feet

In the past month I read Born to Run, by Christopher McDougall, and followed that up with a lot of research about running. It seems that about every ten years I encounter something that literally changes my life. In my teens it was classical music and jazz, in my 20s it was Jessica and learning how to distinguish real food from processed garbage, in my 30s I am becoming an athlete, especially a triathlete. But I'm a terrible runner, though I like it and want to get better. I've also had a few injuries from running and I'm now learning why.

McDougall started his research for the book by asking this one question: "Why does my foot hurt?"

And then other questions came up: "Why do runners in rich, technologically advanced countries like the U.S. who wear expensive running shoes have so many injuries when runners in poor countries who run barefoot or in sandals do not?"

There are many answers to these questions, but scientific (and anecdotal) evidence now suggests that one of the biggest problems is running shoes. And the "better" (i.e., more expensive and sophisticated) the shoe, the more injuries. In short, the human foot is one of the most perfect appendages in the animal kingdom. Da Vinci considered it the most perfect part of the human body. Not only is the human foot perfectly constructed for running, but to shackle it with a shoe inhibits its natural mechanics and can result in a whole host of other problems with peoples' feet, ankles, knees, and hips.

It's more than that, of course. There are problems with running on pavement, not to mention the air quality in most cities or towns. And there are problems with running to a clock and trying to set records. Some anthropologists and evolutionists now think that our ability to run long distances--and in a coordinated fashion run animals to exhaustion--may have been what allowed us to pull ahead of the Neanderthals. (Most people think they preceded us, but in fact homo sapiens evolved around the same time as Neanderthals and it has been a mystery for some time why we won out considering how much stronger and smarter they were.) One thing is for sure, though: our ancestors weren't running races on asphalt while blasting music in their ears with an ipod. And they weren't worrying too much about pace. They were listening to their bodies, running with perfect form, and running barefoot, or in moccasins or sandals.

So I've been running barefoot, in sandals, or in 10$ canvas flats (like Converse All-Stars, but not high-tops) on trails and my form has improved, I'm having more fun, and much of my hip pain has disappeared. My mileage is still pretty low, so the real test will be over the next year as I gear up for a full Ironman, but the beginning signs have been very encouraging. I'm still worrying about pace as that's a very useful part of my training, but I'm getting better at letting my body dictate my workout rather than a clock.

I'm shocked at how stupid and greedy the shoe companies have been and how gullible we Americans have been, but I'm not surprised. No matter the discipline, Americans are obsessed with money and gadgets. And our urban/suburban lives have so strongly divorced us from the reality of our bodies and the natural world that we don't even know a ruse when it's on our own foot, or blasting out of stereo speakers.