Speaker 1 

OK. So hi, welcome. We’re really excited to share these feet I made for walking with you today. My name is Nicola Dowdeswell. I’m a physiotherapist for GHC, and with me, I’m pleased to say today is. 

Speaker 2 

I’m Anna McNuff. I am an adventurer and author and a restless mumma of three small humans. 

Speaker 1 

OK, so this year as part of the Festival of Growth, we invite you, our audience, in whatever capacity you are part of the AHP SW community on a barefoot adventure. So wherever you are listening from, let’s start by taking off your socks and shoes. And while you were doing that, Anna, I just wondered this year’s Festival of Growth will take place at Westonbirt in Gloucestershire and I wonder if you would share why it’s a place that’s quite close to your heart. 

Speaker 2 

Ohh, I love Westonbirt. It is one of my closest places to go for a nice trail run and it’s worth me going down there because the trees are just stunning. I love how they have all the different areas, and I know they’ve got some of the rarest trees in the world there and there are trees in Westonbirt that you cannot see in any other part of the UK. So, I think we’re so lucky to have it on a doorstep and I just, I just love it. There’s something about being surrounded by all those different trees that makes you just feel just grounded and calm. And I think for being in that natural environment, it’s like quite relaxing, very relaxing. Yeah, very out of our usual everyday lives, which are. So go, go, go and then you stand near a tree. 

Speaker 1 

And when your trail running, is that bare foot or is that in shoes? 

Speaker 2 

I at the moment I’m in shoes, but I wear minimalist shoes so although I’ve done a lot of barefoot running, normally I will be wearing yeah, minimalist shoes so very, very little support and it’s as close as to barefoot as you can get without being actually barefoot. If I’m on a beach or a nice green area, then I’ll be in bare feet. 

Speaker 1 

Fantastic. So, thanks, Anna. So hopefully you’ve got your shoes and socks off. I just want you to feel the surface beneath your feet and toes. Whether you’re standing or sitting, just feel and just connect with the ground. Just be grounded. Just take a moment for your feet and say thank you for all that they do for you. They’re just amazing, aren’t they? Don’t you agree, Anna? 

Speaker 2 

Oh. Oh my gosh, I love feet. People think I’m weird because I love feet, and I love them because they are amazing. Just think they support us all day? They take us on adventures, they take us dancing. They play footsie with people, with fancy. Look at them. They are wonderful and the tendons as well with them. The fact that you can see when you, you get strong feet, you can see all the tendons working. You can see everything that your feet are doing to support you. I think they’re amazing.  

Speaker 1 

Ok so in fact, what I’d like you to do now is look down at your feet and think about this. So, each foot has got 26 bones, 33 joints and 29 muscles, ten of which cross your ankle. To move your feet. Wow. No wonder. Sometimes they ache. They feel stiff. They cause you pain, but they need to move. They need to be strong, and they need to be looked after. Healthy feet are so important to living your best life. And for us, healthy feet have barefoot adventures, and we recognise adventures of individual so, we hope sharing ours will inspire your bare foot adventure. So, Anna, I’m just gonna share my bare foot adventure and then we’ll move on to the nitty gritty and hear yours. So, for me, I’ve always walked around the house bare foot and taken care of my feet. But I was inspired about 10 years ago whilst I was at a conference, I joined in a foot workout and from that experience keeping my feet and toes mobile strong and healthy really mattered. It was really good for my well-being, so I spend at least 5 minutes every day, well most days doing a foot work out. 

Speaker 

Yeah. 

Speaker 1 

It’s just a really important part of my daily routine and I think my feet love me for it. I do it indoors, I do it outdoors, more often, standing but sometimes sitting. I just use my hands to move my feet and my toes. I’ve done the exercises in all weathers. I do it in the rain, in the sun, in the snow. I’ve done the exercises on all different surfaces, on the carpet, on the wood floor, concrete, grass, sand, mud and even in water I mix it up. But I do my exercises every day for 5 minutes and I feel great afterwards and then I walk. Quite often I put my shoes on and go walking, but that’s OK. That’s totally OK. OK, so that’s my daily barefoot adventure. But now let’s enjoy the other end of the spectrum. Anna, you ran barefoot through Britain covering 2300 plus miles. That’s the equivalent of 90 marathons. So, I have two questions really that I want to ask you why barefoot? And number 2, what preparation did you have to do ahead of running barefoot? 

Speaker 2 

Both very good questions. The Why is an important one because I get that a lot the why was just because I’d done a long running trainers before and I was using the run as a way to talk to young girls down the country about doing adventures and things that pushed you out your comfort zone. So, I thought I have to find a way to make this a little bit more difficult than normal run. Crazy thought entered my head. Why don’t you do it in bare feet of? Course straight away, thought that’s ridiculous you can’t. But then I went, I wonder can I dot dot dot and that’s where it started. You like a challenge? Yeah, I like a challenge. And I just like, I’m just curious about our body like, you know, straight away go well, I can’t do that and like, well, actually, what are the reasons I couldn’t do that and only because I’m not prepared and I’ve not grown up barefoot but you know around the world loads of people are barefoot so I then spent a year and a half transitioning from being in normal shoes down to being barefoot, and I basically did it in stages so I would walk in minimalist shoes for, you know, a mile or so or even less 20 minutes and then gradually would go down to doing like socks with thick bottoms. And then eventually six months of it, I was actually barefoot. So there was a really gradual transition. 

Speaker 1 

Ohh wow, so over a year and a half, yeah, yeah. 

Speaker 2 

Just to be able to run those kinds of miles in bare feet, you know, and I would start with just 5 minutes, 10 minutes because I was coming from a place where most people probably listening are, which is they wear normal supported shoes all day. 

Speaker 1 

And how did you learn how to run barefoot? 

Speaker 2 

I actually visited this guy. Sounds like he’s a troll or something, because I say he lives under Kew Bridge in London, but he’s not a troll, he runs a running gait workshop where he basically put me on a running machine, looked at the way I run and said to me, if you want to make this distance and not be injured, your hips, your knees, your calves, all of that then this is the kind of way I think you need to run, which is kind of like a glide. So very minimal up and down movement and over the time I was seeing him, he managed to basically coach me to run in a way that decreased the impact that was going through my joints, which made it a bit healthier. 

Speaker 1

That’s great. So that actually I didn’t realise, but that’s a lot of preparation. And I guess that transitioning to barefoot can be a challenge, especially as your feet are so dependent on what’s going on in your pelvis, in your leg, and even in your upper body. So I guess if you were new to bare foot and keen to give it a go, we wanted to share some top tips with you, to emphasise your barefoot health so number one start in the great outdoors. Find a piece of grass freshly cut in the summer if you can, it offers a flat and hopefully dry, I don’t know about this summer, and comfortable surface. Pay attention to feeling grounded in the safe space and just breathe. Allow yourself to move your feet and toes in a natural way and move them slowly and carefully in every direction to the left to the right, forward and backward, explore how they can move. And now it’s time to start your adventure. Start at a pace that suits you, be kind to yourself and to your feet. So Anna, anything you’d like to add? And I suppose it’d be really good if you could share some of the benefits from being barefoot. 

Speaker 2 

Yeah, I would say the first benefit is that calming thing, I mean, it sounds very when I’m listening to you, I’m feeling very calm. But I think it is as soon as you get barefoot, you just you’re very grounded, you’re very connected, you’re present and because you have so many nerve endings in the bottom, in the the soles of your feet, you feel everything, and that brings you back into the moment. So, I think that is one of the biggest benefits that I love about being bare foot whenever I can. 

Speaker 1 

And what about I remember you saying something about you felt pain once. Yeah. And what would your advice be if people do feel? Pain in their feet. 

Speaker 2 

Yeah, I suffered in the past with a lot of shin splints, knee injuries in my running and what barefoot minimalist running showed me is that we when we get injured, we always think I need more support under my feet to fix the injury. But actually, I think people should consider the other end of the spectrum which if more support hasn’t worked, we don’t fancy going that way, having less support could be something that given time and patience actually helps to alleviate that pain. 

Speaker 1 

Yeah. And I think it’s that idea, isn’t it about doing things gradually? Yeah. Things slowly, you know. Don’t jump into barefoot running straight away. Yeah. You know, as you said, it took a long time to transition into that barefoot. OK, thanks. So, for a challenge and building on the themes of the AHP SW massive at Westonbirt, we want you to think about your feet, the feet of the people you work with and the communities you are part of, and consider your barefoot adventure, and remember it will be your adventure. It will give you; it will offer you a time and a space to connect with yourself with others and with your surroundings. It will give you a time and a space to inspire your thoughts, your words and your actions. And it will offer you a time and a space to elevate yourself personally with your peers and professionally. So, thank you, Anna. That went really fast. Thank you to the SW AHP massive audience and beyond. And if you’d like to connect with us or share your barefoot adventures or your walking adventures? We would love to connect. Thanks, and that’s it from us. Bye.