Natural Running Symposium – Q & A – Part 3

John: Erik?

Audience: I guess I’ve got a question for Jamie. Just because I imagine you’ve probably been pure barefoot running.

Jamie: A year ago I could have said that, but I’ve been eclipsed.

Audience: In your experience barefoot running on the road, have you never run on a piece of glass or caught that thing that everybody is afraid of?

Jamie: I never have. I think the biggest factor there is just building up the callouses in your feet. And I think that’s probably the biggest thing you have working against you in Maine, is you only have a season to do that, and you have to be inclined to want do that.

It can be done. There’s a guy who won Olympic Marathon in 1960 running barefoot. It can be done. It’s just if you feel inclined to want to build your feet up to that level. I think that whole fear is a little overrated in my experience. I run from here down to the boulevard and back, and on the roads in the boulevard and it wasn’t such a big deal if you acclimate yourself to it.

John: Let’s get this one.

Audience: I’m a middle school cross-country coach. And actually my kids see me wearing Newtons. So I’ve switched over. I absolutely love them.

What do I tell my kids about Naturalist Running? They have their own running shoes. We did some barefoot striders before right at the start of practice. But how can I build that more in? A lot of them can’t really… it’s hard for them to go out and throw down 150-175 dollars for a pair of shoes, but I still have to try and emphasise that right now.

Danny: Yeah! Like that gentleman said. Just keep that stride short. Keep a high, forward lean, elbows back, look to the right. The rest of the body posture will be there. Now the only problem there is that the shoes that they have, even the Nike Free, it’s on a traditional pitch. It’s still about 24 to 12. And it’s foam, so it’s like running in sand. So there’s a lot of power that’s wasted when you run in shoes like that. But the biggest waste is not being able to tap into our elastic recoil. So if this is my foot and I’m coming to the surface, and you mentioned running on your toes, it’s not running on your toes. That’s sprinting.

So if I run on my toes, I’m going to really stress out my achilles, and my fascia, and my calves are going to get super tight. If I heel-strike then that’s a walking gait and I’m breaking.

Where do you land?

Parallel. You need to land parallel to the Earth, parallel to the surface. That’s ideal. Now if you land parallel and slightly on your forefoot, there’s a phenomenon that happens is that your heel will settle down second, and lightly touch, or at least settle downward towards the earth. At that moment, your calves and achilles and fascia are building up recoil. It’s called elastic recoil. So if I land lightly on my forefoot, allow my heel to settle, boom! I get my energy back. I lift off instead of pushing.

So if you can get them forward enough that they’re lifting quickly, like all the drills, high knees, butt kicks, skipping one and two, all the drills that are ever intended for any runner are to emphasize forefoot striking. That’s the bottom line in the 1800’s. What did the coaches say? Run like you’re running on a hot coals. On the ground off the ground boom boom boom boom boom. Right? Quick cadence. Get forward.

I don’t know. I’m a running coach for 15 years.

John: So I think Danny is absolutely right. I think you need to incorporate those drills more than anything to teach good running form to your kids. So it sounds like you’re already doing that.