Are Women naturally more Intelligent than Men?

It was an interesting day. During the morning I fitted Carmen with new Pocket Rockets and she exclaimed "Oh these are great". It was not her first pair of T Rockets and she has plans for another pair soon. It made me think that in the few years that I have been promoting the T Rocket range of sandals, women, generally have been more receptive than men to the thesis of natural movement (meaning zero elevation, midfoot striking, and so on). I wondered why? Perhaps women are less threatened by novelty, perhaps men are too macho in their mindset? Of course I am generalising but it is true that I have found women to be more inquisitive and open to the concept of minimal footwear.

Later in the day I was pleased to meet my friend Dr Bernhard Zipfel for a light lunch. While Dr Zipfel is the Collections Curator (palaeoanthopology) at the University of the Witwatersrand  he is also a  T Rocket wearing podiatrist and is known as the "evolutionary podiatrist" amongst his colleagues. During lunch and without any prompting Bernhard asked me if I had noted any difference in the response of men and women to T Rockets. Indeed I had, I replied adding that it had occupied my thinking earlier that very morning. We chatted about women being more predisposed towards open flat sandals for regular leisure wear. Perhaps this means they are more willing to wear sandals for outdoor athletic pursuits. But I wasn't sure. Perhaps women are simply more intelligent, I said. And yet again perhaps there is an inbred male need to play the role of a defender (or even aggressor) and this does not sit comfortably with open sandals.

Well, the argument about women being more intelligent took a little knock later in the day when I went to run our local Thursday night time trial. After running barefoot from my home to the sports ground I sat on the field putting on my sandals while the crowd assembled for the start of the time trial. There was muted chatter. At this point a women turned around and looking down at me, still sitting and the grass and tensioning my P Rockets, she said: "Did you have a wardrobe malfunction?" What an inane, neolithic and unnecessary utterance! I was speechless and simply stared back with a benign and featureless expression. I know that some people have struggled to accept that not everybody runs in motion control shoes but to still embrace such sarcasm was in my opinion almost prehistoric and definitely not very intelligent. And on top of it coming from a women .... I was devastated.

And so while I still argue that many women have figured out a few things about running that many men have not, I will not generalise! There are still a few that are trapped in their own cerebral intransigence, and even seem to harbour some resentment to minimally shod runners. These few include both men and women.

Stress fracture or not?

Confessions of a reckless runner! I have had 2 stress fractures in my running career. One many years ago when, after no training and a bottle of red and a dare I agreed to enter a long run the next morning and try and beat some older dudes. We did it but I got hurt!

Then three or four years ago I developed a 2nd metatarsal stress fracture after going out too far and too thin, too soon. Like any good runner at the first sign of a stress fracture I kept running until the metatarsal was completely ruptured (displaced fracture) and only then did I manage to give it the few weeks break that was needed for repair. Sometime thereafter I confessed to another runner that I had been a bit obsessive and he said: "but you're a runner, that's what runners do" and I felt a little better.

So when my foot got swollen and sore two weeks ago after a bit of intense running, I knew immediately that it looked and felt like a stress fracture. While I was quite sure that I had not upped my miles significantly my friend, Mr Fred Richardson said bluntly: " You've been hammering it". And so after a bottle of red and feeling a bit remorseful I posted the pic below and the blunt retort was "the left foot is swollen".

Being aware of the signals, including a stress reaction, I was pretty sure that this was a stress fracture. General pain across the top of the foot, pain when moving, and swelling were sure signs. After a few days I was sure that I would find the "hot" spot - the fracture. Notably, with maturity beyond even my advanced years I was wise enough to stop running but I didn't stop walking around barefoot, believing implicitly that some movement created faster and more robust heeling than immobility. The thought of going for scans and x-rays crossed my mind but previously when I had spent a fortune on these interventions I had still dismissed the expensive evidence and returned to running with careless abandon. Because of this I was not prepared to waste money on medical advice I knew I would ignore.

As predicted, after a few days my pain started to become localised. But it did so in strange places as marked below:

This was confusing! There were tender spots all over my foot and these were not indicative of a stress fracture - what was the culprit - I wondered morbidly if I had two or more stress fractures! Certainly the prospect of a 1st met stress fracture was very unusual as was a fracture of the navicular or cuneiform bones in the ankle. I was dismayed. I really couldn't work out what the issue was. I also had pain around the outer/lateral ankle bone (malleolus) at the point where a few tendons wrap around it (tibialis). I was stumped in more ways than one.

After a week of no running I started extending my walks and at this point I convinced myself that if I was suffering from a stress fracture it should prove itself and turn into a proper fracture. I'd get an-x-ray and would know the prognosis. And if it was not then I'd simply carry on with impunity. I constructed my own convoluted "win win" scenario ... or so I thought.

Simultaneously I started massaging my foot with anti inflammatories and I used my thumbs fairly aggressively to pummel the hot spots, leaving me purple and bruised. During this period of self abuse it suddenly occurred to me that many foot problems emanate from the calf muscles (too tight) especially the deeper calf muscle known as the soleus. And so I worked my thumbs into my lower leg until I found the KNOT!

At the same time I started doing some stretching of both the calf and the plantar. These were very tight and I knew I had to do some deeply invasive stretching. Simply place the foot against an upright surface, with toes extended upwards and manoeuvre the knee forwards, thus stretching everything from the calf to the toes (perhaps even the glutes).

Importantly this started to yield results and after 8 or nine days since the injury occurred I ventured forth on a gentle 3km run,  then two days later on a 5 km, and then more. Now two weeks later to the day and hour, I feel back to normal and am not suffering the indignation of another obsessive "too soon too much" outburst. It was simply a little soft tissue damage. Sorted!

Feet happy again in the old Pocket Rockets. But it does confirm that a little problem can refer to a far wider area and cause a disproportionate amount of distress.

The Non-Definitive Guide to Running a Barefoot Marathon (Hint: Plan not to do this)

OK so you want to run a barefoot 42? Well, that's the first mistake. You must definitely not have this as a goal. Do not put it on the radar screen. If you profess to want to run a barefoot marathon you will start to obsess about your feet, you will fear the possible damage, and the insults, and generally your mental condition will deteriorate to the point that you will not succeed. So the first point is this. Tell yourself,  "I do not want to run a barefoot marathon", then go and run a few barefoot miles. That's the start.

I am not an expert. I have run only one barefoot marathon. That is unimportant. If you ask someone that has run 100 barefoot marathons they will give you all sorts of misleading advice. They will say it's easy, you wont take any strain, and so on. They will say these things because they have forgotten what it was like to run their first. So I am writing this before I too am sucked into the vortex of memory loss and delusion.

The first part of the plan is clear. You DON'T want to run a barefoot marathon and you must believe this implicitly. The next part is to make sure that your conviction holds true for at least 3 years or more. This can be achieved in a number of ways. Upon waking every morning you can repeat to yourself  "I do not want to run a barefoot marathon". Alternatively you can adopt a more aggressive mantra along these lines, "People that run barefoot are mentally deficient delinquents with no sense of style or occasion" (you may choose your own expletives if you please).

By now the plan should be taking shape. You have given yourself at least 3 years grace. During this time progress as quickly as possible to the thinnest most unprotective footwear you can find. And if you can't find anything in your local Nike shop then go home and fashion something out of old carpets or car mats. Do not worry about what any of the experts tell you. If you get a sore foot keep running. This may exacerbate your stress fracture turning it into a full-blown displaced fracture but this is a small and insignificant inconvenience. Remember that when the fracture heals it creates a stronger portion of the metatarsal. This is "strength" building of the highest order.

After 2 or 3 years you should be comfortably running in your minimal footwear and perhaps even doing a few barefoot miles here and there. But the bottom line remains - you do not want to run a barefoot marathon. By this stage you will know that you do not want to run a barefoot marathon because your irregular barefoot runs will be fraught with drama. You will find glass embedded in your feet, toxic thorns  (we have these around here) will sink into the soft flesh at the base of your toes and cause painful swelling. Your feet will ache at times and you will doubt your chances of full recovery. Indeed there will be moments of  such intense pain  -- when you land, full stride on unseen prism shaped stones -- that you'll be reduced to infantile tears.

But this is nothing because you know you do not want to run a barefoot marathon. However your 3 years, your holiday, your sabbatical are now coming to an end. This is the time for some stealth planning. By this I mean you need to make plans in such a way that you yourself do not fully realise the implication thereof.  Make plans that even you cannot unravel, Stealth Plans. Oblique strategy!

Firstly find an accomplice, or in my case two. Find someone to do a few longer barefoot runs with. Preferably choose someone that will ridicule your motivations because in a contrary manner this will only strengthen your resolve at a deeply subconscious level. Your brain knows you are not a barefoot runner and you secretly despise those that are, but you need to sow the seeds of a different theme in your subconscious. And the mocking from your accomplice will help. In my case I solicited a second accomplice to actually run with me on my marathon attempt. The main purpose, as I saw it, was to deflect any insults and derisive outbursts from the bling-shoe parade.

Trevor, my accomplice registering for the Cape Town Marathon

At this time you should be comfortably battling through a few barefoot runs each week. It is better to take these longer runs on the worst road surface you can locate. This will prepare you in a rather perverse manner. Do not try and run barefoot everyday. Rather run far and then switch to minimal shoes for a day or two before going barefoot again. This allows the feet to get tougher.

The next part of the Stealth Plan (remember, you are an unsuspecting participant), is to locate the marathon you don't think you should run, certainly not barefoot. The most important thing is surface condition so do not choose an event in a derelict, decaying and generally decrepit town. Another important variable is weather. Make sure the experts are not expecting a blizzard and that the early morning temperatures for the race will not cause frostbite in your lower extremities. Then do not enter it. Not until the very last moment. In my case, at the last minute, the entry cut-off was extended by a week. This was a windfall. I had a whole new week to not enter. You do not want to enter until the last moment because as soon as you pay your fee, the Stealth game is up. Whoops? Am I going to run this barefoot? Yes dude, you are! You are now trapped in your own web of deceit.

After 3-4 years of not wanting to run a barefoot marathon you will now have a week or two to evaluate your sudden change of stance. A pitiful evaluation nonetheless. These will be taper days and you will be unable to squeeze in any last minute furtive sprints around the block. But importantly that morbid dread will only corrode your stomach for the short time remaining until the race start and not a full 3 years.

Race registration

And so to the race, or rather the day before. You should be barefoot all the time, not to run, but to walk and play. Do not lie in bed and do not lie in a bath. In fact do not shower or bath before your run. Keep your feet hard. Your plans for the race should also include all sorts of escape tricks. Carry some phone numbers, some spare cash and if you can, carry some back-up footwear or have it stationed at places on the run. Running barefoot puts different stresses on your lower legs and abdomen so take some electrolytes to prevent the chance of cramping in strange places.

Now the race itself. The first thing that will strike you is that you cannot easily run amongst a big start crowd. Barefoot runners need at least 3 or 4 meters of clear road ahead so that you can see, anticipated and avoid small yet dangerous items. Move to the side of the group if you can. Besides some clear road ahead,  you will also need some leeway to the left and the right. Yes, your lurching to avoid those dangerous items means you need space. Alternatively find some people that wont mind you crashing into them as you weave erratically from time to time.

Messing around before the start

Another big difficulty is predicting your time. This is your first barefoot marathon and as such it is littered with unknowns. How fast, how far, how tired, how sore ... you don't even know if you'll finish. My suggestion is to not take a watch. It will be of little use. Your running will be mindful, as you focus intensely on each stride and foot placement. You will determine your pace through a complex algorithm incorporating feel, expected feel, surface, expected surface, heat, need for reserves, possible issues, and more. Your brain will do this for you. Not your watch.

Runners spread over a wide area. Not sure where the start is!

And on the day, if you're lucky enough, you will feel light and strong. The regular outbursts from the spectators will motivate you. "Look a barefoot runner, that's amazing!"  Your feet will connect truthfully to the ground and the contact will inspire you, each positive step followed by another. The tactile joy of sensory messages filling your brain. And your eyes will fixate on the road ahead and slowly you will escape to a separate reality of primal motion. If you're lucky enough you will lose a sense of time as you fixate on cadence, stride length and foot placement. The distance markers will pass but you will not see them as the self absorption becomes complete. Passing the halfway mark you might be lucky enough to notice that you're OK, and if nothing has gone wrong you may still have a very good run. And your focus will return to the road, that 3 meter horizon and the breathing .... always breathing.

And if you're lucky enough you may get some long hills that allow you to work a little harder, measured effort. And still more spectators, and other runners calling out "well done!" This will inspire you to move more deliberately. You will know that the long time spent conditioning both your legs and your core, your feet and the toughening of the soles, will be worthwhile. You will feel compelled to run cleverly, efficiently and as you pass those that are slowing into the final 10km you will start to move with a little more resolve and a little more passion.

And if you're really lucky you will finish with a big glow of satisfaction and exuberance. You will feel invincible and know that the skeptics are wrong. The pure delight of unhindered running will resonate in your mind as you relive the full distance.  You will probably think a little more deeply and reflect on the fact that you have now run a barefoot marathon. And once noticing that it is done you may very well decide that planning not to do this was better than no plan at all.

Trevor and I drank beer afterwards. Quite a lot.

Reluctant to move on!

T Rocket Hominid Sandal Review in Barefoot Running Magazine

Find the latest issue of Barefoot Running Magazine here:
http://issuu.com/davidrobinson0/docs/barefoot_running_magazine_issue_12_

A full independent review of T Rocket Hominid sandals on page 146.

Mindful Running

I looked at my sandals. Nothing stirred in my mind. Nothing. I wanted to run. No goal, no objective. Just run.

My sandals were unmoved. And my mental vacancy equally intransigent. There was no common ground, no meeting point. The sandals, resolute in their obstinacy and my reluctance slowly hardening into rejection.

The sandals would stay in the cupboard. I would run barefoot. My feet would be free and in some perverse fashion my sandals would be avoided, confined .... punished.

Fred had told me it is called Mindful Running. Surprisingly there is now a term to describe heightened self-awareness running. This was what I was doing and the fewer encumbrances the better.

The first few paces on the tar were cold and hard. My feet were rigid and heavy and the ground seemed to drag on every step.

Slowly on the incline a little lightness came into my stride and my limbs accepted that movement was now mandatory.

Sometimes it takes a little longer, sometimes not, but the lazy protestations of the human form eventually succumb to the rigours we impose on our bodies. Especially in the case of running.

The tar was of varying consistency. Seldom polished and often as course as a quarry pit. It was an endless game to find the ideal foot placement, an endless engagement of my mental acuity. My focus was unwavering. It was me and foot placement, leg movement, motion, caution and correction.

But every now and again the sweet-spot struck. It rose up from underfoot, the perfect connection. Flow. The sweet-spot on mother earth, a bountiful gift. This was the narcotic, the prize. The perfect placement. The flawless form. Having sensed the "opiate", I sought and fought for more.

Lightness in my stride encouraged me to lift myself up and down from the asphalt to the grainy brick sidewalks. Musical chairs. Musical feet. I looked for variation and ran a "crooked mile". It was fun. A building site sailed by, debris spilling into the road. My game was enchanting. Obstacles created feedback loops and decisions were instantly rewarded. I was awake, intuitive, prescient.

Fred had told me this is the goal. Mindful Running was responsive, sensitive and in-tune. The world had receded, my interface was one dimensional, the absorption complete. I was aware yet oblivious.

And that was the exact point I realised something was working it's way into my foot. Dammit. Not again? A shard of capricious glass? Such perfection and in a moment reduced to such hopeless incapacitation.

Hobbling to a stop I looked underfoot. My penetrating gaze revealed nothing in my foot.  But I knew it was there. Something had attacked me. My David. Mindfulness turned to irritation and tetchiness. Later, at home, after some mindful minor surgery I removed the stubborn glass chip from my foot and thought I'd best find some cheap food after a quick shower.

Driving to the local KFC I was struck by the contradictions. Only a few minutes had passed since I was in Mindful Running nirvana. Only a few minutes earlier I was light-years from the commercial pursuits of our daily desperate gyrations, and now I was back in the fray. Only a few minutes earlier I had levitated across the overbuilt urbanscape. A Goliath in earlier stature and now in virtual supine subservience I clutched the simian steeringwheel. Cars, traffic, fast food, toxins, obsession, disregard, and bad radio. And so the iPod. Another contradiction. So nice. So demeaning. Mark Knopfler was in there singing ..... "can't get no antidote for blues". Can't get no antidote for .... shoes, I thought.

And then Golden Earring, Forty Five Miles. Perhaps forever.

My reflections were mindful, my reality still separate. The contrasts and contradictions were overwhelming and terrifying.

Everything needed was undesirable. Everything desirable was unneeded. Every forced action forced an unfortunate consequence. I couldn't play the game differently.

The food was not right. The car was too much, the waste overbearing, the consumption vulgar, the noise intense and the untruth ... well, the untruth is frightening. I was in it and part of it.

I thought of my next Mindful run, knowing that it needed to be very soon. And knowing that Fred, was right.

Ascetic

That in the end
I may find
Something not sold for a penny
In the slums of Mind.

That I may break
With these hands
The bread of wisdom that grows
In the other lands.

For this, for this
Do I wear
The rags of hunger and climb
The unending stair.

-Patrick Kavanagh

Copyright © Estate of Katherine Kavanagh

Extracts from the Barefoot/Minimalist Shoe Survey 2014

Barefoot/Minimalist Shoe Survey 2014: Highlights

In this summary I have documented a few aspects of the survey above that I thought are interesting. This is a personal extraction and others may not find the same highlights noteworthy. I also generally refrain from making a comment on the highlights I find interesting – I merely state them. The sample of the survey is said to include barefoot/minimalist footwear enthusiasts.

1.      Females with a minimalist interest tend to be a little younger than males even though males outnumber females 3 to 1.

2.      Footwear type used most often is highest for barefoot (higher than I would have thought!). Sandals as a category (flipflops and sandals) comes in at 12%.

3.      Years going barefoot. Notable polarisation here with many in the “more than 20 years” group as well as a very big representation for the “less than 3 years” group at 33%. This suggests the activity will grow if this trend is maintained.

  

4.      Interestingly those that prefer barefoot, sandals or flipflops tend to have the same propensity for running (approx. 45%- 55%) while those that prefer going barefoot are more likely to also hike and walk barefoot. (I looked at running, hiking, walking.)

  

5.      Women were more likely to “never” go barefoot compared to men. When going barefoot women also tended to do so for less time than men. Women more so than men see the “ground/surface” as a problem when barefooting.

6.      Main reason for barefooting. Notably high representation of “medical” reasons. Are previous injuries and ailments a factor?

    

7.      Benefits of going barefoot. Notably high proportion saying “happier” as well as a few saying “sexy”. Thus for this group of people there are clear emotional benefits.

8.      32% said they’d “never” worn minimalist shoes. This is strange. Presumably these are dedicated barefooters but one would expect them to wear minimalist shoes if and when they do wear shoes. 

9.       Cost of minimalist shoes is a problem for over 15% and is second only to “fit or comfort” 17%.

10.   Men are more likely to consider themselves (in rank order) Normal, Nature lover, Athletic, Eccentric, Artistic while for women the self-assessment is Normal, Nature lover, Artistic and Eccentric. (Athletic is thus the male differentiator).

11.   Other findings from the survey are largely self-explanatory and do not warrant further comment.

Survivorship Bias: Are running injuries far more prevalent and damaging than we realise?

Of all the medical research papers that I have perused over time it would appear that the consensus view of running injuries is that every runner is injured at least once, possibly twice, every year. This figure varies depending on the paper you read.

But it struck me that all of these investigations into running injuries were conducted amongst those actually claiming to run, even if temporarily injured. This indeed is the first possible hint that we may be dealing with a “survivorship bias”,  a bias in the sampling that could seriously distort our understanding of the true incidence of running injuries.

So what is a survivorship bias, you may ask? The Wikipedia definition is:  

Survivorship bias is the logical error of concentrating on the people or things that "survived" some process and inadvertently overlooking those that did not because of their lack of visibility. This can lead to false conclusions in several different ways. Survivorship bias can lead to overly optimistic beliefs because failures are ignored, such as when companies that no longer exist are excluded from analyses of financial performance. It can also lead to the false belief that the successes in a group have some special property, rather than just coincidence.

The research of running injuries typically looks only at those currently running (even if they're temporarily side-lined with injury).  These are the "survivors". We need to ask about those that have given up. A true reflection of running injuries therefore should include an analysis of past runners - those that used to run. It should not be limited to the survivors that are "active" runners.

Let me take this hypothesis one step further. Below is a very interesting chart showing the cumulative number of Comrades runners (finishers and non-finishers) over the period 1984-2013. The number of subjects is very large making the data set fairly robust. At first glance a couple of very interesting observations arise from this chart. 1) At the age of 40 there is a sharp decline in Comrades runners. 2) The proportion of non-finishers appears to increase after the age of 40 and especially in the 45+ group where they account for about a third, or more, of starters. 

My first impression when I saw this chart was that it reveals the possibility of a “survivorship bias” in much of the running injury research I had read. My reason for this observation is that the drop-off in numbers after the age of 40 is very sharp and somewhat unexpected. One would expect this drop-off to be more gradual and perhaps closer to the blue line I have inserted in the chart. This raises the question: “Why were these runners quitting Comrades?”.  Of course there could be a thousand reasons but the obvious possibility is that they are injured. And my anecdotal experience would suggest that this is a distinct likelihood.

OK. So there are a lot of long distance runners that stop running. In this instance they stop running Comrades and they do this around the age of 40 and we suspect injury is a factor. So what? What does this imply, if anything?

Well it changes everything. It means that any injury research amongst runners, and especially those over 40, should look not only at runners but also at runners that have quit running. This is the survivorship bias we know about. When assessing the incidence and nature of running injuries I believe that we will uncover significantly different results if the samples of observations include the group we could call “lapsed runners”. My belief is that we could expect the rate of injury to be much higher than currently revealed because we focus only on survivors at present. The “survivors” that are still running and volunteering for medical research are far less likely to be injured than those that have quit.

As a counterpoint you may well posit that my hypothesis about quitters, injuries and survivors is a mere rumination and has no empirical foundation. And yes, you may be right. But my anecdotal experience tells me otherwise. I constantly meet people that “used to run” but due to deteriorating knees, hips, ankles and other damaged impact zones have given up. They quit running. They give up because it’s too painful to run or because they simply can’t run at all. Often their running demise is passed off glibly (and incorrectly) as “old age”.

The survivorship bias in the research and understanding of running injuries leads me to my next point, another hypothesis. It is that traditional running shoes as we know (heels, anti pronation, toe lift, etc) are far more dangerous than we assume. And it is these self-same shoes that tend to be one of the "constants" across this group of lapsed runners more so than running style, training habits and so on. My belief is that over-built running shoes can give a wonderful temporary illusion of prowess. They are hugely seductive at both a brand and tactile experiential level. But the key is that this “veneer” of prowess is temporary. Running shoes may enhance athletic appearance in the short term but in the longer term the insidious, gradual, granular and cumulative damage will eventually reduce many runners to non-runners. Based simply on the aforegoing data I would suggest that running shoes are pretty certain to limit your happy running years. It seems like 10-15 years may be a reasonable interval of active running after which the chances of being side-lined are greater than the chance of continuing to run. And so I believe that running shoes are not only highly likely to injure you but that this will manifest most strongly only after an extended period of time. And this simply makes it so much easier for the aging injured runners to pass off their dilemma to some other spurious cause … such as “getting old”!

It is because of the long term gradual deleterious effect of traditional running shoes (call it slow poison) and a survivorship bias that our current medical research fails to deliver good reliable information. In turn we merely perpetuate damaging choices and behaviour.

That is my comment on survivorship bias and running injuries. I have no empirical evidence and I have conducted no statistically significant research. But I do recognise a flaw in data and research methodology when I see it, and I do know what runners and ex runners say when I talk to them.

Minimalist Misadventures: Chapter 2

It all started more than a year before the Foot of Africa Marathon when I bought a pair of Nike Free Run's. These shoes looked quite cool and I was impressed by their light weight. I had read some articles about a new trend involving lighter more elegant running shoes and I thought these might be the weapon of choice to kick start my otherwise dormant running programme. I had not been actively running for several years which in itself was not too unusual for me. Over a twenty six year road running history there were many times that I had taken a sabbatical for a year or two or three. During these off times I had explored the merits of flyfishing and motorcycling, but running always seemed to draw me back at some point and I would get going once again.  

The past few years however had been different. I wasn't running largely because I couldn't run. Well, I couldn't run for more than about 45 minutes, after which spasms and pain in my rear-end and hamstrings reduced me to a cripple. I had done the Google searches and the physio visits and after some temporary relief they all left me exactly where I had started before the intervention and the expense. My feeling was that age had finally caught up with me and I would not do much running in the years ahead which would soon see me turning fifty. The information at my disposal was that I possibly had a piriformis problem or a sciatic problem or in the opinion of one physiotherapist, my one leg was now suddenly shorter than the other. In any event the only real solution seemed to lie in a stretching routine and so I set about on an excruciating daily stretching programme. But every morning I was still afflicted with tension which was clearly worse than before. Stretching only seemed to add to my distress so I eventually gave up both stretching and running. 

And then I was drawn to the Nike Free Runs. With visions of renewed vigour I once again set about trying to develop some running fitness. It wasn't very inspiring and I thought I was getting stronger until I got to enter a half marathon which ended in the usual muscle spasms and walking. Even these new shoes were powerless against the vagaries of age, I thought. Some people kept on running forever but not me, I was one of the unlucky ones. My six foot frame which was never really suited to endurance running had caught up with me, as had several broken bones, including two vertebrae and a leg, from some motorbike mishaps. I would grow old fly-fishing. That was it. 

Who knows why I then spent time searching for information about running shoes but I did. I had already given my almost new Nike Free Runs to the gardener and I was developing a grudge against the retailers and big brand advertisers that promised so much and delivered so little at such exorbitant cost. Whatever they promised had not come my way. Yet for a strange reason, that to this day I cannot identify, I kept believing there must be a better way to run, a better way, that is, for me to run. And so late one night in December, after I had been trawling through countless internet sites looking for something that I didn't know existed, I found the Bite Xtension running sandal. This was incredible. A running sandal! Just the pictures of it excited me and I felt like I was living through a Eureka moment. I ran to my wife and loudly proclaimed "Why don't we run in sandals, who needs shoes?" It seemed so obvious to me and so compelling. 

And thus, the discovery process began. It wasn't really about Bite Xtension sandals which indeed are probably not that good. It was more about the art of running naturally. It was only a few days later and a few days before Christmas while standing in a queue at a bookstore, that I spotted a book called ‘The Complete Idiots Guide to Barefoot Running’. It struck me that this book was for COMPLETE idiots rather than being the COMPLETE guide for idiots. The insinuation was obvious. This book was on the rack for discounted items but even I knew that by picking it up I had relegated myself to the ranks of complete idiocy. But it was cheap and I bought it.

The Complete Idiots Guide to Barefoot Running is very easy to read and I was instantly drawn to the theory of lower impact midfoot striking, higher cadence and footstrikes under the centre of body mass. It just made sense to me and it all seemed so logical. The key to all of this was that man was made to run in shoes that were flat, or preferably no shoes at all. Raised heels were the enemy and we needed to rail against this unnecessary elevation that forced a most unnatural gait. Now that I had a little bit of information (which we all know marks the peak of danger) I was back on the Google machine looking for the next important step in my new pursuit. I was going to find some running sandals and buy them.

But this never happened. Instead I came across Steven Sashen's Invisible Shoe website which explained how to make your own minimalist running sandals. This sandal was in the spirit of footwear used by a tribe of Indians whose name I couldn't master .... Tara or Mara or something. The Complete Idiots Guide had given me what I needed to know and now Steven Sashen was showing me how to do it. I don't know why I was so fired up but I was. The information was so entrancing and I was dumbstruck by the prospect that not only had I been wrong for more than two decades but the whole world of runners was also wrong. We all did it wrong! 

The Invisible Shoe sandal is basically something along the lines of the Tarahumara Indian huarache, huarache being their home-styled sandals. At the time I knew nothing of this Indian tribe and I didn't bother about it too much because I was rushing off to the local hardware store to buy some rubber car mats and different types of string, rope or twine. I was going to make sandals. Back at home in the hot December afternoon I traced the outlines of my feet onto pieces of paper, transferred these to the rubber mats and cut out what was soon to be my first pair of running sandals. I made the necessary holes, threaded and looped the cord, and tied the flimsy things to my feet. The looping and knotting of the one-piece lace turned out be fairly simple but the final knot itself was not very secure. Would it hold, I wondered?  A short while later I opened the garden gate and burst upon the empty road in the setting sunlight. I felt heroic. This was going to be my running renaissance. 

The first few strides were very strange. It was a true sensory overload. I could feel everything in my feet and I felt distinctly closer to mother earth. Every sense of mine was heightened; my sight, my sense of smell and my hearing were all enhanced. I was much closer to the world around me. And I got even closer when my newly crafted huaraches disintegrated about five minutes into their inaugural outing. I looked down to see what had happened. The pathetic car mats had torn like pieces of old newspaper and were flapping like freshly caught fish. It was pointless. I gathered up the debris and walked home barefoot trying to look as though I always walked around half naked. I felt so undressed.

This was not going to be as easy as it seemed and perhaps because of this I became increasingly resolute that if I was going to run in footwear, I was going to make that damn footwear myself. I had read the Complete Idiots Guide and although the author, Dr Craig Richards, was promoting barefoot running in his book I was wise enough to reason that for me, barefooting was a bridge too far. I would go thin, I would go minimal but I was not ready to run around barefoot. But my immediate problem was that I had nothing minimal to run in and it was clear that the car mat concept was not up to the task. Of course I was still very far from realising that my body, and especially my feet, were light years away from the rigours of the task but naiveté is a glorious deception.

The time was December and I was on holiday. The days in Johannesburg at that time of the year are long and warm with frequent thunderstorms that turn the neighbourhoods into a shady labyrinth under the beautiful green canopy. They say Johannesburg is the worlds largest man-made forest and they are probably right, especially around where I live. The season and my relaxed mood were conducive to experimentation so the first mishap with car mats was not a significant set-back, I would simply get out there and find something better. But days turned to weeks and I wasn't really getting anywhere. 

My searches had led me to leather and I spent a lot of time trying to cut, glue and generally manhandle pieces of hide, some as thick as 6 millimetres. I had also given up on the huarache lacing system which always resulted in sandal movement on my feet. Was it the way I ran? Was it the shape of my feet? I was not sure and it didn't really matter because I was going to do something different.

The huarache sandal uses one long lace that starts underfoot between the big and first toes, and then, simply put, goes right around the foot including the heel while crossing underneath the sole twice, on either side of the ankle. It finishes back up on the top of the foot where it is finally secured to itself. Tensioning one lace that goes right around the foot and underneath the sole twice, is more than a nightmare and for me it was impossible. I accepted defeat.

After a couple of months I decided to relegate the huarache lacing system to the trash heap and I gladly embraced some features of modernity including Velcro, elastic and metal eyelets. My lacing system mimicked the huarache style, was more labour intensive to set up, but worked pretty well once everything was in place. Most importantly however, my foot stayed planted on top of the sole and didn't inch inexorably sideways.

During February, which was in retrospect my Leather Period, I and my family went away for several days to a small village in the highlands a few hundred kilometres from Johannesburg. It was Dullstroom, a well-known fly fishers haven which also happened to be the thing I was going to do a lot of while there. Not only was I going to fish as much as I could but I was going to walk around, uninterruptedly, in my newly crafted leather sandals. The soles of these sandals were made of such thick and rigid leather that I had spent hours punching small perforations in them to try and gain some flexibility. I was not sure if I would ever be able to run in these hard, inflexible, leather things but I was going to try, and getting them soft and supple was what I needed to do first. So I walked and fished and walked and fished until one day I was fishing a few kilometres from our house when a large thunderstorm broke around me. This was not the time to hang around with a nice antenna-like fishing rod attached to my body. Lightning was striking capriciously and worryingly close, while rain was pelting down in buckets. 

I set off running down the muddy single-track track, later becoming a farm road but equally submerged and sloshy. I trotted back to the house and quickly removed my precious sandals to clean them. All the little holes I had made in the soles were full of mud and small stones and I used a big abrasive brush to do some deep scouring in hot water. I brushed and scrubbed and brushed and scrubbed. And as I brushed and scrubbed I watched the leather delaminate from the rubber portion on top of the soles, the so-called footbed. My sandals fell apart, literally in my hands. I felt trapped ... what could be happening? My handiwork was coming to nought. And then I realised I was washing these sandals in hot water and the glues I had used were dissolving in the heat. My sandals were toast. The next day I put the leather pieces out to dry and later when I retrieved them I found that not only had they dried nicely, and were crisp like big cornflakes, but they had shrunk too making them useful only to a midget. I looked for the dustbin. And that marked the end of my Leather Period. It was not so much the glue problem that ended my Leather Period but the realisation that leather and water do not mix. Making a "fair weather only" sandal would not work.

Despondency set in once I returned home. My sandal exploits were pretty futile and I was miserable. I had not yet made it public, but at that point I had a booking to hike down the Fish River Canyon in Namibia a few months ahead and I was secretly harbouring the prospect of walking in self-made sandals …. now my private ambitions were in shreds. As for running, I wasn't doing much of that either. What would I wear on my feet? I really wanted to try and run in sandals but my regular visits to footwear stores left me dejected and disillusioned. Everything had a heel and most “athletic” footwear was just too big and clunky. But then a marvellous thing happened. I found an EVA foam supplier in the south of Johannesburg.

EVA foam is a synthetic rubber-type product much like that used in soles of regular running shoes. It has similar characteristics to the more widely used polyurethane soles and is also used extensively in the footwear industry. My new EVA supplier could provide me with sheets of this stuff in thicknesses varying from 3mm to 15mm. When I went to their warehouse I was like a kid let loose in a candy store. The sheets of EVA foam were stacked everywhere and I kept staring at them. There was so much of it as well as other products like 2mm rubber outersoles of various tread patterns. It made me think of the Phillips rubber we used to put on our leather soled shoes when I was young. This was exactly what I had been looking for during the past few months. I gathered as many sheets of various thickness that I could carry, and rushed home to get busy with my cutting knife. And did I cut! This was my Cut and Glue Period. I made sandals at night. I made sandals in the day. I made sandals over weekends. I made sandals while I lay in bed at night. I made sandals at the dinner table. I made sandals in my office. I didn't stop. I was incorrigible.  

Most importantly at this point I was able to make a sandal that I could actually run in. They were not very good in retrospect, but at the time I thought I was forging a new path in the evolution of footwear. With a surfeit of EVA material at my fingertips I was able to make sandals with varying sole thickness and although I was running very short distances I could choose from a range of options. I could pontificate whether it would be a 3mm day or a 5mm day or perhaps an 8mm day. My running started becoming a daily event as a new routine manifested itself. I was now running in sandals as I entered my peak Cut and Glue period. 

Minimalist Misadventures

We had travelled by bus in the early morning to this point in the middle of nowhere. The sky was dark but the first signs of morning light were appearing over the horizon. The air was clear after several days of heavy rain but again the clouds were building on the horizon and I had no idea whether the day ahead would be clear or rainy. It was the Cape after all, anything was possible.

Several buses offloaded the few hundred runners that huddled around in the half light, some drinking cheap coffee provided by the organiser. We were in the middle of a very large valley and the evidence of the heavy rains of the past week was clear to see. The famed Cape fynbos was wet and the gravel shoulders of the narrow tar road were alternately stony mud and deep puddles. I looked at my watch. It was about half an hour before the 6 am start of the run. This was a standard marathon that included a run on unpaved farm roads, a single track mountain crossing and return, on tar, to our original town of departure, Bredasdorp. It was truly a mixed run and a hard one. 

The buses were used to take runners 12 kilometers out of the town of Bredasdorp to a featureless point on an unnamed and desolate road so as to keep the route to a standard 42 kilometres. My friend Trevor had suggested the night before that instead of the austere and cold bus we simply ran the 12 kilometres to the start point, thus turning our race into the first ever Foot of Africa Ultra! This proposal was not embraced with fondness by Mike and I.

Mike is my brother-in-law and much like myself, he had seen his running endeavours diminish over the previous few years and together we had agreed to run this marathon in a valiant effort to turn around our looming physical dilapidation.  So there were the three of us .... waiting .... with all the others.

The area immediately around us was pretty flat but a little further out mountains arose on all sides. I wondered where we would be running. The buses had stopped at the intersection with a small gravel road that on the left hand side was nothing more than twin tracks through the scrub. To the right the gravel road was a little bigger and headed away from us on the tar at an oblique angle. The morning was getting lighter but it was not readily evident because the clouds in the west had surreptitiously moved overhead and the last of the morning stars were now lost behind low-hanging heavy clouds. Although it wasn't light it wasn't dark either, a kind of no man's land in time. The humidity was high and it was difficult to work out if it was actually cold or not. Cold is something I do not appreciate but after some cursory deliberation I decided it was not actually cold, just a damp illusion of cold.

  

And then it started to rain lightly. What the .....! This was not supposed to happen. Despite the recent flood-like rains the worlds finest weather forecasters had predicted that at 6 am on the Saturday morning of the race, the sun would shine and it would only start raining again at the exact point I finished running. That's what they said and I believed it. Now I was getting wet in the drizzle. I looked down at my new Newton shoes. Bright red and so clean. And then I looked around and pondered all the mud that lay between me and the finish. This didn't add up to "happiness" and it also was not part of the Plan.

Clutched in my hand was a cloth bag housing my running sandals, thin hard sandals that I had made a month earlier. This little bag contained the "Plan". Both Mike and Trevor knew that I wanted to run this marathon in minimalist sandals but they also knew that if conditions were not right I would simply stick to traditional running shoes. And rain was a condition that I considered "not right".  So here I was caught between a cloud and pool of mud. The time was about 5:45am and I knew I had to make a decision fast. I looked across the road at the tog bag truck which was quickly filling up as runners dumped their superfluous clothing and other accoutrements. This truck would take all the kit to the finish and it was going to take my running shoes or my running sandals. 

Runners were starting to move a short way down the road to a point where the race would officially start. I looked around for Trevor but he had disappeared. He had recently struggled with some foot injuries and had his own demons to deal with. That's when I saw the barefoot runner. And then another runner in Vibram Five Fingers. Suddenly it seemed like this place was overrun with minimalist runners. What an insult!  Not only did I have company but I had moronic competition too. Barefoot! Across these mountains. I looked again at the barefoot bloke. No, he must be a farm kid. Or maybe he didn't have a frontal lobe. Something was amiss. Secretly I had always been quite proud of my sandals but now in the company of these fringe runners I was merely an "also ran". Just another "wannabee". My dejection must have been palpable as Mike turned to me and said "just do it, put them on".

"Should I?" I asked.

"Just do it" he said again. And in an instant I knew the rain was nothing and I knew it would never be cold and I also knew my sandals were more than the task ahead, so I quickly and inauspiciously put them on, walked over to the tog bag truck and tossed my indolent Newtons into the back.

I was ready to go and my sandals felt great. They were well worn and if nothing else they were much lighter than any conventional running footwear. We followed the other runners and grouped at a point on the road even though it was still not clear which way we would start running. I didn't care. I could run anywhere. Fortunately the light rain was really light and I thought that it may be possible that it did not turn into anything worse. Finally a gunshot went off and runners started to move. Trevor, Mike and I bade our farewells and set off. This would be my first marathon in my homemade sandals.

The Foot of Africa Marathon is a truly wonderful event. It is run in the countryside around Bredasdorp in South Africa not far from Cape Agulhas which is the southern most tip of Africa. The run itself is both a road race and a cross country race as it traverses a mountain range, and because of this it is considered quite tough. I had run this race some time earlier and when perusing my running record I found that it was a full 20 years earlier. Any memories of the run were therefore somewhat unreliable and indeed more-so because they had changed the route over the years.

Earlier in the year I had approached Mike with the idea of running this race which he readily agreed to, and then, because more was merrier, I looked up my first ever running mate, Trevor, and propositioned him too. While Mike and I lived in Johannesburg Trevor lived in Cape Town where he and I together had taken up running 26 years earlier. Trevor, in his spare time builds rockets and he sent me emails of some big things shooting up into the sky. I was impressed and to cap him I said that although I couldn't build a rocket I would modify my running sandal design and build a new one for the Foot of Africa Marathon, and with middle-class grandiosity I would call it the T. Rocket. And so we had a Plan and some Rockets.

Now we were running the Foot. There were no distance markers and I was struggling to work out my pace. It didn't really matter because whatever my pace, it was too fast. I hadn't run a marathon in 6 years and I knew that the tough course ahead was going to test me. For the first few kilometers things were fine and I was pleased that my sandals felt better than I could have imagined. I was quite exuberant and even managed to chat to a couple of other runners that expressed interest in my footwear, my T. Rockets. We were running on farm roads that were very stony at times and always very undulating. The long uphills were gentle but long, and the short downhills were mostly a bit sharper but always shorter than the uphills, and so we gradually gained height rising above the valley floor. The weather was pretty good for running. A few drops of rain came down but it never caused a problem and after an hour or so things got drier. The temperature was also fairly mild for a while. Finally a distance marker at the 10 kilometer point showed that I was indeed probably running a bit faster than I should and my thoughts of slowing down got serious impetus when we suddenly came upon a tape across the road. This was the end of the fun run. We were directed off the road onto a barely discernible track that led literally straight up the mountainside to our right. 

This track was nothing more than a small watercourse with the run-off of the previous weeks' rain streaming down the sandy channel. The water was dark and brackish contrasting strongly against the whitish sand underfoot. This sand was nothing more than sea sand and so the going got tough in the soft wet riverine furrow. One had to run in straddle mode with feet on either side of the burbling sprite. I was scared of slipping and vainly crimped up my toes hoping to grip the sides of the waterlogged trench. Somehow it worked and slowly we gained altitude finally exiting the rut onto a vague jeep track higher up the mountain. We were getting close to the top and the views around us were widening beyond the 180 degree point. Beauty was everywhere and my gaze back south searched for the hidden tip of Africa but the air was still a little hazy with cloud and mist. But this too began to break up as we headed northward across the top of the mountain range.

Running over the top of the mountain was exquisite as we were far from civilisation and the vistas were now a full 360 degree extravagance. The Cape fynbos, renowned for its beauty was in full splendour and the air was, as they say, like champagne. We passed the halfway mark somewhere near the highest point of the run and I was mildly ecstatic.

Then the downhill running started. I think it was about 5 kilometres of downhill running. Down, down, down to a small hamlet called Napier. Five kilometres that crushed my mild ecstasy.  Running in thin uncushioned flat shoes is pretty different to big well sprung traditional running shoes. This difference is noticeable at all times but none so much as running downhill. In fact the difference when running downhill is not only about the shoe it is also about the way we run. It was for me, as I discovered with each painful meter of descent, inordinately hard.

My running pace down the mountain was probably slower than my earlier pace up the other side. I tried to save what ever was worth saving in my legs but I wasn't sure what would be left if I ever got back onto level ground. My watch didn't help much is it no longer served the purpose of timekeeping it was a mere mocking device that showed the extent of the ever growing lapsed time. Things around me seemed to remain the same, I was going nowhere, but the time was always advancing. We eventually ran through Napier which is a very pretty place but to me, at the time, it was one big bad rollercoaster ride. The hills in Napier are ridiculous for such a small village and I wondered why on earth they had populated a place where going to the village centre was akin to a mountain expedition.  And then, after the final desperate descent at the periphery, this village spews you out like a spent husk with only the big tar road back to Bredasdorp remaining.

That is when my feet started to reject me. My unsupporting sandals, the unforgiving soles, no longer felt quite as funky as they had earlier. I wondered about the barefoot runner. The farm roads and mountain path were both a lot softer than this tar. My feet also now had about 35 kilometers in them as well as one big mountain crossing. It just made things worse. I could prove all of this because my arches were collapsing, my toes were straining, and a mild tension was building up in my achilles tendons.

Running back to Bredasdorp was not easy. And it was not much fun other than the farm labourer that yelled out "Haai Meneer, hou met die plakkies!" The sun had come out. It was hot. The road was always going up, or so it seemed and there was a fair amount of heavy duty traffic.  Sometimes the gusts of air turbulence from passing trucks would knock me sideways. But slowly, very slowly I inched closer to Bredasdorp, finally entering the town together with a burst of happy Saturday shopper traffic, and of course another hill.

This was the hill that 20 years earlier had reduced me with cramps and spoilt my chances of a silver medal by a mere minute or so. And as I crested this hill and lengthened my stride for the last kilometer to the finish I was struck down with cramps yet again. They say lightning never strikes the same place twice yet this ominous sign proved otherwise. My hamstrings were cramped badly and I hopped around knowing instantly that there was no easy way out of this predicament. The finish line was about 1500 meters away and it could now take a long, long time to get there. My watched laughed at me ..... again.

But get there I did, and feigning some casual strength I accelerated across the last muddy field before entering the finish arena. And so ended my first minimal sandal marathon.

I never again saw the barefoot runner after about 5 kilometres into the race and I never saw the Vibram Five Fingers runner other than at the start. After finishing I collected my bag filled with vivid red Newtons and slowly walked back to my hotel which incidentally meant following the last 1500m of the race route. I knew that I was OK. The walk back helped. Everything was fine. Tomorrow would harbour some aches and pains but nothing more. As I was walking in tired contemplation, another runner, still running to the finish, called out to her mate alongside her, "There he is, there he is. There's the runner in sandals!"  As she passed me she asked "Did you run all the way in those sandals?" and I shouted back "Yes, yes I did".