Barefoot Running Groups in Your Area?

My favorite quote from the Dalai Lama is "just do something" - i believe Nike took a version of this!  If you want to get in on some organized runs in your area and you're interested in natural running check for groups near you.  MeetUp.com has been a good way to link together people with like interests and my area has a couple barefoot running events coming up:

Meetup in northern VA.  There's also a national group, the Barefoot Runners Society.  The Twitter Way.  Check these out and if there isn't a group or chapter near you.... start one!!

Oxygen Cost of Running Barefoot vs. Running Shod

Link to the study: 

Oxygen Cost of Running Barefoot vs. Running Shod

...The major finding in this study is that barefoot running overground and on the treadmill was significantly more economical than running with shoes. In contrast, no significant differences in VO2 (volume of oxygen used by the runner) were found between the treadmill and the overground track regardless of the footwear condition (barefoot/shod). The magnitude of the lower VO2 while running barefoot yielded a PRE of 0.41, meaning that 41% of the variance in VO2 was explained by the barefoot vs. shod difference. The associated PRE values due to the barefoot vs. shod difference for HR (heart rate) and RPE (relative perceived effort) were 0.50 and 0.69, respectively.

Note, only 6-10 runners sampled in this study so it shows a trend, not definitive data. The source material in this study is very valuable, plenty of reading material. I plan to summarize more such studies in the near future