Many other top runners love to run barefoot. Zola Budd and Lebo Phalula are just two past and present examples of athletes who often ran without shoes.
It’s one thing to run barefoot because you choose to do, but it’s a completely different story if you run without shoes because you have none.
The organisers of the SPAR Women’s 10 km Challenge at Marks Park on Sunday, 8 October are doing their best to ensure that more girls and young women are given the option to choose whether they run with or without shoes.
In 2016 the Caxton Cares initiative, together with SPAR, launched the “Drop a pair and show you care” campaign. Participants in the 10kn Challenge or the 5km Fun Run were encouraged to drop off an old pair of running shoes, or even a new pair. The first year, the shoes that had been donated were passed on to Skeen Preparatory School in Alexandra and the Johannesburg Girls Preparatory School in Berea. In 2017, more than 300 pairs of shoes were donated to the Realogile School in Alexandra.
You can now help organisers to give more young runners a choice this year by donate your old or new shoes to the Caxton Cares team on race day, or they can be dropped off at Caxton House, 368 Jan Smuts Avenue, or at 1187 Cornelius Street, corner of JG Strijdom, in Weltevreden Park.
There will be prizes to be won in a lucky draw for participants who dropped off shoes for the ‘Drop a pair and show you care’ campaign.
Author: Pedro van Gaalen
When he’s not writing about sport or health and fitness, Pedro is probably out training for his next marathon or ultra-marathon. He’s worked as a fitness professional and as a marketing and comms expert. He now combines his passions in his role as managing editor at Fitness magazine.
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