Mt Maunganui Crowns Barefoot Queen

Ruby Muir took on the challenge barefoot.

"A year older, a year wiser" was the battle cry as Mt Maunganui's King and Queen of the Mountain threw up two new winners on Boxing Day.

For Galatea dairy farmer Sjors Corporaal the judicious consumption of food and beverage on Christmas Day paid dividends as he trumped four-time champion Iain MacDonald in the grind to the summit of Mauao, missing the race record by a solitary second.

Rookie women's winner, 19-year-old Coromandel athlete Ruby Muir, ditched the running shoes and took on the summit barefoot, downing defending champion Helen Rountree (Hamilton), who had been pushing for her fourth win in six years, by more than a minute.

A record 163 runners lined up in the Vitasport-sponsored race, which dates back to 1946, eclipsing the previous best of 154 in 2007.

They rolled down on to the soft sand start in all states of dress. Several runners sported plaster casts on broken limbs and many (males) were bare-chested, some with straw hats and others adorned with bandanas.

There were denim shorts, running shorts and board shorts, with a sprinkling of well-known faces among the crowd, although it was mostly weekend warriors.

All had paid $22.50 for the pleasure of shaking off the over-indulgence of the previous day and getting to the summit of Mauao, an altitude of 231m.

The event doubled as the Waikato-Bay of Plenty mountain race championship.

Corporaal, fresh from winning The Goat trail run at Tongariro, where he broke his own record by more than 3min, took the race more seriously this year after being beaten into second by MacDonald last Boxing Day.

"After winning The Goat I kept up the training and tried not to let festivities get in the way.

"I ate more sensibly and had a quieter Christmas than it has been in the past.

"It wasn't easy to leave the bloody beers alone but I'll celebrate with a few tonight!"

It was a family day out for Corporaal, with 10-year-old son Kaya second in the boys' under-12 junior race and daughter Alie fourth in the 12-15 years girls' event.

Corporaal, who will tackle his first marathon next year in Rotorua, sat back and let MacDonald win a year ago, but this year he attacked on the ascent and cleared out on the way back down, winning by 32sec, a second outside Angus Bell's 2007 record of 18min and 45sec.

"Sjors is an animal on the downhill, and once you give him that sort of head start to the top it's game over," MacDonald said.

Muir also attacked on the uphill, with the well-performed junior putting almost 1min into Rountree by the time they had returned to the start-finish line near Moturiki Island.

She trains barefoot when the terrain is suitable and is coming off a bumper tail season in which she took second in the Toi's Challenge and won The Goat.

"I wasn't sure if I was going to run this but saw my name in the paper being talked about as a possible contender so I felt obliged to turn up and have a go," she said.

Source: Bay of Plenty Times 

Footstickers are the classy way to go barefoot

Feel the movement of your feet.

Footstickers - Independent graduation project at Nike EMEA

There are many advantages of bare feet sporting: better motion control, more feeling in your feet and direct floor contact, etc. In this way you are more grounded and more aware of your feet and movements. Its also a good training for stronger feet. But a disadvantage is the risk of injuries, you can easily twist or slip.

 

The footsticker improves the activity and keeps the bare foot feeling!  The flexible material feels like a second skin. This footsticker gives you more grip, support and protection.

SOURCE: Behance

Barefoot craze hits everyday footwear

Sanuk Chiba Men's Sidewalk Sandal (Sanuk)

The shoeless craze captivated the marathon crowd first, with books promoting barefoot running and even "shoes" that fit the foot — toes and all — like a glove.

And now, the trend is stepping into the land of the rest of us — the walking crowd.

Pedestrians are shunning things with heels and curvaceous inner soles and stiff leather sides. Instead, they want something to protect the foot and keep it warm, and that's about it.

"As we continue to see the casualization of America grow and grow and grow, it has reached the footwear business to the degree of, 'How much more casual can you get than running shoes?'" said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst with the NPD Group, a market research firm. "Here's your answer: unstructured footwear that is as cozy as wearing nothing on your feet."

In different shades of brown, with fringes or not, moccasins have returned as around-town — as opposed to just padding-around-the-house — footwear. Toms Shoes, with ads blanketing the country, sells footwear that exhibits only slightly more textile gravitas than ballet slippers. Ballet slippers, too, remain fashionable, as well as "driving" shoes, moccasinlike footwear with a little tread on the bottom.

The California company Sanuk goes out of its way to distance itself from things that swaddle, constrict and support.

"THESE ARE NOT SHOES" proclaims Sanuk hang tags. "Unlike stiff shoes, our patented sandal construction allows your feet to bend and flex the way nature intended."

The Sanuk brand came about after company founder Jeff Kelley ran up a long pair of steps twice in one day — once barefoot, and once with shoes. The barefoot experience, he noticed, felt more natural and healthy than otherwise.

He built a shoe that he felt would simulate going barefoot, manufactured it and believes the approach is the future of shoes.

"There is barely any support," he said. "We are trying to educate you. When you have support in there, it might feel good, but you will become dependent on that kind of support. The best way to walk around is barefoot. We try to build shoes that are closer to a barefoot motion, thus improving your feet."

Podiatrists aren't thrilled with this celebration of shoelessness. People wear shoes, they say, because in modern society they need them.

Few people have an ideal foot type that doesn't require support, said Brett Sachs, a Wheat Ridge, Colo., podiatrist. "Most people I see are ones who have flat feet or high arches or are getting other types of symptoms related to the fact they don't have the support their feet should provide them and stress is getting redistributed to other parts of the body."

Barefoot advocates say going shoeless makes them feel more powerful, but Clinton Holland, an Englewood, Colo., podiatrist, doesn't buy it.

"The whole idea of strengthening your feet by not wearing shoes, there's nothing that backs that up," he said. But he's not opposed to shrinking from support."I tell patients, if it helps you, do it," he says. "If it feels better, then knock yourself out."

Kelley said his Sanuk shoes are particularly popular with rock climbers and surfers, athletes who need strong feet.

From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20101210/LIFESTYLE/12100316/Barefoot-craze-hits-everyday-footwear#ixzz17mf5iPf4