I love running barefoot.
Love running trails.
So what could be more natural than to run trails…barefoot?
I know some amazing trail runners who run without shoes. I’ve been running on the roads without shoes for years…and there’s a trail near my house that I’ve often run (in shoes.) So this morning it occurred to me:
Why not run that trail…bare?
Too tempting to resist!
I tied a red bandana on my head and ran out the door. Jogged a mile or so to the trail, sure that this would be the next step in my evolution as a runner:
He doesn’t just run! He doesn’t just run BAREFOOT!! He runs TRAILS barefoot!!!
At the trailhead I could see how it would be. I’d glide on a cool shaded path through the woods, barefoot like my great-great-great-great….grandfather…
….effortless and graceful. A pair of shorts and a high-tech bandana the only clue that I’m the son of a modern, industrial era. I’d run like our African ancestors…
Soft. Silent. Swift.
It’s a beautiful image.
But it didn’t turn out that way!
The trail was a ribbon of sharp-edged rocks. Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! A quarter-mile of dancing and prancing on jagged scree brought me to the summit of the hill: a blessedly-smooth granite dome.
Then down the other side, on painfully pointy rocks, annointed occasionally with glittering glass. Trees closed in overhead and in the moist darkness, mosquitos must have broadcast a Tweet that an All-You-Can-Eat Buffet was approaching. So I no longer had the luxury of focusing on my feet: the insect world was zeroing in on my head like a swarm of WWII dive bombers and I had to wave them off.
But of course waving didn’t keep them away. So as I ran, or jogged, as carefully as I could on the detritus of the last Ice Age, I smacked one hand and then the other against my head, hoping to discourage the hungry airborne hordes closing in all around me.
Buzz…
….Smack!
………RING!!! (as my open palm slapped against my ear, setting off a resonant tone in my head like a giant tuning fork.)
Buzz…
….Smack!
……..Ring!!! (Nope. Not a tuning fork: now each smack against my ear was like a church bell, a metallic thunderclap inside my head.)
All the while trying to avoid stepping on the sharpest of the stones underfoot.
It lasted a LONG time. I don’t think I’ll ever do it again. Running on trails is pure joy—in shoes. Running barefoot is pure joy–on a road. But running barefoot on a trail is just nuts.
(c) 2011 by Ken Skier. All rights reserved.
