I saw on the interwebs this morning that Eddie Izzard has had to halt to his amazing 27 back-to-back marathons in South Africa. He quoted unforseen medical complications as his reason for stopping, but said “I will return to South Africa and run the 27 marathons and finish this story. I owe that to Nelson Mandela who has inspired the world to struggle and succeed no matter what obstacles are thrown at us”.
I couldn’t help wondering when I saw the headline on someone else’s newspaper on the tube this morning if this wasn’t a case of him over-doing it with the barefoot running. I mean, I’ve been there myself a few times. You work your way up to a comfortable distance and you think, this is easy, my body has fully adapted, I am superman! Then you pull something and realise that it’s only been a couple of months and you called it way too early. Surely the musculoskeletal setup in your feet and lower legs can’t possibly fully adapt in that short time. And surely if you were going to run a marathon per day for a month, if your body hasn’t fully adapted, it would soon tell you.
I really hope this is not the case and it’s something else. As this will be immedately jumped upon by the padded trainer brigade as proof that barefoot running is bad for you – those fires being convieniently stoked by those with vested interests in retaining the padded trainer status quo. Which as well as obviously including the trainer manufactuerers, also includes anyone who owns a pair and still uses them. This is because having spent the money on these expensive items, they’ll subconciously need to justify their position in favour of them.
In that way I see it has parallels with smoking vs stopping smoking. The late Allen Carr says in his book, “The Easyway to Stop Smoking” says that when someone stops smoking, other smokers subconciously try to get them to start again by trying to undermine their position. The reason they do this is because the more people around them that stop smoking, the more their position is underminded and the more they begin to look stupid by continuing to do it. I think it’s probably also true of the barefoot running revolution. The amount of people who have poured scorn on my barefoot running is unbelievable. The one thing they all have in common is that they are all runners themselves and have invested in expensive padded trainers. Of course none of these people have tried barefoot running, so they’re not qualified to comment. But that doesn’t stop them and believe you me they don’t like it, they don’t like it one bit. It makes me smile everytime. I couldn’t care less if they never try it, I feel no need to justify my position. After all, I’ve tried it both ways and I know now which is my preference.
Anyway, back to Eddie Izzard. Well done Sir, and I hope to see you back in SA completing your challenge – barefoot or not.