Any barefoot runners

[Blacura]

Anyone do this?

I have baby soft feet and with winter coming am thinking of starting with vibrams five fingers first then in spring/summer transition to barefoot if I can.

I run about 30k a week on roads/paved trails. Some days are at the gym on the treadmill if I am on call for work.

[revelations]

Ive tried this once on smooth pavement. Its really quite neat, but will take time to get used to for sore.

Forefoot strike is the way to go (of course).

Would love to have a pair of vibrams

[Rat Fink]

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[Blacura]

I want to start because out of no where I had intense arch pains. I tried barefoot on the treadmill yesterday (gross I know but I wanted to try it), I went for a bit, liked it and no pain, but when I put my asics back on, it was like instant pain. took em off and ran for the rest of my time barefoot.

My calves are so sore today. It's definitely going to take some getting used to. Outside will be tough with stones and such. My five fingers are on their way though.

[Unknown303]

Did you try on the five fingers. They fit a little weird on some people. Like me.. But there are some other running shoes that use the same technology without dividing up the toes that seem pretty comfortable. Haven't tried running in any yet but I'd prefer the full shoe ones just for ease of use.

[lint]

what about other minimal shoes? nb minimus, merrel trail glove, saucony and asics also have some.

[trevh]

Lots of shoe company's are coming out right with a 'Barefoot' concept.

I use Merrell's- a trail running shoe that I absolutely love, lightweight, comfortable. I use them for weightlifting too.

Also, New Balance makes a very good 'barefoot' concept shoe, I've heard good things about them also.

lint beat me to it..good call mate

[lint]

I've got the mr10 and mx20. nb has a nice wide fit. I also have a few pairs of onitsuka tigers and find they're pretty minimal as well

[bulaian]

I have the vibram five fingers and like them a lot.

In calgary, like Rat Fink said, I'd be too worried about steeping in/on stuff to actually go out and run barefoot.

[dansmith11]

ive been playing around with the barefoot thing this summer.

before that ive been using vibrams for 2 years.

first year i spent a lot of time walking around building up the arch and base strength/endurance of my feet. they were pretty atrophied after years of shoe wearing.

second year i did a bunch more running, focused mostly on learning a forefoot strike.

this spring i finally played around with true barefooting. did a 10k and a 15k training run, then ran the calgary half marathon (21k) barefoot. and a dozen or so random 2-5k barefoot runs over the summer. a bit of barefoot hiking etc.

in my experience barefoot is sweet, definitely the most fun and awesome way to run, but it takes REALLY strong feet, and/or really thick skin. if your form or balance is off even the tiniest of bits your foot can rub/scrap the ground pretty easily and tear skin off it/bruise bones etc.. and yes, your feet will get DIRTY running around calgary barefoot. like death black on the bottoms dont come clean for 2-3 days despite washing them 2-3 times a day sort of dirty. still totally awesome and worth all the hassle for as much as your feet can take it i think.

vibrams are definitely the best compromise. vibrams give you 80% of the barefoot experience with none of the skin tearing. (bruising still a possibility if not careful). vibrams still take some adaptation/building up before you can wear them everywhere/run all the time in them. But a lot of that depends how strong your feet/arches are to start with. myself it took a while. but some people have naturally good arches and if your already running 30k a week, your probably on the good side of base strength/endurance in your feet. i wear these pretty much exclusively in the summer, allows me to have 80% barefoot-feel but still keep my feet clean/covered so i can go inside places without being outcast by society for being a barefoot weirdo. Also they help separate your toes which I have found to be supremely important in barefoot running.

problem with vibrams in calgary winter though is that the venting between the toes is in no way waterproof. and while its ok in nice fresh clean snow, calgary spends a lot of its winter in weird melt/freeze cycles and everything gets really brown and grimey and gross and all that shit ends up between your toes. which is ok if your just going for a training run then home where you can clean up. but its kind of lame when your wearing them to and from work or some other indoor place :P showing up to work with brown muddy grimey feet is generally frowned upon

for that reason i spend a lot of time in winter in terra plana boots. tera plana is another minimalist shoe company, they make some pretty nice stuff, they are my 2nd choice to vibrams. thin rubber soles, wide toe boxes, very solid minimalist shoe.

ive tried a bunch of other minimalist stuff as well (merrell trail gloves, huaraches sandals, softstar moccasins etc.), but found for wide feet tera planas are really the only option outside of vibrams (so far anyhow, more and more minimalist stuff comes out all the time). softstars are good for wide feet. but being leather moccasins and not really shoes, they dont do well in wet/snow/gross calgary winter slop.


so long story short. yes, get some vibrams. they are amazing. but if your looking to wear minimalist shoes around in full on calgary winter, then you also need some more shoe like ones, whether its new balance, merrell, terra plana, etc.

once the strength in your feet build up from minmalist shoes, then its just a matter of slowly conditioning the skin on your feet by slowly increasing your barefoot distance if you decide to go full on barefoot crazy.

[Khyron]

What was your time on the Calgary half?

[dansmith11]

Originally posted by Khyron
What was your time on the Calgary half?

1:51.xx

[SIC1]

If you can get your hands on the Impact running magazine, they have a show buyers guide of all the new barefoot running technologies. it's the August/September issue.

as stated previously, The Running Room and UofC have gait(they way you walk/run) analysis experts.

the only time I use minimalist shoes is dead-lifting/squats as I have severe pes planus(flat feet and my feet kill me without proper support after running or working all day.

[pinoyhero]

I'm huge fan of the theory and experimented with reg shoes before transitioning. Was tough in reg shoes but I moved to saucony hattoris, f'ing awesome. Prefer those still for running and the vibrams in the gym. I'm a crossfitter.