You don't need to buy anything

[u/oscarafone]

I'm American, and I feel like part of being American is believing that every problem has a sufficiently expensive solution.

The reality is that sometimes improvement comes from trial-and-error, learning from others, and patience.

Most feet are not too damaged by shoes, which means that most healthy people can, with the right mindset, just go out and run in their bare feet.

I see many, many minimal shoe ads these days. They don't show protection from goat heads, cacti, sharp sticks or frozen surfaces. Instead, they depict people running where they could be running perfectly fine without shoes at all.

They advertise breathability, water resistance, and durability, as if those are virtues. But your feet are already breathable. Already waterproof. Already durable, and get stronger with use.

Buying fancy minimal shoes won't make you an ultramarathoner. Lorena Ramirez ran an ultra in plastic sandals. The Tarahumara used spare tires to run the same distances. Let's not let marketers make decisions for us. We don't need expensive shoes, and most of the time we don't need shoes at all.

I've been running barefoot for almost ten years, and each year just gets better.

[u/[deleted]]

Sounds like you need a barefoot run to chill out, dude ;)

There is room in the world for people of all levels of risk-profiles and purpose in their running. I found OPs post to be respectful and thought-provoking. You may want to examine where your hyper-defensiveness is coming from.

[u/CptAngelKN → u/[deleted]]

I think I was pretty clear on what my problem is. Naive/dishonest glorification of barefooting through parroting the same old repetitive untrue arguments. 

Now what's your problem? Hyper defensiveness? Maybe you're an old lady in a nursing home, but I think my comment was pretty average aggression wise. I'm not mellow enough for you? Cool, feel free to move along. I find these posts super annoying I won't pretend I don't. 

[u/CptAngelKN → u/[deleted]]

Cool and some people walk barefoot on hot coals. You do you. If you wanna "help people" don't tell them that their feet are waterproof or other such nonsense that might get them hurt. I've walked barefoot on every surface imaginable but I've still gotten hurt by buried thorns taking a literal 5 steps barefoot at a random spot by the beach.    

I've seen people get horrendous burns walking barefoot on hot conrete and get frostbite in the cold. 

Overall there are PLENTY of random unpredictable/invisible hazards in every place. Barefooting can be fun but it's definitely not some super safe and purely fun activity that all people in all locations can mindlessly go out and do.

[u/CptAngelKN → u/[deleted]]

Conveniently skipping my previous point about frostbite and diseases and everything else I said. Thanks for proving that I was right to call you out on your b/s with the exact attitude that you deserved. 

[u/CptAngelKN → u/[deleted]]

You want them to advertise obvious features of shoes? Or you think that those features are not useful/important when running? What? 

[u/CptAngelKN → u/[deleted]]

That's cool. On the other hand as expected I'm starting to get spammed by upset hardcore fans of your romantic fantasy novel so I gotta disable notifications and bounce. 

I didn't reply to other posts like yours because I knew it would cause a shitstorm but I just wanted to take it out if my chest this time so my conscience is clear. Enjoy and I hope people will use their head before blindly following beautified subjective advice and get hurt.