Learning Good Form and Pacing Yourself Are Essential Distance Running Skills

Some of the best conditioned runners in the best shoes that money can buy are suffering from everything from shin splints, to Achilles heels, to plantar fasciitis. Runners wearing top-of-the-range shoes are 123% more likely to get injured.  

We have a greater sense of foot ...

At the heart of this ethos around running is the high-intensity and fast-paced game Rarájipari. The game consists of two balls and two teams, and the idea is to kick and chase your team's ball over the vast terrain. Games can last up to 48 hours and are part of the social fabric ...

The Tarahumara Indians can run up to 300 miles at a time without stopping. Also known as the Rarámuri or running people, they have honed the ability to run over treacherous terrain without sophisticated running shoes. A champion runner once ran 435 miles nonstop.

The legend of this isolated...

For most runners, wearing a shoe is not unlike wearing a plaster cast around the foot. Like a cast, a shoe inhibits movement and causes the muscles in the foot to lose strength. Because of this imbalance, the rest of the body has extra stress on other muscles and joints, and the ...

Running barefoot is much better for your feet. Our bodies have many evolutionary traits that help us run. Your feet also have natural gifts that are hindered by running shoes.

Modern running shoes stabilize the foot too well. When we run, our foot rolls inward, which is called pronation. Th...

Compared to animals like horses, you might think your human body is pretty slow. But did you know those two legs of yours are capable of outrunning any animal on the planet?

When talking about sheer speed, many animals will win over a short distance. But where homo sapiens wins is endurance...

Some people enjoy running marathons. We often can’t understand why they seem to run long stretches with ease. At the same time, we struggle just to run a few miles. Maybe you think these people are crazy and have superhuman abilities. But what if I told you that you are capable of running long di...

People hate running, because they've lost the sense of freedom, joy, and glee that it brings. If we look towards children for inspiration, we see this mindset in action. Children run all the time; we tell them to slow down and to take it easy. We reign them in. The Tarahumara never slow down or t...

Advertising and shoe companies will have you believe that it's all about the running gear, particularly the shoes. Here's the thing, this isn't under-researched.

There have been loads of peer-reviewed studies on running shoes, and none of them can prove that high-tech shoes decrease injurie...

Your body can regulate temperature much more efficiently than other animals through sweating. Most other mammals can’t sweat, so they are forced to release heat through breathing.  

When four-legged animals run, they break into a gallop. It’s quick, but the movement of gall...

As the world's best runners, the Tarahumara Indians leave no tracks. They're light footed, run over invisible trails, and leave almost nothing by way of carbon footprint. They're a peaceful community with no sense of hatred, no depression, virtually disease-free, and have no incidence of cancer.

• We were made to run long distances.
• Our bodies are built to run barefoot, and it’s better for our feet.
• The key to long-distance running is having good form and pacing yourself.

Our specialized Achilles tendon also gives us a leg up on the competition. As it stretches, the Achilles stores energy. When that power is released, it propels us forward. This allows us to use less energy per step than other animals.