Mike Griffin

We had a speed session last night at the polo grounds on the grass. Some of the lads said they only brought their chunky runners so they wouldn’t be as fast as they could be. I jokingly said that they should try it out in their bare feet. They scoffed at this a bit and that was the end of it.

Or so they thought. I thought it would be a lovely evening to have a run in my bare feet so I took off my runners and socks and started to warm up. They thought I was mad going into a speed session like that. I said I would try it out and see what happened.

What happened was that I was running just as well as if I was in my shoes. The ground felt nice against my bare skin and I was moving nicely. We did a session of 12× 300m with full recovery and my times seemed to be getting better on each one.

When we got back to the club house, I was chastised for what I had done. I was told it was foolhardy with so many people around and that I might have been spiked by someone wearing spikes. I have to say that I have never been stood on during a training session and I wasn’t about to start then!

I think every now and then it’s good to get out of shoes and just run free. I’ll definitely be doing it more often in the future.