From the category archives:

Barefoot

Bill O’Reilly, Minimalism, The Universe, and Everything

by pribut on February 7, 2011

Warning: The following is for fun reading only.
Today’s opening thought: Is 26.2 the answer to life, the universe and everything? Or as Doug Adam’s  Hitchhikers guide has it, is it 42? But, let’s move on.
The newspapers and blogs have been full of reports on the science of why we should all run in minimalist [...]

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Minimalist Running: In The Service

by pribut on October 11, 2010

I had a pleasant chat with Jon Anderson who writes for a number of the military times publications. This past week he covered the current status of minimalist running shoes in the service. The article, “On Your Toes” appeared in the Army Times. He quotes the figure of up to 35% of Navy Seals are [...]

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Quadrupedal Human Gait

by pribut on September 7, 2010

Bipedalism (walking upright on two limbs) in hominids is considered a logical and efficient means of locomotion arrived at via hundreds of millions of years of evolution. At the newly instituted PLOS group of blogs a thorough post appearing on the newly moved blog Neuroanthropology describes Turkish individuals who are quadripedal and exhibit what is [...]

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Things To Do With Your Shoes Off

by pribut on August 20, 2010

Exercising while barefoot is a good way to work on your balance, proprioception (joint position sense) and lower leg strength. Runners World has a fine short article on Barefoot Exercise written by Adam Bean (which I was interviewed for) in the September, 2010 issue and online.
Several Videos of an agile athlete demonstrating the exercises are [...]

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Running In America: On The Airwaves

by pribut on July 10, 2010

The Diane Rehm Show will host Christopher McDougall (author of Born To Run), Amby Burfoot (winner of Boston Marathon, 1968, Editor at large: Runners World) and myself on Monday. The topic will be “Running In America. We should cover a lot of ground. Both Amby and Christopher are knowledgeable and entertaining. It should be an [...]

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PEN Nonfiction Literary Award: Literary Sports Writing

by pribut on May 17, 2010

PEN has partnered with ESPN to create the PEN/ESPN Literary Sports Writing award. This award will honor the best non-fiction book on sports for 2009. The winner will receive $5,000 and be invited to speak at the 2010 CUNY Pen Literary Awards  ceremony on October  13, 2010.
Any guesses on the possible winner?

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Toenails Are Optional?

by pribut on October 22, 2009

Best quote of the day was by Chris Mcdougall in the New York Times:
“You know any sport has gone off the rails when you have to remove body parts to do it,” said Christopher McDougall, the author of a recent book about ultrarunning called “Born to Run.”
With it’s motto of “all the news that’s fit [...]

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Shoes: Are They Tiny Coffins? (What would Paul Brand, M.D. say?)

by pribut on September 1, 2009

Can Shoes Be “Tiny Coffins”. Yes, they can.
(Please read comment section below. Author Chris McDougall has posted an informative comment and added to the quotes seen in Born To Run.  I’ll extract from the quotes, but be sure to read the comment. (If it says “comments closed”, which the blog does automatically at a set [...]

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Throw Away Your Shoes

by pribut on August 30, 2009

Sense and Sensibility
Note: There are several comments, but the interface on word press blogs will only show them if you click on the title and view only this blog entry.
The media seems to have decided that barefoot running is the trend that can’t be stopped, and should perhaps be encouraged. “Throw away your shoes” seems [...]

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Born To Read (and run of course)

by pribut on July 14, 2009

Chris McDougall’s book “Born To Run” is probably the most fun and enjoyable book I’ve seen written about running. The prose is wonderful. The story telling is rich. And Chris develops both his characters and presents his thoughts on the evolution of running in a careful and thorough manner.  While I would disagree with the [...]

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