Barefoot Ted McDonald, a 46-year-old Seattle resident, qualified for the Boston Marathon just two years after picking up running. Living up to his name and cementing his reputation, he did it barefoot. But that’s hardly the most interesting thing about him.
Bold, bald, with a tribal monkey medallion hanging around his neck and a scattered entrepreneur past, Barefoot Ted teaches running technique, preaches running philosophy, and organizes and participates in long-distance runs worldwide. Now, along with Dan Fairbank, McDonald is the cofounder of the new Born to Run store in downtown Bellevue.
The store sells running shoes and clothing, but not of the sorts Bellevue’s used to. Fairbank and McDonald preach barefoot and minimalist running. The basic idea, said McDonald, is that the foot is perfect as it is, and that with proper technique and equipment that doesn’t get in the way, running can make us “healthy, happy and fit.”
The movement
The crux of the minimalist argument is that overcompensating for what’s “wrong” with foot not only doesn’t improve performance, but also actually drastically increases the chance of injury.
“We have this belief that we were born imperfect,” said McDonald, “and that we can buy things to fix ourselves,” citing examples such as vitamins and changing food options in addition to the modern sports shoe.
Within the running community, there has always been an undercurrent of minimalism; barefoot training sessions have long been standard, and Kenyan marathoner Abebe Bikila even won the Olympic Marathon barefoot in 1960. Natives and ancients clearly didn’t have access to Nike or Adidas, and had to make do with simpler shoes and materials, even though they ran more often and with more necessity than the average person today.
The performance shoe changed the landscape, creating a market for improving oneself through product, and improving running through better shoes, McDonald said. In recent years, there has been a backlash of minimalism, to the point that the movement is catching on in the mainstream. Christopher McDougall’s book “Born to Run” – the defining text on minimalist and barefoot running, according to McDonald and Fairbank – was a hit and a bestseller. The book also features Barefoot Ted as one of its main characters.
Increasing injury rates and more specific studies in sports science and evolutionary biology show that the movement may have a point, but Barefoot Ted argues that the central proof is more intuitive.
“Jump two inches and land on your heels – you’ll feel a jolt. Do the same thing and land on the pad in the middle of your foot – much better, right?” McDonald said. That’s the difference between where you land with shoes and without them, too, McDonald added.
Even more intuitive, said McDonald, is running itself.
“We love that feeling of smoothness,” he said. “Skiing, ice skating, skateboarding. Running doesn’t feel smooth because of the shoes, but when you do it right, when you run smoothly, it becomes something you want to do just to do.”
The store
The store’s vision starts with the two men behind it.
Fairbank’s personal story is almost the “archetype” of the modern minimalist runner, he said. Fairbank was an athlete throughout high school and college, playing football and rugby, among other sports. Out of school, he turned to running to stay in shape, and found that he could never run more than a few miles at a time because of a nagging knee injury.
“I had played sports before without getting injured,” Fairbank said. He wondered why he got injured so easily as a runner; Fairbank was convinced that he found the answer, he said, after he read about barefoot running on a Southwest Airlines in-flight magazine.
McDonald’s story is a bit more esoteric.
“I wanted to do something special for my 40th birthday,” he said. “I had read about a guy who ran a marathon for his 40th birthday, and I thought that would be cool to do.”
He picked up running, but says that he could never run for more than an hour. He tried the traditional corrections, even going so far as to buy shoes containing springs to improve his step. Failing that, he went to the opposite extreme – “It just feels better barefoot,” he said.
For Barefoot Ted, running isn’t about “numbers – weight, mileage, number of minutes. Every day is an adventure. I wake up, and when I step out of my door I just run however much feels right. The environment – the city – becomes a playground.”
The idea for the Born to Run store came from the realization that even though barefoot running can’t be commercialized because it’s about the lack of a product, new minimalist shoes could be. Two of their flagship products are the Vibram FiveFinger – a vibrant, light but durable contraption with a separate pocket for each toe – and the Luna Sandal, a product from Barefoot Ted’s other company of the same name which consists of nothing more than a sole and a sole strap.
The shoe is about more than capitalizing on a movement. It’s also about the movement itself – the store and its owners hold morning runs three times a week, and free running clinics on the weekends.
Fairbank and McDonald also consider environmentalism key. Their shoes and their items are constructed naturally – “wool,” McDonald said proudly, pointing towards a running shirt. “Another natural material.” He mentioned his idea to use horse leather for his new sandals for its durability and its strength.
“To get people into running, and to do it in an environmentally friendly way – its huge,” McDonald said.
The vision
“Our goal is to have a chain of stores across the United States,” said Fairbank. Its a lofty goal, but at their present rate of expansion, it just might happen.
The idea of minimalist running has a growing consumer base, maybe five times as large this year as last year, according to Fairbank. Its not just hardcore runners, or even runners at all either. McDonald cited Microsoft higher-ups among those who wear the Luna Sandal to work, and Fairbank concurred that “we see all sorts of people here.”
From his other company, Luna Sandals, McDonald has experience selling customers on minimalist running worldwide – they ship to places as diverse as London, Tokyo and Australia. To expand their realm, Fairbank and McDonald are looking at getting a wider range of runner products – clothing and food – along with more ambitious ideas – custom shoes made in-store and connecting with tribal designs from indigenous populations are just two of their planned innovations. Already, the Born to Run store is looking at adding a Seattle location.
“I’m a firm believer that a million different people will have a million different ways of going about running,” McDonald said. He started the Born to Run store to enable them to do that, and to teach people to love running in what McDonald considers the right way. Behind McDonald and Fairbank’s product and behind their expansive philosophy is the idea that, at our core, we’re born to run.
Derek Tsang is an intern at the Bellevue Reporter. He attends Interlake High School.
