I bought knee braces and a couple different types of Brooks and Hokas and some Advil. Lots of Advil.
A friend even gave me a gift of frozen peas. Yeah, that's an odd gift. I don't even like to eat peas; they're way too mushy. But I guess it's a runner thing, and they were bendier than ice packs.
The peas did make my knees feel better, but only after they were already hurting. Then I read a book called Born to Run. Turns out that our feet are amazing machines designed exactly for running (either by millions of years of evolution, or by God 7 to 10 thousand years ago or by God through evolution over some amount of time or by some other thing we don't precisely understand yet). Whatever you believe to be true, your feet are a marvel.
So, one day I ran in a field barefoot. My neighborhood has a trail in the floodplain that is about a 3/4 mile loop. My plan was to ditch my shoes and run for 10 or 20 feet. Those few feet felt good, so I went a bit more. Every footfall felt amazing. After a hundred feet, it felt like every time my foot hit the ground, it was like Father God kissing Mother Earth. I figured I could run half way around to the cut through path, maybe a half mile and call it quits. But then the cut through came and went, and it all still felt good, so I finished the first lap. Then the second. Then the third, and finally after 4 laps, 3 miles, I stopped.
I had a blister. I picked a dozen splinters out of my feet that day and one or two more the next day. The path through the field was rough, not like a nice lawn. My feet needed some protection. I also needed to learn how to run the right way. So I researched. But I realized that day, that I was born to run.
Turns out that feet have 1/3 of all the bones in our bodies and a complicated muscle/ligament/tendon system: they're an incredible machine designed to deal with our weight smacking the ground on a fairly small "footprint." Feet just work, but they need room to work.
Modern shoes have pointy tips that scrunch the toes. They have tall arches and a higher heel than toe, and all these things that "support" our arches and isolate the heel. But our feet really just need room. Give them a big toe box to let the complicated machine do its work. Our feet need protection against pointy things, but they don't actually need all that support that modern shoe companies like to sell us.
Support makes us comfortable. Since when does comfort = strength? Comfort makes us weak. It lets us run on our heels, which we would not do barefoot because running on your heels hurts and transfers the shock of landing right up our leg into our knees.
Minimalist running shoes let us feel the road, and feel the pain of stupidly running on our heels. So we knock it off and run on our midsole. After a lifetime of living on my heels in narrow toed shoes, it took me a couple of months to learn how to run again. When I'd push too far, things like calves and arches would hurt. I had to take it slow and build up my distance again. My arches and calves had to learn what its like to do their jobs, which is to soak up that shock with their springiness and transfer it up into the big muscles in my quads. One of my arches actually sprang back up a bit after being flat most of its life.
I got some Xero shoes which are like running a piece of a tire tread. They're 5.5mm of sole and an odoreater with a tennis shoe topper. I do love the feel of the earth under my feet. I've run a few half marathons in my Xeros. Recently, I also got some Altras for both the road and trails, and they provide more protection for my feet because 5.5mm isn't really enough protection against gravel. But the Altras still have the wide toe box and zero rise (heal over toe). So far, they feel great, but I have to be mindful of staying off my heels because they are a little more comfortable.
Anyway, getting off my heels was the most important running thing I've ever done. Look at my feet in the picture below. It was taken on the last mile of the Oak Barrel half marathon in the hilly countryside around the Jack distillery which I ran faster than the first mile. In fact, I'll just interject one different quick picture. It's of Heather holding her trophy for placing third in Masters at that race. She left it all on the course.
Now look at my feet. The lead food is landing flat, midsole, under my body instead of extending out and heel crashing. Look at my knees; they have no braces.
Now, look back up at my face.
