Janathon 2013 Day 15 - New shoes

Running (on treadmill) - 5K, 25 minutes, Weights - 30 minutes

I am always suspicious of theories based on speculation about our early ancestors or movements where the proponents are evangelically convinced of the rightness of their cause. For that reason I have shied away from the barefoot running debate. I am unconvinced of the reasoning that says we were adapted to running before before shoes and so this is the optimal style, therefore shoes are not only unnecessary they are a problem. In the same way that I am unconvinced by the suggestion that we should eat a stone age diet. And anyway why is running so different to walking? There is nowhere need the same head of steam behind any idea that we should ditch our walking shoes.

That is not really the point though - all that really matters is if it works or not. The key claim is that barefoot running (or running in minimalist shoes) reduces injury and this should be open to testing.  Over the next few years (now there are enough people to provide decent sized samples) we should be getting some answers. In particular I will be interested in the results of this research which plans to track people in this years London Marathon.

But in the meantime should I wait or should I try for myself, especially as a number of people I know have made the switch and are enthusiastic about the results? As I also like the principle of 'being an experiment of one' and am liable to tinker with things, I have been edging towards giving minimalist running a go. After all there is nothing much to lose. If I switch and my running improves then everything is worthwhile, however if I don't get on with it, I have lost nothing but a little time playing about. On the other hand inertia is a powerful force so why change?

However my mind was made up when New Balance offered me the chance to try-out one of their minimalist shoes. The scales of the argument lurched violently to one side and I am now quite excited with the idea of trying something new.

I have now collected them from the Post Office and have tried them on around the house and must admit to being pleased. They look good, feel comfortable and I am anxious to try them out. At the moment that is all I can say. If they were normal trainers I would take them out and know very quickly how they compared, but with these I will be running slightly differently and so will not know straight away. i will break them in gently and although they are trail shoes they will spend the first part of their life on a treadmill, starting with only 15 minutes tomorrow. It will actually be a little time before I know what I think of them.

So what of my Stoic quote of the day? Unsurprisingly they say absolutely nothing about running styles. However there is something quoted by Seneca in Letter IX, which is pertinent to the way I thought of making the change and how it actually happened:

If you pray a thing may
And it does come your way
'Tis a long way from being your own

2011 Streak Day 290 (Thursday Oct 20th): On minimalist shoes

2011 Streak Day 290 (Thursday Oct 20^th): Walk 3 miles  time 1 hr, Weather autumn is proving to be surprisingly nice

The reason for the picture is to show the way the shadows lengthen as the sun gets lower in the sky. It makes for some lovely patterns.

Otherwise the main event was the arrival of new running shoes (which I wrote about). The shoes in themselves are standard running shoes with a built-up heel and lots of cushioning. The type of shoe I mostly run in (not the particular model, it is only my second pair of Vomeros).

It used to be so simple. There were basically three types of shoe, neutral, support, and motion control and you looked for the ones that fitted you feet the best in the appropriate category. Now however there is growing interest in barefoot running and the shoe manufacturers have responded  with a range of minimalist and lightweight shoes, which adds a complication.

My problem is that I do not face the radical divide of heel strike and traditional trainers, or  minimalist trainers and a forefoot strike. I have always landed on my forefoot/midfoot but done so in normal trainers.  In fact I like having a degree of heel because after the initial strike my heel drops and I find it more comfortable if it is then supported by the shoe. 

Because of all fuss about barefoot running I felt obliged to try some minimalist shoes with zero heel drop but did not find them particularly comfortable and certainly there was no moment of revelation where I thought I had discovered the proper biomechanical way to run. So I gave up. However I do still have a problem in finding shoes with the right amount drop between heel and forefoot, i.e. something between nothing and normal.

There are possibilities: Newtons, which look interesting but have a price that puts me off, Nike Frees, which are shoes I should have probably tried before now, and Saucony and Brooks who are introducing shoes with less drop. There is scope for experimentation but it is an example of why we need running shops with a good range as I need to try them on before buying. Unfortunately my local running shop does not stock these sort of shoes so I probably need to travel further afield.

However it is not a big problem. Although I would like to find the perfect pair of shoes, I am happy to run in just about anything. My main problems have nothing to do with my trainers and everything to do with lack of condition, sticking to a proper training regime, and carrying too much weight. Fix those and everything falls into place.

This means I am remarkably feeble when people debate forefoot vs heelstrike. I really do not have a position. I tend to believe that everybody should run in the way that feels most natural and that most injuries come from training mistakes rather than failures of style. However if anybody does experiment by switching to minimal shoes and finds it enhances their pleasure and performance then I am happy for them. If however someone heelstrikes and feels pressure to change because of all the talk and books such as Born to Run I would advise caution, if there are no other reasons. In other words there is no reason to fix what isn’t broken.

This New York Times article on the fashion for minimalist shoes has some interesting comments.