Who's ready to run 12.5 in mud, through water and over obstacles? This guy.

Tough Mudder isn’t your typical distance race. There were training runs, road races, adventure hikes and weightlifting sessions. There was a lot of helping, more mud than pigs would be comfortable in and enough small rocks to make me rethink my choice of Vibram Sprints.

Then there was the electroshocks that knocked me down, blurred my vision and for a little while, made me thank anyone I could find that it was over. And after months of gym visits, a few cold showers BEFORE training runs and a half day spent crawling on rocks, jumping in and out of a pool and carrying a 14-lb medicine ball for two miles (during my 8.5 mile TRAINING the week prior), the inaugural Tough Mudder Arizona was over.

Here’s my obstacle-by-obstacle recap* of my Tough Mudder run at the former GM proving grounds in Mesa, AZ.

1. Braveheart Charge
Our first obstacle was an eight-foot wall jump, followed by a rousing speech surrounded by about a hundred other potential mudders. We all pledged to make this an adventure and not a race, to help anyone who needed it and to value finishing over our times. After a bunch of grunting, the Star Spangled Banner played and we trotted off for what seemed about a mile run.

2. Kiss Of Mud
All hope of avoiding heavy mud was lost at this obstacle. We crawled, lurched and pushed our way through mud on our bellies, every second wishing the person in front would flail their leg and kick mud into our faces (it happened anyway).

Obstacle one was a ten-foot wall. It had a step. It was easy.

3. Arctic Enema
A 40-foot ice bath is no picnic in any weather. This obstacle required us to walk through a trough filled with ice (a bulldozer gave us a fresh batch), water and some green food coloring that looked like creamy Kool-Aid. Halfway through the chest-high water there was a board lined on top with barbed wire, forcing us to submerge to go forward. The sensation of ice cubes on my head as I came back up was a little unsettling, but I hopped out ready to go.

My guys. I'm the odd one out.

4. Berlin Walls #1
Only monkeys could scale these 12-foot walls quickly. Each of my team required a little boost to get up the wall, but all made it over quickly. A few people toppled over head first, but no one seemed to get hurt. This was far harder than I thought.

5. Jumpin’ Bale
Jumping between five-foot-high hay bales wasn’t tough as long as you could build up a good head of steam, but with so many other people around you, that was tough. None of my team fell, but we were a bit worried each time we took to the air.

6. Zombie Apocalypse
Beat-up cars, acrid smoke and a whole bunch of tires greeted us here. I punched a windshield, jumped on a roof and tried to break a back window, but my fist isn’t capable of such. I feel better prepared for an outbreak now.

I may have been taunting the crowd. Maybe. Yes, that's the marble dance from Major League II.

7. Bump N Grind
Crawl over sharp rocks as noted on the map, but I don’t remember it on the course. Or maybe it was just too muddy for the rocks to be a problem. Anyway, I crawled on sharp red rocks LAST weekend as prep, and I’m still sporting scars. So there’s that.

8. Devil’s Beard
Low-slung cargo nets threatened to impede our progress, but as long as we all stayed close, the nets were easy to lift. I kinda wanted to go on top and have people launch me into the air.

Awesome is not crawling through tight tubes filled with mud and water, but tough is. Tough won out. Note the barbed wire.

9. Boa Constrictor
A hands and knees crawl through sand, then muddy water, then sand. The pipes were too small to float through, and I had to get really skinny to get out. As soon as I figured out to put one knee directly in front of the other, I made it just fine.

10. I don’t remember. Sorry.

11. Bale Bonds
This wasn’t hay, rather a series of small mud hills that looked hay-like. If you can picture the short jumps from Excitebike, you’ll get it. And just like Excitebike, if you lost speed or took a wrong angle, you’d face plant.

Running in Vibram Sprints is easy. Running over rocks is harder, but doable. Running over rocks in muddy Vibram Sprints filled with pebbles is Tough Mudder.

12. Twinkle Toes
You’d think that wearing Vibrams would make this easier, right? That my superior grip with my flexible shoes would enable me to channel my inner ballerina and fly right by, yeah? That worked until I got to the middle and the wood dipped, swayed and snaked. Into the water I went. Water was nice, though. Except for the mud.

13. Hold your Wood
This was something like a 3/4 mile trot while carrying a log. Some people teamed up to carry a larger piece, others went solo. My teammates and I each grabbed our own. We ran the first quarter mile, walked the second and ran the third. The carry was awkward, but not terrible.

14. Shake N Bake
We were supposed to be hosed down here, but instead we just crawled in muddy water while live wires hung down and stung us. The shocks weren’t bad, the footing wasn’t great and I was happy to get out.

15. Berlin Walls #2
Crap. More 12-foot walls that I couldn’t get over the first time. My first attempt here resulted in me falling off the wall and stumbling backwards across the support, but I got back up, pushed my way up and bruised my inner arm, forearm, inner thigh and knee doing so. Oh, the drop back down sucked too.

These weren't smooth, small pebbles, either.

16. Mud Mile
Not really a mile. It didn’t really matter, as this obstacle only served to make the mud and small pebbles in my Vibram Sprints multiply. We trudged through.

17. Mystery Obstacle
I think this was the mud wall. Or maybe it was 20 jumps. Or maybe something with mud and water. I’m sure it sucked.

This may have been at the end. May have been in the middle. Everything blurred together.

18. King Of The Mountain
At first I thought we’d all have to fight to the top and then throw all challengers off, but apparently this wasn’t THAT kind of ‘king of the mountain’. We climbed, pushed others and did our best not to trip on the twine trying to hold the hay bales together.

19. Log Jammin’
This was where the team and I started to get frustrated. Because we had run the entire time, save that 1/4 mile during the log jam, we caught up with the earlier heats and were slowed down by longish lines at obstacles. While the cardio break was nice, watching out-of-shape people belly themselves over logs grew tedious. Once we started and realized that the top logs were closer – forcing us to lean BACK to go up – we were slightly more sympathetic. Oh, and the lower logs that we were supposed to go under had barbed wire twisted around them.

20. Walk The Plank
15 or so foot jump into a muddy hole. I hit bottom, but none of my teammates did. A few other participants waited at the top for what seemed like forever, but none of us hesitated. The water did nothing to help with the rocks still in my Vibram Sprints, but it was refreshing.

21. Dirty Holes
Mud slog separated by mud hills followed by more mud slogging. Felt a bit quicksand-ish and thankfully my straps held my shoes on.

Read on to see if those were live wires. Seriously.

22. Spider’s Web
Up and over cargo nets. Easy had we not been in a hurry, but annoying if cold and being pushed, which we were.

23. Berlin Walls #3
This sucked. It ain’t easy for a 5’11″, 215 lb dude to get up and over a 12-foot wall when he’s fresh, let alone when he’s muddy, tired and the wall is super slippery. No casualties, but my shoulders and back screamed after this one.

Looks so simple from up here. We ran the whole way. Most people did not.

24. Shocks on the Rocks
I think this was earlier in the race, but I crawled through so many mud pits with barbed wire overhead or in a tube I can’t really remember. Pretty sure this one had tarp down, but that made it harder.

25. Turd’s Nest
Cargo nets are great on the side of ships and below trapeze artists. They catch everything. Problem is, getting out is a ton harder. While we weren’t quite as cramped as the Rebels in Return of The Jedi, falling through was a worry. Our spectator friends told us to log roll through it, but there wasn’t room. I crab- then bear-crawled through.

26. Cliffhanger
Super-muddy mountain with few footholds and a whole lot of slippery here. I fell back three times and was saved each time my my teammates. A helpful hand from another mudder got me over the top and then I nearly fell navigating the muddy top. My legs were now stiff.

27. Everest
By far the most feared obstacle, this greased half pipe proved a worthy foe. The idea was to run as fast as you can as far up as you can, then dive forward and hope someone on top grabs you. Once there, completion was just a leg hook away. We watched a few people try to get up this for almost twenty minutes. Hilarity was watching them slide back down, unhurt. A few dudes seemed to be a little shy in grabbing the women to help them up, but each girl I heard said they didn’t care who grabbed what, they just wanted to get over. I did it on the first try.

Dos Equis Amber tastes real, real good.

28. Funky Monkey
I’ve never liked monkey bars. Some people went across bar by bar, others hooked their legs first and crawled upside down and backwards. I made it two bars and then my grip gave out, dropping me into more green, cold water. By this time the sun was gone and clouds had taken over, making the water less refreshing and more uncomfortable.

29. Electroshock Therapy
When I first signed up for Tough Mudder, I figured this was a bit exaggerated. No way they’d hit us with 10,000 volts right? And even if they did, that’s not enough to hurt, right? That’s some BS right there. The line here was long as everyone was scared to get shocked, so the organizers started challenging us to cut in and dive through. We could smell and hear the burns and zaps, making it less than exciting to be almost finished.

Here I watched two guys before me lunge through the live wires, only to fall flat on their faces ten feet away. Since the ground was another mud pit, I figured they had dove. Heh. NOPE. They had been shocked so hard it knocked them over, as I found out seconds later. I made it one step before my first shock and another one before I plunged into the deep mud right behind them. After face planting, I raised my head up only to be shocked AGAIN, only this time it blurred my vision instead of pushing me into the mud. We crawled through the rest of the windy 20 feet to emerge frazzled, but alive.

With my vision still fuzzy, I waited for my teammates to finish the mud pit/electroshock gauntlet. We strode across the finish line together.

30. Finish Line
And that was it. I roared when I got up, then almost fell three times as I made my way through the thigh-deep mud around the finish. I had done it. I’m now a Tough Mudder.

I enjoyed my time on the course, but I think I’ll stick to road races in my Vibram Sprints. Were I to run this again, I’d wear something with a bit more sole, like a KSO Trek or possibly a Luna Sandal (iffy because of the mud). There were a lot of sharp rocks on hard ground that made running painful, and I’m a bit bruised today because of that.

Totally worth it.

*As best I can remember. For this article, I checked the official map and wrote down what I remembered, but I know it wasn’t exact. I suppose I should have taken notes, but I couldn’t find anything mud, dirt, water, shock and impact proof. We finished the course in about three hours, fifteen minutes.

Tough Mudder AZ 2012 Recap is a post from: MyFiveFingers.com - a Vibram, FiveFingers, Toe Shoes, Minimalist Shoes Fan site

You are the Flash.

What was that blur? I’m not sure, it was moving way too fast to tell.

In FiveFingers you may end up running faster than your fellow runners as well as running for much longer distances without feeling tired, and this ability is very true for barefoot runners as well. You can run circles around other mere mortals and guffaw as you are not tired and could go for another few miles.

You are Wolverine.

Who doesn’t want to be Hugh Jackman with regenerative powers? Well you have the power already inside your body.

While you may not heal from a bullet wound in a minute flat while your flesh spits the bullet out of your chest, running barefoot reveals the amazing regenerative powers of your skin that never cease to amaze me. Running your feet raw one day later results in impenetrable calluses, and blisters that we are taught to baby and not touch can result in new layers of stronger skin to protect your feet after popped and healed. And while your bare feet may not be able to spit out bullets, I am always amazed at their ability to disintegrate any rogue splinters that have invaded the soles of your feet. Awesome!

You are Cat Woman (Or Cat Man).

FiveFingers are not just good for running. In them, you can test your flexibility doing yoga or better yet, use them for better gripping and balance as you perform acrobatics by night across the roofs of Gotham. Curl your toes around the rooftop edge as you feast your eyes on the landscape of lights before somersaulting down into skyscrapers reaching towards the sky.

You are Superman.

Sorry, running may not give you heat ray vision (I know, I’m disappointed too), but it can make you close to invincible when it comes to your health. Running and exercise in general boost your immune system and fight off illnesses, as well as increasing circulation and blood flow which can be a natural cure for anything from headaches to a case of the blues to menstruation problems for the ladies. Not only that, but exercise is often a key factor in patients recovering from serious diseases all the way up to fighting cancer. You can also become the man of steel by running in your FiveFingers and invigorating all of the muscles in your legs and make you stronger than you have ever known before.

While these are just a few superheroes you can emulate during your time in your FiveFingers, there are many others you can become and we know that your FiveFingers will help you get there.

Leave a comment and tell us your favorite superhero that you become when you wear your FiveFingers!

The Superhero in You is a post from: MyFiveFingers.com - a Vibram, FiveFingers, Toe Shoes, Minimalist Shoes Fan site

If you watch children run around you’ll quickly notice how it seems so effortless and that they appear to never get tired.  Their running naturally mimics either the Chi Running or the POSE method, depending on which one you subscribe to.  The advantages of going barefoot (or almost barefoot) are well known to proponents of VFF so it only makes sense to provide our kids with a pair of footwear that allows them to run naturally without swaddling their feet in excessive amounts of shoe.  While we want the best for our kids, I have encountered a few things to think and debate about.

The Cool Factor

If they are “cool” or not will depend a lot on the opinion of your kids and their friends.  If your child and their friends and classmates likes the way FiveFingers look, then VFFs will be cool to wear.  So no problem.  On the other hand, if kids at school make fun of their shoes, then suddenly they become very un-cool and no amount of pleading will get your child to wear them.  Peer pressure and how other kids perceive your child can be extremely influential in your child’s decision making.

Initially my son was very keen to wear his new VFF KSOs.  He wore them consistently for about 2 months during the summer holiday before some smart-ass at school that fall made a snide comment about them and teased my son.  That was the end of my son wearing VFFs to school and the after-school program he was in.  He still wore them when at home and other places but he never wore them out in public where someone from his school could see him.  Any small positive or a negative opinions on VFFs from peers can ultimately influence your child’s willingness to wear them.

The Cost of Children’s FiveFingers

Children grow.  Children are hard on clothes.  It is a balancing act trying to find decently priced items that they won’t outgrow or wear out in a month at.  Shoes are no different.  There were two things I considered when buying VFFs for my son:  quality and cost.

First off, my own VFFs have lasted a long time and I use them a lot so I wasn’t worried about my kids wearing them out; they would most likely outgrow them first.  Quality wasn’t a factor I was worried about.

Go into most shoe stores, like Foot Locker or Sport Chek, and kids shoes range in prices from $40 to $90 or even more as your child gets older.  These are your typical running shoes – heavily padded with thick soles and a raised heel.  Everything you don’t want in your shoes, so why would you buy them for your kids, right?  Children’s KSO cost $60 from the VFF website so they are of a comparable price to regular kids shoes. I had spent similar amounts on shoes previously for my children so the cost was not an issue for me although I realize that other parents may not be as willing to pay this amount.

My Kids

My daughter doing a "Spider-Man" while rock climbing.

As I mentioned, I bought my son a pair of KSOs which after being teased about, he never wore to school again (although he continued to wear them with me when there was no chance of kids from school seeing him).  Since he has outgrown them, he hasn’t asked for another pair although I have offered to buy some if he wants.  My daughter initially couldn’t fit into adult sizes so she had to wait.  She has since inherited her brother’s KSOs and I wanted to see if she would wear them before committing to the pair of Sprints she wanted.  She has been wearing them rock climbing and around the yard now that the snow has gone, so she seems to like them.  Should she continue wearing them a lot and want another pair when she outgrows these KSOs, I’ll gladly shell out for some in her choice of color.

If my children never want another pair of VFFs, they are still going to benefit from them in a variety of ways.  The first is that they are going to be aware that footwear which swaddles the feet in foam are not beneficial and this knowledge will influence them to buy sensible shoes for the remainder of their lives.  The second is that while they may not buy VFFs, the impact that VFF has had on the footwear industry is evident with most shoe companies now introducing a minimalist shoe.  A good example of another minimalist shoe is the Merrell Barefoot collection.  The third is that their dad will hopefully be more fit and able to do physical activities with them and eventually their own children due to improved foot and overall health thanks to Vibram FiveFingers.  I’m sure there are many more benefits, but these three were the ones I felt were the most important.

I would like to hear if anyone else has bought VFFs for their children and what their experiences are.  Or even better yet, what your kids think about VFF.  I look forward to your questions and comments (and I can be followed on twitter at http://twitter.com/robchfr).

Vibram FiveFingers and Children is a post from: MyFiveFingers.com - a Vibram, FiveFingers, Toe Shoes, Minimalist Shoes Fan site

Considering this for a running backpack...

Twelve sugars in your coffee instead of two? Listen to that certain song before starting the daily trudge or clean the stove even if it only has 1 stain on it? I have found those small things you do that make you feel that 1/100^th of you has obsessive compulsive disorder also seem to show up in running. I seem to have certain practices and rules that go along with my running that are not allowed to interfere, lest my chi get thrown off, and I’m posing this question to the public as to what oddities others experience.

Examples of these show up in errand runs (in the most literal sense), where I will run around town to the location I must conduct my business at and then continue on with everything on my list until the day is done. I conducted this very venture last week as I did a bit less than 2 miles around town before stopping at my first destination which was to procure pens. But here was my dilemma at the beginning, I wanted to run barefoot, but needed shoes to enter the stores, so how was I to carry them? I ended up carrying my KSO Treks in my hand and my money and keys inside of them as I ran. But the entire time I felt a conscious imbalance where one side of my body was consistently weighed down and my back felt tighter than normal. I have done something similar where I have run with a walking stick in one hand as a means of protection, and had the same feeling of irked imbalance that kept me from concentrating.

Carrying my Treks did pay off however since by the time I made it to m first destination the raw skin on my toes that had been healing began to take a toll and one toe was scratched up so finishing the run with VFFs on was very much worth it as to avoid further harm.

But things like carrying money and keys and even a phone in pockets is another one of those things that if not a necessity would never happen in any run of mine. I can barely muster wearing anything without form-fitting sleeves due to flapping and feeling like a windsock, so how would other flapping appendages in my pockets feel? Horrible. Especially when it is slapping continuously and throwing my rhythm off. Does anyone else feel this? I feel like there are a whole world of possible nuances that irk runners, or even certain rituals that we perform in order to have the run go ­ just right. One personal habit I have is wrapping my ear buds cord around my neck once since it is too long unwrapped and it is difficult to maneuver between songs if the cord is wrapped around my hand. So to all of the runners out there, do you have any unique quirks that make you get your chi just right? Or any particular rituals that need to happen to make the run gel just right?

And on a related note, does anyone use Camelbaks that have room for storing stuff during runs? I am considering an osprey day pack, if anyone has one, let me know what you think.

Running OCD is a post from: MyFiveFingers.com - a Vibram, FiveFingers, Toe Shoes, Minimalist Shoes Fan site

Wore this when it was a bit cloudier outside!

Are you the kind that uses the shoes as a means of peacocking; a conversation starter, a bright statement maybe relating to your personality, or just perhaps an affinity for bright colors, or are you a salamander; buying neutral FiveFingers to serve their purpose and blend in as if it were a black or brown shoe?

Which brings me to my main questions that I would like the readers to give input on: do your shoes affect the rest of your apparel? Do you base your outfit on your VFFs, or base your VFFs on your outfit?

Wore this outfit the other day showing what bright colors can go with your VFFs

Now this may seem like more of a quandary for the female populous, but I sincerely wonder if it influences what VFF wearers will choose to pair with their shoes. I certainly have a pair of peacocking shoes (my green and blue sprints) which are brighter that I wear for comfort and fun, and I have my silver and red KSO Treks that are more for function as my everyday and seem to elicit fewer responses. I even had several peers comment that they thought I was barefoot while I was wearing the silver KSOs on a camping trip. Really? The fact that the neutral color blends bothers me a bit since I am not a fan of the color palette itself, although the grey does go with several of my darker clothes, such as black pants. It should be noted that these were purchased at a time when the KSO Treks were very new and silver was the only color, a mere 8 months ago! But I digress.

I am certainly a peacock and enjoy the wonder sparked from people seeing something new and being able to educate people on the barefoot movement and the benefits going barefoot or almost can provide. But as a peacock I am certainly going to pursue some of Vibram’s brighter models that they have now begun to crank out. I get more excited than is socially acceptable about the models such as the KOMODOSPORT (both the black/gold and blue/yellow), the showy JAYA LRs that have literal racing stripes, and of course, the brighter Bikilas.

So to all of you barefoot bipeds, do you consider color choice when planning your VFF purchase, or even day-to-day wear? Or is it irrelevant since the shoes are a powerful enough statement to be considered a separate entity apart from the trivialities of apparel?

FiveFinger Fashion: Are you a Peacock or a Salamander? is a post from: MyFiveFingers.com - a Vibram, FiveFingers, Toe Shoes, Minimalist Shoes Fan site

The summer I had my first pair of VFFs, I walked very strangely indeed.

With the knowledge that my feet were supposed to land on their pads, I began to walk far too intentionally with my feet-pads and always had my heels off the ground: a gimpy ballerina, or a barefoot walker trying far too hard. I could not get over my quickly toned legs that formed solid muscle over two weeks of VFF wearing and infrequent running. Who wouldn’t want toned legs without squats and lunges? Sign me up! I was subscribed to the FiveFingers lifestyle, hooked and never to return to the way of wearing cement blocks on my feet.

The first run in them is something that must be told of. Must be documented! If anyone wants proof of the power of FiveFingers, you should take a pair and run as hard as you can, and run with long strides.

Running at full power in my Sprints surpassed almost any physical feeling, especially related to exercise. It was weightlessness, and I can relate it to nothing less than flight.

And usually you are tired after this sort of thing, you just ran your full power you would of course be depleted. But on my first run with my Sprints I was doing a standard light run (15 minutes at the most recall) and 3 minutes in did this. I not only went on to complete a full 18 minute run, I did not even experience being winded until I was in the final minutes of my run on the way home.

Yes, they were a brilliant running shoe, yes they also improved my posture and increased my height by a half inch (all the way up to 5 foot 5 and 3/4!) but also helped some serious back pain I had due to a minor work injury hauling  heavy paddle-boats. At time the pain was so bad, the first few days I literally walked hunched in order to avoid straightening my back for the pinpricks in my lower lumbar region. When my back finally began to recover, it would often hurt violently when I was walking to and fro on the cement boardwalk in my flip flops (since I had begun to leave my VFFs at home to avoid them getting grimy from sand). Every step hurt my back more. And when I tried switching back to my Sprints, the pain left almost immediately. My back felt fine most of the time when I wore my VFFs and eventually recovered on its own.

It is as simple as that.

And so I was hooked that summer, feeling like Hermes in my shoes that gave me wings, I kept a physique fitting for my beach job, and couldn’t let enough people know about the shoes that eliminated the back pain that would make most people summon their chiropractor. All natural.

Now how does this size up to actually taking the plunge and running barefoot? The results are surprising and not for the faint of heart. I will reveal all in my next post.

From Shoes to Unshod, and My Love Affair with FiveFingers in Between (Part 2.5) is a post from: MyFiveFingers.com - a Vibram, FiveFingers, Toe Shoes, Minimalist Shoes Fan site

It may be a year ago to the day that I found out about VFFs.

I had been participating in a campus-wide “Day without Shoes” which if you do not know about, is promoted by TOMS shoes every April 5^th to raise awareness about children that go barefoot because they cannot afford a pair of shoes. My friend and I spent the day shoeless and made several jokes about others thinking we were hippies and we “ouched” our way across asphalt exploring all of the surfaces that our feet hadn’t felt in years, ending in the park where our feet reposed in the soft spring grass. Being unshod was a foreign concept at the time, the kind of idea that seems novel, silly even, but if given a chance could spark worlds of possibility. That spark came when we ventured home and I saw a man wearing black shoe-socks with toes. The next day and for days to come I Google searched “shoes with toes” and any variation that would help me come closer to this strange phenomena. I found my answer in these contraptions appropriately called “FiveFingers” that were meant to conform to the foot and allow for better posture as well as a natural feel when walking and even running. I read over the provided facts which were of course foreign ideas at the time, but soon I couldn’t shut up about the shoes and set to work finding a retailer in our Norfolk or Virginia Beach area in Virginia.

At the time (early May 2010) these babies were scarce, and correct sizing was even harder to come by. Eventually I found a store where I could try them on in Virginia Beach. The 80 person waiting list told me these were new and still under the radar, but the demand was already sky high. They were selling out as soon as shipments came in.

I test ran them in the store, gave them a good walk about, but it is hard to tell how you feel about a pair of shoes in the safety zone of the shoe store. Soon after this trip I came to own my very own pair of blue and green size 39F Sprints by finding them at another store.

That summer I fell utterly in love with my Sprints and wore them everywhere. I learned to love running and did so a when I had time outside of my job renting boats at the beach where I wore my sprints in lieu of flip flops. I was of course asked by dozens of customers, what were they, where did you get them, and were often called cute by the female patrons who wanted to get a pair for the bold fashion statement that they were. I told people everywhere I went about them, and when asked gave the whole 5 minute spiel because of my excitement. It took about 4 months for me to reduce my story about how incredible the VFFs were to “they are healthy for your knees and back”, “they make you love running” and other anecdotes that told only a percentage of my love for my FiveFingers.

I ran my Sprints into the ground that summer, and by the time August came I was already able to see the cloth innersole through my right shoe. The combination of running on concrete as my main terrain and the summer heat of that concrete are the two main factors I believe that led to my VFFs’ decay, but I still wear them when I want a lighter shoe, where the sole is thinner (certainly more so than my KSO Treks which feel like a tank in comparison) and my foot is lighter. I still adore my Sprints despite the holes, and reserve them for especially sunny days where I can dance and feel my steps fall so lightly and my feet can enjoy the warmth with me.

Please come back for my take on getting used to the VFFs and a first hand account of the benefits!

From Shoes to Unshod, and My Love Affair with FiveFingers in Between (Part 2) is a post from: MyFiveFingers.com - a Vibram, FiveFingers, Toe Shoes, Minimalist Shoes Fan site

But I’d be oh so wrong if I did. As a full-time Five Fingers guy, the somewhat unpleasant aroma my Five Fingers have developed have three major causes: moisture, dirt and lack of proper ventilation. While I haven’t been able to completely eradicate the aroma, I have been able to make my shoes wearable to even the fanciest of parties. Here are a few tips to keep your Five Fingers from turning up noses:

Definitely more than one way to clean Five Fingers.

2. Use OxiClean or something similar (We miss you, Billy!)
I spray on OxiClean an hour or so before I wash my Five Fingers. Does the best job I’ve found in getting and keeping the aroma out for a few days. Just be sure to air dry them for a while before you toss them in the dryer WITHOUT HEAT. Also, don’t use fabric softener, as it seems to make the problem worse for me.

3. Keep your feet clean
Most of the aroma stems from the dirt your track in with YOUR dirty feet, so they cleaner your feet are when you put your Five Fingers on, the less grime you’ll produce.

If you look really closely just past the bottom of this pic you can see my KSOs.

5. Wear socks
I wore my Injinji socks on the cold streets of NYC, and they kept my feet warm AND non-smelly. I was the only person at the party in Five Fingers and I got more than a few questions about them, none of which had to do with the cold.

Anything you’ve tried that’s worked better?

Smelly Five Fingers is a post from: MyFiveFingers.com - a Vibram, FiveFingers, Toe Shoes, Minimalist Shoes Fan site

Between June 2006 and September 2008, I have four surgeries in two different places to remove cysts. As you might imagine, I didn’t run much during that time. My final surgery on the last day of July in 2008 left me bed-ridden for nine weeks. I lost nearly 25 lbs during that time and for some reason, signed up for a half marathon in January 2009. On October 1, 2008, the day after my doc cleared me, I started training.

I ran a respectable 2 hour, 10 minute half marathon, but immediately broke down. My knees hurt, my hips hurt and my lower back hurt. My $135 Asics did little to alleviate the pain and I shot back up to 240 lbs, which is quite a lot for 5’11″. While I enjoyed my run, I was fearful of doing it again, as I didn’t want to go through the pain once more.

Love these Bikilas for running on hot sidewalks.

CrunchGear came to the rescue a few months later. I couldn’t get the article out of my head, even as I was running in a new pair of Asics through Central Park during an August in New York City. I had to try something different. I had to have those shoes.

In September 2009, I bought my first pair of Vibram Sprints. While I certainly wouldn’t consider the blue camo stylish, they were the only pair I was able to find in person and I couldn’t quite bring myself to order direct from the website just yet.

Fast forward to 13 months later and I’m two days from running my fourth half marathon (second in Vibram Sprints). I’m three months away from running my first marathon. I own four pairs of Vibrams (Sprints, Classics, KSOs and Bikilas) and I wear the Classics or the KSOs every single day. Just three weeks ago, I equaled my previous fastest over 5 mile run in the Sprints and I’ve become faster since.

Stay tuned to find out how much fun I’ve had over the past year+ and how much fun I plan on getting myself into. It’s going to be quite the ride.

My Vibram FiveFingers Story is a post from: MyFiveFingers.com - a Vibram, FiveFingers, Toe Shoes, Minimalist Shoes Fan site

As you may have surmised from the title, I have an announcement.

After three months of painful walking and not being able to wear my Fivefingers, I’ve made the only logical decision I could in good conscience make – to place MyFivefingers in the hands of someone more capable to engage the brand and the lifestyle.

Since decade-old injuries have prohibited me from the freedom I’ve wished to enjoy, another has come to fill my shoes. Literally and figuratively.

Over the past week, Dan Hinckley and I have been in the process of negotiations and the transfer of all site content. He, and maybe a few friends, will share their thoughts and experiences with Fivefingers and take this site to the next level.

I couldn’t be more thrilled. When you own 12 blogs you can’t keep up, finding a good match for even one of them is no small relief. I’m looking forward to seeing what they have in store for the site. I’ll be checking in now and then. You may find me lurking in the comments section.

Want to stay in touch?

If you’ve been following me on @myfivefingers, you can come on over and say hi to me at my primary Twitter account, @danielthepoet. Dan and crew will maintain the @myfivefingers account along with the blog, so be sure you stay tuned for more good stuff there.

My New Project

If you’re a little curious about what I’ll be up to now, you can come find me at my new startup project, DailyBlogCrush.com. I set up the site earlier this year but couldn’t find the time to commit to it. No time like the present, eh? I’ll be reviewing my favorite and some of my not-so-favorite blogs and critiquing them. It’s a great opportunity to learn more about winning blog design, content, and strategy. I’ve always learned more from stories and illustrations than straight lecture. It will be a great place to discover blogs you’ve never seen before and also brush up on your own blogging strategies and tactics.

See you there.

And when you get a chance, drop Dan Hinckley a note or a comment and welcome him to the Fivefingers web community! He’ll be introducing himself and his crew shortly.

It’s been a blast. I hope to run into each of you somewhere out there on the interwebz. Until then, keep rockin’ the VFFs!

A New Chapter Has Begun is a post from: MyFiveFingers.com - a Vibram, FiveFingers, Toe Shoes, Minimalist Shoes Fan site