Vibram Five Fingers
Back in early November I had a visit with my podiatrist. I was complaining about some foot pain. He took a few x-rays and diagnosed me with plantar fasciitis. Basically he felt that my shoes were not providing sufficient support so the excessive flexing of my foot was calcifying my tendon. He suggested getting custom orthotics. He also mentioned that walking barefoot would make things worse.
Something didn’t sit well with me about the barefoot part. I like walking around the house barefoot. That’s one of the reasons we have wall to wall carpet. I did some searching and found some information about barefoot running and how many people were no longer experiencing shin splints. That prompted me to look further and found these new shoes from Vibram.
They seem a bit extreme but the goal is to allow people to run barefoot but to just barely cover them to protect from the elements and ground debris. I figured it was worth a try especially when the orthotics would run me about $600 for the first pair. The last four months of wearing these has taken some getting use to, but overall the pain has gone away. I wear them daily now to the office and have essentially stopped wearing any other footwear. During Snowpacolypse I did wear my snow boots to shovel, but I quickly noticed the pain returning. I’m not sure why that is the case since the goal of the shoes is to strengthen the muscles in your feet and allow it to flex naturally.
I just got a new pair of KSO Trek’s which is a slightly thicker sole with a leather top for my office wear. They look a little nicer and fit better with the dress slacks. The original KSOs are starting to break down. That really is my only complaint. One of the seams is splitting and the strap is starting to come apart. I started wearing them regularly in December so four to five months seems a bit short. Hopefully the Trek’s last longer since they are a leather top. Next winter I’ll probably get a pair of Flow’s to deal with the winter cold.
I just started running in them. This is the first time I’ve run anything more than a mile on pavement since 1996. I’ll put up an update once I can actually run a full 5K along with the push-ups and squats programs I’m engaged in.