From people that run predominantly barefoot I would LOVE to know two things. What was the biggest factor that led to your decision to go barefoot? Secondly, how long did it take till you could maintain a comparable mileage barefoot to what you did before?

It was a dealing-with-a-chronic-injury thing for me. I made a sudden jump, and it took me about a month to get my miles back... but that was getting back up to 10, so take that for what it's worth. Also, I use a treadmill almost exclusively.

Thank you for your responses. They are very encouraging to me. For me, I have odd shaped feet. I can not find satisfaction with commercially available shoes. Also my feet need diffrenet support. My left foot is close to neutral and my right overpronates. Every time I would try to buy shoes I would be pushed in to more and more supportive shoes because of my right foot. Ironically I have almost no problems on my right side. However I seem to get a lot of nagging injuries on my left side. I work in an elementary school. I am often leading PE type activities. A month or two ago I was playing soccer with the kids. Many of them had their shoes off. This got me very curious so I tried it. I didn't miss my shoes at all until I put them back on. They felt like bricks afterwords. I was sore afterwords but amazingly nothing broke. So I tired it again. Each time I have gotten stronger. I love the feeling. I am now driven to make it feel like that every time I run.