Abebe Bikila won the Olympic Marathon in a record time running barefoot.
In 1985, South African Zola Budd broke the world record in the women’s 5,000 meters barefoot.
The current interest is driven in large part by the 2009 book “Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Ever Seen,’’ by Christopher McDougall, which tells the story of a Mexican tribe who run long distances without running shoes.
