Are you a runner - barefoot isn't essential? Are you a stickler for recording your training runs? Are you interested in helping a PhD student with her studies in the field of running injury causes and prevention? Keen on being a guinea pig in the name of science doing what you love? Fancy showing the world that barefoot running is good for you? Well, then drop Jenny Perkins at the University of Bath an email and offer your services.

To quote the article...

A University of Bath researcher is looking for keen runners to keep an online diary of their training habits and injuries, to help find out how they can reduce common running injuries.

PhD student Jenny Perkins, from the University’s Department for Health, will analyse the information to look at links between the type of training runners are doing, distance, age and injury.

She hopes to be able to tell runners what they can do to reduce their risk of injury, such as shin splints, back problems and knee pain.

Jenny is looking to recruit at least 1,000 volunteers from across the UK to the study, to log their training and injuries into a free online training diary over 12 months.

Runners of any ability are invited to take part if they are doing a minimum of three hours of running per week. Participants must be UK residents and aged over 18 years of age.

There is no upper age limit to the study and Jenny is particularly interested to find out about age-related differences in injury and training habits.

Being a barefoot runner, a stickler for logging my runs, eager to help others in their running and also eager to help add some barefoot runners to the study, I've offered my services and I think it would be great if more barefoot runners did too.

You can find more details about the study and contact details in the article I've referenced and on the University of Bath Running Injury and Training Audit (RITA) page.

And thanks go to Jonathan Gledson for making me aware of this study.