Tricking Our Minds

According to the article "Running is Always Blind" by Nautilus, "runners expend more energy on uneven surfaces than on level ones." When I read this statement, my initial thoughts were, well yeah, of course we spend more energy running on uneven surfaces. I would assume that our bodies have to spend more energy on things like stabilizing our joints while also thinking more about where to place our feet while running on uneven surfaces. However, as I kept reading, I was surprised to read that "our hips, knees, and ankles become more efficient at moving when terrain becomes complex." Does this mean that while we are running on even surfaces we could possibly trick our minds into thinking we are running on uneven surfaces in order to be more efficient and therefore faster?

While reading the article, I continued to relate the reading to the question I posed in the beginning. As I continued to read, I further understood why my proposition was pretty implausible. The article focused on Jurek, a man who is an avid trail runner. He can seamlessly run on rocky and hilly terrains without even thinking about where to put his feet. "His agility relies on cognition that occurs at a high level in his brain, but never breaks into conscious awareness." This statement alone made me realize that while running our brains are already wired to know what to do on certain surfaces. We can never actually consciously tell our brains to think otherwise. Therefore tricking ourselves into thinking we are running on an uneven surface would not change the fashion of our running in any way