Cruising around Like Frodo

A couple of weeks ago, I was tuned into CBC, watching The Nature of Things, a science documentary program here in Canada. The episode I saw, The Perfect Runner, was about the physiology and biomechanics of human running. I learned some pretty interesting stuff about our evolution as a species. You wouldn’t think it to see the average person walking around today, but human beings are the creatures with the greatest running endurance out of all others in the animal kingdom. We evolved to be distance runners, not speed runners. It was interesting to see the origins and development of the people in the place with best natural marathon runners in the world: Africa, and what makes them unique at being so in an anthropological, and sociological perspective. Noting from that program some of the things that happen when people are running without the stress and confinement of a modern athletic shoe made me want to try to experiment with something.

FILA Skele-Toes, a.k.a. Hobbit Boots

I spoke of my imperfect foot development in my last entry, and my great challenge of finding properly fitting shoes. I forgot to mention my other shoe purchase. Well, not so much forgot to mention, but held off on saying anything about them until I had a chance to test them out. They are track shoes manufactured by FILA, and are called Skele-Toes. The idea of the design of these things is to provide your feet with enough of the traction and protection needed to function as a shoe, and yet allow as much of the natural mechanics of the foot to work as if one were running barefooted. That means freeing up the toes to have their natural flexion, and adjusting the heel and ball of the foot to hit the ground in the same manner as a bare foot would.  Just like we around here colloquially call sandals “Jesus boots”, I decided to call these things “Hobbit boots”: freaky looking shoes with separated toes that make your feet appear disproportionately big and wide, like the feet of the Hobbits of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.

All I can say, after trying these babies out on the track today, is that I’m very impressed. I ran as long and as fast, if not more so, with these things than I have with shoes with orthotic inserts. Pain in the shins didn’t register in me until much later in the course of the run, compared to the times that I use regular runners/orthotics. New muscles were being tested on me, so I made a point of not overdoing it with my initial run with these things, but I see them serving as valuable element for strengthening and toning my legs better. Today, I felt like I was on par with the place I was at last year. At the very least, these things are novel enough to make me want to do more trials with them, which will keep me motivated to stick with doing something for my fitness.