When you walk, you tend to land on your heels. When you first start running – wearing shoes – you start by walking fast, and end up teaching yourself to land on your heels all the time. The huge heels on modern shoes certainly don’t help.
If you like the Free, try racing flats. They are about half the price of other running shoes (~$40 vs. ~$80) and have very low heels. I’d vouch for them, but I’ve only been in them for a few miles, and still have shin splints I’m getting over slowly. I can definitely vouch for the Frees (I have 3.0s), but give me a few months in these racing flats (Nike Zoom Forever) before I advertise for them, too.
Do you work for Vibram or something? Because if I’m counting correctly, I’m the third person in this thread alone you’ve convinced to spring for a pair. I bought a pair of the Classics, so hopefully they’ll be in early next week. I’ll be sure to post back and let you know what I think. I figure if I dig 'em, I can go for the sprint, and if they work for more active stuff like that, go for the full foot model (forget the name of that one).
I flippin’ hate wearing shoes, and wore flip flops all winter, even when we had 8" of snow here. My feet got cold, sure, but they’d get warm again fairly quick. Hopefully I can start running with these ones.
Any ideas how they’ll act if I try playing racquetball with 'em?
ETA: I got mine from www.rockcreek.com , for about $10 less than the Vibram site was asking for them. Last pair of Vibram soles I had was on a wildland firefighting boot; they make a good product.
One other thing about the Free’s. I have a lot of problems with the uppers on traditional running shoes bruising the tops of my toes. Particularly the leather strap that often connects the toe box with the lacing. For me, the less substantial the upper, the better. Which makes the Free’s ideal for me. Before these, my favorite shoes EVER were the old Nike Kukini’s. Even though they were tiger striped yellow and black.
No, I don’t work for them. I saw an advertisement for them a couple of years ago in Popular Science, and bought a pair as soon as they were available. I’ve had people ask me that before though. Went on a river float last year and had about 6 different people ask me where I got 'em.
Now that I think of it, maybe Vibram SHOULD be giving me something for all the referrals.
