My new Vibram Five Finger KSOs

Jun 6th, 2009
by Andrew.
8 comments

My Vibram Five Fingers finally came in on Thursday while I was at our “techie retreat” at a local boy scout camp. The shoes came in on the one day that I couldn’t go pick them up, but there was plenty of fun to keep my mind off my new toys: doing the ropes course, watching the Penguins knot up the series with the Red Wings and playing 2 on 2 Lazer Tag into the wee hours of the morning.

I picked up my gray/palm/gray KSOs last night after work and was able to wear them out and about for the first time this morning when my wife “B” and I went grocery shopping.

vff-kso-legs

vff-kso-jeans

Within the first 15 minutes of wearing these in public, I had 4 people from the deli counter around me asking me questions about my shoes, so if you are considering buying and wearing the Five Fingers in public, prepare yourself for the following questions:

  • Are those shoes?
  • Do they have any arch support?
  • How do they feel outside on the sidewalk?
  • Do they have any traction?
  • Can I see what they look like on the bottom?
  • How much do they cost?
  • Where can you buy them?

I told them I was wearing them to strengthen my feet and to walk more “naturally.” I decided not to tell them that I’m going to be running in them as trainers for running barefoot.

So, here I am this morning, in my new Five Fingers, with a cup of coffee on our new patio furniture in perfect 75 degree weather:

vff-patio

It doesn’t get any better than this.
– My Dad

There was one side benefit of having to wait a few weeks for my shoes to come in. B had become more and more intrigued by the idea of getting some herself and decided to try them on again when I picked up mine at the store. She had previously tried on the Classics and the Sprints and thought that her pinky toe was a little uncomfortable (she just has a little nub of a pinky toe). This time, however, she decided that it felt good enough and she was willing to take the plunge. She ended up buying a pair of the Sprints (they didn’t have any women’s KSOs for her to try on there, so that wasn’t an option).

vff-b-ottoman

vff-b-feet

My initial impression of the Five Finger KSOs is great - they fit really well and I’ve been wearing them all day so far. Admittedly, I do have a little bit of plantar fascia pain in my right foot (I’m thinking running around in the dark in my flip flops after watching the hockey game at the bar might have contributed to that), so my plan for the day is to just go for a walk in these and see if my feet feel good enough tomorrow to go for a little run. I’ll write a more proper review after I have a week or two of experience with them.

Posted in: Vibram Five Fingers.
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No Vibrams yet, but did get a picture for the masthead

Jun 3rd, 2009
by Andrew.
1 comment

I was hoping to get my Vibram Five Fingers yesterday, but they still haven’t arrived yet (I hear they’ll be in today or tomorrow at the latest). So, I headed out to the track again with an up-tempo 1.2 mile run in my Nike Frees to the CMU track (I just checked the distance on MapMyRun.com) to try to get a good picture for the masthead of this site.

My wife took about 20-30 pictures or so of me running on the track and on the infield and I think she ended up with one really good one that you can see as the header now. We had good lighting and the people playing softball that were encroaching on the track must’ve moved out of the way for us to get this clear shot, so I’m pretty pleased with it.

I’m out Thursday and Friday for a two day “retreat” with my company (team building exercises with a ropes course and all!), so I might be doing some barefoot walking in the woods, but probably won’t be trying to squeeze a run in.

Posted in: Uncategorized.

First real barefoot walking experience

Jun 2nd, 2009
by Andrew.
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Since I had to walk home to sign for a UPS delivery, I ended up walking to and from my office twice yesterday for a total of 4 miles barefoot. My feet were a little tender by the end of the day and I developed a minor blister on my one foot, but I’m pretty sure it was caused by rubbing against the cuff of my jeans. I was nearly walking on my jean cuffs because I didn’t have that extra half inch of shoes to keep my jeans off the ground. I may need to roll up the cuffs Tom Sawyer style if I walk in those jeans again.

I ended up taking a detour on my way back from the office over a nice smooth brick-paved street. The bricks were smooth and cool to my feet which felt great after walking on the rougher concrete. They also provided a fun little game of trying to step on the largest, smoothest bricks with each step. Walking barefoot definitely makes you much more aware of your surroundings.

Since I put in 4 miles walking barefoot (and my feet were a little tender), I decided not to run yesterday, but plan on putting in a run to the track this evening. I have an order in with a local running shoe store for a pair of Vibram Five Fingers KSOs that I’ve been waiting on for over two weeks. If they don’t come in today, I’ll probably do a short run in my Nike Frees.

Posted in: Uncategorized.

June 1-7 is Barefoot Week!

Jun 1st, 2009
by Andrew.
3 comments

So, I was just setting up a Google Alert for “barefoot running” this morning and found out that today was the first day of Barefoot Week (a national event started by Soles 4 Souls.

Soles 4 Souls

Since I was just about to head out the door in flip flops (my closest to barefoot shoes), I decided just to attach them to my bag and walk the mile to work barefoot instead. My walk is almost completely on sidewalks and just a tad over a mile up a very steep hill. I paid much more attention to where I was placing my feet during my walk and although it was sunny this morning, the 50ish degree temperature made me feet a little on the cold side (but not too bad).

The concrete was fine to walk on - it was those tiny little pebbles or gravel that caused me the most grief. They weren’t terrible for the most part, but occasionally a tiny one would get stuck to my foot and I’d have to pause to flick it off. I noticed that as I approached the end of my walk that I had already started to get more comfortable walking on the concrete (maybe it was because my feet were just getting warmer).

I decided to stop into Panera for a breakfast sandwich and some coffee and thought I’d go ahead and try out the theory that most people wouldn’t bug you for walking barefoot in public (and it’s not actually against the law). I have to admit that I felt a little awkward standing around waiting for my food without shoes on. I tried to act casual, but I think a number of people kinda raised their eyebrows (could’ve been my imagination though). In the end, no one questioned me and there was no harm done.

So anyway … if you can, try going barefoot this week and see what it feels like. It doesn’t mean you have to convert to the barefoot lifestyle, but it might change your mind about where you can and can’t go barefoot. Ironically, Soles 4 Souls established Barefoot Week to keep people from walking around barefoot.

Of course, it’s unrealistic to go year-round without shoes on, so this is still a very worthy cause. Depending on the environment they live in though, being shoeless just may not be their biggest concern.

Posted in: Uncategorized.

The Beginning

May 31st, 2009
by Andrew.
1 comment

Today I took the first steps towards my new goal:

To run a sub-5:00 mile barefoot.

I’ve had this idea in my head for a while now, but I finally was pushed over the edge after reading Born to Run by Christopher McDougall (more on this later). I’ve been interested in barefoot running since McDougall’s article about the Tarahumara Indians appeared in Men’s Health several years ago. Since then, I’ve dabbled with the Nike Free shoes and tried changing my form to strike with the forefoot, but never with any real commitment to training.

First, a little bit of a background about me. I’m 30 years old and a former high school runner. I ran for just over a semester in college before finally giving in to a recurring hip injury (it was not a career-ending injury - just the catalyst that ultimately convinced me to quit). I’ve run under 5:00 in the mile, but not since I was 18.

Since I quit running in college, I’ve done very little running. I’ve kept active with Ultimate (Frisbee) and rock climbing, but the only race I’ve trained for in the last few years has been the Mickelson Trail Half-Marathon in Deadwood, South Dakota (which is a great first half-marathon if you’re thinking of running one).

So why do I want to run a sub-5:00 mile barefoot? Well, there are a lot of people out there proving that you can run barefoot for 50 miles, 100 miles, or even more. I want to prove that you can run barefoot fast (or at least moderately fast). Part of it is that I just want to prove to myself that I can still run sub-5:00 if I put my mind to it, and the other part is to validate barefoot running as the “right” way to run.

The first time trial

So this morning, I took a warmup run to the CMU track (conveniently located an easy 10-minute run from my house) to run a mile time trial to establish my baseline mile time.

Although I’d run a few test laps earlier this week barefoot, I didn’t think my feet were ready for a mile at full speed, so I ran in my old high school racing flats (Nike Zoom Waffles). Since I had no idea what I could run a mile at, I decided to go out at 80 seconds (5:20 mile pace) and go from there. After the first lap, it was pretty clear that I wouldn’t be able to maintain the pace, so I backed off a bit. My 2nd and 3rd laps were progressively slower, but I was able to pick it up a bit on the gun lap and ended up with a 5:46, which I was honestly pretty pleased with. Considering my lack of cardiovascular endurance right now, that’s not too bad - but it will give me plenty to work on over the next few months.

So what’s the plan?

I don’t have a concrete plan right now; just a goal. The plan will come later. My main focus right now is to learn the proper barefoot running technique and not push it too hard, too fast. The last thing I want is to push my weak feet too hard early on and end up sidelined with an injury.

As I learn more about barefoot running, I hope that this will become a good resource for someone that wants to start running barefoot. There are already a lot of great blogs about barefoot running out there already, so be sure to check those out as well (in the sidebar).

Posted in: Time Trials.

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