20 mile training run - barefoot

The following words started out as a reply to a comment Meredith from Virginia Beach has left on the “About” page but has now made it way to becoming a full on blog page.

Thanks for the kind words. You have me reflecting on some good memories about my barefoot journeys. I did not have Vibram Five Fingers when I started this journey. At the time Barefoot Ted McDonald was just experimenting with running in Vibram Five Finger classics. So I was barefoot to shod and back to barefoot as a cool down. It was also my introduction to really enjoying running on paved surfaces. Which just beat me up when I ran in my shoes. My desire to make me a pair of Huaraches was driven by my love of running trails.

However, in my quest to run a marathon barefoot, the huaraches were becoming both a physical and metaphysical crutch. I had to face my fear of running the chip seal of the St George Marathon, and getting over the fear of moving forward after the shutdown of my businesses, and the splitting up of my family (divorce).

From that point in the desert, where I buried my huaraches, I ran everything I could barefoot. Sometimes not the wisest idea as I found myself running some gnarly trails and pebble strewn road surfaces. After I ran the marathon I was given a gift certificate for a pair of Vibram Five Fingers. I fell in love with them, sewed them up, and put over a 1000 miles on them before I gave them to my son when he asked if he could have them.

Yea I buried these in the desert.

I been wanting to build another pair of huaraches, but was having difficulty in finding the braided hemp cord that I love so much. Even Ted McDonald could not get it in for a while. So the short of the long of this story is that I have been running and training in either KSO’s or Bikila’s almost exclusively. I am finding that to run a marathon barefoot for me at 6’6+ and 255lbs I need the protection to keep my feet fresh. As you know running a marathon is more about technique and body strength than it is  having toughed feet.

I am just about to do another repair section on the pair of green and white bikila’s that I have been running in. The inside toes are completely worn through.  In the pic below you can see how the heavy rubber of the Bikila pushes the big toe towards the inside fabric against the second toe.

Almost new Vibram Bikila's - Winter Run

My first KSO’s saw over a 1000 miles, I do not think my Bikila’s will last more than 400.

I am ready to get back to running in Huaraches.

Sorry for the long reply. I have have not sat down to hammer out post to my blog for a while, and it felt nice to put down a few words about barefooting.

Regards,
Michael Carroll

PS. check out my barefoot running and racing project site – theminimalistrunner.com its beta and the database needs more records, so if you have a race that you would like listed please send me a note.

Large cracks on the foot are call fissures.

Many of you who have followed my posts have read some of my posts whining and complaining about my right foot. Well for the last two weeks I have not been able to run barefoot at all, let alone walk barefoot.

Extremely frustrating. Many of the comments that have been forward to me about this problem has been to pee on my feet. Still not ready to do that as it stinks up the shower. Yea I tried it once. However I did find that many dermatoligist have been prescribing 20 to 40% UREA in a lotion format. So I trek down to the local Wallgreens and find a bottle of  lotion that contains UREA.

The Result – in two days I am running.

In addition to this I am scrubbing my feet with an activated charcoal soap with a scrub brush after each barefoot excursion, and each night. I apply the lotion in the morning and in the evening.

Regards,

Michael Carroll

As a former heel striker, and a clydesdale athlete, I am used to destroying shoes to the point that they must be discarded into a bin of well loved shoes after only a few hundred miles. Every once in a while I find this bin and pull out a pair of these old shoes and feel the journeys flash back in my mind. Like my first four hour run through the desert attempting to summit Utah peak and how I had to make a cell phone call to get extracted from a nearby fire road. I was out of water, and my feet, could take me no further.

My mileage that I have listed above is a good approximation as I have made it a point to ditch the watch and gps monitors. If anything I have rounded down and have been conservative in my reporting.

I expected the KSO’s to be done at the 500 mile mark and for them to be tossed into the bin of love. But they continue to serve me well. I have been meaning to write this review a hundred miles ago, but just did not feel inspired to do so until now. Most of my mileage on asphalt is done barefoot, but when I head to the trails, I have relied on my KSO’s to take care of my feet. Now having said that it should be clear that this is a love hate relationship as I feel that the KSO and it variants have a significant weakness in their design. The weakness that I speak of is how easy it is to injure your small toe wearing the the KSO’s. Later on in the review I will detail out my solution.

The side view of my five finger KSO’s above make the wear look pretty good and minus, but the front view is a different question.

Now look at the close up shot of the rear side and see how the KSO is coming all apart. If it was not for the straps are pulling everything together the shoe would disintegrate quickly.

So what is happening on the bottom of the sole? It continues to get thinner and thinner. Which for me is good as I am working to perfect my barefoot running and all I need on my trail runs is just a bit of rubber to take the edge off the sharp rocks on the trail. Landing light with good form is why I believe these KSO’s have lasted as long as they have.

If you trail run barefoot, or wear a ultra minimal sandals like Barefoot Ted’s Huarache’s, your small digits are left un-protected, but rarely have I injured them except for a few abrasions from the lava rocks out here. But in KSO’s I have constantly had my small toes injured. I believe this is because the rubber construction of toes insulates the toes just enough that your foot and leg cannot react fast enough to pull back the way it does when just running barefoot. To make matters worse the rubber is sticky so it also wants to grab and hang on to whatever it has made contact with. The rubber protecting the small digits is also angled in such a way that it assists the stickiness factor. In barefooting, or wearing shoes with a complete toe box, your foot wants to operate as a whole unit, but in five fingers, the toe is isolated and the forces of an impact or a snag puts the maximum force on your small toe. Currently my left small toe is almost twice the size as it sibling on the right.

Now having said that, I have been pondering a solution, and implemented it during my desert trail run yesterday to upper and lower graveyard. My hypothesis is that If the small toe was connected to its larger brother next to it, it might have more support to handle small impacts and snags. So I took a needle and thread and sewed the top of the rubber sections of the small toes together. Now in nowise did this change the dynamic of how the shoes performed or functioned. The results after one day of testing — I do believe this will be standard procedure for all future five fingers that I will own.

One more note on this: The next time that I sew the two digits together I will use a stronger thread. Maybe some goretex thread as it is practically unbreakable. As I was using pliers to pull the needle and thread through the rubber I kept breaking the thread as it looped through the needle itself. I would have like to put in a few more stitches and knotted it off, but this was the best I could do with just normal sewing thread.

On the inside I am getting a lot of de-lamination and shredding of the material lining the heal and fore foot areas.

Zoomed in view of the damage.

Conclusion: I am impressed at how well my KSO’s have held up. However, I run completely different than I used to run. Barefoot running is about the business of running light. But you just cannot run barefoot like in any modern running shoes on the market.

KSO’s let me do what I could not do barefoot, but allow me to run barefoot. I am looking forward to Vibram’s TREK shoes to run longer trail marathons in the Ultra-Range. I do not see a change in the design of the toes, so I will sew the pinky toe up.

My only limitations that I see with running Ultra distances in these shoes has more to do with my conditioning than the way the shoes are constructed. With shoes, you certainly can run longer distances, but defects in your strength are well hidden and will only come out as injuries.

I am looking forward to the new minimalist shoes that are coming out on the market and hope to train in them. At the present moment the best tool on the market for running trail Ultra’s is the KSO.

Thanks for reading my review.

Michael Carroll

The repairs seem to be holding up.

Well sort of – the fabric is gone and so another repair would need to add fabric back over the hole. Or the space would significantly shrink.

The next picture shows new holes on the next toe. Rip is at the base of the rubber. Not sure if this is repairable.

The bottoms are wearing fabulously.

The inside heal cup is now showing some wear.

The five finger kso experience is still producing happy feet

Happy Running,

Michael Carroll

As you can see the toe is holding up quite well. I wish I could say that for the hole in the inside of the toe.

As you can see the repair is holding, but the fabric is so thin that it is disinegrating.

I also sewed up the heal area and you can see that it has held up well, but now the stress has caused the fabric to open a hole above where the repair was made.   Anyway see you all on the trail.

Michael Carroll