After years of wanting to run, trying it, and getting shinsplints no matter what shoe I wore, I’ve found that barefoot works great for me!
(Not here to evangelize, but maybe to crow a little bit. )
Anyway, so this is going great in spring and summer, but we do have cold winters and occasional snow and ice where I live. I’ve tried to find a place with an indoor track but no luck so far. So I need advice about what type of shoe I should be looking for. I’ve heard about minimalist shoes and those five-toed slip-on thingies, but I really know next to nothing about any of it.
I know I need to go to a running store–as soon as I can find one of those around here–and I know they will be able to advise me. But I’d like to be as knowledgeable as possible before I go there. Any of you runners out there have any advice for me?
My running partner is a minimalist runner. She did barefoot for a few years, but she switched to using water shoes (i.e., the little slippers they make for swimming) a few years ago, because of gravel and cuts on her feet.
She tried several pairs of Vibram Five-Fingers, but ultimately didn’t like how they fit her feet. She also tried “duct tape socks” (i.e., regular socks with duct tape on the soles) during the winter, which worked all right in dry weather, but were terrible in snow.
Also: many of the running shoe companies make shoes which are targeted towards the minimalist crowd these days; they’re sometimes called “zero drop” (as there is no difference between the height at the toe vs. the heel). There are also several companies (Newton comes to mind) which specialize in minimalist shoes.
Try those cheap water shoe things like someone said above.
Yeah, no kidding! I’m curious. What kind of surfaces are you running on? My feet spend half the time in ski boots and the other half in motorcycle boots. The very thought of being barefoot make my feet hurt!
It’s the exercise equivalent of the paleo diet… see, we damage our bodies by running heel-first, and no amount of miracle shock absorbing in shoes can fix that. It’s more “natural” and thus of course better to run toe-first and let your foot and leg muscles absorb the shock the way Darwin intended, with just a tough sheath to protect your foot from pointy things.
It’s quite the fad.
So were Earth Shoes.
I await the first wave of “barefoot runners” who have destroyed their leg joints and tendons even more thoroughly than prior generations who ran heel-first in thin-soled shoes.
I’m sure there are many with Kenyan ancestry or other freakish running ability who can make the most of barefoot running and never suffer any consequences.
But, like all fads, it eventually sweeps in the misled and faddish who will do it because it is a fad, and spend the rest of their lives using a walker.
Amateur Barbarian, I think you’ve made your views on barefoot running abundantly clear at this point. The OP is asking for opinions on a shoe purchase. Please stick with that topic if you wish to contribute to this thread.
Despite the first thread respondent’s running partner’s having tried several pairs of Vibram Five Finger shoes and not liking how they fit her feet, I have worn Vibram Five Finger shoes for several years, like how they fit my feet and love wearing them. When I wear a regular shoe now, I can’t wait to get them off and get my feet back into my Vibram Five Finger shoes. They’re comfy!
I also wear them in winter with little toe socks. Very warm.
I like my vibrams, but a few things:
If you have ever fractured a toe in the past, the repositioning the vibrams do may make your toes ache at the start. My toes got used to it and stopped complaining, but yours may not.
If you have unusual feet in any way they may not be comfortable. My big toe is shorter than my second and third toe, and equal to my fourth toe. This is unusual and results in me having to get a shoe that’s too big for some of the other toes just to accommodate that fourth toe. (That happened to be the one I smashed once, and so it particularly likes to complain if it’s cramped at all)
And finally, my arches are high. The vibrams just barely fit in this dimension. After breaking them in, they’re comfortable, but it’s really a matter of hair-breadths here. Mine have a set of string (spyridon) for tying it down against the foot and I have to leave these strings completely loose for my foot to fit in.
Oh, and if your feet are damp it’ll be hard to get on, so make sure they’re dry. The method is to actually stamp down on the heel and shove your toes in, and after they’re positioned right and all the way in, yank and unfold the heel out from under your foot to fit onto your heel. You don’t do the whole thing at once like normal shoes.
But it really does feel nice to have a shoe that doesn’t make you feel like you’re encasing your feet in big clunky foam blocks! Being able to actually MOVE your foot is great.
I would first like to note that, while I do run barefoot, I do not run fast. But it’s great.
For the winter, I took a pair of wool hiking socks and glued a sole on (which of course matched my foot). I used leather. In theory I should have used rubber, and you can buy rubber soles. Or rubber to cut into soles. But I bought a bag of leather scraps and I had some that worked. Total cost $3 (as I got the socks 3 pair for $9 at the surplus store). (I did not add in the cost of GOrilla GLue which I already had.)
That said, they are not really good if it’s wet, snowy, or icy. I think duct tape would be horrible in all conditions.
But I am lazy and kind of a wuss, so if it’s wet, snowy, or icy, then I am probably going to find some excuse, and I will wear Uggs while I walk my dog. My thin-soled socks make nice slippers, though.
As for the thing about running on concrete, I don’t. Even walking I try to keep myself and my dog off of concrete as much as possible.
I’ll second this. I originally bought my vibrams for kayaking. I wanted something to protect my feet from rocky put ins that were light, easy to swim in (just in case), and fit easily under the deck of the kayak. At the time five fingers were what fit the bill. I found that they were so comfortable that they became my go to summer shoe. I’ll wear them right up until the first snow.
I’ve been running on the sidewalks in our development. But note: I’m not doing half-marathons or anything. I’m doing 20 minutes twice a week. I get a ton of exercise at work, so running is just for fun.
I think why it’s working is because I’m able to use my natural gait, which is to hit with the ball of my foot and then propel forward. Conventional shoes make it nearly impossible to run that way…plus…everyone always told me I was running all wrong, and that you were supposed to hit with your heel first. Between those two things, everything I was doing was unnatural, so I always got shinsplints.
My feet spend the majority of their time in steel-toed boots, so being barefoot is a luxury. And running is so much easier for me without carrying big fat shoes and trying to hit heel-first and being dragged backward with each step instead of forward into the next.
That’s just my 2 cents. Not putting down anyone else for doing what works for them. I certainly didn’t intend for this thread to turn into a fight!
funky, there’s no "right " way to land. As long as your foot lands under your center of gravity, you’re good. It is possible to land on the forefoot even with normal running shoes, they don’t force a heel-first landing. If heel striking felt like it was slowing you down, you were almost certainly overstriding.
One thing to note about Vibrams - I have never smelled a more toxic shoe than a Vibrams that has been worn for a couple months. Holy crap, those things get rank.
I ran for a little while in Converse Chuck Taylors, which are about as zero-drop as you can get. But I eventually went to a good shoe store, had my stride analyzed, and got some minimalist shoes that fit my stride and still have a little padding to help avoid the injuries others have mentioned. I highly recommend you visit a store where they can look at your stride - any shoe recommendation should be based on how you run, not what worked well for someone else.
As running coach says, there are plenty of shoes that encourage a mid-strike, and you can run with a mid-strike in any kind of shoe. And you can have bad form (or good form) with either strike.
Yeah, I can’t wait for them to analyze my stride. I have no physical grace whatsoever, and I’m pretty sure when I run I look like Dr. Evil. That should brighten their day a bit.
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