The marathon is a hard event; it is 26.2 miles of hard running. It is hard on the body, in particular the feet which is the reason all marathon runners pay so much attention to what exactly is on their feet. They will spend a lot of time finding the best running shoes and a lot of money is involved in running shoes. Back at the 1960 Rome Olympic Games, the Ethiopian, Abebe Bikala arrived for the marathon and there were no running shoes left in the teams supplies that would fit him, so he ran the marathon without footwear and won the gold medal. This is commonly hailed as a exceptional accomplishment. In recent years there's been a group of runners that are suggesting the running shoes are not all they're believed to be and are promoting that running must be done barefoot, much like nature made us for. After all, we were not given birth to with footwear and historical humans simply had to run large distances barefoot to stay alive as animals needed to be hunted on foot over great distances.
Athletic shoes are actually only a relatively recent invention. Those who propose the barefoot method of running love to point out the achievements of Abebe Bikala as even more justification that we don't need running shoes. There are certainly many other justifications both for as well as against barefoot running, with little or no scientific data underpinning it. While Abebe Bikala winning gold medal at the 1960 Rome Olympics without running shoes certainly suggest that it is possible, what those who like to tout his triumphs as evidence often omit that he later went on to win the gold medal and also set a world record in the marathon at the 1964 Tokyo Olympic games. Abebe Bikala was able to set the world record on this occasion wearing running shoes; to put it differently he had the ability to run faster when he was using running shoes. We might well have evolved to run without running shoes, but we also evolved in an environment prior to concrete and hard surfaces came along. While the accomplishments of Bikala were incredible, making use of him as evidence that barefoot is better doesn't stack up to analysis.
