My barefoot life style has endured and flourished. The feet
have never looked and felt better, the toes start to spread
out (in fact I do toe exercises everyday now), and the
annoying fungi-induced Athlete's Feet rarely bothers and is
mild when it does.

During the Chinese New Year visit to Beijing, I wore the
Merrell running shoes (bought four years ago but rarely
worn) with no socks, and survived well without catching
cold. Around bed time, my feet would warm up as if heaters
were turned on inside. I had to expose them to get into
sleep, exactly as I did in the Bay Area.

I stumbled upon "Whole Body Barefoot" by Katy Bowman at the
end of 2018. In addition to a wealth of knowledge, the most
impressive message is in the qualifier "whole body." The
author concludes "What you wear on your feet is a whole-body
issue and not limited to the feet at all." and "When you
change your shoes, every cell in your body feels it."

Just this week, I ran into Lieberman's Nature Magazine
article "Foot strike patterns and collision forces in
habitually barefoot versus shod runners" when revisiting his
book "The Story of The Human Body." A fascinating read and
the conclusion is that barefoot is actually a big advantage
when it comes to running, road or trail. (It was even more
amazing that for me, the stuff took years to sink in as I
missed the point when I read the book last time.) 

My friend L and I ran trails together a few times. The
strong foot-grip through the thin rubber soles allowed me to
bounce up and down on the rocks at mission peak summit while
L in his running shoes had to tread gingerly the narrow,
steep, treacherous, and crowded path. Actually, my feet felt
better scaling the summit than running on pointy
gravel-fested trails.

I look forward to discovering more about my body through
another year of barefoot living.