#78 Golden Harper | Barefoot Running with Nature's Secrets

00:00:00 - Jesper Conrad
So today we are together with the Golden Harbor. First of all, thanks a lot for sharing your time with us here today. It's wonderful to meet you. 

00:00:09 - Golden Harper
Yeah, excellent, thanks for having me, yeah. 

00:00:12 - Jesper Conrad
And I'm not one to talk, as our children are named Storm, silk, Fjord, and liv in danish, which is life in english. But when I read your name, I'm like golden. How can you name a child golden? So what is the story there? Can we start there? 

00:00:29 - Golden Harper
sure, uh, my, I was supposed to be James. And my dad had this dream, uh, before I was born, and he turned to my wife, my mom, in the middle of the night and he's like we're not supposed to name him James, we're supposed to name him James, we're supposed to name him Golden. And my mom was just like oh my gosh, that's my dad's middle name and his dad's middle name, and so on and so forth. It had been this family name, but obviously my grandpa didn't go by it. It was his middle name, it's also my middle name, but I went from it from the very beginning. That was always the plan. So my first name is Kenneth, the same as my dad's and his dad's. You get the idea Generation after generation. 

Yeah, but my dad never went by Kenneth either, really, so it's. If they're all. 

00:01:20 - Cecilie Conrad
Kenneth Golden. 

00:01:22 - Golden Harper
Yeah, so my dad went by Hawk, because he jumped off big cliffs and did this with his arms while he was jumping off and he was given the name hawk um his his family when he was young called him doug that was his middle name. So, um, yep, that's that and uh, I have sisters that are crystal amber and summer rose and, uh, my children are journey. Iris and hawkins love it love it so. 

00:01:56 - Jesper Conrad
But so today we are going to talk about your life, your story, but also about how you have chosen your direction in life, and a lot of it will be around running. Um, my body type. I'm not a natural runner, but my personal story with running is that I hated it. I was a swimmer and they wanted us to run. And then, later in life, I did a lot of yoga and we, with child number four, I went to the yoga shala again and I hadn't been there for a long time, and the yoga teacher said to me oh you, you have the physical strength, but you don't have the stamina. You, I won't, I don't see you here often. And I got so pissed at him that I was like I will never go back. And I didn't, but I decided to myself I will show him stamina. So I back then took a decision which was I wanted to run one kilometer every day, which I now have done for 12 years and here in the. 

And then we have to add it up actually and a little stupid, maybe, uh, but now I've actually turned it up in this spring to uh, three kilometers, um, because around 20 minutes, which is I'm a slow runner, so then I get my natural endorphin hit and it's just wonderful to run. Yeah, and do you have? So? Your story with running starts with when you are way earlier than mine did. You started way back when you were it's what was it? You ran your first marathon when you was 10. Can we get? 

00:03:39 - Golden Harper
eight, uh, yeah, 10, yeah, so I, I had actually won the World Youth Championships when I was eight. I'd been racing since I was two. My parents were race directors, so I got to run in all these races for free, and my next door neighbor was Olympic trials qualifier. My mom was a five time Olympic trials qualifier. My dad was an elite runner and, interestingly, neither of my parents came from running backgrounds. In fact, when we show up to family reunions, for the most part people ask who the skinny people are. We are, you know, total outliers, and for both my parents, you know, later in life, my dad was 30, basically about 30 when he started running, and so my parents met right after they both started running, and so the running stoke level was really high, and so I was born into that Uh and uh. So I, I raced as a youth and then, after after winning that world youth championships at age eight, it was kind of like, well, what's next? And where? Where I lived? 

Uh, the big focus of the year was the St George marathon, and St George is this little town down by Las Vegas, about an hour and a half North of Las Vegas, nevada, uh, and just as beautiful, you know, probably the prettiest marathon course in in America. 

And I I just thought, well, that's cool, you know, that's what my parents do, it, you know everybody loves it. And uh, I, I wanted to run and my parents were like, um, you're, you're eight, you might be turning nine before the race, but you know, you're an eight-year-old like no, heck, no, there's no way that's happening. And that year a terrible but wonderful thing happened is they gave the performance of the day trophy, which was a six foot tall trophy, to the youngest runner in the race, who was 12 and ran a pretty impressive four and a half hour marathon. Uh, or, you know, really impressive by by most standards, I would say. And I I just never let my parents hear the end of it. It was just like, if you were to let me run, I'm going to get that huge trophy, because there's nothing cooler to a 10 year old or an eight year old kid, nine year old kid, then a giant trophy that's bigger than you, you know several feet taller than you, it doesn't get any better than that, you know. 

And I was just so, um, so irritated that my parents didn't let me run, I didn't get that huge trophy, and I kind of just pestered them over the next, you know, year, whatever. And uh, eventually my dad was like fine, fine, fine, fine, Just leave me alone. Just, if you run rim to rim in the grand Canyon, so from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon across the Grand Canyon up to the South Rim Harder than a marathon, you know. And if you run to the top of Mount Timpanogos and back, also harder than a marathon, you know you do these things then sure we'll let you run the marathon. And you know, his thought was, like he'll realize this is really difficult. 

00:06:44 - Jesper Conrad
It's a horrible idea, stupid idea. And he did a horrible idea, stupid idea. 

00:06:47 - Golden Harper
And he did not account for how messed up I am. 

You know I liked it I loved running rim to rim in the Grand Canyon. I was bouncing off the rocks and just having a great time, and so I ran Mount Timpanogos. I thought it was the coolest thing, standing on top of the world and just seeing everything down below me, and you know, it was just like. These were incredible experiences. And so I met the qualifications and my dad basically lost a bet to me for all intents and purposes, and had to let me run. So they were. I was nine that year. They registered me, I turned 10 before the race and I ran that first marathon. 

and it turns out, um, you know, when you do things harder than the race, the race tends to go pretty well you know, so so I ran 308 05 that year, which is about seven minutes a mile um and not not really doing like seven minutes a kilometer, yeah yeah, right yeah, and like I think people say like, oh, you were so fast, like they kind of think that I I'm maybe a little judgy about pace and whatnot, but I really am not. 

Like I just feel like anybody who's out there running is is running. They're awesome, like you know you're. Anybody who's even out there at all is better than 95 percent of the population who's not getting out there behind you know. So, um, and I've had experiences since in my life where I, um, you know, had to run at the back of the pack and I really enjoyed it. 

I loved running slow with you know um people that weren't running as fast I, I, I found it very enjoyable and worked my way up through the middle of the pack and and back up to being, you know um, fairly elite again and I found joy in all of those um paces and with all of those groups of people and and, frankly, like they're kind of all the same. In a lot of ways it's like, yeah, some of the guys run faster and some people run slower, but but there's a lot of of oneness there, you know, to be found. I didn't find, you know, runners at the back of the pack to be incredibly different than runners at the very front of the pack. 

00:08:58 - Jesper Conrad
So what is it about? Running? That is fantastic For my sake. I, what I, what I like is, as I do this stupid thing of running every morning and earlier it was only this one kilometer, which is I can't say it in miles, but not a lot. So it was almost not worth putting on the running clothes to get back and forth. But I saw, I saw the, the weather of the day, I felt the nature and and um. But now, when I'm up to a little longer, I, I, I, I get this. Ah, it's really good. The body is hot and you, you feel something. What is it it do for you? 

00:09:41 - Golden Harper
yeah, I think it's. It's really difficult, as you just uh experience. It's really difficult to put into words. Yeah, uh, and I think it's. It's really difficult, as you just uh experience. It's really difficult to put into words yeah, uh, and I think most people hate running, uh, because they think of it as running. 

Their whole idea of running is like you're going so hard that you feel bad and you want to puke, or, and also, most people have never been taught how to run, and that's a that's a big part of what I'm doing right now is is teaching people how to run efficiently in a way that makes it so much more enjoyable, and so I think, once we get to that point and then getting people to just slow down, you know the reality is most people, when they start running, should be running so slow they could be walking. And, to your point, for a lot of people I know I'm this way it takes me 15 or 20 minutes before I start to feel I don at me. I I've run a mile in just over four minutes, and yet my first mile of most of my runs is closer to 15 minutes. Typically, um, and typically I'm going uphill on trails, so that's part of it, but still, um, you know and I think people look at me like dude runs like miles in the four minute range, and yet, you know, his first mile is always, is always like 15 minutes, and I just take time to really let my body come around and and enjoy just being out there and experiencing the world. You know, to your point, feeling the weather and seeing, you know nature and whatnot, and, and then, after 20 minutes, to your point, something's something somewhat magical happens and there's no way to really put it into words is is everything just kind of starts to click, and it doesn't happen every day, it doesn't happen every time, but it often does. Uh, where you know, uh, and even if that doesn't happen so often, you get back and after you get back, life just works better. 

After getting out, you know, and I don't know that it necessarily has to be running for people. 

You can, you can find whatever it is that you do to. You know, exert your body in nature. I find, you know, trail running is the most convenient, easy way for me to do this is to just go out in into the forest or up into the mountains, and, and you know there's a lot of research coming out on forest bathing now, which is essentially just, you know. There's a lot of uh research coming out on forest bathing now, which is essentially just, you know, being out in the forest for lack of a better term and, uh, all the positives that happen, all the positive changes that happen with our body, and I think I think that's a thing that uh, that happens. Um, but again, I'm really passionate about teaching people how to what what I call float run um, instead of crashing down the road, learning to float down the road or or the trail or whatever, and make it just make it so much more enjoyable so you're not fighting yourself while you're out there. 

00:12:36 - Jesper Conrad
Yeah, I would like to take a short detour. Talk about bare feet uh, yeah and then go to the float run and, yeah, who you are, it's natural to to pass through to the people who see this on youtube. I have my very big ultra I just bought recently because I was I was a start with, I have my feet, yes, very excellent me too yeah. 

Excellent, me too, yeah, no, but it's just. I mean, one of the reasons among many that we full-time travel is I am not happy with shoes. My feet like to not have anything on them, and I remember every fall, the first week of having shoes on again. I was just sad. So for the last six years I've almost never had shoes on, just sandals, barefoot sandals, and I was also like, oh, I need to run in these, this is the way to run. But asphalt and barefoot sandals, that is rough. And then I heard about your invention with the zero drop and how that is. So if we shortly can take that because I really want to move over to float running and also, as you are not part of Altra anymore, it could be fun to talk more about how to run. 

00:13:55 - Golden Harper
Yeah for sure. Yeah, no, the barefoot thing is a fascinating thing. That I mean. I grew up. 

My dad was working for Nike when I was born, well, saucony, most of my childhood. We opened a running store when I was nine. I mean, I was obsessed with shoes and shoe technology. You know my entire growing up. But by the time I was 18, I realized that the same people kept coming back into the shoe store with the same problems, no matter what we threw at them. And we did all the stuff the shoe companies and and and insert, you know, orthotic, uh, insole people told us to do, and still people came back with the same problems year after year and uh, you know. 

So, after 10 years of working in the store, I realized that it's it's all bs, you know, it's all garbage, um, and that was a very frustrating kind of place to be. But I decided to go to school and I spent you know it took me nine years to graduate, from the time I started the time I finished, uh, I I did take two years away to to go on a mission, uh, but you know, seven years of schooling to do a four-year degree and I basically just focused on foot health and uh and running injuries and stuff, so um. Foot health and uh and running injuries and stuff, so um. And I came. I spent two years in hawaii, hence my hat. I'm not sure how clear that is, uh but uh, how did you point at it? 

I can see that you see it now, yeah um, so I I have this special place in my heart for for hawaii and hawaiian culture and and frankly, that's where, um, I had already started to. You know, I had always been taught to run, to do strides barefoot, or warm up barefoot or cool down barefoot, keep your feet strong and work on your running technique, and still a big believer in that. But I didn't really adopt the barefoot lifestyle as much until I was in Hawaii. And it's it's just interesting because everything I had been taught my entire growing up by every shoe and insole company was flipped, meaning I got to Hawaii and I was surrounded by giant Polynesian people whose feet rolled in like this, who had no arches, low arches, flat feet. They overpronated like crazy and they were overweight. 

And everything I had been trained my whole life by every shoe and insole company was like oh, if you're overweight, that's going to make all that stuff worse. If your feet pronate like that, that's the end of the world. You know that's such a problem, we have to fix that. And and you know, if you, if you have flat feet or low arches, that you know that's really bad. We have to fix that too. And as I got around these people, you know, as I got to know them well and it'd be like hey, so you know, tell me about your feet. You know, tell me how your feet hurt, cause, cause, I've been doing this my whole life. I can help you, you know, and like I kid you not like every single one of them looks at me like brah, my feet don't hurt, you know. 

00:16:48 - Jesper Conrad
like, nobody's feet hurt. You know it's like, but but I know western medicine. Yeah, yeah, right, exactly. 

00:16:54 - Golden Harper
And so, so, right then and there I was like I'm gonna dive into this research because this is fascinating. I am literally surrounded. I mean not only these people. The textbook definition of what every shoe and insole company have told me is a problem, and they have no problems. They also are doing the other thing that is a problem is they walk around in slippers. If they wear shoes at all, they're essentially walking on barefoot or in flip flops, and which, again, we're like you should never do this, you know. And again, no problem. 

So I really dug into the research and looked at, okay, what's going on here, and it turns out you look at the billion people on the planet that don't wear modern footwear, they go barefoot or wear primitive sandals and their incidence of foot problems is 3%. Uh, and that is doctors and researchers going and begging them to tell them about their foot problem and guess what? Basically, none of them are chronic foot conditions, except for a few genetic things that people are born with. But and there we're talking less than half a percent. So it's mostly like I kicked a cactus. I, you know, stepped on some coral. I got athletes, you know, I mean it's. It's like you know this, um, these acute issues. Okay, I sprained my ankle, um, again, probably not that, because it's really difficult to sprain your ankle barefoot, uh, and and then I got looking at the data, for you know where we have the best shoes in the world, in America, and 73% of American adults report foot pain. So we're not going and begging them to tell us about it. They're coming to us and saying you know, I'm filling out a survey, I'm here at a shoe store, doctor's office, whatever my feet hurt, and I'm here to talk about it. So almost three out of four adults uh, you know report foot pain yearly. So just a massive difference. 

And you know, as you really get into it and as I spent the next two years diving into this, it became really clear that feet are not shaped like shoes, or said better, shoes are not shaped like feet and that's. That's a really difficult thing for people to understand. But but human feet are widest at the tips of the toes and if you've ever looked at shoes, shoes, yeah, are shaped more like torpedoes or pizza slices, you know. And so this idea was like, well, shouldn't we make shoes that are widest at the tips of the toes? You know, um, um, and your alters are the same, and um. 

And then the other thing is shoes deform the foot out of its natural position. Obviously, by crowding the toes together that happens. But most people don't realize any shoe with foam. Uh, at the time especially, uh, every shoe, the way they were built, was almost exactly twice as thick in the heel as it was in the forefoot. The foam in the shoe was. So if there was 12 millimeters of foam in the forefoot, there was 24 in the heel. If there's 10 in the forefoot, there's 20 in the heel. And there's this two to one ratio going on. That's just how shoes have been built since Nike came around. 

And so, um, what happens is the foot gets, uh, deformed out of natural position, and when the big toe is bent in and the heel is up in the air like that, your arch doesn't work. And when your arch doesn't work, you need this thing that is a recent construct in humanity that none of humanity used, you know, a couple of centuries ago, and almost none of humanity used even 60, 70 years ago. Is this thing called arch support? And almost none of humanity used even 60, 70 years ago. Is this thing called arch support? And because we got to a point where we are wearing shoes all day, every day, with a tapered toe that bends the big toe in and a raised heel that raises the heel up and the arch doesn't work. We now need arch support and I actually agree with that. If you're going to put on a pair of typical shoes, you probably need arch support because that shoe has put your foot in a position where your arch cannot do what an arch is supposed to do. 

Um and so um, you know. And then I'm like training for a Rocky 50 mile race and I'm I have Vibram, five fingers, the foot glove things, the barefoot running shoes, you know, and my shoe store was the first running store in America to actually sell these, and we sold them again as a training tool and a way to work on strengthening your feet a couple of times a week, right and um. And what we found is we started videoing people on our treadmill because we would teach everybody who comes in the store almost everybody a lesson on how to protect their body when they run, how to make running more fun, learn how to not fight yourself when you're running, because these modern shoes with the elevated heels that you know, it's not just that, the back half of the shoe is higher than the front half of the shoe, it's that it's heavier. All the cool stuff goes into. The back half of the shoe is higher than the front half of the shoe is that it's heavier. All the cool stuff goes into the back half of the shoe. And if you, if you've ever taken a pair of typical running shoes, you know they've got like a heel counter in the back, so it's like it's like hard back there, right, um, and all the technology is back here and so it makes the shoe heel heavy. And what we found is we would film people barefoot or in five fingers and they ran naturally quite well. 

The things we were teaching them were very easy to do or even came to them without us teaching them, and then, as soon as we put them in the shoes that we were selling them, it all went out the window. And I still remember my dad saying I don't know if we're helping people here, the window. And I still remember my dad saying I don't know if we're helping people here. We try and teach everybody who comes in the store a lesson on how to have fun and run in a way that protects their body and have a good time, and then we sell them a pair of shoes that undoes everything we teach them every single time they put them on. We only get one chance to teach them and the shoe is they're undoing everything we've taught them every single time they put it on. 

And that was. That was the moment right there, like something has to change, you know. Uh, because we realized we didn't believe in what we were selling, and that's a really difficult place when your livelihood is is based on it, yeah, and still, like I don't know, I feel like we're fairly ethical people, um, and we just thought we got to change this. And that's when I started experimenting with shoes and threw a pair of shoes in the toaster oven and I thought, if we could get a shoe that still had to your point, could leave your foot in its natural position, so you want the foot to be barefoot. We're essentially trying to mimic running barefoot on grass, right? Because if you could run on soft grass with no issues in it you wouldn't put on shoes Exactly, and I don't think any of us would. 

It's a very enjoyable experience. And so my thought was like, okay, how do we build a shoe that mimics the feeling of running barefoot on the grass when you're on a hard, flat, man-made surface like concrete or asphalt? And that's where this whole idea of ultra came from in the first place, and it really was born out of both the barefoot side for avoiding foot problems, of keeping the foot in its natural barefoot position, and also out of the running technique side, which is, we want to teach people to run in a way that is as though they were running barefoot on grass and run in a way that's enjoyable and fun. And so both of those ideas were coexisting in my head, as, as we built these shoes and and I just started with the typical pair of shoes I got some of the simplest shoes I could find I threw them in my mini oven, little toaster oven, and baked them to 275 degrees, waited for the glue to bubble, pulled the rubber out, pulled the foam out, glued a new flat, weight balance piece of foam in, glued the rubber back on and, you know, had them like two sizes too big and got rid of the laces in the front half of the shoe, so my you know. 

So my toes were just flopping around in space and went for a run and for the first time in my life I'm running in a cushioned running shoe that's making the concrete feel like the grass, and yet I still feel like I'm running barefoot on the grass. The shoe isn't interrupting or messing with my technique and that was kind of a like thank you kind of moment, you know oh yes, and a big thank you for me also. 

00:24:56 - Jesper Conrad
They are wonderful to run in and to our net normal listeners, as, as our podcast is normally around self-directed learning and parenting, some of them might be asking why are we listening to this? And I'm just saying to them this is what passion looks like. If you let passion lead the way, this is what happens. Leads the way. This is what happened. Yeah, were you a homeschooler or is it? Have you? How have you had time to all that running and all that focus on this one determined passion? 

00:25:28 - Golden Harper
yeah, you know I I wasn't homeschooled, but my parents had no problem pulling me out of school to take me wherever and travel and run and and do these things. If my dad wanted to do something, he was pulling me out of school to have me do it, and, and so I've, and I've very much taken that same approach. You know, my kids are tiny, but of just like you know, if there's something we need to do and learn and experience, like the best learning in my, in my experience, comes through passion and comes through travel, experiencing different cultures, people that are not like you, experiencing the world through a different lens these are the best ways to learn, in my opinion, and so we make a point to travel a lot. We kind of aspire to be nomadic, as you guys are to some degree, and you know we love to travel, and so I think that's always been. You know, my family went on road trips, endless road trips. 

When I was a kid, we were, we were always road tripping and camping and and so with with this, though you know, again to your point, as I started up Altra, no one had done this before. It was completely uncharted territory. We've had the same seven major running shoe brands. Since the beginning of running shoe time, nobody had ever broken in, and so it was completely uncharted territory. And for me it was completely uncharted territory and for me, um it, it was exploratory. 

But that's that's who I am, as a person, as an entrepreneur, as someone who, like I, am a problem solver first and foremost. I see something wrong, I want to fix it and if, if you are truly a problem solver, you also in business, you have to be an entrepreneur in a lot of ways, because there are no answers out there, there's not a playbook for what you're doing, and I just had to wing it. You know, I just had to figure it out on my own and you know, luckily I had a lot of help from a lot of great people, but you know, that's kind of how it rolls. 

00:27:41 - Cecilie Conrad
I'm thinking back. I grew up wearing shoes like that. You know you can wiggle your toes, and I remember I started wearing it again when I became a parent. And then came the five finger, the vibram. We wore that a lot and those were also. Were they not invented for running? I feel like I bought them. 

00:28:00 - Golden Harper
You know, they weren't initially. In fact, when my running store brought them in, we went back. It was the outdoor retailer trade show and we went and said, hey, you know we're going to place an order for these. And they were like wow, that's fantastic. Because at the time, no one was giving them any attention. They were marketing them as boat shoes. This was 2005. They were marketing them as boat shoes. 

00:28:20 - Cecilie Conrad
This was 2005. 

00:28:23 - Golden Harper
And they said, well, what's the name of your store? And we said Runner's Corner. And they said, well, that doesn't sound like a store for water sports or boating. And we were like, no, it's for running. And they're like, well, what are you going to sell these for? And we said, well, for running. And they were like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, this is initially, but it caught on for running and the Born to Run book had a lot to do with that and they embraced it, but they still weren't what you would call a running shoe. 

It was more of a barefoot shoe that people ran in I wanted to describe where the term zero drop came from, because it actually describes the cushioning in the shoe, dropping from the heel to the forefoot. So it was literally a term to describe cushioning. So it doesn't apply to shoes with no cushioning. So something like Vibram FiveFingers can't really necessarily be a zero drop cushioned shoe, because there was no cushioning to start with. And so what I was doing is, if you, if you look at this shoe, you can see this layer of foam here. Yeah, most all shoes, basically all shoes, had a layer of foam that was twice as thick in the heel, and then it it came down until it reached this area here, and then it was this thickness. And so when we talked about zero drop, it just meant that the shoe did not drop from the heel down to the forefoot. That's not what was happening and that's really where the term came from, and it was literally a term to describe the cushioning in the shoe, um, which is, uh, you know, a unique thing. So, um, but yeah, I mean, have there been zero drop shoes previously in the history of the world? Absolutely, you know, but running shoes, athletic shoes, not, as far as I have ever seen, and certainly not foot shaped ones as well, and it's really that combination that is so powerful. 

And it's not that it's magic, it's just simply that we're letting the body be the body. We're not taking the body out of its natural, happy, healthy state. Feet are the only place I can think of in the medical world or the world in general, where we're like, oh, let's take the, let's take the body out of its natural, happy, healthy state, out of homeostasis, and hope good things happen. You know, and it's just absurd to me I mean, even within the medical community, we would never do this with any other part of the body. We'd never be like oh, let's take the heart or the eyes out of homeostasis and hope good things happen, and yet somehow we're okay doing that with feet. 

It really just does not make sense, and I say this as somebody who grew up obsessed with shoes and selling shoes and thinking shoes were the greatest thing in the world for most of my life. So it's a very difficult transition for a lot of people, and I sympathize with people who love shoes or think that shoes are not a problem. And the reality is, if you really look into the data, 99% of all chronic foot conditions are caused by your shoes, taking your feet out of homeostasis, out of their natural, happy, healthy state, um, and that's. That's a difficult thing. It was a difficult thing for me to accept, especially someone who was selling all these shoes, um, and so I really sympathize with people who have a difficult time accepting that as well, but it is reality at the end of the day. 

00:31:45 - Jesper Conrad
And where has your passion led you now, since you have moved on from altruism? Years ago, what was it that was in you bubbling and saying I need to go in a new direction? 

00:31:56 - Golden Harper
Yeah, so it's still the same two things. For me, it's like the product has changed, but the mission is still the same, and the mission is natural foot health and efficient, low impact, fun running technique. And that's where this whole idea of PR gear came from. And people don't understand. These products from PR gear are things that I either developed, started to develop prior to ultra or while I was at ultra, and they were just things that within the bigger corporate you know structure of ultra were a distraction or couldn't make enough money. But. But I really had a vision originally that that this float run harness here, which is basically a running technique coach that comes with you every step of every run until you, you know, internalize it, so it becomes muscle memory, um, and you learn to run with this efficient, low impact float running technique, similar to the way the kenyans run. Um, I'll just describe it? 

00:32:51 - Jesper Conrad
what, what is it? Yeah, you're putting it for the people watching, but for the people who don't what what it's essentially a, you know, highly engineered elastic band, um and it. 

00:33:05 - Golden Harper
People don't realize that you should never change your foot strike. Your foot strike should be a result of changes being made other places and um, and research tells us that the higher you make a change, the more effective it is down low. So what this does is it pulls the shoulders, helps remind. It doesn't force anything realistically, it's just, it's very gentle, but it reminds you to get everything into place. And so what we know from running technique, the biggest difference between great runners and most runners is great runners have this window back here. 

00:33:41 - Jesper Conrad
Most runners listening, then it's a triangle in the triangle behind your back. 

00:33:46 - Golden Harper
Yes, your elbows are way back. Great runners get their elbows way back, and what most runners do, and a lot of this is due to the design of modern running shoes with their heavy, elevated heels. That shoe makes your foot land out in front of your knee and it corresponds with your elbow coming forward of your hip. And so elite runners just never do this. If they're not sprinting, if they're running at distance running paces, their elbows do not gap their hip. Uh, they stay back behind the hips and, you know, come up to the hip, but they won't come forward past it. And so what? The what the float run harness does is it reminds you to get your shoulders back into this. Run proud, run, tall position, and then the um, the thumb loops are engineered in such a way that you run within the loops. 

And so you're here and it keeps you running. If you watch Elliot Kipchoge or any of the Kenyan runners run, you see this motion right here and the elbows stay back. And if you're running slow, it's it's very little arm movement. If you're running fast, it's a lot of arm movement, but regardless the elbows are back and what the float run harness does is it's just a gentle reminder every single step, not to get out of position with your arms. 

00:34:57 - Jesper Conrad
What does it do for the feet? To me, you don't understand that. 

00:35:01 - Golden Harper
Yeah, so you know I'm biomechanics trained. This is what I went to school for is this is called the crosstalk principle of biomechanics the left leg will follow the right arm, the right leg will follow the left arm, and so, essentially, you know, the whole goal of everything we do is to get the foot to land underneath the knee, because when the foot can land underneath the knee, this big three foot spring here can bend and absorb impact, right, okay, and it makes it provides this more floating sensation because you've got this three foot suspension happening. And so that's the goal of everything we do, and how we get that is we get proud tall posture. So you know, your chest is forward, your airways open, your elbows are back, your shoulders are back and down and relaxed, your head is up, and then we keep the elbow back and when the what, what happens that destroys this typically is if the elbow comes forward of the hip, then the foot lands out in front of the knee. So you see this motion where people land with more of their leg like this, instead of their leg landing like this. 

Yeah, and that's what most people do in modern running shoes, and you see a dramatic difference. When people you know people don't automatically um, go back to doing this well, barefoot, but it makes it a lot easier. I would say, um, but as soon as we can keep the elbows behind the hips, the, the feet follow the hands, and so when we're talking less injures also for for people absolutely so. 

If, if you look at data the two, we don't really have any data to show that shoes reduce running injuries any shoes ever it's very difficult to study. Nike spent billions, probably hundreds of millions of dollars trying to prove that that shoes reduce running injuries any shoes ever it's very difficult to study. Nike spent billions, probably hundreds of millions of dollars trying to prove that their shoes reduce injury and has never had success doing this. But the two biggest things that we do have are the first is foot strengthening. Get your feet strong. So because your feet are your landing gear and if your feet and lower legs are strong, they can control for impact down low so that those forces don't get passed up high and we're talking sheer forces, joint torque, side to side motion, all kinds of stuff Right. And so when your feet are really strong, they can control for those forces and keep those forces from being passed up the kinetic chain to your weak link, which might be your shins, might be your knees, might be your hips, might be your low back, your shins, might be your knees, might be your hips, might be your low back. And then the second, and and the reduction there in injury. One of the most recent studies showed a 242 percent injury reduction by going through a foot strengthening protocol. That's massive. I mean, it's just such a huge number. We've never had anything like that before and but the the thing that we've had for a long time is a running technique intervention, and that is what we know statistically is the second most effective way to reduce injuries. And it's the same thing. We get you moving the way your body's designed to move, and everybody's a little different. 

So it's not like there's one perfect running technique. There's one perfect running technique for you, but there are some commonalities we see with all great you know, all great runners, and I include slow people that never get injured and accomplish their goals in in great runners. Okay, it's not about speed to me, but you can look at the Kenyan and Ethiopian elites. You can look at, you know, elite runners from around the world. 

You can look at back of the Packers that never get hurt, that are accomplishing their goals, and you see basically four things that they do in common and they're listed in order of importance. The first is they have compact arms, meaning their arms stay close to I call it wrists to ribs. Their arms are relatively close to their ribs at all times. You know they're, they're not out and about, there is no pumping forward, they only pump back, and this compact arm motion generally fixes everything. So when we get the elbow way back there it's really difficult to have the chest collapsed. You know anything you do at a keyboard you shouldn't be doing well running. So the keyboard know you're, you're, uh, contracted. 

Then yeah, you're contracted, your arms are forward, your elbows are forward, your chest is collapsed, your head is down um, you know I, your hips are in the back seat and basically you reverse engineer that and you get what you should be doing while you're running. So when you get that elbow way back there, what that does is it makes it impossible to do anything you would do at a keyboard, or at least makes it very, very difficult. So your hips need to be forward, your chest has to be up and out and open, your airway has to be open, your shoulders have to be back and down and relaxed, and so this whole idea of elbows back, compact arms, is really, in my opinion, the key to success for running technique, for most people at least, for nailing the basics of running techniques. So first step compact arms. Second step is this proud, tall posture, and we usually just tell people run proud, run tall. That's the thing you're going to chant to yourself out there Run proud, run tall, run proud, run tall. And when people can chant run proud, run tall, they generally get it and, frankly, if they're getting their elbows far enough back, they're already getting it anyway. So that's nice. 

Step three is this higher cadence, and that actually comes naturally as a result of more compact arms. If you've got the posture right and you're keeping the arms less, that's going to make your step rate or your cadence be faster. And what we know from research Is it shorter or so it depends on the speed you're going. It's really about. It's not about a length of step, it's about a speed of step and it's different. You know your height affects this. People that are taller will have slightly slower steps. People that are really short will have slightly faster steps. But what the research tells us is the average runner out there is running about 150 steps a minute. Is the average runner out there is running about 150 steps a minute. And if we can get the average runner to take to get a 10% increase in cadence, we're going to see reductions in all forces on their body by at least 20%. So 20% in impact forces, 20% on you know any landing forces, joint torques, you know sheer forces all that stuff is reduced by at least 20% just by taking 10% faster steps. 

And what our data shows with the float run harness is the second we put them in this thing and it restricts their arm movement or at least reminds them to have more compact arm movement, they get that 10% cadence boom, uh, instantly, and so that number for most people is about 165 steps a minute for the average runner running about 10 minutes a mile, where, if you go in the running world, there's this belief that one 80 is the magic number, and that goes back to 40 year old research, um, 40 years this year, I think. Um, that was only setting Olympians running at Olympic paces, and so one 80 is actually a fairly magic number If you run faster than seven minutes a mile. That's about, you know, 1% of the people listening right now nobody, uh, very few people are running, you know, seven minutes a mile and uh. So again we get that cadence high and again it's about 165 steps a minute on average. 

For, for most people that run 10 minutes a mile or slower, I think that's like seven minutes a kilometer, um and um, and then that all results in the fourth commonality we see with pretty much all great runners is this bent knee landing. They land underneath the bent knee, and where their foot hits the ground really is not that important. There's some genetics at play there. It's also, you know, if you're running uphill, you're going to be more on your forefoot. You're running downhill, you're going to land a little bit more on your heel towards your heel, but generally speaking, most people should land somewhere close to the middle of their foot or their whole foot hitting the ground at the same time, and that happens as a result of doing these other things. You have this compact arms with the elbows back motion, you run proud, run tall and you have quicker steps. Your foot will naturally land where it's supposed to land and it will land underneath your knee, and that's that's really the key at the end of the day is landing underneath that bent knee. 

And and of course you know it would be I would be remiss to not mention that shoes affect this. You know, the thicker and higher the heel is in your shoe, the more difficult this is to do, because your shoe is literally teaching you every single step to do it wrong. And so traditional shoes, as we've known them, you know, going back to the first Nikes um, have have essentially taught people to run wrong for now a couple of generations, and so there's a lot of teaching that has to go into. You know we wouldn't be having this discussion if we didn't have nikes um, you know originally, because everybody. You know, to your point, prior to nike, all shoes were flat. They were flat hard pieces of rubber. There was no cushioning, there was no foam, um. So in a sense, you know, I would say all shoes are zero drop. But since zero drop is a term to describe the cushioning of a shoe, there was no cushioning, so they couldn't technically be zero drop because there's nothing to drop from the heel of the forefoot. But essentially, back then, you know, prior to Nike, all shoes were flat and so we didn't have this issue. 

If you go watch any old movie, it doesn't have to be runners, it can be anybody running in anything, it can be gone with the wind or something really old like that. You won't see people run the way humans run today. And our walking has changed too. The way shoes are built, with the toes crowded together and the heel elevated in 99% of all shoes available on the market today, has fundamentally changed the way we move as a human species. Period, like people, people do not run now the way they ran 60 years ago, um, and it's it's for the worse, you know, um, so, and and we, we walk different too, you know, frankly, we. And and we, we walk different too. You know, frankly, we we stride out more because that that cushioning under the heel makes us catch the ground earlier, and because it's soft and cushy, it encourages us to to do that as well. It it? It removes the negative feedback loop, because if we did that without shoes on, it would hurt. 

00:44:55 - Jesper Conrad
Yeah, yeah, walking, yeah, yeah walking on the hill like that. Yep, oh man. I need to go for one more run, I think, as I do it every day, but it could be fun to try these techniques so you're all into the running and in my. 

00:45:14 - Cecilie Conrad
So my point of view of shoes is just I'm curious. It's always weirded me out. Why do we make all these shitty shoes as a species, as you? Said I mean we grew up I'm maybe more than, but both of us like with these hippie style 70s 80s parents would buy really healthy shoes for our feet, but then as soon as you become a teenager, you get the unhealthy shoes. And then you know, and then I look at it now and we're into the barefoot shoes and the whole healthy feet walking without shoes. 

00:45:49 - Golden Harper
Yeah. 

00:45:52 - Cecilie Conrad
And I look at the market. I walk through cities and I see this shoe shops and they're flooded with shoes. There's so many shoes. When you think about it, throughout history it's really been a thing to own a pair of shoes. You know it's been. It could be a game changer on in the country where we come from, where it's really cold you know, do you have a a good pair of shoes that can keep you warm and dry through the winter? 

that could be a matter of survival protection and they would be shoes made for your feet to make you walk and and survive. And now that we have all this extreme wealth that we have and have had for, let's say, the past 100 years or so, yep we make shoes that ruin everything yep wouldn't be hard to adjust little buttons on the big machines in China or wherever they make the shoes and make cheap, affordable, available, easy, even nice looking shoes for feet for people. Yet, as you said, 95%, maybe 99.9% of all shoes made will ruin your feet yeah stand that we can sometimes put ona pair of shoes for decoration. 

Let me put on my high heels for a wedding or yeah, it's no problem you know, 

yep, but for most of the time we walk around on this planet and we want to put on shoes for whatever reason could be cold, could be concrete, could be. I don't know. Why is it that we as a human, and it's everywhere. There's no culture where the shoe shops are just flooded with nice shoes, where your toes can wiggle and it's all nice. And if you want that, you're paying three, four, five, six times the price of a regular pair of shoes. Do you have any? 

00:47:50 - Golden Harper
yeah, no, I, I mean I had the you. You just went through like what was a three-year thought process for me back when I went to hawaii, right, and this I mean you're essentially saying why, like why did this happen or how? And I spent a lot of time researching this and it actually goes all the way back to the Middle Ages, and it will make sense as I kind of lay it out here. If you look at what happened, the heroes in the Middle Ages were the noblemen, the knights and the royalty right, these were what modern day we would call celebrities. And when did the common folk see the celebrities of their day? They saw them riding to battle or riding through the streets, because they rode horses and to get into horse stirrups they had special shoes made that hooked into the stirrups. So they had that notch on the heel that all modern dress shoes have today and that was to catch and hold in the horse stirrup. And so that's where we got the raised heel, and it wasn't something that was built for walking, it was literally built for riding horses. And then the other thing is to slide into the stirrup easily. They made the shoes pointy and so so what we have is, the common folk saw the celebrities of their day wearing these shoes, not realizing these are not walking shoes, these are horse riding shoes. But the common folk started to imitate what they saw the royalty doing, and this is no different than today's culture. Different than today's culture, you know. Today we have celebrity culture and common people follow influencers and celebrities and do what influencers and celebrities do. So to me it rings true that and it makes sense that this is what started to happen and you know it wasn't really a thing to. You know, shoes, the materials, were not the way they are now. Today we can make something that's really bad for your feet, relatively comfortable, because materials make it easier. We have soft foams and and soft cushy uppers and and stuff like this. Um, but eventually what happened is this is just the way shoes came to be made and I don't think it really like hit an inflection point until Nike came along and it became. 

You know, kenny Moore had an abnormally long second and third toe. Kenny Moore was Bill Bowron's most trusted fit tester. He got the best fit feedback from Kenny Moore and so he built the last based on Kenny's more Kenny Moore's foot, and the last is the form that the shoe is built around and it looked fast too. He liked that as well. That pointy shape looked fast. And then, you know, the heel was put in the shoe because at the time they were teaching runners to lengthen your stride, which we now know is terrible advice, uh. But at the time the runners were coming back and say, oh coach, when I do that, my heels hurt. You know. 

And Bowerman, trying to make the fastest shoes on the planet, you know he goes and finds these, these tiger shoes, in Japan, and they have foam, and foam has never been seen before and he only brings back the ones that have foam only in the heel, because he wants the lightest weight shoe possible. And so this is where we got the raised heel and athletic shoes and, and this proliferated culture and it made it comfortable to wear, to your point, bad shoes all day. Essentially, foam made it comfortable and modern materials made it more comfortable to wear bad shoes all day, where we could literally deform a foot out of its natural position all day, every, without really thinking about it as much. You know, without feeling it immediately. And you know, what we have today is a society where, by the time people are seniors, basically 0% of seniors have a foot that is actually a natural shaped foot anymore. 

Generally speaking, your foot comes to look like the shoes you wear and your genetics determine how fast this happens. Some people are very resistant. Some people have really malleable or bendable bones, and so some people it's age 20. If they have really malleable or bendable bones, their foot will come to look like the shoes they wear. Where other people have resistant genetics and it takes them a lifetime they're 70 by the time this happens regardless. For most people, your feet come to look like the shoes you wear and as your feet come to look like modern shoes, you start to have all kinds of problems, period, um, but you know. 

Back to your question of why and how, um, I think, I think it's just, you know, it's celebrity, you know culture and it is, you know, and it was really sped up by the advent of foam and modern materials that made it comfortable to wear these shoes all day, every day, writing shoes that, um, that the celebrities of their time wore. But it was so uncomfortable to wear these shoes for very long that it wasn't something that they were wearing for long amounts of time. They, they, you know they'd wear them for short amounts of time and that was it. And so I think that's how we got where we got, and then never discount fashion and money At the end of the day. You know fashion drives so much and this came to be seen as fashionable and then it came to make a ton of money and you know the shoe world is dominated by money and sales and and revenues and so um. So that's that's. That's kind of the long and short answer of, in my opinion, of how this this all came together. 

As somebody who still you still co-owns a running store and still sells shoes to this day and has started a shoe company, it's horrible to watch. Frankly, it's shocking that more people have not come around to this at this point in time, because it's so obvious Once you've seen it, once you've looked at a shoe and been like, okay, yeah, shoes are shaped like that. You know shoes should be shaped like this. Yeah, um, but here's the problem. That's really weird for people to see for the first time. They think it's hideous, you know, I mean. 

00:54:02 - Jesper Conrad
Imagine the first time you saw a pair of foot-shaped shoes yeah, yeah. 

00:54:06 - Golden Harper
And the problem is this is the worst view and nobody else has that view. But you're the one who sees that view and I always tell people it's not ugly, it's alien. They're like well, it's ugly. I'm like it's not ugly, you just haven't seen it before. You know it's alien Meaning the more you see it, the more normal it becomes looking to you. But that first time you see it, it looks crazy. I mean, it looks insane to people and I'm. 

I can understand where people are coming from, but the reverse can be true as well. At my house we only wear foot shaped shoes. You know we don't wear, we don't even have tapered shoes in the time. And I go to out in public for the first time in a long time, like I go to the airport, for example, I look around like, oh, everybody's wearing elf shoes. You know, because normal shoes look like elf shoes to me. The tapered toe boxes, the upturned toe, the, the heel like regular normal shoes look like elf shoes to me. They look very strange to me and so it cuts both ways. So I can see, because that's happened to me, I understand where people are coming from seeing barefoot style shoes the first time or seeing more natural footwear or even foot shaped shoes for the first time, thinking like, whoa, that's, that's hideous, that's crazy, you know. 

00:55:24 - Cecilie Conrad
So fashion, I think, is unfortunately, a huge part of the answer. Yeah, it's just fascinating to me because it's so, as you said, obvious once you see it. Like why would I ever put my foot into that thing? 

00:55:38 - Golden Harper
Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah. 

00:55:41 - Cecilie Conrad
It's just. I just find it funny. I'm really looking forward to the word spreading. When you're running, you should wear shoes that are made for your feet. 

00:55:49 - Golden Harper
I mean that should be all the. I mean that should be all this, should be all the shoes, yeah get some shoes that are made for your feet so I wanted you. 

You talked about the expense and I did want to bring up a couple things. We're starting to see more affordable stuff. So these shoes I've been showing these are splay and a lot of their shoes are between like 60 and 80 American dollars. So they're they're pretty dang affordable and you can even go on. You know you won't get the quality, but you can go on Amazon and get some some barefoot style shoes on there. They'll fall apart on you quick. They're kind of heavy. It's not quite the same experience, but there's stuff on there for 20, 30, 40, $40,. 

00:56:29 - Jesper Conrad
I mean inexpensive. 

00:56:31 - Golden Harper
So it's you're starting to see this um happening, which is is cool. To make it more available, cause for me, you know I love ultra. Like I, I feel like most people would be best off running in a shoe like ultra. There's there's a competing brand called Topo now that makes similar shoes. I love seeing people wear Topos, cause I'm like people are wearing foot-shaped shoes. That's fantastic, but even more than that, I just want to see anybody and everybody to your point, just wearing shoes that are healthy for their feet, and if that's a pair of $20 Amazon knockoffs, so be it. 

00:57:07 - Jesper Conrad
So but golden. We hope that we have been part of spreading the word to our fantastic listeners who are into homeschooling, parenting, and a lot of them, I believe, are into barefoot shoes. So if they're running, I hope they will put on some of the shoes. You mentioned all the the float runners. So if people want to learn more about what you're doing now, where should they find you and what is the website address and where can they go get their stuff? 

00:57:38 - Golden Harper
Yeah, so my education and about me and personal stuff is on goldenharpernet. So that's goldenharpernet and the float running information is on floatruncom and that's. You know. I gave a quick overview of that, but there's a lot of detail and information there, as well as being able to find the float run harness. And then prgearcom is our shop essentially, and you know we didn't mention this, but we make these bridge soles at PR Gear and these are an attempt to make barefoot style shoes more approachable or natural footwear more approachable. Um, so this, this is something you wear temporarily if you're new to barefoot style shoes or new to more natural footwear, or you know you have a foot or lower leg issue as a runner and you want something that isn't going to interfere with your body. You know these weigh less than half an ounce. 

00:58:31 - Jesper Conrad
They roll up like a ball, um, but it's something that on your foot, so it goes underneath the insole in the shoe. Yeah, so I get it. 

00:58:40 - Golden Harper
Yes, sorry, thank you for you know you just pop this in and then you put the regular insole back on top of it. Um, ideally, you can wear it without it as well, um, but in the style yeah, and so what that does? 

it just has a soft, soft heel, soft arch, and it has a met pad to help kind of teach your uh forefoot to spread out. A lot of times, when people get a more natural shoe the first time they're used to that big heel elevation, they're used to more cushioning they have and their foot or their calves get a little bit overloaded and this provides a bridge, hence the name bridge soles. You know an intermediate area, period of time. You know it's usually three to six weeks where this allows you to take pressure off that. 

And the other thing is, you know you, you might be somebody who spends long days on your feet, or you're going to go rim to rim in the Grand Canyon, or you're a through hiker, hiking all day, every day. This is a good way to change up the muscles that are being used with your feet. And so you know we have people throw these into the lunch break and take them out the next day to lunch break, so you're wearing them a half day at a time just to kind of offset, you know, if your feet are being used a ton, essentially they're just, they're just offloaders. They offload the foot and lower leg, um, so that is, uh, that's, that's the bridge souls and uh, that that's how they kind of fit into this whole, uh, the, the barefoot something it's. It's ironic cause I hate insoles for the most part, I'm anti-insule, I'm anti-arch, support, um, but I also realized there's a, there's a time and a place where, uh, you know, people need it Absolutely. 

You know it's. It's fascinating. Our People need it Absolutely. You know it's it's fascinating. Our, our best sellers of bridge souls are actually the barefoot style shoe companies, and the more barefoot style they are meaning, the less cushioning they have in their shoes, the more they sell of these, because their consumers obviously need them. You know they. They just aren't ready to be full on non cushioned barefoot style right off the bat. You know so, so and it makes sense we've been wearing shoes our whole lives. 

You know it's going to take a little time to get used to going back to not wearing shoes if, as a barefoot shoe wearer is that a concept? 

01:00:43 - Cecilie Conrad
it is yeah I would say that if I go for a city walk and I'm maybe walking 25k that day because I'm seeing, you know, whatever Rome let's say yeah on my feet on concrete or stone for so natural. I need more than the non-sole on a barefoot shoe and I'll pop in something I've done. I've not had exactly yours, but something because, it's just too many hours on a surface yeah, so. I. There's a time and a place for everything. 

01:01:13 - Golden Harper
Maybe Exactly Well I make, and you just made a point, like I always like to make, which is that humans were not meant to go barefoot on hard, flat, man-made surfaces. Our bone structure, our muscle structure just not set up to do it, you know. And so, like that, at the end of the day you're, you're doing something that just makes sense as a human, your body's just like hey, this is, I'm not built to do this, you know. And introducing some cushioning into the equation, you know, a lot of the barefoot purists really vilify altar, they hate altar, they think we have poisoned the water, so to speak. Speak, and I'm like you know, I hate to say it, but for natural, man-made or a hard, flat, man-made surface, a shoe that leaves your foot in barefoot position but introduces some cushioning is actually more natural than a barefoot style shoe in there. How dare you say that? You know? 

and it's like it's just real like the cushioning mimics being on the grass or mimics being on the dirt, you know yeah so I would prefer to run in the sand on the grass, but it is in the forest. 

01:02:15 - Jesper Conrad
It is not there. Thanks a lot for your time, golden we have yes you are, else we will put them online and thank you for bringing an option to all us barefoot wonderful humans out there who want yeah, beyond the man-made surface. Thanks a lot for your time. 

01:02:33 - Golden Harper
I will make a discount code for your listeners. Can we use self-directed as a discount code? Does that sound good, self-directed, and that'll be 25% off float run harnesses or trail gloves or basically almost anything on prgearcom that is a wonderful gift. 

01:02:51 - Jesper Conrad
They will be happy for thanks a lot. Thank you guys so much appreciate it, lovely yeah nice to hear that yeah, you too thanks.