Thursday, March 18, 2010

Wait Another Week, Drew

Following up on Drew's post, next week Dr. Paul Langer (podiatrist) will be giving a talk at Marathon Sports about minimalist running. Here is the information from the Marathon Sports website:

"Dr. Paul Langer will be in our store NEXT THURSDAY, March 25th at 7pm to talk about barefoot and minimalist running. Let us know you are coming by emailing rsvpATmarathonrunwalkDOTcom. Please put "barefoot" in the subject line."

I need a big old piece of wood to knock on here, but I have been relatively injury-free running-wise over the years. I've had to take a month off here or there for an overuse injury of some kind, but for whatever reason I've been fortunate. However, like Drew I was curious about running with less cushion and support. I remember the shoes from the late 70s and early 80s and how little support they had.

I read Born to Run with a somewhat closed mind. Buying running shoes six to eight times a year is expensive, not altogether earth friendly, but it has kept me healthy. If it ain't broke, don't fix it right? So to get to the point where I do wonder if I should get back to toughening up my feet and legs, speaks to how convincing the book was.

For now, I will stick to my Asics 3010s, but I will hold onto them longer. Rather than ditch them the first mile they start to feel flat, I will keep them for easy run days. My experiment with all this will end there and will therefore obviously be a lot less interesting than Drew's.

2 comments:

Drew said...

I'm going to try to cut a deal with the Mrs. to make this event!

Kirk said...

I've been moving towards minimalist over the past 5 years--not realize until last year why. I just found that shoes with less were way more comfortable to run in--once I got used to them. My latest attempt is my new favorite--a minimalist trail shoe, the NB MT100. After 2 runs, I've deemed them spectacular...

I tried on the 5 fingers but couldn't get myself to buy them. They are just so hideous looking and my ego couldn't take it.