Dear reader, please start asking around to restaurant, retailer and grocery store management when you go out. Casually ask them something like, "Hey, I'm just curious: How often do you all have to clean up broken glass around here -- like, on an average day?" If you're especially curious, ask how they clean it up and if they usually "get everything picked up." Note the business locations (Applebee's, Walmart, Winn Dixie, etc.), their numbers and any other responses you get.
Runners, I want to hear from you, too. Please keep a mental note to scan the sidewalks and roads on which you run. Count the number of areas of glass (one broken bottle might be a single area) that you come across. Log the numbers if you DO OR DON'T see glass while running, how far you ran AND what kind of area it was (trail, neighborhood, downtown, business district, etc.).
Leave all your awesome data in the comments below or send it to my email at michael A T barefootandgrounded D O T com by Friday, March 18. I'll put your responses together with mine and we'll see just how much glass is -- or isn't -- really out there.
Thanks for your help!
Photo: Painting by Todd Ford. Posted to Art & Critique
A little off the path,but I spent the whole day yesterday (Mardi Gras day) barefoot on the parade route with people drinking all over and not one piece of broken glass was spotted.
ReplyDeleteAbout 30 years ago, I was shopping barefoot in a supermarket, and saw some broken glass from a bottle someone dropped. As I walked around it, a store employee casually mentioned to me to be careful, as they are about to clean it up. I said thanks - I saw it - and continued shopping. Though that was a time when going barefoot had started going out of style, there were still enough people shopping barefoot that those who worked in stores still were used to seeing such things on a relatively regular basis. At no point did it ever cross my mind that I would be kicked out, or that anyone would go into a state of panic because I was barefoot in there. Looking back at that, I do remember seeing more broken glass 30 or 40 years ago, since there were far more glass bottles in stores. Milk came in glass bottles. Soda was in glass. So were juices and various other liquids that now are almost exclusively found in plastic bottles. It's been a long time since I have seen broken glass in a supermarket. There are just a lot fewer things to break.
ReplyDeleteI only know of ONE patch of glass where I run, and it's on a dirt trail that cuts through an empty lot. I usually run in the neighborhood of houses and businesses around the local gym. Not all of the roads have sidewalks, so sometimes I'm running in the dirt (which I like better) and pretty much the only sharp stuff in that is thorns, not glass.
ReplyDeleteOh and I run between 2 and 5 miles, most of the time. All in that same neighborhood.
ReplyDeleteI have a 4.6, 5, 6.3 and 8.1mi course that I run with some regularity barefoot. For longer runs I use VFFs. 99% is on concrete sidewalks.
ReplyDeleteI would say I see 1-2 broken bottles a month. Obviously teens chucking a beer bottle from their car. No great surprise they are seen more on Mondays than other days of the week. (rarely run on Sunday.) For that reason alone I won't run barefoot in the dark even with my headlamp on. Too hard to see the pieces until it may be too late. For dark runs, VFFs. Not that that will protect me from a big shard, but I am pretty observant about that kind of thing even at 4am.
Once I've actually gone out on a walk later to pick up the glass if it was blocking the sidewalk or went for several yards.
In 2 years I've never stepped on glass though, and the whole thing of puncture wounds being a hazard for barefoot runners is just a red herring.
My neighbor has his own mini circus. He has a bunch of broken glass in a bucket. Ya know the old side show of walking on glass ?
ReplyDeleteI tried walking on his broken glass in bare feet. It's actually pretty easy. The glass is prepped a little bit over time, but it's still broken glass.
No dragging, distribute weight evenly on whole foot.
It was fun. The activity of doing it breaks the myth in my mind.
I'm in numerous stores BF. I have yet to ever see any broken glass. If I did I would simply walk around it. ha
I run in NYC, and there is broken glass. But as I tell people - you can see it and you avoid it. However you do occasionally get that invisible shard. I compare it to when you break a glass in your home - you sweep and mop to get up the pieces, but invariably there will be a little sliver that you only find by stepping on it. I've gotten those during my runs. I don't really perceive them as glass. Usually I'm in the shower after my run and it feels like I've bruised my foot (on gravel or somesuch). Upon closer inspection it turns out to be a sliver of glass (or once it was a thorn.)
ReplyDelete