Ditching the shoes

For the better part of a year now, I've been intrigued and looking into running without modern running shoes. Initially, my thinking of doing so centered around using Vibram Five Finger's as a shoe replacement, so that the soles of my feet would have some protection against gravel, glass, and other things found on pavement that may scrape up the bottom of my feet. While there are those who run truly barefoot and buld up callouses to deal with such things, I didn't want to roughen up my feet quite like that.

So I went to try on the VFF's on during the fall last year. Unfortunately, I found that they didn't fit my feet all that well - my toes are relatively short, and the fabric of the VFF's would dig into the flesh between my toes. Assuming that every step taken while running would drive that fabric into the flesh, I decided VFF's weren't going to work for me. I then figured that I'd have to make my own sandals somehow, similar to how the Tarahumara make their own from leather, old tires, etc. Unfortunately I didn't have any old tires, and I never quite got around to sourcing sole leather. I was busy with PT over the winter, and got started in the springtime with shoes, and I didn't want to throw a wrench into that. By mid-summer, however, in the midst of PF and ITB issues, I began to revisit the idea of figuring out how to run barefoot. A random comment from someone on Facebook, and I found that Barefoot Ted sells running sandal kits for about $25. Perfect!

Once I got the kit in and made the sandals, I knew I'd have to take my time to build up to using them. For one thing, the small amount of barefoot running I did last year taught me that even just a mile would result in sore calfs for a while. For another, I have never worn sandals, so my feet were not used to having string between the toes. If I were to start running, I'd have a few things to get used to first.

So for several weeks, while I was working on building distance for the half marathon, I made sure to wear the sandals a couple/few times per week for 45 minutes or so. Usually this was when I was walking the dogs in the park up the street. this gave me an opportunity to start playing with mechanics, getting used to having something between my toes, and getting used to walking halfway decent distances without a thick heel that normal shoes have. Once I finished the half marathon, I decided I'd spend the rest of the running season getting started with actually running in the things. There were a few reasons for this:

1) Mileage would be low - so I'd be able to make progress on something with less chance of aggravating an existing issue (PF or ITB).
2) I'd have a chance to see what kind of buildup rate might be acceptable.
3) Some of the conditioning might carry over to next year, so I'd hopefully get a little bit of a head start.
4) Since the mileage is low, I'd have the flexibility to run at odd times of the day. If a run is only going to take between 10-20 minutes, it is much easier to run @ night, as opposed to a distance run of 10-12 miles after getting home from work around 6:30.

I initially started with running a few days in a row, but only running a mile. I didn't want to repeat last years experience of starting out at close to 2 miles, and having to deal with extremely tight and sore calfs for the next 4 days. Even only a mile resulted in some tightness and soreness, but it wasn't so bad that I couldn't run another mile the following day. After 3 days in a row, I took a rest day (I was travelling for work), followed by a mile on a treadmill the next day. Took two days of rest, and then followed up with about 1.5 miles the next day. Over the next several days, I ran about 1.5 miles a couple more times. After maybe the 3rd day of this, the amount of soreness is minimal from one day to the next, an indication that at least the calf muscles are adapting. What I don't know is what kind of time is required for the tendons and ligaments to adapt and strengthen as necessary.

At this point, I've done 3 days of 1.5 miles, and I'm thinking I'll do one more 1.5 miler before extending to 2 miles. I'm still just a touch more sore than I'd like to be to move on to 2 miles right now.

So there is THAT part of the story.

The other part of the story is how different running sans shoes is. At first, it seems very laborious. It just seems like more effort is required of the lower legs than is necessary when wearing shoes. In fact, the very first time trying out the sandals was soon after I got them, and when I put running shoes on the next day, they (the shoes) just felt so much more.. normal. However, after only a few times running in the sandals, they now feel much more.. normal. I noticed this last week when I went to do a 5 mile run (the first time since I've had my license that I've run for a utilitarian reason - I had to run to pick up the car that was being detailed that day). I felt like every step, the shoe was absorbing a great deal of energy that is generated during the stride. It was like an energy sink.

What I have found, after tinkering around with the necessary mechanical adjustments when transitioning from running with shoes to running without shoes, is what advocates for barefoot running have said many times over and over - that there is an extra spring in your step/stride when running barefoot. As the arch of the foot is planted and supports body weight, it stores that potential energy and releases it when weight is shifted off. The result is significant - much more of the legs upward movement is a result of 'decompressing the spring', as opposed to physically lifting the leg. It seems to me that this is why wearing shoes felt like an energy sink during that 5 mile run.

Second, it is much easier to reach the optimum cadence of 90 footstrokes per foot per minute without shoes. Being unable to 'cheat', and plant your foot more forward than it should be - as you can with running shoes - running barefoot more or less forces you to place your foot directly under your body, and it is done more easily (for me, anyway) than when wearing shoes.

Finally - I feel a definite difference in horizontal/vertical motion. When running with shoes, even if I try to minimize vertical motion, there is still more present than when running without shoes. I believe this is largely because of the thick heel in shoes - in order to allow 'proper' mechanics when there is an extra 1" of stuff under your heel, I was tending to use vertical motion as an aid (maybe to try and get up and over that extra material? Maybe to give my leg that extra fraction of a second to get directly underneath the rest of my body? I dont know). When running without shoes, my hips feel much more like they are riding on a far more level plane, and that my legs are moving in more of a circular, as opposed to elliptical, fashion.

So I'll see what happens long-term. My hope is to be able to do virtually all running next year in sandals, because one thing is clear - at this point it seems like it would be very difficult to train in both methods simultaneously. I could be wrong about that - perhaps running barefoot is just teaching me better mechanics and I can easily transfer those mechanics over to using shoes.