WINNIPEG – They call him barefoot Bob.
“I’m running along and I look beside me and here’s this guy with no shoes and I had to ask him right then, are you planning on not having shoes the whole time?” said runner Scott Burton.
After a few knee surgeries, Bob Nicol found running in shoes was painful for him. So he tried running au naturel instead.
“I ended up being able to push it further than I had been able to run in shoes and there was a big grin on my face,” said Nicol. “I knew right then, that was it.”
His life changed ever since. He has run races barefoot across North America in all kinds of conditions including heavy snow, up mountains, over rocks and in extreme heat. Even after all that his feet are still in good condition.
“They’re actually baby soft,” he said. “It’s like a pedicure so basically my feet are getting scarified all the time.”
While racing, he has stepped on everything from cactus to glass. But instead of stopping, he just uses the crazy glue that he carries with him.
“I just basically glue my foot up and its fine,” he said.
Running experts say that this kind of style can be a bit dangerous.
“To all of a sudden transition into a completely minimal or barefoot running style, we have seen people get injured,” said Lorraine Walton, a Running Room manager in Winnipeg.
But the benefit far outweighs the cost for Nicol.
“A lot of people who run in shoes, the smiling isn’t there.. like when they’re done they’re done and it seems painful,” he said.
Nicol is currently training in Winnipeg for a 150-mile race across Wisconsin in January. That’s over 240 kilometers. And you can bet he’ll be a top contender, just without shoes.
PHOTO GALLERY: A behind the scenes look at Global News’ shoot with barefoot runner Bob Nicol.
Comments