One Bare Foot to Another at the Barefoot Runners Society

If you are the only barefoot runner in town, you don’t want to add to the stigma by talking to yourself all the time.  🙂  Even the least verbal people seem to have a desire to talk about their passionate pursuits, but a group-of-one doesn’t work.  Books are great to get started; motivation has to have life in your inner core; however, conversation with fellow enthusiasts brings insight and energy to a new level.  That is why I ventured to join The Barefoot Runners Society, my first ever online forum.

I proceeded cautiously, my knowledge of forums coming mostly from news reports of stalkers. I tried a couple of different websites in the beginning, but found this one to be the best combination of friendly and responsive.  By friendly, I mean the active members and moderators extend a warm welcome and make me feel comfortable joining the dialogue.  There are no dumb questions and all sides of the issues are explored with politeness. Personalities come through in ways that make it fun, as well as obvious that real people are involved.

By responsive, I mean that someone always, so far, has acknowledged my comments or questions within a day or less.  When I am excited after a race or struggling with a problem, this timeliness makes a huge difference.  It has brought me a lot of encouragement, so I have begun trying to show up more.  I may not have sage advice, still being relatively new to the barefoot scene and not having nearly as much mileage under my belt as some members, but I can give a sincere “hurrah!” and stimulate the discussion with occasional questions and workout reports.

I especially like an ongoing thread that I recently found where several of the members post specifics about their weekly running.  Not only are these fun to read, but I get ideas about when and where to run.  I tend to get comfortable with my routines and routes.  A little twist-of-this and a dash-of-that can add a nice touch.  I also find myself remembering these reports on some of my runs, making it almost seem like I am running with them and I get a little more light footed.

There is no honor lost if shoes (typically minimalist) are worn, some or all of the time.  Most of the runners find these to be useful in some circumstance or another.  (Here are the running moccasins that I love) In fact, there is a lot of friendly coaxing to AVOID doing too much too soon (TMTS), which has kept me from going overboard and hurting myself.  Some of the runners have advanced to totally barefoot marathons at enviable paces.  Others are working through aggravating health issues.  They are all supportive of one another.

If you are just thinking of barefoot running or are just tired of talking to yourself about it, I recommend this forum.  Look me up as “happysongbird” and I have signed on as being in Idaho (which is actually where I am….)  Meet barefoot runners from around the world!