We called her barefoot
Bonnie. She showed up at a training run in Earth Shoes and
clobbered most of the guys. Then she ditched even that minimal footwear
for a summer on the track, beating several of the local elites. At the
time, less than two years ago, most people didn't even know it was
permitted to race without shoes. Today, we're in a minimalist running
craze. The untraditionally shod are, if not everywhere, vociferous
enough that they certainly seem to be. Is there anything actually to it, or is it just noise, inspired by
Born to Run, Christopher McDougall's New York Times bestseller about the
sandal-wearing ultramarathoners among Mexico's Tarahumara Indians?
Proponents
of minimalism speak with the zeal of the recently converted. Opponents
spout dire warnings: you'll ruin your arches, step on an
HIV-contaminated needle, pound your feet to hamburger. "If you talked to
people in podiatry a decade ago, nobody would have said that barefoot
activity had any benefit," says Ray McClanahan, a Portland, Ore.,
podiatrist. "But now, a few people are starting to say it might be good
for you."
Away from the hype and the extremes, the minimalist
movement is rightly correcting decades of drifting in the other
direction when it comes to running shoe design. At its core, minimalism
asks the runner to look for the least amount of shoe he or she can
safely wear now, and to work toward reducing the amount of shoe
necessary through strengthening the foot and improving one's stride. It
assumes that running is a natural movement of the body, rather than an
unnatural act that requires pads and braces to perform safely. Putting
it plainly, the movement embraces the notion that the beefier the shoe,
the more a runner's natural stride is inhibited.
After 30 years
of making shoes with large amounts of cushy foam and structured
stability, shoe companies have gradually gotten into the act -- starting
with Nike's Free in 2004. Although most brands have always had some
type of lightweight trainer or racer in their line, this spring many
manufacturers are offering some type of shoe specifically designed to
promote a natural running gait. "More people are shifting toward this
type of product, or at least trying it," says Sean Murphy, manager of
advanced products engineering and sports research for New Balance. "I
think this movement is going to start to affect even the training shoes
you see on the wall [in running stores]."
In fact, Murphy says,
we may be on the verge of a sea change similar to the one that spawned
today's "traditional" shoe in the late 1970s and early '80s.