Vibram it again

Since nothing broke after my first run, I went ahead and held it steady. Sure, my calves were sore but not in a scary I'm going to break kind of sore but in a pleasant I'm getting stronger way. For my second run I decided to skip the injini socks. With them, the vibrams had felt a little tight and I wanted to know if it would be more comfortable to run without them. It was. But I also felt the ground more.

The night before I'd helped out a friend by acting as her makeup artist for an appearance on British morning TV show Lorraine. Breakfast TV, they call it. The only problem is that breakfast there is the middle of the night here. By the time we were done and in a car coming back to Brooklyn it was close to four am. I decided to come straight home, catch what sleep I could and deal with my bike later.

With the KSO's on my feet, I walked 1.5 miles, then ran the rest of the way to her place - about 1.2 miles more. Towards the end, I felt like sole on the balls of my feet were starting to get raw. I definitely missed the little extra protection the socks gave me.

By Grand Army Plaza there's this area where the ground is covered in these little tiles set out in a parquet formation. I'd barely been aware of it before. It's kind of pretty, I guess. Is it tile? Whatever it is, my feet hated it! All those little sharp edges attacked me, but they did help me speed up the pace.

Calves, achilles, the rest of the legs, all fine. Something I've noticed in these two weeks is that the only aches I've had have been soreness. No tightness (more on that later) and I haven't felt some niggling issues I'd been having (left hamstring, ITB). Granted, I'm running a lot less so it could just be all that rest I've been getting but it doesn't feel that way. I'm also not starting out with sore stiff joints and needing two miles to get my body going. I'm only doing a couple of ankle jumps and going.

My feet were fine. No blisters, no rawness; the skin was just a little sore. I put some moisturizer on and that was the end of that.

Vibram running

My first stop looking for my new stride was finally daring to run in my vibrams. Though I love how they feel when hanging out, I'd heard such horror stories about achy calves and upset achilles tendons I'd been too scared to try. Particularly since I had a pretty serious achilles tendon injury in 2006. It was not an injury from running, but it's one of those old injuries that flare up every once in a while.

So. First run.

I thought I'd wear these toe socks. When you've got so little between your feet and the mean Brooklyn streets, every little bit of fiber counts. I'd heard you needed to start slow, so I decided to go for a mile. That's a short distance, right? So I went on a wonton soup run. I ran a few blocks north and did a short loop that ended at my favorite local Chinese restaurant.

The first few steps when I started running were terrifying. I was afraid I'd hit the pavement hard with my heel and it would crack. My heel, not the pavement.

Fortunately, it seems I'm not as much of a heel striker as I thought I was. I've been deliberately avoiding a heel strike for the past year or so but since I hadn't tested I wasn't sure whether I could keep it up.

Running in the vibrams felt a little skinny dipping. It's the same, but better. You feel everything more and it's exhilarating to the point of almost feeling naughty. It surprised me how much fun it was to feel the ground below me in such detail. Pavement unevenness was much more noticeable as were the changes in surface.

Also, my stride felt springier than I thought it would. In a way, I felt my run was lighter and kind of bouncier than usual. I left all gadgets behind and tried to focus on form. Stay on the forefoot. Make sure I lift my feet as if I'm stepping over logs. Calves going whoa!

Because I was doing such a short distance and was having so much fun I found myself going at what felt like a much faster pace.

Day after: nicely sore in the calves and glutes. The kind of pain you get from muscles you haven't used much, not the kind of pain that signals injury. I like that kind of I'm getting stronger pain. I might have to forget about ever fitting into knee high boots again.

Looking for my mini

I've had these Vibram KSO's for bout a year. They got to hang out a bit here and there, mostly indoors, and they got to travel to Colombia for some beach and hiking fun, but until I heard Chris McDougal and Eric Orton talk last Saturday at Bookcourt and participated in the Naked Run I hadn't dared to run in them

The transition from motion stability to neutral to minimail has been slow, but I've decided it's time to take a leap and I'm ditching my regular shoes.

While I found myself a pair of minimalists I went on a few runs in the vibrams. They were unexpectedly fun, but I think it will be a while before I'll be able to run a half marathon in them, if ever.

I'll blog about the transition, the Aha! moment, and my first few runs with the KSO's later, but for now I'm going to jump straight to the shoes.

I went to Jack Rabbit Brooklyn looking for a non five-fingers minimalists. I tried and discarded two. The Merrel Pace Glove felt great on, but felt awkward running. The New Balance Minimus Trail felt great on and off the treadmill, but there seemed too much of a gap at the heel.

Enter Zappos.

I ordered the Sauconi Hattori (above). Extremely light, but I could tell it wouldn't work for me. It has a some outer arch support protection. It was fine on my right foot, but my left one has suffered some abuse in the past which affected the fit. I've torn my plantar fascia. That sometimes makes my left foot chub and squish out to the side. With the Hattori, my foot spilled over that support and I could tell that would be a hot spot while running. If you look at it carefully, you can see a tiny skinny red arrow pointing to the spot. Clearly I need to work on my photo editing skills.

Otherwise the shoe felt amazing. Wish it had fit me better at the arch.

Next was the VivoBarefoot Neo by Terra Plana. The sizing is different and even though I used the chart, it was clownishly big. The shoes seemed very nice - flat, light, comfortable - but because of the size I had to return them without even trying them on a treadmill.

Running in my vibrams was going well, but I was too impatient to wait to return the VivoBarefoot to get new ones - and my wallet could not stand carrying too many shoes at a time while the returns went through. So I decided to hit some running stores on Friday. Will tell you about that next. For now I'll just leave you with a gratuitous picture of mud. The KSO's do very well in the mud. Everyone else's shoes were shucked off their feet while I got to keep my grippy ones. This was while hiking with my brother in the Parque Tairona last December.