I can’t believe I haven’t chatted about this much yet since it’s the single biggest thing I get asked about. Crazy me.

Chalk it up to all those hours of running messing with my head.

I run in a minimalist shoe and have since I started training for my very first half marathon 3 years ago. The story goes like this – I had been running for only a few months and was up to about 6 miles a week in a stability shoe because, according to the professional at the running store, I pronate like crazy and this was the only way to go. Well, wearing these shoes I noticed a severe burning in my lower back and lots of pain that would radiate down my legs. I talked to my doctor who told me to stop running and I had just about decided that was that. My body clearly wasn’t designed to run and even though I loved it, I was going to have to figure out another way to deal with things (please refer to my depression post for more on that;).

So I received a gift certificate for a massage and was telling the massage therapist about my woes. She said casually, “have you read Born To Run?” Most. Dangerous. Sentence. Ever. “No” I replied having no idea what kind of crazy voodoo that book possessed (not really, I’m a Christian and don’t believe in voodoo but that made for a good sentence I think).

I read the book in 2 days and was completely fascinated by it. I immediately ordered a pair of Vibram Five Fingers online (only a handful of stores were selling them then and none of them were by my house). The online sizing thing was a little tricky, but I took a shot at it and in about a week my purple Vibrams arrived at my door.

It was a pretty new trend so there wasn’t a lot out there on how to start so please don’t do what I did but my first run in them I went 3 miles and felt amazing. My second run I went 5 miles. And my third run I ran on the beach in San Diego (well, on the running path by the beach) and went my longest run to date, 6 miles. And I felt amazing. No lower back pain. No pain radiating down my legs. Nothing. I did have a guy stop me and say “hey, I think you’re only supposed to run in those on grass – you’re going to break your back or something.” Um, OK, thanks, Dude (we were in California;).

And because I didn’t know any better I kept running, and kept not getting hurt, and kept feeling better and stronger. I read as much as I could and decided that if it was working for me, I was going to ignore all the scary reports from doctors and physical therapists that I was going to break every bone in my feet if I kept it up. (and no, I’m not 80 yrs old yet, so they may be right and my feet may be a mess when I’m 80 – I hope not but only time will tell.)

I ran my first half marathon and got asked a ton of questions as I ran (remember, it’s only March of 2010 so it’s not the world wide, seen on every street corner deal that it is now). My favorite is a woman who came alongside me and was very nice and then turned to her friend and said “don’t ever wear those. You’ll get plantar fascitis and you’ll get a stress fracture in your foot.” Um, thanks for that. I’M RIGHT HERE! I CAN HEAR YOU! Mostly, though, people were just curious.

I continued to train and race in them and last January, ran the WDW marathon in them. Sadly, my worn in ones got a hole one week before the race and I bought a brand new pair and had only worn them a couple times before the marathon. They had a manufacturers defect that rubbed my foot weird and I got the granddaddy of all blisters and it almost ruined the marathon for me. It got me thinking that a shoe that I could wear socks with and looked more like a normal shoe might be better for anything over 10 miles.

So I tried these
Merrell Dash Barefoot Glove

I’ve now run 2 halfs in them and love them. They are zero drop and very much like the Vibrams but I can wear socks and they actually lace up. But make no mistake – there’s no arch support and really nothing but a thin piece of rubber between me and the road.

Running minimalist is NOT for everyone but boy, it’s for me. There are tons of great articles out there about barefoot and minimalist running so I won’t go into all the mechanics of it, but I can tell you that it has made my running fun and I could never go back to traditional shoes again.

The End.