The other day I say a guy running in these odd shoes. They were like gloves for his feet with a padded sole. I’m not sure how else to describe them.
The only ones I have seen are the vibram brand shoe glove thingies. I don’t know if they have a non brandname yet.
Yes, that was it! They look creepy yet intriguing. A pity the man escaped before I could see more of them.
There are a few brands coming out with “barefoot shoes”. There’s a fair amount of research (and quite a bit of natural history) to show that foot and joint injuries are reduced when removing the constraints of modern footwear from the equation. The Vibrams Five Fingers have been demonstrated to provide a much-closer-to-natural gait and “lower limb kinematics” than normal running shoes. They’re very similar to barefoot running, but provide some protection for folks who aren’t quite ready to ditch the shoes entirely ;).