Building stronger feet

Building stronger feet

One of the things I realized in my long, ugly dance with Plantar Fasciitis is that my feet are weaklings.  This was brought into stark relief this Sunday when I met Zack, more specifically when I met Zach’s gnarly feet.

I had sent out an email blast to see if anyone wanted to scout the Groton 10k course with me and a crowd showed up.  Someone invited Zach. He’s new to the area.  He was in front of me the whole run and I was admiring his New Balance Minimus shoes.

We got to talking after and he said that he normally runs barefoot but didn’t know what the surface was going to be.  He took off his shoes and that’s when I saw those beautiful gnarly feet.  I took my shoes off and you could see the difference.

My feet are slender and my toes are thin.  His feet are wide and muscular with muscular toes.  Especially in the forefoot, his feet look like the equivalent of rock-hard abs.  My feet look like couch potatoes.

To make a full transition to barefoot I’d have to give up a year of racing and start my mileage from zero.  I’m not willing to do that.

I’ve been reading one of the original barefoot running books by Michael Sandler.  In a sign of resonance in the universal mastermind, Zach offers up, before I have even mentioned it, that he trained with and helped Michael Sandler with is book.

Don’t freak out.  I’m not going to turn into one of those barefoot freak-zealots.  But I do want stronger feet.  The epiphany I had was that you don’t need to throw away your shoes to get stronger feet.  You don’t have to change your life to get benefit from some of the barefoot running methods.

In fact, to totally switch to barefoot they say it will take 6 or more months if you go cold turkey.  That’s why so many people struggle with the transition.  But, you can use some of the barefoot methods to slowly make your feet stronger.

I was at the expo last week with my daughter and she was asking me about all the barefoot and minimalist running stuff.  I told her that it would be very difficult for me, who has been running high volume and intensity for 40 years to make that transition.

She said that my feet were like those laboratory dogs they rescued on a TV show who had never been out of a cage.  When they took the dogs outside and open their cages, they didn’t know what to do, they were afraid of the grass.  That’s how my feet are.

I believe in the validity of many of the points made by the barefooters, but I have never seen the bridge.  This week I’ve found the bridge.  I think for me it’s not a bridge too far.  I already have fairly good form and run in neutral shoes.  I have not ever been in corrective shoes.

I want to get some strong feet, closer to Zach’s.  To do this I’m going to work some light barefoot running in to my strength work.  No more than a couple hundred yards on the grass.  Specifically, before my speed work at the track I’m going to do a few easy barefoot repeats on the soccer pitch.

By the fall my feet should be getting stronger and we will see where it goes from there.