Invisible Shoes - Barefoot Running Sandals

Saturday, March 13, 2010

barefoot rocky trail

I learned a very valuable lesson on Friday - don't run barefoot on a real trail. It hurts. A lot.

I suffered through 2.5km before I decided to give it up. I turned around and walked back to the beginning of the trail, so I really spent 5km on serious rocky trail, though only about 2.5km were running.

When I got back to the road, I figured I would run along the road for a bit until the group finished the trail. My feet were so sore I could hardly run. Now it is Saturday night and they are a bit better, but still sore.

Lesson learned.

4 comments:

Mark said...

Yes, the Vibrams are a problem on anything other than a flat surface. Tried them in yaar ben shemen last week and the rocks were painful and made smooth running very difficult - near impossible. I also twisted my ankle in a way that I would not have done in traditional running shoes that would have provided a bit of a cushion.

Have to figure out a solution to this...

Rafi G. said...

hachlama mehira.

I think there are four options:

1. a more shoe type barefoot experience, like the Nike FREE or Adidas (dont remember model)

2. I think I read somewhere a while back that Vibram makes something for the serious trails.

3. I remember Barefoot Bob from the book "Born to Run" makes himself sandals similar to the Tarahumara sandals, and he has a youtube video clip explaining how. That is for trails.

4. go back to running in shoes on the trails. I think you would need to find a shoe with minimal cushioning.

Mark said...

Yeah, I may look into the Nike frees. As it stands I can do at least 15K at a time with the Vibrams. But I can't see myself running in huaraches like in the book. I get enough bizarre looks in my "gorilla feet." (Although my oldest daughter called me excitedly from Bar Ilan to tell me she saw a male student walking around campus with them on.)

Rafi G. said...

http://www.vibramfivefingers.com/products/products_kso_trek_m.cfm