First off, what is barefoot running?

Well, the clue is in the title… it’s running without any shoes.

Barefoot running is supposed to be quite good for you and we’ve got a top tip for barefoot running article and interview coming your way soon, but in essence, not only is it supposed to be good for helping you improve your balance and foot and leg strength and agility, it also allows you to feel more connected to the ground when you run.

Talking to the team, they suggested that we start small and by small, it could be walking or running say a lap of your local football pitch. So, we did exactly that, we headed down to our local park with my minions and a few of our local runners to give it a go.

Arriving in a variety of shoes and sandals, we disrobed our feet and started to feel the slightly damp grass between our toes. It’s weird isn’t it, for my kids this was completely natural and there was no hesitation to go barefoot. In fact, we spend more of our time fighting them to put shoes on, so they were happy with the no shoes rule this evening.

For the adults, used to running anything from 5k to marathon and more, it all felt a little weird getting ready to run shoeless. There was something very unnatural about preparing for our run without any shoes, despite the fact we’d spent the afternoon shoeless on our local pebbled beach!

3…2…1… we were off. The kids took off, the adults tried to catch them and in reality, we were all enjoying the feeling of the grass between our toes, the bumps in the ground and… the feeling of being free.

Not trying to get too holistic on you, but it felt like our barefoot run last night really connected us to our childhood again as we ran free around the park. We ran about 2km, as with advice from the crew, getting running barefoot is just like building up your running distance; you need to take things one step at a time getting your feet and legs used to running without a tread between you and the earth. And it felt fantastic!

There is no denying it, running barefoot brought pure joy to our mind and body and faces – you could see it in the smiles, loving every step we took running around our local park.

We have an interview coming from the BarefootCrew5k soon, so if you’re interested in giving it a go and not sure where or how to start, stay tuned!

For me? We’re going to add this into one of our weekly run sessions – I’m excited to see where our barefeet take us!

If you want to get involved, follow the BarefootCrew5k on Instagram and start your barefoot running journey next Thursday, when they encourage people all over the world to give it a go.

Signing off this piece, with very happy feet.