I was coming home from my run this morning and passed a woman who was running without shoes. She was heading to our local park that's paved with rock, not cement and is really rough and hard. This was the first time i've seen someone running without shoes. I would think it would be really hard on your body without the extra support and hard on your feet with the rough pavement.

This is something that I would never do, but are there any benefits to running without shoes?

All that I can say is, OUCH!
But I was curious and looked it up and found this -
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0127134241.htm

that is a really interesting article, I'd hate to see how much your feet hurt the first time running without shoes, but sounds like you get used to it and it improves your foot strike. Though its still something I would never even try to do. But the more power to those who do

lol, for sure! You'd never catch me doing it either.
I can barely even WALK on the gravel in my driveway during the summer months, lol.

Well, I do not run bareboot, but I run whit vibran5fingers shoes...it is like barefoot, but whit a littleproteccion.

lol same here. One time though, I went outside during the summer barefoot to catch a neighbor's loose dog, I wasn't even thinking about putting shoes on, just focused on the dog. And it was a really hot summer day and I had been walking/running on both the asphalt and cement sidewalks. By the time I got the dog and returned it to the owner, my feet were covered in really bad blisters from being burned on the pavements. I was stupid though since I didn't put on shoes, but it was painful and it took a long time for the blisters to heal. These people must build a lot of resistance on the bottom of their feet to be able to tolerate running barefoot, especially in the heat of summer.