Runners, try not to cringe when you read this: Jerry Mesner will do Sunday’s Denver Marathon barefoot.
Yes, barefoot.
Each of his heavily callused size-11 1/2 feet will pound the pavement 26,000 times, give or take a few steps. Mesner figures he has run more than 2,000 miles since deciding, about five years ago, that running shoes were superfluous.
“My feet are so interesting,” Mesner said. “People just love to hear about my feet.”
Sunday’s race will be his fifth marathon, his third since losing his mind, er, running shoes.
“When you tell people you run barefoot, there’s the immediate ‘Oh, my God, why would you do it? What about the pain factor, needles and glass and so forth?”‘ Mesner said. “You end up developing a bit of a sixth sense about glass and so forth. You pay more attention to the ground, to what you’re running on and how you land.”
No kidding. Pain hurts.
Mesner, who lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, will be one of 1,500 in this weekend’s marathon. Including a relay and a half-marathon, the inaugural event is expected to attract 5,000 runners.
Mesner started running barefoot as a challenge, a way of adding another dimension to his running. It helps his focus, he said, and makes his running a meditative endeavor. Like fire-walking, maybe, or lying on a bed of nails?
“It took me about three months to break in my feet, as it were,” said Mesner, who manages information systems for several hospitals in Vancouver. “After that three months, your feet kind of get a glassy, tough-callus sheen. If you land on a pebble or a sharp stone, obviously there is pain feedback. I’d say 80 percent of the run is more enjoyable for me without shoes than it is with shoes.”
But what about the other 20 percent? How many times can a guy say “Ouch!” per mile?
“I call them ego-checkers, hitting the little pebbles or something that causes you pain, because it brings you back to your focus, to your center,” Mesner said. “Like, ‘Oh, yep, I am running, I am not perfect, I’ve still got things to work on.”‘
Mesner, who was born in Pueblo, moved to Canada when he was 4. He picked Denver for his fall marathon because he has a grandmother here who turns 102 on Oct. 22.
Mesner is quick to mention he’s not fast. He runs his marathons in 4 1/2 hours or so. He also gives props to Californian Ken Bob Saxton, the evangelist of shoeless running who ran 14 barefoot marathons in 2004.
And there was the great Ethiopian Abebe Bikila, who won the 1960 Olympic marathon running barefoot in Rome. Mesner calls him “one of the heroes,” even if he did go with shoes when he successfully defended his title at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.
Mesner said he used to have back problems when he ran, but they went away at the same time he abandoned shoes. Knee problems, too.
“It’s counterintuitive, but it’s because you land softer, right?” Mesner said. “You listen to your body more.”
Mesner has another body part marathoners might find interesting: Two years ago, he had open- heart surgery to repair a heart valve. A Teflon ring was implanted to correct a heart murmur.
There are people who believe running shoes create as many problems as they solve. Some coaches have their runners do barefoot workouts on grass to strengthen their feet.
Two years ago, Nike introduced a shoe (the Free) that was more like a slipper with a thin plastic sole.
“They basically found that running barefoot is pretty good for you,” Mesner said. “It strengthens your ankles. You’ve got a stronger motivation to run with good form, because if you don’t land softly, you end up injuring yourself. The biofeedback is pretty strong.”
