Hows my little "bare" foot?

Today I went for one of my most enjoyable runs of my life.

Its not to common for me to use enjoy and run in the same conversation or even sentence, but its true! Today I tackled my first trail run at Kickapoo State Park (a few minutes from the house). There were hills, trees, beautiful changing leaves, and gorgeous views of the river here and there. The temperature was perfect and the sun was shining through the leaves. How could anyone not enjoy that.


But there's more...

My good pal Jon recently found me some Vibram Five Finger (Trek Sport) Shoes for a measly $25 at REI and generously picked me up a pair. For those who don't know, those are the shoes with toes. My first impression of these new kicks is nothing less than thunderous praise. They are ridiculously lightweight, and feel like a thin protective extension of my foot, sort of like a nice fitting sock but with toes and a hard bottom. Its been raining like crazy lately and the trails were wet in some places and there was no issues with grip on wet uneven areas and even when I moved through a wet area they seemed to dry just as fast as skin would in a similar situation. I'll test the water more in the future though.

So by now you might be thinking, toe shoes Tony? Really?!
Well yes, but there is some history behind this that I've been meaning to share with my faithful readers for ages and today's run sparked it all.

So here it goes:


In the spring of 2010 Laura's brother Scott sent me an Email containing three links with not much preface other than interesting reading. Ever since reading the articles I've not shopped for footwear the same since then. The articles went out of their way to claim moving around barefoot was a more natural, healthier, and better way for any person to walk/run/jog.


So this is my soapbox, I'm going to give you the rundown of it all using some great articles that have inspired or informed me into this way of movement.


This article is a great one and is mostly responsible for convincing me that barefoot is the way to go. To sum it up people have been walking against evolution ever since the modern shoe became an important accessory to our daily lives. It goes on to give evidence showing barefooted people and athletes alike can reduce injuries and relieve some chronic pains by simply taking off their shoes. My favorite example of how shoes work against feet is when you look at an empty shoe on a table, you will notice the toe area curls up. You will also notice your toes don't naturally look like that when standing barefoot. Shoes are designed this way to help you rock forward. It later goes into more detail about how your sensitive feet are desensitized when wearing shoes and a person's body naturally tries to correct these feelings and generally gives a person more opportunity for injury. The article goes deeper into the subject too, and if you've made it that far I'm sure you'll be interested enough to reach the end.

This video is related to this article, its pretty painful to watch but you can get a good idea of how a person's running gait changes with the removal of their shoes.


This article does a fantastic job at showing you how shoes, particularly heeled shoes ruin a person's posture and feet. It also shows how walking or running around barefoot can change it almost immediately. The second half is a somewhat dated but still relevant review of Vibram's Five Finger (VFF) shoes. He makes a good case for flat footed people to make the switch towards the bottom.

On a side note, although, its not my story to tell, I know a person who just by wearing her VFFs for a period of time she went from needing to wear shoes with orthotics all the time to being comfortable while walking around barefoot. Which as I understand it was an uncomfortable task beforehand. Another person I know has actually been able to wiggle his pinky toe that used to be permanently curled into the next toe, just by running in his VFFs for a several months.

The writer of this blog entry is a giant minimalist advocate and believes strongly in ground feel, what your feet can actually feel when walking around barefoot. Its a really great piece and not terribly long, it brings up a lot of good points about how we pretty much blind ourselves to the ground below us. I think its a very good article explaining why one should want minimalist footwear.

So what does this all mean?
Going barefoot is a really great idea everyone should consider. In honesty its not realistic, people work, they walk on streets with gravel and broken glass, they use public gas station rest rooms, barefoot living is a scary proposition, barefoot home living is not.

So the next step is shoes, mankind has been making shoes since they have been tanning leather, hence the moccasin, more or less a bag tied around one's ankle. No one wants to be cut or wounded on the bottom of their foot so you're going to want a some protection. Nowadays there is an expanding number to choose from, but by no means a vast sea of choices but they are out there. Some shoes are accidentally minimalist, for example; ladies who have been rocking flats for ages, you're a step ahead. Try and find some that don't look like the heel is raised any higher than the toe, very little if any arch support, and obviously a very very thin sole.

To make shopping easy for you try these brands/shoes:
Sanuk
Toms
Merrel
Vibram Five Finger
Soft Star
Innov8
New Balance Minimus
VivoBarefoot
Saucony Hattori
Feeling Cheap? Buy some ugly water shoes for $2. Same idea.

So how has my tansition been? Slow, as it should be. I've switched entirely to running in the Merrel Trail Glove and its amazing how challenging its been on my calf muscles. For me since I've had knee surgery (and issues with it since then) I'm particularly interested in the prospect of reduced knee stress/injury prevention. Laura has actually had a quicker transition period to minimalist shoes thanks to her extensive foam flip flop wearing (or so I think). Since I really dislike the chunk of fabric between my big toe I only enjoy slide style sandals, unfortunately no such minimalist version exists...yet. So I've still got fat sole sandals. I recently bought new work shoes only to bummed out that a few months later Merrel released a waterproof minimalist shoe. Hopefully they will still be around in a few years when these current fatties finally wear out.

I hoped I've piqued some interest in the subject because I've found it fascinating. If you're wondering what finally inspired this epic post, I would tell you it was the smile that spread across my face running through the woods on a gorgeous autumn afternoon.
If you do choose to dive further into the wonderful world of "bare" feet. Merrel has a great resource for beginners right here (I like the NY Times article).