I would say "no". Mainly because you can hit the ground harder with shoes on if your running. When barefoot you'll also be partially concerned about where your stepping rather than speed.
this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2023
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Barefoot running changes your stride. You run with a mid foot strike instead of a heel strike. You can hit the ground just as fast like this since you use your whole foot as a spring instead of relying on your knees and the heel of your shoe. The biggest difference in barefoot running is how short your strides will be but you run the same speed. After youโve built up callouses on your feet that is. That part sucks.
It'll depend on surface, your fitness, what shoe you are looking at. I don't think this is a simple yes or no question.
Barefoot running requires another technique, where you run more on the balls of your feet. You can learn this, but it will take time. So straight away I will say no.
But in the time you will take to learn, so you'll practice. By practice you shall become better at running, so there I will say you'll still be faster.
Good running shoes are engineered to increase performance. You will definitely be slower without.
I imagine the surface matters a lot. Running on pavement? Shards of glass?
No. If running barefoot were faster then you would see lots of elite athletes competing barefoot. The ideal is wearing very light shoes (track spikes, racing flats) for protection, and developing good form so you aren't landing on your heel with each stride.
Afaik, we actually don't know, we have so many years of research and technique development of running with arched footwear than with archless and barefoot running, there's no sufficient incentive to research and test it at full Sprint (heh) and thus research for it goes at a snail pace.
As a reference of how important this research is, nowadays there are banned running shoes you can't use in competition because of the advantage they give you and they have to be previously be approved as opposed to individually banned. A new shoe can shave seconds off a professional runner's time.
I know someone who tried to run a marathon barefoot and destroyed the soles of his feet.
Nike actually makes a running shoe which used a carbon reinforced sole IIRC which is supposed to make you use a bit less energy when running. So I'll put in my vote for no, you won't be faster barefoot.