The switch story

It has been a while since my last post where I talked about my experience with Vibram FiveFingers, including all the benefits. I had concluded my previous post saying that an account on why I made the switch will come soon. After a lot of procrastination which led to further delays in other ideas coming out as blog posts, I have finally gotten down to writing this post. I hope the next one comes out without such a delay

As a newbie runner, it is always fascinating to be a part of a group of runners. The "Running community" is large and yet it accepts people quite easily. I had joined a group close to home, which gave me the some added motivation to get ready and go out for a run three days a week. It had become quite a social activity for me. The group contained a huge variety of people of different ages, different running credentials etc. I was a little over half a year into running. My shoes were getting bald and I realised that I needed to replace them soon

I happened to get into a discussion with a seasoned runner from the group who confessed to having a shoe fetish. "You need to spend at least 10-15k on shoes in order to run well", she said. "And you should change these shoes every 500km". I was in a bit of a daze once I got off her car. I was doing the mathematics of my monthly expenditure going up for shoes. It was silly since I started running in the first place because it was simple and inexpensive. Not paying heed to her advice, I bought a pair of Kalenji Kiprun SD shoes from Decathlon. They were a fantastic pair of shoes which had all the features I had read. The had "arch support", "cushioning", "bounce", etc. I was able to run quite nicely in them. They tore after some months of regular usage, well past the "recommended 500km" mark. I got myself another pair of the same shoes and things were going on as usual.

In this period, I had become friends with a guy who was running in some weird looking shoes called "Vibram FiveFingers". He said that he had been using them for almost 3 years which made me realise that these shoes are durable! Meaning they will last way longer than the 10-15k shoes which people happily use, thus reducing the regular expense factor in running. In retrospect, I think it left a mark in my unconscious mind which made me want to try running in those shoes some time or the other.

 

Nike footwear of a friend who went down the same path as me

I had read quite a lot of articles which flood the internet about barefoot/minimalistic running and they kept adding to the urge to try running in them. I knew that I would get a beating from folks at home if I suddenly said that I won't be using shoes. So to stay safe, I would regularly jog barefoot for short distances post a run workout. I had met another runner who was using some funny looking snorkelling shoes for running(from Decathlon again). He said that they served the same purpose as his Vibram FiveFingers, zero heel to toe drop, no cushioning and sufficient protection from the abrasive ground. And they came at the fraction of the price. I thought I could use them for a while to try and get the benefits of running with minimal foot protection. 

I finally decided to buy the snorkelling shoes and train in them for a few months and use my conventional shoes for races. Since I was not running very long distances(just around 2-3km daily as a part of the 100 days of running challenge), I didn't experience any aches and pains on this transition. I had a race in the form of the "Stadium run". As planned, I started the run in my Kalenji Kiprun SD shoes. It was raining as it does only in Mumbai. As a result my shoes were drenched from almost the start of the run. After a while, I realised that my hamstrings were hurting quite badly and I had more than an hour to run round and round. I felt the urge to change to drier, faster drying snorkelling shoes. I took a break as the clock went past the 1 hour mark, totally drained, with intense pain in my hamstrings. I changed to the snorkellers and resumed running. The pain magically vanished!!!

The last run in conventional looking shoes

The next one hour went by a lot faster and in my head I was clear that running in minimals was the way forward for me. In the next few days, I ordered a pair of Vibram FiveFingers from the USA(It was very hard to get them in India back then). I continued training in the snorkelling shoes and even ran the Satara Hill Half Marathon in those funny shoes. When I reached Mumbai after this race, my Vibram FiveFingers had arrived! I got down to do my first 7k run after a rest day and then the rest is history!! 

My latest VFF with the Nike shoe guy from above

Over the last 2 years, I have run almost 4000km in different models of Vibram FiveFingers and I am a happier healthier runner today than ever before!!!