The Inaugural VFF Run: A Downhill Battle

So I know, I was cautioned against it. Told to take it easy and slowly transition from wearing to walking to running in Vibram Five Fingers. "Wear them at home for 5 minutes and then add a couple minutes a day until the pain goes away," cautioned some random VFF wearer. After reading all the forums and blogs, I had every intention to make the transition slowly. Run in my conventional sneakers and just walk home barefoot, or almost barefoot. Run for 5 minutes in them and then add a minute each day.

But, I couldn't wait! I love using my news things right away, so 6 days in I have walked miles and miles and already ran twice in them. Here is the history of my brand new VFFs in a nutshell:

• Wednesday: I got my VFFs around 5:30pm, went for a run in sneakers and then walked home in my VFFs. (felt great!)
• Thursday: I wore them all day, and walked all over town in them. (still felt great!)
• Friday: Had to go to NJ (blah) and wear heels all day (basically the opposite of barefoot) and no time for running or walking (felt sad to be without VFFs)
• Saturday: Walked to the post office and then to the Schuylkill River Trail (about a mile) and then ran for 30 minutes and walked home (felt great!)
• Sunday: Writhed in pain (felt like cutting my legs off at the knee)
• Monday: Went running in the rain for 30 minutes (back to feeling pretty good and scared about tomorrow's pain)

This is a really long post, so feel free to stop reading here if you're short on time.

So I wrote about the first few days walking, and this time I'll talk about my first experiences running, but here is a little background about me as a runner. I run with my boyfriend Ryan (see picture above of our feet). We are in the last few runs of an accelerated couch potato to 5K program. We did it last year, and then I started training for a half marathon, got hurt around the 11mile runs and was a sloth from September to December. Let that be a word to the wise, DON'T STOP RUNNING! And if you have to stop, try not to be as lazy as humanly possible during that break. Anyway, right now I run a few miles every other day, and once I'm used to my VFFs, I plan on slowly increasing my long runs and hopefully doing some longer races later this year.

Back to VFF running. Saturday I planned on just running and stopping when it hurt. Ryan was still sore and was sure he wouldn't go more than 10 minutes before dying of pain, but before we knew it, we finished our 30 min run for the day! It felt a little weird at first. My stride felt shorter (you're supposed to take shorter strides), and I was running a little cautiously, so it felt a little like I was going in slow motion. But as I realized it didn't hurt to run, I started moving a little faster with more confident strides, and it felt good. Every step felt powerful - like the way my feet were landing and the power of my toes were propelling me forward, and it kind of was. This video explains the physics of it well.

So the whole run felt great. My legs weren't getting tired and neither was the rest of me. Going uphill was amazing. That's worth repeating. GOING UPHILL WAS AMAZING! I felt like I was pushing off my toes, and it was powering me up the hill no problem. Plus, the shoes are so light that I just felt free. When going uphill you can't help but land on the ball of your foot, so it feels natural in VFFs. Now this is kind of an amazing thing because sometimes all I can think about on my run is how awful it will be when I have to go up the next hill, and it's not even very hilly where I run. But it's not all great - because while going downhill used to be a welcomed relief where you can plop your foot down and quickly glide down the hill while catching your breath, in VFFs, it's kind of hard. It doesn't feel natural because you are trying to land midfoot, and that sort of holds you back. It felt like I was stuttering down the hill rather than coasting like before. Now is this a fair trade-off? I think so. The disadvantage of going downhill is that it might take some time to get used to and I might not get that relief that I used to get. BUT, I might not need that relief if I don't feel like I'm going to collapse when I get to that top of a hill.

I didn't feel pain until about 20 minutes in. I started to feel like I was doing calf raises, except without ever lowering your heels. My calves felt clenched, but it was a little cold out and it was easy enough to push through for ten more minutes. Admittedly, I probably could have avoided this pain altogether if I didn't start to break out in a sprint to race Ryan to the turn-around point (I won by the way, but only by cutting through a parking lot). I felt pretty decent after the run. I felt pretty decent the rest of the night for that matter, but when I woke up the next morning and put my feet on the floor, well that was another story.

The next day, it felt like I did one trillion calf raises. It was as if my calves were flexed and wouldn't relax. After a few days of consciously not heelstriking when running, I was heelstriking while walking out of necessity. In fact, I was delicately walking on my heels without letting the rest of my feet touch the floor because it was so so painful. I stayed inside all day, mostly because I don't think I would have been able to make it down the 2 1/2 flights of stairs to get out of my building. (Going down stairs is the most painful.)

I woke up this morning, and I was still in pain. Walking a little robotronically, but after a couple Tylenol and some stretching, I was ready to run again. I ran for 30 minutes today at a slightly slower pace than usual. It felt good. It wasn't the free feeling run from 2 days ago, but it was good. My feet felt okay, other than a pain in my toe afterwards from the seam. I wasn't sore after the run, and I'm not sore now. I am not, however, looking forward to tomorrow. I'm scared for tomorrow. I have things to do tomorrow and won't be able to lay around like Sunday. So, I have my fingers crossed that I won't be quite as sore tomorrow as after the first run.

There were a couple things I noticed so far that I want to stay cognizant of:

• Posture - I noticed that I was leaning forward today. I think I was still sore, so I got sloppy with my posture. It kind of annoyed my ankle though, and I think I was moving slower. These things are supposed to help with posture over time so maybe it will just take some getting used to.
• Toes in the toe sockets correctly - There are seams on the inside of the toes, and I think that if your toes aren't in properly, it can irritate your big toe, kind of like it did today to me. It felt like there was a tiny pebble in my toe. I didn't feel it while I was running, but afterwards it hurt like I ran 3 miles with a pebble in my shoe. Now this is a flaw with the shoe, in my opinion and apparently Vibram's too because the new style, the Bikila is coming out soon, and it is designed for running and has no seams facing the foot. But seeing as it hasn't come out yet, and I own KSOs, I am hoping that spending some time getting my foot in just right will help with this problem.
• STRETCH!!! - Now I am not so good about stretching. I know I should be, but I often skip it. But, it is so imperative to stretch your calves before and after running. It helps with the pain so much that you will want to stretch, so I think I should be able to handle remembering to stretch now.
• Picking up your feet - When I get tired when running, I have a bad habit of shuffling. In regular shoes, who cares really because you are still getting the job done, but not so in the VFFs. When I started to drag my feet today, it sent really uncomfortable vibrations up my legs that I felt in my bones, and I got that feeling like you are about to trip and then you catch yourself. So, no more shuffling.

So let's hope I'm not regretting jumping right into my VFFs tomorrow.