One reader of my blog “Thayne” wanted to know how much traction Vibram Five Finger KSO’s have. Well since it has been raining and muddy here in St. George I can give you a clear answer. NONE! In mud they are like ice skating. In fact I would rather run barefoot than in Fives on muddy course conditions. Your toes can dig in. However having said that, if it is smooth surfaces, rocks, pavement, concrete, boat surfaces, yes I would say they are sticky. The inventor of the Five Finger set out to build a shoe that would perform well on boat decks and mimic being barefoot. For muddy conditions you need a shoe that can handle mud.
I am standing in my backyard (January 2010) after a mud run and having a blast. Yes those are shoes. My foot had split in three places, barefoot running in mud was out of the question, and so I threw on my old trusty Solomon GTX trail shoes (inserts removed) on. To much fun…
It takes me back to the glory days of Friday Fun Runs in the Marine Corps, except I was covered in mud from head to toe. Yep! good memories both now and then. Urrugah!
Michael Carroll
When I first started running barefoot in 2006 I noticed a few things about the condition of my body the next day after a run when I woke up. My calves, my achilles, and the bottoms of my feet were achy and tight. I would have to do a series of stretches each morning to be able to walk correctly.
I would first press, against the wall or my footboard of my bed, alternating pressure on the backs of my calves, achilles, and foot, by pushing my knees forward and down.
I would then go into a monkey squat and work out any remaining tweaks in my lower body from my knees to my feet by adjusting my body weight left and right, forward and back.
Ok now fast forward to 2010 and my a new season of barefoot training. On my agenda this year are two races; the Sapper Joe 50K, and the St. George Marathon. I will do the first in homemade huaraches, and the latter barefoot. Both are rough course races. To prepare I have been running trails and asphalt that are rough. One thing that is peculiar about the start of this season though is that I am waking up in the morning with none of the soreness and achy-ness that I described above.
Hmmm…
1. I took an extended break about 3 months November to January. Running minimal miles.
2. I feel stronger in my feet, calves, and upper legs than I ever have since I have started running.
3. I have eaten well.
4. I am having more fun running barefoot than I have ever had.
Michael Carroll
Tomorrow is December – I’m still running barefoot/vff’s and trails. YES!!!!
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
Running = 850,
Cycling = 90,
Walking = 40
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
