Sophie Brickman: John Durant Runs Barefoot in Central Park: The New Yorker On a recent sunny Sunday morning, a modern caveman, sitting on a bench by a south entrance to Central Park, finished a single espresso, took off his shoes, threw them in his backpack, and prepared for his weekly barefoot run. "It would be unhygienic to walk everywhere barefoot," the caveman, John Durant, said. Durant is the author of "The Paleo Manifesto," which was published last week. It definitely depends which part of town you're in. But Central Park is clean. A man one bench over, deep in his newspaper, raised an eyebrow but kept reading. "People ask me about three things: broken glass, syringes, and dog shit," Durant said. Broken glass you scan for. Syringes were there maybe in the seventies? And dog shit - you'd look out for that anyway, plus it's easier to clean off your foot than off your shoe. Durant, a thirty-year-old Harvard graduate who studied under the psychologist Steven Pinker, embraced the Paleolithic life style after college, when a consulting job began to run him ragged - late nights, heavy drinking, poor diet, little exercise. He learned about the paleo movement, which encourages people to look back - way back - for guidance on how to make themselves, and also the planet, healthier. His book's dedication reads, "To my ancestors, for my descendants." After he started "eating paleo" - avoiding processed foods, grains, and dairy products (difficult to milk an aurochs), and consuming a higher-fat, lower-carbohydrate diet of vegetables, seafood, and meat - he noticed that his acne cleared up and he had more energy. "Encouraging modern women to eat more fat is about as easy as selling them a makeup called Ugly," he says in the book. He began fasting once a week, for his metabolism. And he rejiggered the way he exercised. Today's gym enthusiasts, he writes, "focus on abstract goals, like burning calories, and lose sight of functional, goal-oriented movements such as sprinting away from a threat or carrying an animal carcass back to camp." He believes that running barefoot is healthier and more natural, because it forces you to strike the ground with the ball of your foot, not the heel, which can cause knee problems. With his long hair in a ponytail, Durant started on the lower loop of the Park Drive, a hard paved surface that he said felt "nice and warm." The drive was packed with participants in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. "Listen to how heavily people strike the ground," he said. You can hear people running. I can be two feet away from you, and you're not going to hear me at all. Most of the runners, looking straight ahead, didn't notice his feet, but then someone jogged by and muttered, "Disgusting!" Durant smiled, then veered off to Poets" Walk, passing over smooth hexagonal paving stones before reaching rugged asphalt. "All these terrains feel totally different," he said, huffing a bit. Smooth is really what is most pleasant, or a dirt trail. He was landing on the front of his foot, almost hopping, and scanning the ground ahead for glass. As he transitioned to the rocky asphalt, he winced slightly. Then he heard someone call his name, and he looked up. A fellow barefoot runner stood in his path, grinning; he was wearing a Susan G. Komen bib, No. "I saw the bare feet and thought, Gotta be!" a lean, bearded man said. It was Joe Maller, the C.T.O. of a design firm, who met Durant years ago, at a barefoot run from Harlem to Brooklyn. The two men stood talking in the center of the walk ("Your beard is looking awesome, man!") as passersby stared. One woman, carrying a map, rolled her eyes. Maller had stuck a pair of minimalist Luna sandals - very ancient Greece - into the back of his shorts. He runs in them at night, when he can't easily scan the ground for hazards. After they parted, Durant headed to the bridle path, and started up toward Belvedere Castle, sidestepping small bits of gravel as he went. "Barefoot running, it's a skill," he said. It engages the brain. He never wears headphones when he runs. When he used to work out at traditional gyms, he'd have to introduce a "survival motivation" into his workout. I sprinted on a treadmill while imagining that I was being chased by a hungry lion. I had to psych myself up beforehand, hitting my head with my hands, envisioning that I actually might die. It worked, but onlookers were alarmed. He climbed the steps to the castle two at a time, then took off into the Ramble, gripping rocks with his toes and springing forward. Below him, runners slogged along, staring blankly ahead. A few minutes later, his feet covered in a thin black film, Durant left the Park, hailed a cab, and headed off to brunch to break his twenty-four-hour fast. ♦