This year I have a few ultradistance goals on my schedule: Ecotrail de Paris in March (80 km), Limburgs Zwaarste in April (100 km) and my ultimate goal is the TDS (Sur les Traces des Ducs de Savoie), part of the Ultratrail du Mont Blanc (110 km). I don’t think I can run the latter two in FiveFingers because of the mountainous character in which I think I need more traction than FiveFingers can give me.

However, the Ecotrail de Paris could be a candidate to run in FiveFingers. And since you need to train both running the distance and running that much in FiveFingers, I scheduled a 50 km (30 miles) run last Sunday. Now the question was: where to? 50 km is a bit long to just run around aimlessly. So I asked my mother, who is a long distance walker, if she knew a good route. She came up with “Hollands Kustpad” (Dutch Coastal path), which leads you along the Dutch coast from Hoek van Holland to Den Helder. This has mostly nice trails through the dunes and woods and some beach.

The route is marked both from South to North and the other way around. I live in IJmuiden, so I picked up the route (marked by white & red stripes) in the dunes just South of IJmuiden and headed South. Though it’s very easy to follow, I did bring the actual map and description, just to be sure.

The weather was interesting: mostly sunny but with short showers of hail and strange gusts of wind. I was glad that I put on a pair of FiveFingers KomodoSports (my blue pair). These behave well in changing weather. No cold feet, enough grip on the trail, perfect!

Time flew by, the trail took a turn to the beach, which was only a feet or 2, maybe 3 wide. I had to walk there, because running was not possible on the loose, oblique sand. Luckily about a mile further on I could leave the beach and go back to the dunes. Then, suddenly, I found myself on a small hill. I could see where I came from, but more important, I could see my destination!

In the distance you can see the buildings. That is “Noordwijk aan Zee”! Only 5 more kilometres! I was almost there!

Half an hour later I was running on the Promenade in Noordwijk. I made it, a little over 50 km! But how did my feet do? I’d never ran this long and this far in FiveFingers before. So, back home, I checked the damage. There was none. No blisters, no chafing, no missing toenails. Nothing. This made me a very happy girl, because this meant that the option of running the Ecotrail in FiveFingers is still open. OK, I do need to get my hands on a pair of VFF Spyridon, but that shouldn’t be too difficult.