Bare necessities: how I was introduced to the dark arts of barefoot running

Tonight I ran like a Kenyan. Barefoot. On a treadmill in a boxing gym in West Hampstead.

I was given a lesson in the art of barefoot running by one of its leading proponents, biomechanic expert Lee Saxby. First off he filmed me running normally on a treadmill in my trainers. Then he told me to take off my trainers and he filmed me again. I instantly and automatically, without thinking, started to run with a forefoot strike - meaning that rather than landing on my heel first, as I did in trainers, I started landing on my forefoot first.

This is the fundamental difference between the two styles of running. By landing on your heel, the full impact of your body weight is concentrated on one spot, which, Lee says, not only causes injuries, but slows you down. In effect you're braking with every step.

But it's not only about the forefoot strike. Lee told me to keep my head up, lead with my chest, and pull my legs through, as though I was on a unicycle. If that wasn't enough to think about, he started a metronome going at a rapid-fire tack tack tack. I had to match it stride for tack. Then he played the film back to me.

It was quite shocking to watch. With my trainers on I looked like an overweight office worker out for a slow jog. (Admittedly, that's perhaps what I was, but it wasn't how I envisaged I looked when I was running.) With the shoes off it looked a bit better, but after Lee's lesson I looked like a proper runner. "You look like a Kenyan running," he says, though that may have been pushing it.

The thing is, though, this is how Kenyans (and Ethiopians) run. It's because they all grow up running barefoot. Running shoes encourage you, with all their padding, to land heel first, so we in the west get into bad habits right from the start. Running barefoot, however, forces you to run in a different way.

I know, from already mentioning it to a few people, that the most common reaction to talk of barefoot running is "what about glass/dirty streets/stones etc?" But running barefoot is more about a running style than not actually wearing any shoes. The top Kenyans all wear trainers to compete. Lee says this is because they don't want to be worrying about treading on stones and hurting their feet if they're trying to win races. But they don't wear heavily padded, stability trainers like we do. They wear racing flats. Racing shoes are super lightweight and have minimal padding, pretty much like specialised barefoot running shoes.

This was all very exciting. Had I stumbled on the Kenyan secret, here in this small boxing gym, as the trains rattled in and out of London outside the windows. Lee definitely seemed to think it was at least a factor in why they were so good at running. He had the air of a man confident in his theory, willing to answer any question you cared to throw at him. He was even confident enough to occasionally say he didn't know.

Unfortunately, though, it takes time and concentrated effort to learn the barefoot style well enough that it begins to feel natural. I had hoped I could combine barefoot running with my usual style, to hedge my bets and to not lose any fitness. "It's all or nothing," says Lee. "Your mind will slip into the style it's most used to. If you're running heel first most of the time, your body will do that automatically." I'm going to be in Kenya in a month. Is that enough time to learn? "Yeah, that should be fine," he says.

So what do I do?

Firstly he advises I only run a mile at a time - either barefoot or in special barefoot trainers. Once I can do that without having sore legs the next day, I can start upping the distance by 10% each run. He says the most important thing to focus on is the quick tempo leg movement and he recommends I get some sort of clip-on metronome to help me.

It's radical, but I decide to try it. If the Kenyans run like this, then I have to really. It's exciting, though. It did feel great running like that, my legs zipping through under me, my body straight, head up, the aspect, at least, of a real runner. The only thing is having to concentrate on style so much. That feels odd. But hopefully it will soon feel natural. We'll see.