On Sunday April 17th, fifty-five runners took part in the “Auroville Barefoot Run 2016”
Barefoot running has been gaining popularity slowly but
surely in Auroville. In the early days, almost every runner was a barefoot
runner because sports shoes were simply not available. Things changed in the
1990’s and barefoot runners became rare. Indeed, for competitive sports, shoes
offer a protection against small wounds, allowing you to run faster and
further.
Nowadays a small group of barefoot runners is active in
Auroville. Some like François Gautier have been running barefoot for decades,
since their days at the Ashram Sports Ground, while others like me have
recently taken to it. When Barefoot Ted (Ted McDonald) visited Auroville in
2012 to run the Auroville Marathon, he gave a talk and I (like many others) was
inspired by his charisma and his message (you can find it on Auroville Radio:
http://goo.gl/OXemJP). He is one of the real life characters depicted in the
book ‘Bo...
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