Olympic runners' shoes

[CoteDAzur]

They look more like barefoot running shoes than my Nike Airs.

I'm now wondering if I should ditch them and get some thin sole shoes.

CoteDAzur On the track - they're spikes remember, and yes tend to be very minimal. The longest anyone is running is 28minutes and on a pretty springy surface, so it's not quite the same as road running.

In the marathon they will also often tend to wear very minimal shoes, weight makes a big difference so as light as you can go will help with fast speeds. A lot will just be on racing flats rather than full barefoot shoes though.

Trying the same and doing it slowly is unlikely to hurt you and may well work - remember though that one of the things that all the athletes you see running is - they have excellent running economy and do not slow down as much as the rest of us on each stride, meaning their forces are much lower.

I now wear barefoot shoes for all walking around having moved from pretty minimal shoes before - and will be trying full barefoot running shoes from racing flats (Asics DS Racers) when I next start running (sometime when the weather turns even worse)

What are "racing flats"? Not much in the way of proper running equipment stores in my neck of the woods - it's all Nike or Adidas stores which have nothing but gel or air shoes.

They're essentially barefoot shoes but with a more traditional shaped sole rather than the curved sort of sole you see on minimalist "vibram" like shoes.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racing_flat

They're actually generally much cheaper than the air or gel shoes, but they tend to have a much shorter life, means you wouldn't spend that much to try them?