Dare to bare:
my journey into
barefoot running
I began with the purpose of healing an ongoing injury, but I came away with a new perspective on running
Humans are born to run. It shaped our evolution, enabling our ancestors to trek for miles, forage for hours, and hunt for days. While the comforts of modern society no longer demand running for survival, it seems humans’ innate desire to run hasn’t faded just yet.
We are in the middle of a running boom. The upcoming 2025 London marathon had a world record breaking ballot, with 840,318 entries according to event company, London Marathon Events.
The running we do now however, is far more removed from our ancestors. The tracks we leave behind are no longer recognisable by our slim soles and padded five toes. Instead, we leave mud imprinted with a rigged oval shape, stamped in the middle with a Nike, Brookes, or the increasingly popular Hoka.
A new trend in these running shoes is maximalism: thick foam soles which provide a highly cushioned trainer.
Image: Eva Cahill
Image: Eva Cahill
While injured, I read the seminal book Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. The book argued modern-day trainers were creating injuries in runners. It captured the popular imagination and kickstarted a barefoot running trend back in 2010s. The jury is still out on whether barefoot or cushioned running trainers are better for injury reduction, but I couldn’t help but feel similarly inspired by the book.
I started running five years ago in slim-soled trainers. As I ran longer distances, I switched to thicker soles for impact support. However, I've spent the last eight months battling persistent ankle pain despite physio-recommended strengthening, stretching, and rest.
When I read new research published in the journal Frontiers in Sport and Active Living suggesting maximalist trainers can reduce a runner’s ability to sense their foot strike, potentially increasing injury risk, I was finally sold on giving barefoot running a try.
So, I set myself a challenge of running 5km barefoot and gave myself six weeks to train for it.
Phase 1: Strengthening
I began my journey seeking advice from Tony Riddle, a natural life stye coach and record holder for the Three Peaks Challenge barefoot.
Riddle was a trail blazer in the barefoot running movement. In the early 2000s, Riddle owned a pilates studio in London and began to transition clients with knee and back pain away from cushioned shoes, influenced by soviet-era running coach Nicholas Romanov.
He remembers the impact of Born to Run hitting the market in 2009: “We became fully booked, the diary was smashed at that point because of the injury rates.”
“We would see Achilles problems, calf problems, the real lower extremities” he adds.
James Cruikshank, specialist running physiotherapist at SPEAR physiotherapy, explained wearing shoes weakens our feet. So, transitioning to barefoot running increases the risk of Achilles strains, plantar fasciitis and micro-tears in the foot muscles.
The starting point then for my barefoot running journey was something most runners dread, the gym.
Cruikshank recommended beginning with barefoot foot-strengthening work using exercises like toe curls, foot doming and single leg balance drills. From there, I could start running, small distances, just 200m-300m at a time. I would then work my way up to the final distance of 5km.
Far from the image I had of setting off like the elegant Tarahumara indigenous runners described in Born to Run, I spent the first three weeks going to the gym three times a week to build my foot strength.
My feet began to cramp up as I domed my arches and curled my toes. By the end of the second week, my feet were becoming more acclimatised to the exercises. I decided it was time to brave the treadmill.
“The number one take home message” Cruikshank advises, “you’ve got to listen to your body.”
Any red pain, sharp burning or inflamed areas, means you should back off, but dull aches are more like adaption pain, Cruikshank explained.
“The diary was smashed at that point because of the injury rates”
I started on the treadmill in my socks, slowly running 300m and then walking 500m. Usually I blast my music, trying to drown out the monotonous beat of my trainers hitting the belt. This time, I found myself taking my headphones off so that I could tune into how my feet were feeling. Running like this was meditative – until I’d catch a glimpse outside at runners logging miles in the cold-February sun and become distracted with envy.
Phase 2: Facing the elements
After building my strength base in the gym, I was able to venture outside.
My plan was to run a couple of kilometres in shoes and then add on some distance barefoot at the end of each run barefoot. I’d then slowly build up.
So, for my first run, I set off on a 3km run in my trainers. After I rounded off the final kilometre, I found a bench, unlaced my trainers and hesitated.
I took off from the bench and sharply inhaled as my bare soles pressed against the freezing mud. I completed 800m total before returning to the bench. I enjoyed the feeling of the cold mud between my toes, until numbness set in.
Having worked through the dull strength training in the gym, I’d had an obvious oversight when it came to another aspect of acclimatising my feet: the cold British weather. My looming trail run in the Brecon Beacons now felt even more daunting.
Jason Akers (pictured right)
Jason Akers (pictured right)
During this time, I spoke to Jason Akers. He’s run Cardiff's half-marathon three times barefoot, and rarely wears shoes in his day-to-day life.
Akers was a keen runner, but 13 years ago, he was diagnosed with tendinosis. His feet became so painful he would spend the first 20 minutes of his day crawling before he could walk. Despite being told he could no longer run, he was able to run pain free when he wasn't wearing trainers .
Akers slowly built up his running distance, from 400m to his pre-injury running distances. Three months on, he stopped wearing shoes altogether and hasn’t looked back.
“It’s really incredible” he says, “since then I’ve had no tendon, ligament, back or knee issues.”
Akers also provided some helpful reassurance that the tread of his feet adapted very quickly to rougher terrain and colder temperatures.
“The skin on your feet goes really thick and soft, like a dog’s pad” he adds.
This allows him to run in snow and walk around in temperatures as low as -4ºC.
"I started to feel more in tune with my body and stopped listening to music"
With Akers’s experience in mind, I continued my pattern of running the first part of my run with trainers, the second without. My feet slowly became acclimatised to the cold, and I began to enjoy the feeling of running without shoes.
Most importantly, my recurring ankle pain had subsided. The most discomfort I felt was a dull ache in the arches of my feet, as they adapted to the increased load.
Over the last couple of years, I’ve found myself chasing a better pace or a longer distance. Barefoot running allowed me to enjoy the feeling of being a beginner runner again.
It forced me to slow down. With my pace no longer important, I began to leave my watch at home. I started to feel more in tune with my body and stopped listening to music.
Over the next three weeks I gradually built my barefoot run up from 1km to 2.5km.
Video: Matthew Roderick
Video: Matthew Roderick
Phase 3: The final challenge
Despite enjoying my training, there was no doubt the final challenge was going to be more difficult. There’d be more hills, more rocks and double the distance I’d completed barefoot before.
It was a beautiful, sunny morning as I set off on my final 5km barefoot run. The first kilometre involved a steep uphill, so I started slowly, watching my toes bend to grip the inclined surface. It was a tough start, but I felt strong.
At the top of the trail, I was able to settle my breathing and ease into the run. The soft, even grass under my feet allowed me to take my eyes off the ground and enjoy taking in the rolling Welsh hills.
I’d pre-planned a simple out-and-back route on Myndd Llangorse.
I’d pre-planned a simple out-and-back route on Myndd Llangorse.
Video: Matthew Roderick
Video: Matthew Roderick
Just as I was settling into a rhythm, I approached the first rocky section that would test how well my feet had adapted.
When speaking to Riddle, he described how you need to have sensitive, nimble feet to go over uneven, rough terrain.
I attempted to relax my body, and kept my eyes on the ground picking out a path through the rocks. The concentration this took made the distance fly by. Before I knew it, I was approaching the halfway mark.
My main concern beyond the 2.5km mark was pushing my feet too far and joining the long line of runners who’d injured themselves after an inspiring read of Born to Run.
"I was running entirely pain-free for the first time in 8 months and wanted to keep going"
My recurring ankle pain hadn’t made an appearance so I picked up the pace and ran through the third and fourth kilometre.
Most runners have a few runs that really stand out to them and inspire their love of running. For me, this run was one of them. I felt like I was skimming lightly over the ground. I was running entirely pain-free for the first time in 8 months and wanted to keep going.
As I ran through the final kilometre my barefoot challenge was complete. Barefoot running had reconnected me to the humanity of running, to how our ancestors moved and at the end of the run I felt completely liberated.
Beyond barefoot running
Barefoot running has been a really effective way for me to manage my injury, and it's something I'm going to continue in my training. Beyond this, the experience has highlighted how little running requires from you to make it enjoyable. You don’t need to invest in expensive, high technology trainers, you just need to get out the door.
Along with the boom of running, has come huge growth in the running industry. There are more shoes, gear and running products on the market than ever before.
I spoke to ultrarunner and environmentalist Damian Hall. He represented Great Britain at the Trail World Championships, and set a record for the notoriously brutal Spine race when he won in 2023.
Hall wrote ‘We Can’t Run Away from This’ in 2022, which examines the environmental impact of running and is a key members of environmental group Green Runners.
He explained how running trainers leave behind an unusually large carbon footprint for their size.
"Our feet are totally renewable"
A typical pair of running shoes creates between 8 and 16 kilograms of CO2 over its lifetime, the equivalent of leaving a 100-watt bulb burning for a week.
“The travel and packaging is only a tiny part of the footprint” he adds.
The average pair of running trainers is made up of sixty-five parts, requiring 360 processing steps in total. And the sole of a running shoe shows no sign of degradation after 12 years.
The biggest problem with this, he explained, is the running industry telling us to throw our shoes away after 300 miles. He’s found he can keep his shoes going for about 1000 miles.
Hall is disappointed with the lack of sustainability within the running industry. He particularly disliked Adidas’s “single use” marathon shoe released in 2023.
“That’s exactly the opposite message we’re trying to get to” he explains.
Both barefoot enthusiasts I had spoken to had touched on the environmental aspect of barefoot running.
Riddle emphasised how important it was to foster a relationship with the ground under our feet and the world around us.
In contrast to the modern-day trainer, Akers highlighted that "our feet are totally renewable; your trainers can’t regenerate tread, can they?”
Despite the explosion of new watches, gear and trainers on the market, the simplicity of barefoot running pushes an important question to the forefront: have we lost touch with the way we were born to run?
"The biggest problem with this is the running industry telling us to throw our shoes away after 300 miles"
Image credit: Matthew Roderick
Image credit: Matthew Roderick
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