Barefoot Craze in North Carolina- Toe Shoes not so Crazy
A few weeks back I was interviewed by the Charlotte NBC news team. They came out to my office on my dock and interviewed me for about an hour, then I went running around the neighborhood for about an hour with essentially a two person news team. That story finally aired last night(
‘Barefoot running’ craze hits Charlotte
and the article and video are now available online too. (Note the maroon toe shoes below are not the shoes I have, and not really the best shoes for running either, there’s a different model better suited for running. These shoes are better for yoga and martial arts.
Here is the result!
It was a lot of fun, and frankly felt like something of a tv show from a production perspective. I don’t have a lot of experience with TV nor the news myself. But I have been on TV several times over the years.
But this was a first from the perspective of combining both an interview and from the experience of all the filming. They recorded what seemed to be about 2 hours worth of material. Well actually it was probably really about an hour, it just took 2 hours to set everything up. But that 1 hour boiled down to 2 minutes and twenty seconds of interview, which also featured a few other people in other interviews. 
So any way, I was fascinated with the process. I’ve done some video work for the web over the years, mostly video tutorials, and with much inferior equipment and training, but that experience gave me enough of a perspective on what was going on to appreciate the whole situation better.
It actually took about a month or so for the interview to actually make it onto the news, which was probably more of a surprise than I expected. I had this notion that the interview would probably air with a week or so, but even in my own experience videos I shoot or create often times don’t see the light of day for weeks or months and some never make it off my hard drive at all!
Now, since the interview was taken, I have started to move on with my barefoot adventures. This week in fact I started cross training going completely barefoot.
When I first started running in Vibrams, I would run a mile and then walk a mile.
Now, I am taking it even easier, walking a mile and jogging a bit during that walk.
Mostly, I am trying to build up the pads on my feet a bit, and maybe more so build up my confidence that I can run barefoot on the streets.
So far the experience has been very good. Not quite as much of a pleasure as putting on toe shoes were the first time, but I can definitely feel even more muscles getting a work out when I go barefoot all together.
Frankly, I’m not sure where this is all taking me, but the journey has been interesting so far.
Vibram Five Finger Injuries – Lessons Learned about Avoiding Barefoot Injuries
I’ve been running in Vibram’s since September, that is up until about 2 weeks ago.
I ramped up through the learning training curve last fall and things were going fantastic. Loved the results, loved the feel, loved the new strength in my feet and legs after getting trained up, even started to love running for the first time in 37 years, despite always being naturally ‘good at running’. I just read this article about “The Dangers of barefooting – How to Start Off on the Right Foot” by Al Gauthier.
The Problem – My Vibram Five Finger Toe Injury
So a couple weeks back I was running, I had been building up to longer and longer distances thinking about attempting my first marathon (I was just getting to the half marathon distance.
But I live in BF NC where there are mostly 2 lane roads, and no running conducive areas. The paper has an article at least every month about a runner or bicyclist that has been run down by a car, typically because the driver didn’t see them, didn’t allow enough space or because they were drunk, but also because there is no shoulder on most of these roads, so even a driver paying attention is not going to have a lot of room to make space, let alone time to react if they are coming around a corner at the posted speed limit.
So as I trek out to build up my distance, this is the environment I have to run in.
Sure I have a nice life insurance policy, or at least nice enough to cover college for the kids and pay off our debts, but not much more.
That said, I don’t plan on running in the clouds anytime soon, so I started trying to learn how to run through the grass and ditches along the side of the road, especially through those dangerous areas of blind curves.
Running in grass in Vibrams is like getting a foot massage. It feels great!
But running on a softer surface, like grass, or lately spongy rain soaked turf and soil, requires a lot more muscle and concentration, both to power through the distances trudging through a resistance like environment, but also to avoid injury from twists.
One thing I’ve noticed with bare footing in Vibrams is that when your legs get tired, or you get tired, you are more prone to an injury because you don’t have the protective encasement of shoes to compensate for a slight miscalculation.
The Injury – Bend your big toe underneath your foot while you run and it will hurt!
So 2 weeks back I twisted something slightly in my left foot.
It wasn’t anything real bad and I stopped running for a few days. After about 5 days, I thought I was mostly better, and I headed out for a run.
I thought I would try some sprinting exercises, run full out for 100 m then jog super slow for 200-300 and repeat. After about 3 repetitions, I quickly realized that my foot wasn’t 100% yet, so I then switched into a casual run, planning to do about 3 miles, which would have normally been very easy for me even in Vibrams after running those distances for months.
Halfway through, I was limping, and headed back home.
I should have walked but didn’t think it was ‘too bad’.
Well the limping run actually made my legs and feet a little more tired, because I hadn’t trained in a limping gate. Shortly there after, I stumbled a bit on my bad foot, literally tripping over my big toe.
The toe stubbed on pavement, and knuckled under my foot.
A sharp burst of pain hit and went away. I looked down and had skinned the top of my toe slightly through both the Vibram mesh, the injinji toe socks and my skin.
My toe felt like it had either been jammed, slightly dislocated temporarily at the knuckle from a hyperextension, or possibly fractured (when I was younger 20 years ago, I had fractured both my big toes several times either during kick boxing, riding a three wheeler once and catching my foot between a tree and the back tire, and a half dozen other situations).
I was still a mile from home when this happened and slowly jogged home on the foot. (mistake again)
Lesson Learned – Avoiding Vibram Five Finger Toe Injuries
I’ve learned and re-learned several lessons over the last 7 months about running in Vibrams. Most of them involved taking things very slow, because even though I’ve been running for over 25 years, I’ve only been running in Vibrams for 6 months. I’M A NEWBIE!
Most of the lessons have been about my stride in Vibrams, my form, differences in stride and form when I’m running on different terrains and when I’m running fresh, or tired or stiff or in the cold etc. Every difference is a major new lesson that I have to learn.
I can’t run the same way every day in Vibrams if I’m running under a different set of circumstances, and as such I get stronger because my muscles are dealing with completely different circumstances (that’s the good thing).
But my chances of injury increase because I’m dealing with something I’ve never dealt with before and I DO NOT KNOW WHAT I’M DOING YET!
The swelling has gone away, my bruises on my toe are almost gone too. I REALLY want to go running and think I could, but I have to check myself with my brain.
Instead, I walked a half mile last night instead of running 3. This morning I woke up and had the feeling of a slight not under the ball of my foot just below my second toe. Its just a little swelling, but it goes to show I wasn’t ready to run last night.
Today, I’ll need to walk somemore, but probably no more than a mile.
Basically, I’m starting all over again with my Vibrams post injury. Sure, I’ll probably learn faster and move up the curve back to half marathon level faster, but it is still starting over.
This time, I’m also going to do some cross training, weight training to strengthen my feet and ankles. I’m still thinking about the types of exercise I will do, probably a lot of things involving inclines and soft spongy surfaces.
My Wife’s Vibram Injury
My wife has a pair of Vibram Sprints. She has only had them for about 3 months. The first or second week she had them, she tried to run a 2.5 mile stretch up a steep hilly mountain with a friend. She too suffered from a trip where her toe stubbed and went under her foot. She skinned up her toe worse than I did, but didn’t seem to suffer from the pull/jam/fracture that I went through. She was dumb and lucky.
She should have tried to go that far that fast and definitely not through a hilly area. She learned a hard lesson quick. I usually learn the hard lessons a lot slower than she does.
Could You Run Faster in these Wing Tip Toe Shoes?
lol I love images like these that break up the conventional wisdom of what shoes are or should be.
If you missed it, this shoe, is not a shoe. Its a foot painted to look like a shoe.
Its from an article in NewYork Mag titled You Walk Wrong.
This shoe and the stilettos and Adidas sneakers on the subsequent pages are trompel’oeil paintings applied directly to the feet. Nice as they look, you can’t buy them.
Makeup by John Maurad and Jenai Chin.(Photo: Tom Schierlitz)
Read more: How We’re Wrecking Our Feet With Every Step We Take — New York Magazine http://nymag.com/health/features/46213/#ixzz0fj2STuJK
.
There are several other images of feet painted to look like high heel shoes, soccer shoes,
The article is about WALKING not running, but there are some references to running to.
The point is that our feet are designed/evolved to work completely differently when we walk or run.
The correct stride for walking is not the correct stride for running. Here’s some images of walking strides with and without shoes.
Free Running with Vibram Five Finger Toe Shoes Video
Since I got my first pair of Vibram Five Finger Toe Shoes last fall, I’ve been wondering when they might be used for free running. The shoes are just too damned fun. Even for the less daring they kind of turn the whole world into a playground due to the heightened sensory perception activity that your brain receives from your feet and toes.
This video features some but not all of the participants working out in a free running playground or park. Some of the folks are wearing Vibrams. I would think that the feedback would be very important in helping you sense and react with the fractional seconds necessary to process your next move and reaction. That said, I do have to wonder just how strong your feet would have to become to be able to jump some of these distances barefoot.
Not Familiar with Free Running?
Here is the video that introduced me to the sport. I have not tried it myself yet, but it reminds me a lot of skateboarding and rollerblading, which I used to do quite a bit years back.
More Traction on Vibram 5 Finger Toe Shoes Better or Less Comfortable?
I love the new look of Vibram 5 Finger Shoes scheduled to start showing up in Europe and the US this spring and summer. Europe seems to be schedule to receive the widest range of new products. All of them seem to feature soles with more traction and grip.
Theoretically, that is a great ideal. Who wants to slip?
Even though I love these shoes in general I have my doubts about the additional traction. I have a pair of KSO shoes that I got last fall. They have very little ‘tread’ or traction. The bottom of the shoe is shaped mostly like feet, sans tread. These can be slippery, especially if you are running down hill on wet blacktop. Having done that many times, I have learned 2 things
- My toes and feet are smart enough to recognize when I am slipping and compensate, and
- More traction might stop me from essentially hydroplaning just a
bit.
In December, I purchased a pair of KSO Treks. I bought them for the extra lining and warmth. The soles are a little thicker and they have some tread.
Unfortunately, I find the tread on the toes to be a little uncomfortable at times. With Vibrams you can feel everything you step on , ‘in a good way. So it stands to reason that if you add lines of tread to the bottom of shoes that your senses can feel through, you will be able to feel the tread between your feet and the road or hard surface you are standing on. Put a sharp, pointy piece of rubber under the shoe, and it feels like a sharp pointy piece of rubber. Great for running trails, but not necessarily great for harder surfaces.
So the newer versions of Vibrams that are schedule to come out, all seem to have more tread. That means more potential to add bumps underneath my feet that don’t need to be there.
Think back to when you were a kid and the sole lining of your running shoes came out. If you happened to try and stick your feet in the shoe and walk around, typically on a rubber grid or mesh, it didn’t feel so hot. I’m wondering if this might be the same thing with the newer Vibrams, which basically don’t have a sole lining at all.
Trade off between softness and wear and tear
It is possible that the rubber used to make the tread could be a softer material than the rubber used in the current KSO and KSO Treks. That might solve the problem, If it were softer the shoes might not hold up as well nor as long as the current models, which don’t seem to wear down at all. (Possibly because you tend to scuff your feet a whole lot less.)
I do like the look of the arches on these shoes which are not that much higher than normal KSO shoes but do look a stronger
Form over Function – Not Quite but moving that direction?
I do think that these new shoes do ‘look more like traditional running shoes.’ That might make them less foreign looking and more acceptable for a wider market. I’m not sure if these will really be better, but better looking sometimes will sell more shoes and that might help the company keep selling these puppies fore years to come.
I may have to stock up on some of the traditional KSO’s just in case they stop selling/making the shoes that I like so much now.
For me, one of the best things about Vibrams is the high level of rich information that my brain receives through my feet, because they can feel the road, feel the trail, feel the grass. I don’t want to run on a slip and slide, but I don’t want to trade off on the comfort and fun either. All that info coming through my toes makes running very fun, very entertaining, that is the thing that has given me a renewed interest in running in the first place. Running has never been difficult for me. It has been very very boring, and Vibrams have helped me reawaken a bit as I pulled my feet out of boxes and let them work the way they were designed to do. a
Sources for several of the pictures in this article
- http://birthdayshoes.com/index.php/five-fingers-bikila-information-resources-2010
- http://birthdayshoes.com/index.php/moc/
- http://www.runblogger.com/2009/09/vibram-fivefingers-new-vff-bikila.html
- http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1LqBoa/birthdayshoes.com/index.php/more-on-the-vibram-five-fingers-bikila-2010-catalog-photos
- http://www.runblogger.com/2009/07/new-vibram-fivefingers-models-vff-speed.html
- http://birthdayshoes.com/index.php/vibram-fivefingers-moc-unboxing-and-first-look-video-and-photos
- http://birthdayshoes.com/index.php/lace-up-vibram-five-fingers-vffs-with-sneaker-tops-in-2010
Driving 800 miles to Get Some New Vibram KSO Treks on Wednesday
This week I’m heading home to the Peoria Illinois area where I’m originally from. I haven’t been able to find any Vibram KSO Treks, the leather cold weather version of Vibram five finger toe shoes anywhere in the Carolinas.
Then I had an epiphany and remembered that I’d be travelling and maybe I could check some stores enroute to Illinois.
I did a search in Illinois first, and found a store in Peoria, on Main St. I’m not sure, but it might be the same store that’s been selling running shoes in Peoria since well, about as far back as I can remember.
They are called Running Central (no twitter account but they are on Facebook).
I called and talked to Adam I believe and sure enough they had one pair left in my size! They reserved that last pair for me and I’m going to pick them up when I get there this week.
Sooo can’t wait, plus, my toes won’t get as cold or wet running while I’m in Illinois.
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