I’ve run exactly ¼ mile in them and I’m sold.
I’ve been thinking about Vibram Five Fingers for about 6 months or so. My friend Sam got hooked on them around the same time I read an article about minimalist footwear in Runner’s World. So I did some more reading and research on my own, and enjoyed Sam’s running commentary (ha!) in his journal comics. What sold me was getting Born to Run for Christmas (Have I mentioned how amazing this book is? I’ve already started to re-read it!).
I could feel the difference right away, so I’m expecting *some* soreness tomorrow. I’m not really a heel striker. A look at the soles of my shoes shows more wear on the fore/mid sole than the heel. I am barefoot or in flimsy shoes as often as humanly possible–I just haven’t been running that way. And bad joints run (ha!) in my family, something I want to delay as long as humanly possible because I LOVE RUNNING. Still, I know I need to take it slow. Sam cautioned starting with a half mile, others have said just to start with a few minutes. I decided I’m going to do ¼ mile on top of my scheduled training for the next week and progress an extra ¼ mile each week as long as it feels okay. When I get to running a full mile in them I’ll start subbing that mile for some of my training–but for starting out it’s not a big deal to add an extra ¼ to ¾ of a mile to my already short runs, and it’s a bigger pain in the butt to stop mid-run to change shoes.
But already, I’m sold. I can’t wait until I’m only running in my VFFs. And I can totally see myself getting another pair and wearing these around for errands and such because they really do feel like a second skin. And they are going to be so much easier to pack for traveling because they are wicked light and portable (the box looks like a child’s shoe box!). I didn’t get the color I wanted because the place I went didn’t have choices, but I don’t care. If I really wanted to I could order them in the color I want since I know my size now, but I’m not going to jump into that just yet.