Lately while looking around the blogosphere I have been wondering where all the women are. I mean, there are plenty of women out there, but I don’t see many blogging about running without their shoes on. This leads me to wonder if the female barefoot runner is a rarity, or if other barefoot running women just have better things to do than blog about it.
So far the only barefoot running women I can find are:
Sharon, Tina, Jessica, and Angie.
Are there others of you out there? If so, drop me a comment with a link to your blog. I’m interested in the experiences of other women participating in this “fringe” activity and how the world responds to you.
It’s interesting how sometimes men get angry and yell at me when they see me running barefoot. I don’t imagine that my barefoot male counterparts experience this same anger and it makes me wonder what it’s all about. Why do people care whether I have shoes on or not? I’m not hurting anyone in any way. Not even myself, actually. If I was standing on the side of the road smoking a cigarette (with shoes on) would people yell abuses at me to “protect” me from my actions? I doubt it.
That said, lots of people have read my recent research paper on barefoot running and it is gaining unexpected interest around here. I don’t think anyone has actually taken their shoes off yet, but some people are looking dubiously at their sneakers like they might consider it. It doesn’t hurt that Lieberman’s recent study out of Harvard on barefoot running hit the mainstream media this month.
With regards to my own actual running, I have still been resting after my unnecessary injury. I am hoping to hit the beach this afternoon and see how things are feeling. In response to my foot’s need for rest from running I dragged my poor neglected bike out of the shed and have been pedaling to work. It took me three days of numb feet and squished toes to realize that the reason my cycling shoes no longer fit me is because my feet have grown and spread from all this barefoot running. I find this to be a fascinating phenomenon and proof that my feet are recovering from a lifetime of being in shoes. So barefoot triathlete beware: don’t buy new cycling shoes until AFTER about six months of barefoot running…!
