Stepping out: On the run

Andy Kenworthy says through experience he has realised that 'running is not about what's on your feet: it's a test of the way every part of our body connects.' Photo / Thinkstock

Barefoot or 'natural' running has become a global trend and shaken the foundations of the multibillion-dollar running shoe industry. So was Zola Budd - who controversially shunned footwear in the 1984 Olympic 3000m final - ahead of her time, or is barefoot running a dangerous fad?

Andy Kenworthy has spent more than a year doing the hard yards to find out.

Humans have been running without shoes for millions of years, and still do most of the time in some parts of the world. But the Western world's new craze for it was triggered by the publication of the now best-selling book Born To Run, by Christopher McDougall.

An intoxicating combination of ripping travel adventure yarn and extreme sport biography, it centres on the author's quest to track down a cure for his recurring running injuries.

McDougall believes he found it with the Tarahumara, an indigenous people of northern Mexico, whose culture is built around running 100km or more at a stretch through rocky canyons, wearing only thin sandals. His experiences led him to make a bold claim: we are "born to run" barefoot, or as close to it as possible. Modern air-cushioned running shoes probably cause more injuries than they prevent. For the overexcited reader, the message seemed to be, just throw away your shoes and you too can run like the Tarahumara.

I read Born To Run last year and began following its advice. I trained barefoot regularly, but still raced in my air-cushioned Asics shoes, partly because I had just spent $250 on them. They were a classic example of 40 years of multi-million dollar foot protection development. The best runners in the world seemed to rely on shoes like these and endorsed them.

The results of my experiment have been decidedly mixed.

I completed the 2010 Auckland Half Ironman, but got neuropraxia: crushed nerve endings that left me with numb toes for two months.

I then did the 33km North Shore Coastal Challenge without injury. While training for the Dual Off-Road marathon I developed Achilles problems, sprained my toes and my ankle, but then completed the actual event injury free.

I walked the Oxfam 100km Trailwalker, then got lost on a trail run over Mt Pirongia and developed iliotibial band problems, which basically meant it hurt to run downhill. I am just getting over this now.

Barefoot or not, this kind of carnage is not unusual. According to a recent study somewhere between 37-56 per cent of average recreational runners are injured at least once each year. I came close to last in every race I entered.

Clearly I am not that fast, and I am far from injury-free. So am I doing this natural style wrong, is it all a crock, or had I not gone far enough in keeping my shoes on?

My pit guy for all these injuries is physiotherapist Bharat Sukha from Physiosport in East Tamaki.

"You can't just suddenly adapt to barefoot running," he warns. "You need to adapt your body to what activity and event you are doing."

To get some more help I met up with James Kuegler, one of New Zealand's leading exponents of the barefoot or natural style of running. He shares his time between teaching people how to do it right, studying to be a chiropractor, and travelling really fast over wild terrain on bicycles, boats and his barely-shod feet.

His switch to natural running was triggered, like a lot of others, by a series of injuries. He says that since then he has become stronger and more efficient and subsequently injury-free. There have been what he calls "challenges" along the way: twinges here and there that act as feedback to further adjust and develop his technique.

"A lot of the problems people encounter are from doing too much too soon," he explains. But he concedes that some of the hype around Born To Run and barefoot running may have encouraged people to overstretch themselves.

"It is easy for people to read the book and think it is a panacea and you are going to be a far less-injured runner just by whipping your shoes off," he says. "The reality is that this may be true, though if you don't adapt, you might find yourself with different problems."

I have a masters degree in literature, but I still missed important warnings in Born To Run, even after reading it repeatedly. When I thought "hey, the book never mentioned that" and checked, I found that it did - I had just skated over it in my excitement to turn myself into superman. The central message may be you are "born to run", however, an equally important one is "but you need to carefully retrain".

I have realised that running is not about what's on your feet: it's a test of the way every part of our body connects, and how our mind can drive our bodies on. And to transform yourself from "someone who runs" into a true runner you have to do more than just run.

The Tarahumara don't sit at desks all day writing articles and then run marathons - they live an incredibly active lifestyle.

I guess I am still more of a beginner than I thought. Stretching after running was a basic I had overlooked, as was training my core muscles to hold my body upright while I bobbed along.

Two sessions with Kuegler taught me where I had got sloppy. Partly because I could get away with it in my air-cushioned shoes, but the summer of events had now all-but-destroyed them anyway.

While shopping around for more, I came across Craig Taylor. As a podiatrist, he has a professional interest in feet and what goes on them. He is also a runner who uses Vibram FiveFingers - flexible soles contoured to the shape of the human foot - for shorter training runs and runs a speciality shoe store.

"You get the absolute enthusiast or purist who is committed to the philosophy," he says. "The more difficult customer is the one that comes into the store and says 'I have heard about these, are they right for me?'

"Firstly we always think injury prevention. Can the client use these shoes without risking hurting themselves? Then it comes down to how committed they are to training their feet and leg to a more minimal style of shoe. It does take time to adjust. It should work for everybody, but then everybody should be able to maintain an ideal body weight.

"The purists make up about 5 per cent of the running population, the balance of weekend warriors I can see using a minimal shoe in conjunction with a conventional shoe. I believe in time runners will have two or three styles of shoes in their kit bag and choose the pair that best suits that day's workout."

Kuegler estimates that as much as half of the population think they have congenital anomalies preventing them from running. He reckons the reality is probably more like 2 to 3 per cent.

"Though I agree that in a sedentary western society we have a high percentage of environmental and developmental problems that delay the ability to use the foot in an active capacity," he says, "I have trained people who are overweight, with no running background, to run barefoot. In a way, the results are even better, because the feedback is stronger. With more weight, if they don't get their foot technique right, they are going to have serious problems."

Speciality shoe stores now have a range of "footwear" that includes elements of the minimalist style, influenced by research into barefoot running. One range is Formthotic - soft, individually heat-moulded inserts that can help support your foot as you shift to a less-cushioned shoe.

I won't get any just yet though. I have decided to go purist. I reckon the best way for me to really adopt a posture and stride that minimises my impact with the ground is to put myself in a carefully controlled situation where I have no choice.

I won't replace my Asics, I'll stick to barefoot or my Vibrams, and see where that takes me. We'll see if I end up seeing more of Kuegler, out ahead of the pack on the trail, or more of Bharat, on the physio table.