Gait

Of course it has changed since running barefoot. I noticed it right away from the first run out the door. It was weird and uncomfortable, and if I thought too hard about it worried me that I was doing something wrong. A month ago it felt a little like getting back on to a bike after not having ridden since you were a kid. It was familiar, fun and a little like flying. It feels that way because it is the same gait I had as a child. Now when I think about it I don't know how I ever ran any other way.

My feet don't hit the ground running, they caress it and glide over it. I don't think it is possible to have a heel strike pattern in bare feet, at least not for very long. I suppose part of it is self preservation - no part of me wants to do a heel strike on to a sharp rock. I feel every stone and bump while running now, so I tread quickly and lightly over the trail in fast short steps, and in my mind my feet are wheels spinning over whatever surface I happen to be on. In short my new (or should I say old) gait just feels right.

So I also play soccer three times a week or so and of course I wear shoes, cleats in fact. And my gait doesn't come as naturally in cleats as it does in VFFs (bare feet). At 39 years old I am often hard pressed to match anyone under 25 in a sprint down the pitch, at least for the first 45 minutes. As an experiment I played the last game as if I were barefoot - it took some thinking about but was very doable. I just had to rethink my starts mostly from big lunging power strides to something more in line with how you would want to get from 0 to 60 if you had no shoes on. While hardly scientific I noticed that I was able to run more of the game up and down the length of the field, but even more importantly those 25 year olds were now within reach. I caught two guys I never catch and blasted past a third that should have been even. Maybe it was that I had so much more energy because of a more efficient stride, maybe they were hung over.

One thing is for sure, the new/old gait kicks ass.