Participants in the Run for the Water 5k run barefooted and don minimalist wear. The event is one of the first races in Austin to feature a barefoot/minimalist division. Photo by Carlos Morales.

By Carlos E. Morales
For Reporting Texas

AUSTIN — The head says no, but the feet say yes.

Runners across the nation are beginning to leave their shoes beside the track and are hitting the pavement bare. Others almost as brazen have adopted minimalist shoes such as the Vibram Fivefingers, thin-soled shoes that mimic running barefoot. The allure of this “barefooting” running trend is injury prevention, its proponents say.

The Barefoot Runners Society, which is about to celebrate its second anniversary, has nearly 3,600 registered members in 90 chapters worldwide. Members of the Austin chapter recently met for a run along the curving concrete path through Brushy Creek Park, where construction work has coated entrance roads with gravel and broken branches. But the runners stay on the path with their feet gliding over the stone surface, causing passersby shift their eyes toward their feet.

Barefoot runners get all kinds of glances and pithy remarks, says Bob Ventimiglia, a 65-year-old retired engineer.

Ventimiglia started running after having a heart attack. But expensive, thick-soled shoes caused him more trouble than relief.

“I picked up a pair of very lightweight stability shoes, END OTGs,” he said. “I was wearing them as knock around and they felt so good. And it got me thinking about it and I started running in them and they felt pretty good, better than my $150 Asics. That got me thinking more about going minimal.”

Shortly after that, Ventimiglia started experimenting with barefoot running and hasn’t looked back, or laced up the running shoes, since.

“It’s the way we used to walk as a kid:  on the balls of our feet, high knees,” Ventimiglia said. “Really, you should run that way whether you have shoes on or not, but barefoot punishes you if you don’t run in a more correct, neutral form.”

But it’s not for everyone, Ventimiglia says. Jessica Bucheler, an avid runner who works at The Running Company, says she hasn’t and probably won’t switch from her bouncy, cushiony shoes.

“I don’t have any problems with the cushioned running shoes that I run in now,” Bucheler said. “I think that’s another reason why I haven’t switched over to barefoot running. A lot of people that have injuries and problems with the cushioned shoes, and they’ve tried every shoe in the book and they can’t figure out what works for them, that’s when they decide to switch over to the barefoot running.”

Some runners like Lauren Jones, co-founder of the Merrell Naked Foot 5k and exercise physiologist, use barefoot running for training. Jones and her husband, Scott James, who is national race director for the Merrell Naked Foot 5K, are self-proclaimed “barefoot moderates” and use it to improve their performance.

“We use it as a tool to help strengthen our feet and prepare us for running with our shoes on,” she said. “It helps us to run better with our shoes on. It’s just not realistic to run barefoot all the time. It just isn’t.”

Running sans shoes is not a new — the Athenian herald Pheidippides made his mythic journey to Marathon barefoot. At the 1960 Rome Olympics, Abebe Bikila won the marathon completely unshod. Twenty-four years earlier, Charlie “Doc” Robbins began running on his two bare feet and soon became famous for it. But in 2009, Christopher McDougall’s book, “Born to Run,” helped to legitimize the trend. And now almost every major shoe company, from Nike to Fila, has their own version of minimalist wear.

But why barefoot, or almost barefoot?

“Typically with shoes you have this big, thick heel and it forces you to heel-strike,” Jones explained. “And heel-strike can cause damage to the joints because you land a lot harder and impact goes up through the shoes through your joints and can affect your knees and back.”

And with heel-striking comes over-pronation. With over-pronation, the foot rolls inward as it hits the ground, causing instability and injury. In minimalist wear, the thin sole forces runners on the balls of their feet, reducing impact to the heel. Although Bucheler doesn’t run in minimalist gear, she says the shoes provide a more organic feel.

“If you look at a video of someone running, naturally they strike at the front of their foot,” she said, adding that that’s the idea behind Vibram FiveFingers shoes. “It is to be almost, pretty much barefoot.”

But the verdict is still out on barefoot running. In a 2009 press release, the American Podiatric Medical Association addressed the then-nascent trend with caution.

“Barefoot running has been touted as improving strength and balance, while promoting a more natural running style,” it stated.  “However, risks of barefoot running include a lack of protection, which may lead to injuries such as puncture wounds, and increased stress on the lower extremities.”

Even the Army has expressed its concern over minimalist footwear. Mainly citing aesthetic reasons, the Army banned the thin-soled shoes earlier this year.

But runners are still kicking their shoes to the curb, or at least trying to. The movement exploded after “Born to Run” was published, but others wanted more instructions than the book offered. Enter the guide “Barefoot Running Step by Step,” published last May and written by Ken Bob Saxton, who started a website on barefoot running in 1997, and Roy M. Wallack, the Los Angeles Times fitness columnist. Such barefoot heavyweights as McDougall and Harvard professor Daniel Lieberman have hailed Saxton, who has run  77  marathons on his bare feet, as a master of the modern barefoot movement.

Wallack, who toured with the Merrell Naked Foot 5K to promote the book, changed his approach to running the first time he ran barefoot.

“The idea of running on hard surface like concrete seems antithetical, like it’s going to hurt,” he said. “But it didn’t hurt. It was shocking. It actually felt like my feet were alive. I felt like a blind man reading Braille – it was that tactile. It was fantastic.”

Before that day, pain from a torn anterior cruciate ligament kept him from running altogether. But when Wallack first met Saxton to run along the California coast in Bolsa Chica, he asked him, “How do you run barefoot?”

Saxton’s reply: “Just take your shoes off and follow me.”

Just watch your step.