After reading "Born to Run", a kind gift from Rocinante, and seeing his initial success with five fingers, as well as Sasha, I have decided to put the barefoot running philosophy to the test. The idea is that high end running shoes are causing our injuries and running in a minimalist fashion will actually strengthen us and prevent injuries. What do I have to lose? OK- so I bought the vibram five fingers, got the sprint which has a strap. They are bright red and ugly. Breaking into this slowly- maybe two days a week unless my foot feels worse then I will stop completely. So here is data from test day 2: 4 miles up and back on river trail, with about 0.3 of that on single track to see how they perform off road. I am not brave enough to try these things on pavement. The five fingers feel good, they are comfortable. I could feel the rocks under my feet but nothing painful. The idea is your feet get the input from the ground, with no shoe padding to interfere, and adjust/adapt accordingly, and without cushioning your feet and calves strengthen naturally. I was definitely landing on the ball of my foot, no heel striking. I counted my foot turnover at random points going up and down and found I automatically had increased turnover by about 12 fpm, from 180 to about 192. No obvious pain in foot, sore spot in shin did not increase. If I feel OK I will do a little track work tomorrow in light trainers. I am ditching all the cushioned trainers for the bulk of this experiment I am performing, will only use them when (if) I can do long runs.I am just playing around for awhile to see what happens. easy pace not really affected by the "shoes": up at 8:12, down at 7:35, I wouldn't have dared go faster than that. My guess is these are best suited for easy runs- which is what I intend to use them for.
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