A Budget Minimalist Running Shoe for Less Than £10

I just picked up a new pair of running shoe from Decathlon while on holiday in Italy recently that seems to tick all the boxes for a good minimalist running shoe (without actually using them for running at the moment!). The shoe is branded as ‘Newfeel’ according to the label on the side of the shoes.

They are zero drop from heel to toe, and have no arch support whatsoever. The sole is made from plastic and is only about five millimetres in depth, so they don’t offer much cushioning. The shoes do not come with an insole so I decided to fit a thin general flat  insole that I bought from a supermarket for about £4 for 6 pairs.

Being the sort of person who spends quite a bit of money on running shoes I am intrigued as to how these will perform in comparison to my branded minimalist shoes. I will give them a month or so and report back on the blog how they worked out.

Tread Lightly Book Review

Tread Lightly is a book by Peter Larson and Bill Katovsky. Pete is well known in running blog circles as being the writer of runblogger.com.  This and other blogs have been a great help to me in learning how to adopt a more natural running technique over the past year.

Summary

Tread Lightly provides a good introduction to current research on natural  running - that is running in a manner that is more akin to running barefoot. It provides a balanced view of the science and anecdotal evidence (where research is lacking) surrounding running injury risk reduction and is likely to be of use to the recreational runner and the more serious runner. I would highly recommend that you read this book. 

Review

The book is very balanced. The authors provide a very honest opinion of the relative merits and disadvantages of natural running issues. This is often backed up by summaries of research, where available or anecdotal evidence where it is not. Coming from a science background I liked this aspect of the book as it not based on opinion but is backed up largely by hard facts.