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I agree totally that heel strike is not what you want, it just causes pain. If you haven't read Chi Running, you realy should, it's brilliant stuff. He talks a lot about how to avoid heel strike, and how to make running easy.

And ironically, he recently did a blog post on how to avoid heel strike.

— Bem Jones-Bey
Absolutely. And when I want to run somewhere where barefeet would be too uncomfortable for me, I use a pair of 20RMB sandals.
— richard juckes
Yah, I haven't read Chi Running, nor seen the 20RMB sandals, but I transitioned to forefoot running with minimal shoes a couple years ago (when I still ran a decent amount). If/when I get back into it seriously I'll need to work my way back to running in something like the puma h-streets I used to use...
— Mark Rampton
@richard: Searching for 20RMB sandals doesn't seem to help me find anything useful. Are you referring to the cost of the sandals, or is there some brand or something that I don't know about?

@mark: if I was to transition to barefoot running, I'd probably get some of these. A friend of mine has a pair and wears them all the time. He says they are really comfortable, and are also nice to run in. It's on my list of things to try eventually, but my current running shoes do a good job of staying out of my way, so I'm not in a hurry at the moment.

— Bem Jones-Bey
Everytime I've ever tried barefoot running, it seems like the lack of padding is going to kill me. Any chance this goes away with time? I've definitely heard that barefoot running is physiologically better ... but it seems like you have to spend a lot of time running slowly to build up your feet!
— Vincent Chu
Hey VC -- sorry, I hadn't checked in on my page lately. I've never gone completely barefoot but did spend a good deal of time running in the Puma H Streets which if you've ever seen or worn them you'll recognize as a very light weight slipper). The transition period took me prob. close to 6 months -- I would run in normal shoes for most of my runs and the h-streets once or twice a week initially. In order to run this way at all, however, requires you strike midfoot, so work on doing that with your runs to start (no matter the shoes).
— Mark Rampton
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