About

andrew-vacation

My name is Andrew Cox and this site is the chronicle of my attempt to break 5:00 in the mile barefoot.

I’m 30 years old and am a former high school runner (with a brief foray into collegiate running). I’ve run under 5:00 before, but not since I was 18. I want to prove to myself that I can still train and run fast. I thought it would also be a fun challenge to do so using the barefoot running style.

I ran almost 4 years in high school without an injury, but after increasing my mileage in college (and logging most of those miles on concrete), I developed a chronic hip injury. Years later, while training for a half marathon, I found “Cho-Pat” straps to be effective at mitigating my knee pain when running higher mileage. A few years ago, I read about barefoot running.

Barefoot Running asserts that feet are, in fact, perfectly designed for running … and that the current state of the shoe industry is setting us up for all of those chronic running injuries that any runner who has logged a significant amount of miles is probably familiar with (plantar fasciitis, runner’s knee, shin splints, etc). When you run barefoot, you are forced to land on your forefoot and use your entire leg as your shock absorber. This is in contrast to the conventional wisdom which says that you should land on your heel and rely on the cushioning of your running shoes to protect you from the impact.

Although I’ve been interested in barefoot running for a few years now (and have attempted to change my form to be more inline with the barefoot running style), I haven’t trained seriously while actually barefoot. After reading Born to Run by Christopher McDougall, I was finally motivated to get out there and give this crazy barefoot running theory a shot. After all, I can’t keep telling people that the “right” way to run is barefoot if I don’t actually put the theory into practice, right?

I wanted to start this blog for a few reasons:

  • To spread the word about barefoot running.
  • To challenge myself to stick with my goal.
  • To inspire others to get into some serious running shape.

I’m just beginning my journey learning about barefoot running and it’s been a long time since I’ve trained seriously, so this should be a good learning experience!