I'd alway been prone to avoiding shoes. I started running when I was 16 (1986). During high school I'd run 10-14 miles a night about five days a week, mostly barefoot.
I didn't start regularly wearing shoes until after college. Since I started wearing shoes there has been a significant change in my foot structure. My big toes have moved outward by at least 10 degrees. Before then they were directly in-line with the bones and ligaments running down the foot.
When you walk and run barefoot your foot soles get much thicker. You learn how to respond to your feet. I tend to not get splinters or glass slivers because I can feel them before I put my full weight down. Even when something does pierce the skin, it doesn't penetrate the sole, and I can just pick up my foot and grab it out with my fingers.
One of the most interesting benefits seems to be resistance to fungal infections. If I ever start to feel itching in my feet, then I go for a long walk barefoot on concrete. It just ends.
For a couple of years, there was this barefoot guy who commuted on the same train as me to work. No matter the season, always barefoot. I must say, purely from a hygiene perspective, it felt uncomfortable looking at his feet. They were dirty and dusty in the same way shoes would pick up dirt.
What do your feet look like today ? Honest question.
I agree it shocks at first, but shoes are even dirtier as people don't wash them daily as they would with their feet.
That's one of the reasons why you generally don't go to bed with shoes on (and why most people take off their shoes when coming home). If you don't use shoes however, I guess you probably have to wash your feet when you come home?
That's exactly why folks remove shoes at the door when going in. I find it strange when people do not do this because they are tracking in whatever they may have stepped in throughout the day. Just pop your shoes off at the entrance and throw on some house slippers or shoes.
yes, but you probably also won't wash your feet several times a day going in / out?
I lived in Java, Indonesia for a year and ran barefoot, and only wore sandals to the mosque. You wash your feet 5x per day for the 5 daily obligatory prayers, so it works out well. An earlier post here about a person barefoot in all seasons and on the subway train, well, that's another story. I grew up in Brooklyn in the 60s through the 80s, and I can't see that at all. But then again, NYC is a lot cleaner now than it was then. My foot spread out and feels so much more usable to grab at the trail and less stiff without pain. I started running barefoot in 2007, but not as frequent or as long as a competitive runner would; it was more of a 30-minute run 3 to 4x per week at a mild pace . I'm 60 now and have no back, knee, foot or other joint pain or soft tissue issues. I did run on the front of my feet, and with a bicycle pedalling type of motion of my feet. Now, I wear Xeros and a cheap rip-off of the Vibram minimal sole shoes for my daily town/city walking and running.
I once saw someone walking around barefoot in Hell's Kitchen.
"That's a dumb idea," I said to myself.
Minutes later, I saw them walking out of a bodega, using a handful of napkins to staunch the blood coming out of their foot.
Yuck. We used to put the sprinkler cap on the johnny pump (Brooklyn for fire hydrant back then) and run on the curb and into the street with bare feet. In the early 70s there was a lot of dog crap and broken glass, since beverages were in glass or heavy cans vs. plastic. I sliced my feet on glass a half dozen times over the years. Lucky I didn't get hepatitis or other nasty stuff. I do have a very robust immunity system though ;)
That seems like a more reasonable thing to do, though I think as a parent, I'd have probably swept the area up a bit...
In the summer in the inner city of Brooklyn, you would be sweeping all day, everyday. NYC was a cesspool in the 70s. Newpapers blowing around, overfilled trash receptacles, insufficient street cleaning, and the public's general lack of respect for their fellow denizens. Homicides were at 1890 in 1989 in NYC compared to <400 nowadays and the population was a lot smaller then.
You do. Most barefoot folk I know thoroughly scrub their feet first thing when they get home in the evening.
To save people having to scrub their feet, I'm going to patent something they can wrap around their feet while outside and remove when they get home.
Maybe also invent a sort of layer of soft cloth they can put between the hard outer layer and their skin.
There was a dude in my old Queens NYC neighborhood who was a local fixture. His job was distributing flyers, you'd see him walking along the business districts in and out of stores placing his flyers. Didn't matter what time of year it was, he wore the same outfit almost every day: wind breaker, tee shirt or tank top, short shorts, and bare foot. Dude even took the A train bare foot - something I would never do.
I’m more worried about stepping on something sharp.
I try to go barefoot as often as I can, and my bigger concern in crowds is getting my feet stepped on.
Paradoxically, I am very paranoid about injuring my toes - so walking around doesn't concern me (at worst, I'll step on something pointy and will need a bandaid), but losing another toenail because someone kicks me with a hard shoe is something I dread.
Also: I would absolutely never, ever go barefoot in a big city, which is defined by being big enough to have a train. Stepping on a sharp rock or thorn is one thing; stepping on someone's broken beer bottle and then hiking through all the wonderful fluids that cities accumulate sounds like a nightmare and a free trip to the hospital to get pumped full of every antibiotic known to humanity.
"I tend to not get splinters or glass slivers because I can feel them before I put my full weight down."
This makes sense at a slow gait, but how do you manage this when running?
As you’re running, your foot lands, you put your weight down on it, then you push off. If you step on something sharp when running barefoot, you can’t avoid the first part, but you can avoid putting all your weight on it or pushing off hard. Basically just a little skip. You’re not going to be able to do much at a full sprint, but it’s fine for anything less.
Thank you. Still, if I did this, I think I would bring along a first aid kit and backup footwear.
The nice thing about living on the beach is that it's socially acceptable to be barefoot at all times since you're walking on dirt roads or sand.
The only time I put them on is when I go into the supermart or airport.
Your soles thicken up so much that you forget how puny they are normally. So I'll accidentally lead friends through some stretch of area and they can't follow because of the hot sand or sharp sea shells, and the discomfort is very mild for me.
It's kinda sad going from that back to the city where your feet never touch the ground.