On a bbs I’m on, a link was posted in response to a friend asking about shoes for starting the Couch to 5k program.

The link went to an article titled, “The painful truth about trainers: are running shoes a waste of money?”

What I like is that they come to the conclusion that we’re basically better off as barefoot as possible, which as a massage therapist and reflexologist and a many-years member of the Society for Barefoot Living, I completely agree with. Shoes are a freaking menace! That’s my humble opinion. Okay, sure, I like my Chacos in the summer, but I go barefoot as much as I can, and you really do feel the difference after awhile. Your feet and legs get stronger, and your proprioception gets a lot sharper.

Turns out it’s not just us wacko hippies, it’s also endurance athletes:

Then there’s the secretive Tarahumara tribe, the best long-distance runners in the world. These are a people who live in basic conditions in Mexico, often in caves without running water, and run with only strips of old tyre or leather thongs strapped to the bottom of their feet. They are virtually barefoot.

Come race day, the Tarahumara don’t train. They don’t stretch or warm up. They just stroll to the starting line, laughing and bantering, and then go for it, ultra-running for two full days, sometimes covering over 300 miles, non-stop. For the fun of it. One of them recently came first in a prestigious 100-mile race wearing nothing but a toga and sandals. He was 57 years old.

It also turns out that running shoes don’t prevent injury at all – in fact there is no evidence for that claim, and the shoe companies know it.

So, if running shoes don’t make you go faster and don’t stop you from getting hurt, then what, exactly, are you paying for? What are the benefits of all those microchips, thrust enhancers, air cushions, torsion devices and roll bars?

The answer is still a mystery. And for Bowerman’s old mentor, Arthur Lydiard, it all makes sense.

‘We used to run in canvas shoes,’ he said.

‘We didn’t get plantar fasciitis (pain under the heel); we didn’t pronate or supinate (land on the edge of the foot); we might have lost a bit of skin from the rough canvas when we were running marathons, but generally we didn’t have foot problems.

‘Paying several hundred dollars for the latest in hi-tech running shoes is no guarantee you’ll avoid any of these injuries and can even guarantee that you will suffer from them in one form or another. Shoes that let your foot function like you’re barefoot – they’re the shoes for me.’

Researchers began filming barefoot runners……

When he zoomed in, he was startled by what he found. Instead of each foot clomping down as it would in a shoe, it behaved like an animal with a mind of its own – stretching, grasping, seeking the ground with splayed toes, gliding in for a landing like a lake-bound swan.

‘It’s beautiful to watch,’ Pisciotta later told me. ‘That made us start thinking that when you put a shoe on, it starts to take over some of the control.’

Pisciotta immediately deployed his team to gather film of every existing barefoot culture they could find.

‘We found pockets of people all over the globe who are still running barefoot, and what you find is that, during propulsion and landing, they have far more range of motion in the foot and engage more of the toe. Their feet flex, spread, splay and grip the surface, meaning you have less pronation and more distribution of pressure.’

All this is making me want to go for a jog in my Vibram Five-Fingers, the weirdest looking shoes I’ve ever owned, but the neatest and most fun to wear. Definitey worth the money! If you’re looking to go barefoot without worrying about stepping in something scary, get a pair of Vibrams.