Member Profile of the Week - Michael “Barefoot Kean” Kean - “He did the math and took off his shoes”

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Member Profile of the WeekMichael“Barefoot Kean” Kean“He did the math and took off his shoes”
Michael “Barefoot” Kean is a 20 year-old student living and studying in St. Louis, Missouri, where he attends the St. Louis University and has completed 37.5% of an aerospace degree. Michael is originally from Oklahoma City, though the family moved to Louisiana, then to Germany for a few years, and finally after moving around a bit more, landed in Monett, Missouri, where he lived for 8 years. When replying to our military experience question, Michael cheekily replied "Was a military dependant for a good portion of my life."

Including high school sports, Michael has been running for about 6 years, and has been a member of the BRS for about 6 months. He is also currently the president of the BRS Missouri Chapter. There are two reasons he joined the Barefoot Runners Society: “1.) I wanted to learn all that I could about Barefoot Running; 2.) I wanted to help/convince other people learn to run barefoot.”

Michael’s transition started during his junior year of high school when he bought a pair of VFF sprints and wore them occasionally over the next two and a half years. While on the Vibram website one day, he started looking up their research about barefoot running. “To me it made sense, so I became a minimalist runner (under the false notion that it was “barefoot running” due to what I read). After a 7 mile run in VFF heel striking (which hurt quite a lot by the way), I looked up how to run properly. This led me to go completely barefoot. And that’s about it.” Well, but except for Michael’s most unusual or memorable running experience. “The first time I ever truly ran barefoot, I developed at least 5 blisters in something like 150 meters and loved every minute of it!”

Michael’s favorite distance is 10 miles, and his favorite race, a 5K, is his only one (so far). Why favorite race? “It’s the only race I’ve ever run and then it was just a campus charity run.” Michael is not much for caring about his race times saying, “I never time myself, I didn’t even bother to get my5K time.” Michael explains that he enjoys running because he always feels better in every possible way after a good run and relishes the challenge of pushing himself to farther distances. “My ultimate goal withbarefoot runningis to complete an ultra within a year of finishing my aerospace degree.”

When not running, Michael is involved with his school’s SAE aero-design team, studying, soccer, tennis, hacky-sack, and DnD (Dungeons and Dragons for those of you like me who had to look it up!). In addition to the sports and in keeping with his engineering skills, Michael’s talents/interests include being something of a computer whiz and not only having an ability to solve difficult calculus problems like awkward trig subs but has fun doing so. His dog is named Heidi, but we’re not sure if she’s a running partner.

Michael’s parting words: “Something that I’ve noticed, at least in St. Louis, is that no-one other than other runners really care or even comment at barefoot runners...I’ve been kicked out of at least 5 establishments for being barefoot due to ‘rules and regulations’ that didn’t actually exist, so now I usually carry a pair of invisible shoes with me when I go out.”

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I'm an artist, mom, barefoot/minimal runner, and the official Zaps Threads tshirt designer. I came into barefoot running as part accident/part experiment to see if it could help me run without pain for longer distances. Not only did I discover...
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