I went running with my wife the other day (she's much more athletic than I am, although I'm trying to catch up!), and had TERRIBLE foot pain from my running shoes about a half mile in. It was so unbearable that, even though it was rough asphalt and gravel, I decided to run the rest of the of the 2 miles barefoot.
To my delightful surprise, I loved it! Running barefoot is great! It made me think about how I set my foot down, totally changing my stride.
Since then, I've done a lot of research, and found out that running barefoot takes 4% less energy than running with shoes, and many people have correlated running barefoot with greatly decreased running-related injuries. People run marathons barefoot, they run trails barefoot, they run barefoot in the Olympics...now that I'm looking, it seems like barefoot running is everywhere!
Because I'm not totally willing to open myself up to broken glass, tetanus, and pointy rocks and twigs, I'm going to be buying some Vibram Five Fingers Sprints.
They have been reviewed to be 90% of the feeling of running barefoot, and most of the benefits.
Anyone have any experience running barefoot, or with FiveFingers, that they'd like to share? Once I start running with them I'll keep you posted on my experiences!