Twice she ran barefoot through Miami for five hours. She’ll do it for 13.1 miles Sunday
If you see a woman wearing a colorful sari and prancing happily through the streets of Miami and Miami Beach early Sunday morning in the Miami Half Marathon, please steer clear of her feet.
They’re naked.
Nilima Pai, who came with her family to Weston from Mumbai, India in 2015, is expected to be the only barefoot runner traversing the 13.1-mile portion of the Life Time Miami Marathon and Half Marathon. The 45-year-old will be celebrating every mile with an exuberance rooted in feeling the earth — even if it’s the hot, hard, unpredictable streets and grated bridges of downtown Miami and Miami Beach.
Here’s the genesis of her barefoot history, which began nearly eight years ago in Mumbai, India’s largest city: “I was feeling claustrophobic in my shoes. Nothing against the shoes, but personally, from inside them, I didn’t feel happy. There was no connection to the earth. Something was missing.’’
Pai’s husband, Vivek, vice president of alternative funds for Franklin Templeton, tried running barefoot “for one or two miles,’’ he said.
“It was bad,’’ he recalled. “Big blisters.’’
Sunday, he’ll also run the half marathon but will be wearing Brooks running shoes.
Nilima, the mother of a 15-year-old son and a 20-year-old daughter, has completed four marathons and two half marathons. In 2015, she ran her first barefoot, 26.2-mile race in Mumbai in a best of 5 hours, 13 minutes. Since then she has run New York City once and Miami twice.
Most runners would be terrified of what they might step on while in an event with more than 20,000 registered runners (The half marathon and marathon begin together at AmericanAirlines Arena and later separate). But Pai, an administrative assistant who works with civil engineers and inspectors in the construction industry, just forges ahead, eyes forward.
In her years of running barefoot, Pai said she has gotten only three injuries. Her feet, toughened from thousands of miles training with no shoes, are barely blistered or marked at the end of her races.
“The first injury it was dark and I was practicing for the Mumbai Marathon and I stepped on a piece of glass. I thought it was just something pricking me and wiped my foot against the ground thinking the thing would fall off. I realized it wasn’t a stone. I aborted my run.’’
It took her two weeks to recuperate.
“My second injury in Mumbai in 2012 or 2013 I stepped on a metal screw or nut. It was in my heel. Not a big wound. Just superficial, but I took a tetanus injection. One week I was not running.’’
She said her third injury came while training for New York in 2018. “Both feet were rubbing against the road and I got injured on my left big toe,’’ she said. “I was so happy to have that cut because I earned it. A little bit of blood but not much. That cut showed me I’m doing enough effort.’’
Frankie Ruiz, the Miami Marathon and Half Marathon’s director and the coach of Belen Jesuit’s 10-time-state-champion cross-country team, said it’s intriguing to see someone running barefoot when “the profession and even the amateur running world has been completely turned to a new level” because of the running-shoe industry. “Everyone now is all in on shoes, tons of foam, tons of technology. Then you have this other person on the other side saying, ‘I’m going barefoot.’
“I’ve tried running barefoot a few times on synthetic turf on the inside of a track. I implemented some barefoot strides with my high school kids. But today, people are dealing with human-caused change to the terrain. There are needles, broken glass, nails, things that are not natural. Pounding the pavement barefoot becomes a little less inviting.’’
A barefoot-running boom took off after Christopher McDougall’s book “Born to Run” was published in 2009. But the boom died down, acknowledged South Miami’s FootWorks running-store owner Laurie Huseby, who founded and directs the Mercedes-Benz Corporate Run. Huseby often runs and works out in minimalistic running shoes that have thin rubber on the bottom and top. She wears toe socks with them.
“Barefoot running is not good for business,’’ Huseby said, “but I totally support it. The bottom line is not always money. I love to see people following their passion to do something that works for them.’’
Pai, a farmer’s daughter who roamed barefoot as a child in Haliyal — “H for Happy,’’ she said, “A for America, L for love, I for India, Y for young, A for America and L for love’’ — earned master’s degrees in sociology/history and archaeology when she was still in India and adores people and animals. She will clearly be among the most joyous competitors Sunday, even if she is also one of the slowest. She savors what she calls the carnival atmosphere of runs such as the Miami Marathon, and calls it the “Mumbai to Miami, Home Away From Home’’ race, which puts her in “a happy zone.”
She jogs, walks, runs, whatever her body tells her to do. And she talks to everyone along the way. “I listen to my body,’’ Pai said. “Marathons are celebrations for me — so many people, so many motivating stories, so much to hear, so many bands. There are kids giving high-fives and you don’t want to make them sad. There are people who ask if you need a hug, and who says no to a hug?
“I’m a normal human being, but whatever I do I do from the bottom of my heart. I just love the race and the neighborhoods and the people. I have never hit a wall, not a single moment. And when there are no bystanders or people to talk with, I start counting my blessings.’’
It appears that Pai won’t be the only shoeless person on the streets Sunday. Sidy Diallo, 64, who was born in Guinea in West Africa and lives in Paris, will run the full marathon barefoot. He said in an email that it will be his 68th marathon without shoes.
“I decided in 2015 to get rid of the shoes,’’ he wrote, “and discovered the great pleasure and enormous benefits.’’
And if Pai doesn’t find Diallo before the two distances go their separate ways, she’ll be more than occupied with the shoe-loving types.
“She’s a special creature,’’ said Vivek of his wife. “She’s from a different planet. But running keeps her active and happy.’’
This story was originally published February 4, 2020 at 6:29 PM.
