit the ground unencumbered by shoes. Even minimalist running shoes like Five Fingers or less cushioned sneakers like the Adizero Japan feel chunky and inhibiting. Running barefoot feels so much freer.

A large part of the reason I run is because it is time off from the world. Sometimes it is just a slog or tedium, but there are moments of achievement, or moments that manage to get me out of myself, away from this world of routine, stress, and everyday life.

Somehow running without shoes seems to help that process. It feels good to feel the texture of the ground, to feel the temperature of the surface, with no layer of leather, plastic, or padding in between.

After the run, on Laci’s suggestion I walked across the cool grass in the center of the track. It felt like a massage. Going barefoot and feeling the ground beneath our feet is something very simple, but something that we have lost touch with in this world of leather office shoes, multi-colored running shoes, and a type of shoe for every situation in-between.

It puts us in touch with the ground beneath our feet, but it puts us in touch with more than that. I’m still trying to figure out exactly what that is.

Honorary Olympians

Our pre-race publicity shot

It is not everyday that one gets the chance to run in an Olympic stadium under a fire burning in the Olympic cauldron, but that is how I spent last Sunday afternoon. It was a memorable event.

Daniel, myself, Cato, and Thomas ran an ekiden, a Japanese long-distance relay race. None of us had done one before, and being Australian, Norwegian, and Canadian, we didn’t quite know how it all worked. Thomas did a great job taking care of registration and organizing things on the day.

There were over 400 four-person teams participating in the Number Do Ekiden, but everything seemed well-organized and went off without a hitch.

As it was our first race we had chosen a short ekiden, 18 kilometers in total, with Daniel running the first 6k leg, myself on the second 4.5k leg, Cato on the third 3k leg, and Thomas running anchor on the final 4.5k leg.

It was a hot, humid day, but fortunately the race started at 4pm, so it was not as bad as it might have been. All went well, apart from when I got confused towards the end and almost did an additional lap of the stadium.

We are the champions!

As with most Japanese races, a number of runners dressed up, with wigs, traditional Japanese dress, and one particularly masochistic team ran the entire distance inside a cardboard box! Despite that they managed to avoid last place, coming in second last to a rousing reception.

As we were unhindered by lugging a box around we did pretty well, finishing 71 out of the 408 finishing teams, with a total time of 1:24:50. Daniel ran his 6k in 24:38, my 4.5 was 21:55, Cato’s 3k was 17:03, and Thomas brought us home with his 4.5k on 21:16.

We finished off the day with a trip to an Izakaya (Japanese pub) and then some karaoke. A good end to a great day!

Starting video, shot by Thomas on his iPhone. The running box comes on-screen at 0:44.