Alright... so I may or may not get on board with you running kids... but I've given it serious thought and am reading up on couch to 5k at the moment... been moaning that I don't have time to exercise (due to long ass commute) but I can spare at least two lunch hours a week to get this going.

Anywho considering what kind of shoes and need and was wondering if any of you do barefoot running... or wear ultra thin shoes?

Over the past six months I've been converted to these new shoes called Vivo Barefoot.
Ultra thin sole, very flexible and you can feel everything under your feet. Its kind of weird at first, but now I love them. Wearing normal shoes feels like I'm wearing planks on my feet.

If your knees ever give you trouble, running shoes are designed to absorb shock, which helps with that. I had a pair of cheap-o shoes with really thin soles, and running in them was a really bad idea for me.

I read several articles on this in Men's Health, Outdoor and BACKPACKER magazines sometime ago and I had to go back and get the details but the arguments for bare footing look convincing enough.
The Tarahumara tribe in Mexico is known for their endurance in running but even more so for how old they can be and still truck it. This hippy runner guy ,Caballo Blanco, lived among them and became a huge disciple of barefoot running. He then trained Christopher McDougall... who contributed the articles I remembered.

They argue that comfortable running shoes are the biggest contributor to injuries. As shoe technology becomes more and more comfortable, there appears to be a rise in injuries. The thought it that they cause a person to run at an unnatural longer stride and this leads to increased impact on joints. Barefoot running acts as a governor. You can only run so hard without shoes and it forces you to run at a stride that is natural for your body.

I have a co-worker that has started running in vibram five fingers and he swears by them now. One of the guys at REI that I talk with has started backpacking in those same shoes. (A similar argument for lighter shoes, getting away from mega-boots, is getting popular among backpackers)

I think those are interesting ideas with merit, but there is no way you can go cold-turkey without hurting yourself. The little muscles and tendons in your feet have had it easy for probably your whole like. It will take months of training to get them to anything like the Tarahumara shape. The toe-down stride also demands a lot more from your calves. If I were going to do this, I would start with some race type running shoes, transition to one of the Nike Frees and then to something like the Vibrams. Or, you could buy them all at once and swap them out for progressively longer periods. Another thing I've been meaning to look into is POSE running ( http://posetech.com/ ).

A few weeks after I started wearing Vivos my legs and ankles ached, like really badly. I talked to the guys who make them (they're London based & on twitter) and was told that my body was having to get used to not having the cusion and angles of conventional shoes and that my feet we're regaining strength and posture changing. Took about two weeks for me to feel normal again.

The shoes are a bit pricey, but I've bought all of mine in sales so far, and they are quite stylish too... they only just released a running shoe called Evo.

http://www.terraplana.com/vivobarefoot.php

Thanks for the other stuff... going to go read up on it!!

Oh and I actually like feeling stuff under my feet now... must stimulate the nerve endings or something... but I like feeling bumps and rocks and cracks in the side walks.

i think a lot of it depends on the shape of your foot, to be honest. I can't wear those thin light shoes that a lot of the super marathon runners wear because frankly I'm just a big guy. Even if I ran to marathon spec over the course of years I'm still going to be 6'3" and a lot bigger than them. I screwed up my knees and ankles bad at various times wearing improper footwear (once partially dislocating my knee on stage at Reading that took two years to heal properly). Since then, I've been really into proper footwear.

For me, running-wise, because my feet are big, wide and fairly flat, it means New Balance, Asics and Reebok pretty exclusively. Since I made that switch it's made all the difference.

I don't think that the whole barefoot thing would work well for me.

I tried running toe-down for a couple miles because it took some pressure off an achy knee. I woke up with some nasty heal pain that took three days to go away. This is why I think any big change like that needs to be gradual.

Diane Rheem's show today is talking about barefoot running, yo.

A couple people in the Run On class I'm in run in those vibrams. I've only see one up close and he heel strikes and it doesn't look or sound good to me. I'll ask him next week how long he's been at it.

Ok, that one guy seems to have recurring foot and ankle issues. I'm not sure what came first, but the vibrams don't seem to help. Here is some advice from Run On!:

http://www.runontexas.com/TrainingClasses/TipsFromFeatures/Tip65/Tip65.htm