Tag Archives: 5fingers

I can’t even say I’m shaking in my boots, cause I’m wearing these weird Toe Shoes.

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I hate to jinx it, but I’ve been back on the running horse for a couple of weeks, and it seems to be sticking. Remember how I decided back in September to jump back on the Couch-to-5k bandwagon to help me figure out how far I should be running and how fast I should be increasing my distances? That plan is working*. (*I expected that it would. I always do much better whenever I have a schedule telling me what I should be doing. I suppose it’s my competitive side that kicks in, and forces me to complete the runs, lest I fail at something.)

My calf muscles were really my limiting factor when all of this barefoot mania started for me. Cardiovascularly speaking, I could handle running long(ish) distances in my regular running shoes, but the running was causing a lot of pain in my legs. When Zack and I switched to barefoot, I ditched the running shoes all together. I didn’t gradually move over to the toe shoes while still maintaining my distance/endurance capabilities by doing runs in my other shoes. Maybe not my smartest move ever.

Now that I’m looking Week #4-Run #3 in the face, I’m being forced to admit some things to myself that I really don’t want to admit. Mostly I’m in denial about the fact that my calves are no longer my limiting factor. I can easily run these C-2-5k runs without any soreness in my calves post-run. I cannot, however, easily run these runs without feeling like I’m maybe going to die from suffocation because OMG THE AIR, IT WON’T COME IN FAST ENOUGH, THE TIRED, IT IS WINNING.

My days of being a well-conditioned running-machine have passed. Instead of being confident in my ability to run 3 or 4 miles at the drop of a hat, I’m looking at Week #5′s runs and gawking at the fact that they think by the end of next week I’m going to be able to run for 20 minutes. Twenty! Who can run for 20 minutes? That’s an impossibly long time to run. No humans can do that. And if any humans can (doubtful), they are surely not humans who foolishly decided that they would magically retain their ability to do intense cardiovascular exercise despite the fact that they have done basically no running (relatively) for A LONG TIME.

On Better Looking Barefoot Shoes

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In order to be able to adhere to the principles of the barefoot running lifestyle while doing tasks such as grocery shopping, I have purchased some barefoot shoes (that adjective/noun combo is still a terrible oxymoron) that do not make me feel like a gorilla.

I have admittedly been pretty lax with my running lately. I don’t know if y’all have noticed, but it’s been really stinking hot in Texas this summer. I have a hard time getting psyched to go run in 108 degree temperatures.  Nevermind my summer vacation from exercise, I am still a big believer in the barefoot stuff. Ever since I made the switch, I haven’t had the searing pain* that running (and walking) provoked in my tibialis anterior.

The hard thing about being a big believer in the barefoot running movement and having the gorilla shoes (aka 5fingers) is that the 5fingers are not attractive. Which is to say that they are not aesthetically pleasing. They are attractive sense that they attract a gaggle of people to come and talk to you about your shoes every time you step out of the house wearing them. I love running in those stupid looking foot-glove lookin’ shoes, but I haaate doing anything else in them. I just can’t get over the look of them. I tried to rise above it, but I can’t. I’m vain, and there is just no two ways about it. 5fingers are ugly.

SO. Imagine my surprise when I wandered into a shoe store the other day to find that Merrell has made a girl-version of Zack’s barefoot running shoes! And lo! My toes are not individually separated in them! And so the masses do not congregate to ogle my feet! They just look like normal shoes, but they still have all the barefoot mechanics and they’re even kinda cute. Win, win, win. So now I’m grocery shopping (and working) in my Merrell Barefoot Lithe Glove (which are so covertly barefoot that nobody even notices) and only running in my Vibram 5fingers, which is great because people don’t generally stop me to talk to me about my footwear while I’m running. (Some people do, because some people are weird, and also delusional if they think I’m going to have the volume of oxygen required to explain anything about those weird-ass shoes whilst in the middle of running.)

*I have is an incorrect gait that I’ve had forever and ever which caused this muscle to become disproportionately large and aggravated. Since the tibialis anterior is a muscle which is almost impossible to stretch, the only way that I could decrease the inflammation was massage and heat and perhaps even, you know, correcting the way that I walk/run that causes the pain in the first place. I tried to do just that — to correct the way that I was lifting my foot — but was decidedly unsuccessful until I jumped on this barefoot running train, which, I guess, is why I’m so dedicated to it even though I’m absolutely not awesome at it. At least barefoot running doesn’t make me want to cut my legs off. Well, at least not when I do it right.

On Running En Pointe

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It’s not been pretty, but I think I can officially claim that I’m back in the workout grove. (Ish.)

Remember a million years ago when Zack and I got our barefoot shoes and we were going to revolutionize our lives and do the Couch-2-5K and all that? Well, Zack revolutionized his life. I did day 1 and then almost died every time I had to walk for the next two weeks.

At first, I thought I was the world’s biggest wuss. I was dying as a result of our run and Zack was not. It’s not like he’s got any experience running in these stupid barefoot shoes, you know? So I thought that (for once!) we were going to be EVEN STEVEN. I thought we were going to have a learning curve that we could straighten out together! It was going to rule. Until it didn’t rule. And then it was THE WORST. I knew my calves were weak sauce but GAH. I didn’t even know the pain that could be felt on the backside of one’s legs. I know now.

After 2 weeks passed and the pain, especially in my left calf, was not going away, I decided that there was something bad wrong. Clearly a.) I was dealing with some sort of an injury, as evidenced by the sharp shooting pains, and b.) I was doin’ it wrong.

Apparently, barefoot running’s constant preaching about abandoning the heel-strike does not (NOT) mean that you should pretend you are a ballerina running the first day of C-2-5K en pointe.

This photo does not depict proper barefoot running body mechanics.

I’ve been using my 5fingers since then, but mostly only to take Scout on walks and/or embarrass myself in social situations. Neither of those activities hurt my calves.

But then, over the weekend, everything changed. Zack bought us tickets to Hawaii. We’re going in August (and our house won’t be empty, robbers, so back off) to celebrate my graduation from nursing school. Going to Hawaii in August means that I need to come to grips with reality and finally deal with the fact that the only way I’m ever going to look like an airbrushed movie star supermodel (I have realistic expectations) is if I, you know, actually DO SOMETHING ACTIVE. And wearing the 5fingers around the house and being like, “AREN’T THESE WEIRD?” isn’t exactly melting off the pounds, you know?

So yesterday, I did some yoga in the hottest room in our house. Today, I took Scout for a walk, and I ran a little bit. I probably just ran about 1/2 a mile of the 2 mile walk (which I completed in 26 minutes, so we were booking it when we were walking, I am totally 90 years old and a power-walker, shutup) and my calves aren’t screaming bloody murder! I assume the reason my calves don’t hate me right now is because I didn’t run the entire half-mile on my tippy-toes like I did last time. That probably helped. Anyway. If you’re counting, that’s TWO DAYS IN A ROW. Practically a HABIT. If I can just keep this up for the next 90-or-so days, I’m TOTALLY going to look like one of those 19 year old babes trying out for SYTYCD this season. TOTALLY.

On Barefoot Running

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Yesterday Zack told me that it was time. Time, that is, to start our barefoot running program.

These are my shoes. Don't be jealous.

Upon purchasing these goofy shoes, we decided that the way we’d force ourselves to ease into barefoot running is to run the Couch-to-5K program together in our barefoot shoes. Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while know that I started running two years ago by doing the Couch-to-5K program. It took me from being physically unable of running for 90+ seconds to being able to, well, run a 5K. The beauty of that program is that it takes all the guesswork out of how far or how fast you should be running. You just do whatever it says to do and then you’re done. I’m not trying to get all philosophical about this or anything, but there is a certain comfort that can be found in just mindlessly following a program that you know works. I like that comfort. It helps my mind rest.

Anyway. Back to today. Since Zack and I are both capable of running three miles (though he does it with ease and I do it with gritted teeth and sometimes tears), running for 60 seconds at a time is maybe the teeniest bit insulting. We prepared ourselves for that feeling, though. Every single thing that we read about barefoot running is bogged down with warnings to START SLOWLY. LIKE, REALLY, REALLY SLOWLY.

I thought they were exaggerating. I should have known better.

Today’s running assignment was to walk a 5-minute warm up, and then alternate 60 seconds of running with 90 seconds of walking for 20 minutes. That’s roughly 8 cycles of 60 seconds of running, or, 8 minutes of running. Eight minutes of running is not very many minutes, especially when it’s 8 minutes of running peppered into a span of 25 minutes.

These are Zack's shoes. They are cute, but mine are superior.

Never in my life have I been so glad for 8 minutes of running to be over. Okay, that’s an exaggeration. There have been times that I have been happier for 8 minutes of running to be over. Examples: 1.) The last 8 minutes of the half-marathon I ran last April [that's the one that tried to kill me]. 2.) The last 8 minutes of the 10K race that I ran last February when it was so cold I thought my hands were going to fall off. 3.) Any run when I drank any sort of alcohol the night before and then thought that I wasn’t dehydrated but HEY-O! I was super dehydrated and I wanted to diiiieeee.

Today wasn’t as bad as those times. It was just a normal amount of bad, I guess. The fact that the day’s assignment was so easy, though, just added insult to injury. When I was doing this program last time, I had no endurance. The biggest challenge was to be able to complete each day’s running assignment and still be breathing when it was all over. This time, the challenge has nothing to do with my lungs (!). The hard part is the fact that my calf muscles are weak weak weak and barefoot running is all calf calf calf. By the time Zack and I finished Round #6, I thought that my calf muscles had clenched into a boulder under my skin that would never release. I would have called it quits and walked it in from there, but my brain was all, “COME ON. IT IS SIXTY FLIPPIN’ SECONDS. YOU CAN’T RUN SIXTY FLIPPIN’ SECONDS?” And I had to be like, Shut up, Brain. But then I was like, FINE. I’LL DO IT. And I ran it in. And my calf muscles were like NEVER LISTEN TO THE GREY MATTER AGAIN, IT HAS NO IDEA WHAT IT’S TALKING ABOUT.

So all of that happened at about 11:00 this morning. Ask me what hurts me now. I’ll tell you. It’s my dang pinky toe. Apparently the top of my toe was touching something in my shoe in a way that it doesn’t usually touch things because I’ll be danged if I don’t have a freaking blister on the TOP of my pinky toe. Like, at the very tip of it, beyond the nail. It is the most bizarre place to get a blister, and I can’t stop feeling it with my fingers and then internally whining about it. My toe!

Thursday will be our next day to run. I think I’m going to toss a bandaid on the toe this time before I go for it. I am hoping, however, that maybe I can make it to at least minute 7 before my legs and brain start yelling at each other.