Natural Running Symposium – Part 6

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Danny: When you go from running in traditional shoes, most traditionally built shoes are anywhere between 12 millimeters and up to 22 millimeters higher in the heel than the forefoot. That’s a half inch to an inch higher in your heel than your forefoot.

So your calf contracts, it gets tight, and you don’t even realize it. It just gets shortened, and everything is contracted. And then you come down to a level platform and take away your half inch or your inch, you’d have to like elongate that and stretch it out, and that’s the process of adaptation.

Whereas for instance if you had a Tarahumari Indian here, you read Born to Run? A lot of you guys maybe read Born to Run. So I ran in those races in Leadville that the Tarahumara ran. He didn’t.

And I ran those races. And the opposite of what we’re saying in here today, they ran in no shoes, but the
first year, they forced him to run in shoes. And I passed every one of them at 13 miles, and I urged them to throw their shoes away. Because they had blisters and abnormal problems with their feet because they weren’t used to being confined. That’s the story he didn’t tell.

So likewise, so if you come from being barefoot your whole life and you put shoes on, you’re probably going to get some problems. We’ve been wearing these high-heeled products and we’re try to go more minimalist, we’re going to have some problems unless you take it easy.

Kirsten: When you look at it, history of these shoes in general, I mean they just differentiated shoes between right and left in the 1800’s

Danny: Ha ha! That’s right!

Kirsten: You know we’re not talking about like a massive history so the caveman ages kind of thing. We’re just talking recent stuff. I mean we’re talking 1960’s and 70’s when they started adding the shoe. It’s really recent! So now we’re really getting back to a little bit maybe more of what we’ve been doing for a long time like you were saying to Jamie.

Jamie: It can be funny. I had a woman a couple years ago when I was first getting into this. And she probably weighed 90 pounds. And she looked like your ideal runner, and she had plantar fascitis.

And she had these big gunboats she was running in. And I was trying to talk to her about, I had just read Born To Run, I know your heel striking, you’re probably not going to… unless you find a different shoe you’re not going to get away from the heel strike and consequently you’re just going to keep landing where it hurts.

I had her come out in the hallway of our office and just take her shoes off, and walk up and down the hall. And she had had this problem for like 2 years. I don’t think she ever stepped foot out of her bed without her shoes on. And she’s like, “Oh, this is so weird. I don’t know what this…” It was funny and sad all at once I guess.

Danny: You laughed and then you cried.

Jamie: Kirsten and I were just talking about our kids. I mean if you have kids or had kids and you’ve watched them run around the backyard barefoot, it’s perfect! They’re perfect! And it’s interesting to watch as they get older and start wearing shoes. And I took them school shopping this year, and they don’t make minimalist shoes for kids, but it’s kind of become a trendy thing, and have like Pumas. It’s interesting. My kids hate built up shoes. They just refuse on wearing them.

John: Don’t worry. The kids’ shoes are coming.

Kirsten: It’s funny, I assistant coached my son’s soccer team.

Jamie: Cleats?

Kirsten: No, I just took them all out. I had them start the whole season this year in barefoot shoes, and I’m sure the parents think I’m crazy. But I’m like, “We’re starting this in your bare feet people. And then we’ll get up and do your warm up, and were going to do some touching. I mean your going to get a better feel for the ball even, if your running around in you bare feet.”

And that’s what we do on the field, and then tried to make sure that they washed their feet at the end of the day. And they loved it.

Danny: Oh! Why bother.

Kirsten: Yeah!

Danny: That’s great! Of course, as a parent when you have kids, they just run and run and run and run and run all day right? Remember? We used to do that too. Never ran out of energy right? Because they were falling. They weren’t pushing. They weren’t really using that much energy. They’re falling forward.

So if you’re doing that all day properly, you really don’t get tired. You can run all day if you do it properly and you won’t get tired.

John: Danny, I want my kids to get tired.

Danny: That’s what I’m going back to, that’s what I’m going back to. As a parent you’re going, “Dear Lord, please let them rest, because I’m so exhausted,” right? But they don’t get tired.

Of many things, metabolism, but number one, it looks like they’re just sprinting around all day, but it’s
no effort or very little effort.

We’ve just made it very difficult. We view running as we get addicted to it. All you guys are here for a reason. You wanna learn about this stuff. I’ve run a hundred miles in a day, and it’s not that easy. But running in general is not a hard thing if we totally relax. We’ve made it this no pain no gain proposition.

And we’ve made it this do or die proposition, that’s why you’re working against yourself. You have to totally relax, because I’ve worked with a lot of Kenyan runners. I’ve had the privilege to run with a lot of world class athletes. And I’ll do this with my best Kenyan voice. So a friend of mine, Charles, I said Charles, “When you think about running a 5 minute pace for a marathon, what do you think about?”

“Danny, I think about relaxing. I think I must be relaxed. Because if I don’t then I can’t run so fast.”

Right? Because you tense up. Your muscles are tense or you have a mental tenseness about “I’m going to go out there and do this today.” Running angry and whatever, there’s been articles on that before, that’s totally BS. You gotta run relaxed. Why do we do it? We do it as a stress reliever. If you’re injured and you’re PO’ed and all this is another stress in your life, give it up. Go play golf. Go do something else.

Yeah that’s stressful too right? When I go play golf, I try to get everybody just “It’s okay! It’s a game. It’s just a stupid game.”

John: It’s not complicated.

Danny: Okay, I’m sorry.

John: No, that’s alright!

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