10 000 meters almost barefeeted

Back home after Midnattsloppet in Göteborg.

So it was time again this evening, for those how haven't followed the blog I could recommend to take a look at my previous post http://tansaki.blogspot.com/2009/06/no-pain-no-gain-or-no-shoes-running.html first.

As you all should know now (if your did read the previous blog post) I have experimented with running bare feeted. Unfortiently it does take some getting used to so since I needed some new running shoes and a friend recommended the Vibrant 5 fingers I thought it would be a great thing to try. On Wednesday I registered to the Midnight 10 000 meters race in central Gothenburg, on Thursday I bought the 5 fingers shoes and run 2300 meters. Maybe not the best of preparations but the more interesting to see how it would work out.

Normally when you buy new running shoes you need to run with them for a while to get them to fit your feet and minimize the risk of blizzards. I didn't really have time for that. After the test run of 2300 meters I did however noticed that I got a small blizzard on the Achilles' tendon on my left foot from the new shoes. With hope that there wouldn't be any more blizzards I got changed and put a piece of Compete over the blizard on the Achilles' tendon an hour before the race and went down to the start.

The race went fine and I'm quite pleased with the time of 42 minutes and 25 seconds, slightly more then 4 minutes over my personal best but with my preparations I'm pleased it wasn't more.

So how did the shoes perform? Remarkable well I would say, I did get a small blizzard on the inside of each foot. Considering how my feet looked after running without any shoes at all I was almost "disappointed" that my feets looked so good after the race. The biggest blizzards that I got was not from the shoes themselves but from the timing chip and my foot pod that I use to get the speed while running. Since the foot pod doesn't work if it's not positioned horizontally on the foot I strapped the chip and foot pod around the foot instead of around the ankle. On normal shoes and also on different models of the 5 fingers you do have straps or strings to put the foot pod on but that's not available on my shoes as you will see on the pictures below.

So if you like to give bare feet running a try without massive blizzards I can highly recommend the 5 fingers shoes from Vibrant, you can find them at http://www.kettlebellcenter.com/en/art/fivefingers-classic-m-walmut-brown.php among other places. And if you don't want to take my word for the benefits you can also hear it from Tim Ferries at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdluEiApUtQ


My feet and the 5 fingers back home after the race, the blizzards on the left foot is from the chip and the foot pod and not the shoe.


Maybe not the best shoe if you don't like to be noticed.


Underside of the shoes.