Well I never...

I was in a fairly routine meeting just now when I saw someone - or, more precisely, the feet of someone (as the rest of them was obscured) - pass by, wearing Vibram Five Fingers! In the office! I've seen it all now. This isn't New York you know...

Peace of mind

Of course it goes without saying that my family comes first, then my work and then everything else. But an important part of "everything else" is having everything (including myself) in working order. Although I continue to have problems with my (now left) foot, running is again enjoyable as long as I don't step on a stone. Finally, I also have all my bikes in working order - including the ZIPP disc wheel which needed an overhaul and turned out not to be as expensive as I had feared - and my treadmill has also been fitted with a new belt and board. All my gadgets are also working - something which has an irrational capacity to stress me out when they are not - and I have got some new running shoes which seem to be comfortable to run in. I went for the Merrell Trail Glove 3 again, in spite of the last ones giving me blisters (which I have now built up resistance to) and them wearing out after a disappointingly low number of miles. I had the brainwave to look at the German Merrell website, where the shoes are offered at much bigger sizes and I then discovered that Amazon could source them from Germany. So instead of the usual size 48 - which was on the tight side for me in this model and gave me blood blisters at the end of my toes - I went crazy and bought size 50!! I think it was the right decision even though a size 49 would probably have been just fine. When my toes are bent, they come quite close to the end of the shoe but without touching; as long as I tie the shoelaces up nice and tight, my foot doesn't move around in the shoe. The only problem is that they look like skis! I was a little concerned that I would be increasing my risk of tripping over, as I did in my Soft Star RunAmocs which had an extremely generous toe box. The difference with these is that the sole is much firmer and curls up ever so slightly at the toes (but not to the extent of the typical running shoes with significant heel-toe differential). With any luck my foot will get back to normal and I can keep my Vibram 5 Fingers in reserve for races.

Guarachando

It was only a matter of time before I found a good enough excuse to buy some Huaraches - the sandals worn by the running tribe of Tarahumaras described in Chris McDougal's best-selling "Born to Run" book. The excuse is that I will soon be going on holiday to Malaysia where it will be ridiculously humid and I know from past experience that it is not fun running with extremely sweaty feet. Arguably, it is not much fun running in those kind of conditions - full stop. To be honest, I'm not sure if I will actually run in them, but I will certainly wear them for walking around as a much more comfortable alternative to the flip flops de rigeur and I'll take it from there.

The other excuse was that I recently discovered that the shop where I recently bought my Merrell Trail Gloves (which, incidentally, are still rubbing the tops of my feet when I run at any kind of lively pace, even with socks) are producing a variation on the Huaraches that tries to combine the best of tradition and technology. Lastly, it just so happened that I was thinking about them when a colleague told me that he had just bought some and it just so happened that I had to get my vaccines done not too far from the shop...

The LightRun Sandals are made from a 5mm Vibram sole (what else?) with a soft leather foot bed and a leather strap to hold your foot in place. They look a little Jesusy (I went for the brown ones) but they are quite elegant if you like that sort of thing. So far I haven't tried running in them but the initial reports are that they are very comfy. I'll keep you posted but in the meantime, here is a link to the product: http://5dedos.es/173-lightrun-sandals.html

Vibram to pay out $3.75 MM for claims

While there are many much more upsetting items in the news, this one does piss me off: Vibram have bowed to the pressure to pay out for the claims that wearing their Five Fingers would strengthen muscles and prevent injury. Lots of crap advertised on late night informercials make the same claims and I don't see anyone being taken to court over it, but it seems that a lot of people must be going to the doctor with stress fractures in their feet as a result of wearing them.

Either that or it is as a result of this piece of "research" in which 19 experienced runners "gradually" transitioned to Vibram Five Fingers over a period of 10 weeks. To qualify as an "experienced runner" the subjects had to have maintained an average of 15-20 miles per week for at least 6 months prior. The protocol involved running 1-2 miles extra each week of their existing mileage in Vibram Five Fingers. This is by no means a gradual transition: it takes many months (I'd say at least 6) for the bones and tendons to adapt to the change in stresses. I should know - I got a stress fracture the first time I started using them 5 years ago - the difference is, I never thought of blaming the shoe, let alone the shoe manufacturer. It was my bad.

Unfortunately, it turns out that this rather optimistic transition protocol was taken from Vibram's very own website (since changed). So, in this regard, it possibly invalidates their defense. But it still makes me mad that a minority of people who seem unable to take responsibility for their own actions and who perhaps expect fitness to be delivered by some kind of magic bullet, have enough of a lobby to slow down advances in what I believe is the right direction. As I said on the radio program I was on recently, I think that Nike did a great job in enabling millions of people to get off the couch and start jogging without any special physical preparation, but there comes a point when all the cushioning and support becomes more of a crutch and creates a dependency. An oft cited statistic is that 70%(!) of runners suffer from a running related injury every year, something that hasn't improved in spite of all the enhancements in shoe technology over the last 40 years. How can this be? It is very difficult to prove scientifically, but one line of thinking is that the dependency engenders weakness and propensity to injury. Now that running is enjoyed by such a large number of people - precisely thanks to the boom helped by Nike - I believe we should continue to have a wide selection of running shoes to accommodate everyone from the ex-couch potato to the competitive runner. If you don't like my shoes then don't buy them (or sue them for that matter)!

Talking of impact forces, I realized something which is quite surprising when you stop to think about it. In 6 months of running on my treadmill I have broken through the thick board over which the belt moves. Physics tells us that for every action there is a reaction, so the very same pounding that broke the board the bones in my feet must have had to tolerate. Of course, the difference between a board and my feet is that my feet are a living thing which is capable of self-repair while the board is not (at least, not on the model of treadmill that I could afford). The question is, can your feet fix themselves more quickly than you can break them? Evidently they can if you train for it. One thing I would agree with is that running badly with Vibram Five Fingers is probably worse than running badly in "normal" running shoes - and this is exactly why normal running shoes tend to encourage you to run badly.

Here is a better article on the subject of the court case.

Catch me on the radio talking about minimalist running shoes...

...in Spanish though!

http://www.gestionaradio.com/9615-correr-no-es-de-cobardes-jose-maria-azcarate-2014-04-28-130000-192kbps-mp3/

The first 100 shoes to cross the finish line of NYC Marathon

Somebody has actually gone to the trouble of photographing and identifying the first 100 runners to cross the finish line of the New York City Marathon and their shoes. (Bear in mind that the elite women had a head start of 30 minutes.)

Someone else has gone to the trouble of putting all the results in a spreadsheet opening up the possibilities for hours of geeky analysis. (Meb was wearing Sketchers!)

While it is not surprising to see the top male and female finishers shod in either Nike or Addidas due to sponsorship requirements, what did surprise me was that none of the other runners chose to run in what I would categorize as a "minimalist running shoe". It certainly appears to be the case that the shoes have less cushioning on average than those worn by the 50,000 runners in the chasing pack but we are still talking about more than a couple of centimetres of squishy-squashy soles.

The other striking observation (if you'll forgive the pun) is the number of heel strikers amongst the elite. But, if you look closely, there is a world of difference between the typical heel-striker below

and the one seen above. The key difference is in the angle of the shin which, in the second photo, is such that the knee joint is locked out (ouch!!) and the point of contact is well ahead of the centre of gravity leading to a braking force. In order to run like the person above, you need to have tremendous flexibility and strength in your ankles - you almost have to fight against the tendency of the shoes to encourage you to overstride. Conversely, from personal experience I can testify to it being even more injurious to overstride and land on your forefoot. Perhaps we should stop obsessing so much over heel strikers versus forefoot (or midfoot?) strikers and look first at shin angles. From the excellent new book Running Science:

It's a shame that the article didn't go as far as the first 221 shoes to cross the finish line of the NYC Marathon... :-)

My Altum Barefoot Dress Shoes have arrived!!!

Back in November I was very excited to have "kick-started" my first ever project, the Altum Dress Shoes. I had been looking for some time for some shoes that would go under the radar of what is or is not considered acceptable footwear in the office especially since the dog ate my last pair of normal work shoes. I had discovered several options, such as the Ra from Vivobarefoot, but none of them would have avoided attracting attention for the wrong reasons.

Why should I even care about a "barefoot" or "minimalist" dress shoe if I am not planning to go running in them? Firstly, I can't stand shoes with a heel counter. I'm not really sure what the point of a heel counter is other than to allow and to encourage you to slouch when standing or walking. In my case, I quickly find that my knee with the torn meniscus starts to play up and my posture worsens, possibly contributing to back pain. The other thing I can't stand about conventional shoes is the narrow toe box which crams all my toes together: just as well I was not born female otherwise I would probably have to put up with far more severe footwear. I am currently particularly worried about an emerging bunion (more on this soon) which is aggravated by narrow shoes.

Unboxing

The shoes finally arrived yesterday - just in time for the conference I am speaking at in Boston next week - after a longer than predicted wait, although something to be expected for a start up company that is yet to get its teeth. They came in wrapped in a fabric shoe bag (which will no doubt come in handy) inside a standard cardboard shoebox. I don't know what you think but the shoes are very stylish and it is quite difficult to spot anything unusual about them unless you get a good side view - even then, they don't look too weird.

The shoes fit perfectly (just as well!) and have a fairly generous toe box. It could probably be wider but then I think they would start to look too weird, unfortunately. It is wide enough, however, to be able to wear my Correct Toes toe spacers (but only just)*. These arrived very promptly from The Emperor's New Shoes in the UK, courtesy of Jeff who was extremely helpful on email. He explained to me that, contrary to what I had supposed on my blog - that they might act as some kind of "crutch", thereby weakening the very muscles I needed to strengthen - they were specifically designed to be worn while load bearing (i.e., walking, standing and even running) because their function is to put the toes in the correct place, not to stretch them.

In terms of flexibility, they are less flexible than my minimalist running shoes tend to be, but more flexible than any work shoes that I have ever had. The leather seems to be of the usual stiffness which contributes to their deceptively normal appearance and, I suspect, will help them last longer, so the added flexibility is entirely due to the thin rubber Vibram sole.

The only downside (literally) is that I immediately lose about 3 centimetre's of height after stepping down from the MBT shoes I have been wearing lately in lieu of traditional footwear. Being an Englishman in Madrid makes me eccentric by definition and gives me certain license to be unconventional but I was getting a little tired of the friendly but amused comments about my weeble-like shoes; the loss in stature is a small price to pay for a bit of peace.

If you can't tell, I am absolutely delighted with my new shoes. I just need to do my bit now, to make sure the word gets out so that this fledgling company can really spread its wings. I'll certainly be going back for more once they have finished with their kickstarter phase.

* UPDATE: Actually, they are not really wide enough to accomodate the Correct Toe spacers although they do feel comfortably wide when the spacers are not in place. After a couple of hours the slight pressure on my "pinky" becomes intolerable and, according to the Correct Toes people, it is probably going to do more harm than good to have my toes being both stretched and squashed at the same time. One option would be to lop off one of the segements of the Correct Toes but, before I take that radical step (because they are not terribly cheap), I'll try just wearing them without my shoes on. It does mean that I often leave the Correct Toes spacers on my desk, something I have to be careful of because, for some inexplicable reason, everyone who comes to visit me has an urge to pick them up and play with them. "DON'T TOUCH THEM! For your own good! They've been between my toes!!"

Barefoot running... yawn!

Why is it that everything has to be taken to extremes? I suppose just the term "minimalist running shoe" is an extreme by definition and I'm not quite sure what "barefoot running shoes" are other than an oxymoron. When I see so much nonsense about things that I consider I know a fair bit about, it makes me wonder how much I take for granted when I read about something I know nothing about.

The latest trend seems to be "barefoot bashing" with a whole slew of articles saying something along the lines of "barefoot running is not the panacea we thought it was". I don't think anybody - not even Chris McDougal in "Born to Run" - has ever seriously claimed that running barefoot or in minimalist shoes is the solution to everything and for everyone. They have, however, questioned the claims of the running shoe industry that more cushioning and less flexibility is better and - guess what - the running shoe manufacturers have responded with more flexible and less padded options.

I was passed this article from the New York Times today by a friend. It quotes a "scientific study" in which half of the participants are given a pair of Vibram Five Fingers to run in while half continue to run in their usual trainers. The supposedly clever bit is that the VFF group is told to gradually adapt to minimalist running by only running one mile in them the first week, two miles the second, three the third and then as much as they like after that. After 10 weeks - surprise, surprise - the VFF group showed signs of stress fractures.

What is "scientific" about that? How long does the body need to adapt to running with minimalist running shoes? Can you safely mix running in normal shoes and minimalist shoes or should you train in progressively more minimalist shoes? Is running one or two miles in minimalist shoes enough to stimulate training adaptations such as stronger muscles, bones and tendons in the lower legs and feet?

I can't really say whether minimalist running shoes are the solution, I can only speak from personal experience of my experiment of one. After basically making the same mistake and suffering the same consequences as the participants in the aforementioned study, I first re-learnt how to run on the balls of my feet and then gradually reduced the cushioning of my shoes and increased the flexibility over a period of about two years. I haven't had a single running related injury (touch wood) in over three years since that time I tried to make the transition too brusquely. This time around it wasn't my goal to be able to run a Marathon in Vibram Five Fingers but it became a natural consequence of the direction I was going in.

Would I recommend minimalist running to someone else? Well, it depends. Many people ask me about it and I have a few friends who are at various different points along the same path that I trod: some of them have already found their optimum and are staying there; others have gone all the way just short of barefoot. But they are in the great minority of my running friends. I tell most people that you have to have a very good reason for making the change because it takes a lot of time and patience and therefore a lot of faith. I think it is one of the best investments I have made and am convinced that I am much faster and injury free as a result and, most importantly, I believe that I have done my knees an enormous favour that will keep them going well into my old age.

All this has reminded me of something. When I first started to run (after many years of inactivity) I thought that some pain was part of the training process and that it was not only OK to run through it most of the time but that it was a necessary evil. Now, with hindsight, I can say that pain is absolutely unnecessary - in fact, if something hurts while you are running then you should stop and, if something hurts before, then you shouldn't even start. The runners in the VFF group should not have been given a rigid prescription - after all, everybody responds to training differently - but absolutely should not have run with pain, which they evidently did.

The Marathoner's New Shoes

My current line-up: Vibram Spyridon LS, Vibram SeeYa, Vivobarefoot Ultra

After tripping over twice in the last month with my up-to-now trusty Soft Star Run Amocs, I found that I had lost confidence in them. I feel a bit sad about it because Soft Star has the best costumer service of any company that I have experienced recently, especially one that is prepared to deal with overseas customers and I have been using their shoes for almost a year and a half (getting through quite a few pairs). I felt that they were wearing down too quickly and tried out a slightly wider sole but perhaps that has made my already oversized feet that much more clumsy.

I bought my first Vibram Five Fingers in April 2009 after attending a POSE Method running class in Denmark which convinced me of the benefits of running with minimalist footwear. Certainly it made the pain in my knees go away but I tried to make the transition while training for a Marathon and ended up seriously injuring myself, ultimately getting a stress fracture in my foot the summer of that year. In spite of the fact that my wife would probably have killed me if I had repeated the same mistake, over the next two years I found myself buying ever more minimalist shoes every time a pair wore out until I found the balance that was right for me: training with Soft Star Run Amocs and competing (even in Marathons) in the Vivobarefoot Ultras.

So I have finally come full circle. I started to use the Vibram SeeYas for speed training in competitions towards the end of last year and last night I bought myself some Vibram Spyridons for trail running so that I'll now be using Vibram Five Fingers for practically all my running. I'll still use the Vivobarefoot Ultras but probably only for triathlons where I don't want to lose time trying to fit each toe in a separate toe pocket!

Once I have had some quality time with my Spyridons I'll post a review...

Soft Star Run Amocs with leather sole... 100 kms later

I promised I would give a quick review of the Run Amoc Original Lite with leather sole after having done some more miles (kilometres in continental Europe) in them.

On the plus side, the leather sole is much lighter than the standard Vibram sole that comes as standard, as well as being much more flexible. The advertised downside of having less traction has been the least of my problems, as has the slightly reduced protection against treading on stones: the fact is that the sole is not as hard wearing as its Vibram counterpart. This wouldn't be such a problem were it not for the fact that the upper on my left foot tends to rub against the ground once the sole has worn down and, once the upper starts to tear, the life expectancy of the shoes has already been seriously compromised. After only 100 kilometres with my new pair of leather soled Run Amocs, the prognostic is not good: there is already a sizeable hole appearing.

My conclusion is that the extra flexibility and lightness is not worth the cost once you take into account longevity. Don't get me wrong, the Run Amoc Original Lites are still my favourite training shoe by far -   evidenced by the fact that I have just placed an order for a new pair (my original review can be found here). The leather sole experiment didn't work out so this time I am going to try going for a slightly wider fit. Hopefully this will mean I can eke out a couple of hundred kilometres more over and above the 1,000 kilometres I usually get out of a pair.

Vibram Five FIngers SeeYa

We live in confusing times: One of the best known shops for running shoes in Madrid is named after a man who did not wear them (Bikila). The latest fad is for the oxymoronic "barefoot shoes". You can find qualified medical doctors who will tell you that you will injure yourself running with minimalist shoes and yet you can find qualified medical doctors who will tell you that you will injure yourself running with cushioned shoes. We now have five fingers on our feet. (My youngest son still says that he has hurt his "little finger" when he really means his little toe.)

In the end I see it as a investment / return choice. Some people like jogging and others like running. Some people run to lose weight faster and others lose weight to run faster. I have friends who have gone down the minimalist shoes path but it is not something that I recommend to everyone. It takes a significant amount of investment to change your running gait and the return you get on that investment depends very much on why you run in the first place. A good reason to try minimalism is if you find you are getting injured in spite of running in cushioned shoes with stability control that were supposedly designed to prevent this. On the other hand, if you are prone to injury, then you are more likely to fall into the trap I fell into by adopting minimalist shoes too quickly and without allowing time for your body to adapt to the changes.

Since I got a stress fracture in my foot just over three years ago in New York, I have since avoided wearing my Vibram Five Finger KSOs (Keep Stuff Out). Neither my wife nor my boss would have been very impressed if I had literally stepped on the same stone twice. Since then I have made a fairly natural transition to very minimalist shoes as each time I have come to replace my current pair, they have seemed to me to be bulky and clumsy until finally settling on my Soft Star Run Amocs which have been a staple part of my running training for over a year, and my super-light Vivobarefoot Ultras which I have been my racing shoes over the same period. Actually, the real reason for not donning my KSOs is that they are slightly too small for me (size 45).

I have been waiting for Vibram to bring out a model which competes on weight with my Ultras as, lately, they have been bringing out models which are less and less minimalist. Personally, I find the huge array of models of Vibram Five Fingers to be baffling: it was much easier when there was basically just the Sprint and the KSO to choose between. The other issue is that size is extremely important when buying a pair of Vibrams as they have to fit snuggly but not too snuggly. My local Vibram retailer - Pies Libres in Pozuelo - has recently got some models in the biggest sizes in stock (for my benefit, it would seem) so I was able to check the fit (47 as it turns out) this time, rather than risking it again by buying over the internet. As far as the model goes, the brightly coloured SeeYas being the flimsiest and lightest Five Fingers to date called out to me from the crowd.

I've done a couple of runs in them (one easy, one tempo run at 16 kph and some 200m strides at 19 kph) and they feel fast. They are slightly heavier than my Ultras as you can see below but they have a harder sole which feels as though it returns more of the energy: it may just be a psychological thing but psychology is important. My complaint about the Utras has always been regarding its slightly soft sole (which also makes it less hard wearing). I couldn't see how this could be made harder without a trade off in weight but the Vibram  Five Fingers are able to minimalize this penalty by cutting away a large part of the sole that doesn't really make contact with the ground. (You might think that they could save some extra by getting rid of the heel as well but I believe that even midfoot runners should have their heel "kiss" the ground). Other reviews I have seen say that they are a very specific model - one reviewer likened them to a triathlon bike which is only really good at one thing: triathlons - but, after my experience with other (truly) minimalist shoes, they seem fairly sturdy with good grip and reasonable protection against treading on small stones. Having said that, my plan is to use them for all my tempo and speed work on treadmills and pavements and to stick to my Run Amocs for trail running. What I haven't yet figured out is whether they will overtake my Ultras as being my racing shoe.

There is one drawback, however, and that is that they give me blisters on the tops of my toes and the side of my feet where the strap pulls across. Actually, they are not really blisters but more like small open wounds as this happens so rapidly during a run that there is not really a chance to go through the blister-callous-hard skin cycle but instead the wound-scab-wound cycle. I've spent a fortune on Compeed plasters already. To be fair, if I were to run in my Utras with no socks, the same thing would happen but I really think that I should be able to run in my Vibrams without socks (apart from it being annoying to have to always find a pair of socks with toes).

When I have got some more miles (kilometres) under my belt with the Vibram Seeyas (not to mention my recently acquired Run Amocs with leather sole) I'll write up how I've been getting on with them.

Vibram Five Fingers SeeYa size 47

Vivobarefoot Ultras size 48

Soft Star Run Amoc Original Lite with leather sole size 13A

Soft Star Run Amoc Original Lite size 13A (old pair)

Decathlon New Feel size 48

For reference: the Mizunos I ran my first Marathon in

Kickstarter: Altum Dress Shoe

I like to support things that seem like a good idea to me, especially in these times of "crisis" when there is a deficit of entrepreneurialism and an excess of navel-gazing. America excels in picking itself up by its bootstraps and it seems to me that this is due to the idea of "The American Dream" which is so deeply embedded in their culture as well as a lack of red tape when it comes to setting up a new company and ways to limit your personal risk if things end up going belly up. Perhaps this is why Kickstarter has yet to come to Europe.

Admittedly, a lot of projects on Kickstarter add as much value as farts in the wind - "please give me money so I can travel the world and make a documentary about it that will be really successful" - but there are also some very serious projects. In fact, I find it striking that every so often established businesses use it as a way to raise capital and gauge public demand for a new product.

I've also been searching for a pair of "barefoot dress shoes" that I could wear with a suit but without the heel counter, the restrictive toe box and the rigid sole that I hate so much about my work shoes. I've always hated wearing shoes but I've also always hated having to wear a tie: it's just one of those things. It has only been as a side effect of running with so-called barefoot shoes that I have come to realize that some shoes are actually comfortable and can be useful. The nearest I have got to date to something I can wear (and have worn) in the office - although, admittedly, only on casual Fridays - are the Run Amoc Dash shoes. The problem they have is that the leather is so soft and flexible that my toes leave visible indentations in the uppers, making them look like a pair of ballerinas plimsolls and the "go faster" stripe on the back makes them look less than formal.

While browsing around on the internet last night, I came across this Kickstarter project which was getting some serious plugging from the popular Birthday Shoes Blog: the Altum's Barefoot Dress Shoe.

I'm excited to have kickstarted my first ever project! (My wife said that I should go for the black ones because the brown ones would attract too much attention to what are already slightly weird shoes.) Since my dog ate my last pair of normal work shoes I have been wearing my MBT "weeble" shoes which are great but they are very bulky and today they were partly to blame for me spilling my smoothy all over my suit...

Soft Star Run Amocs with leather sole

I've now been running in Run Amocs (Original Lite) for over a year now but obviously not in the same pair. In fact, I have just taken delivery of my 5th pair. The inevitable downside of minimalist shoes is that they last a fairly minimal length of time even with a Vibram sole. This is how they end up after about 1,000 kilometres and, for some bizarre reason (that has nothing to do with the shoes and everything to do with me), it is always the left shoe that wears out first. The sole wears down to very thin and the leather upper starts to rub against the ground and eventually tears as you can see in the photo below:

In fact, if it weren't for the tear in the upper, they would probably last me a good deal longer. I believe that as you get older you become more and more "asymmetrical" as you collect little injuries here and there that cause subtle changes to the kinetic chain that are not the same on both sides. In fact, we are born slightly asymmetrical to begin with (and no, I wasn't thinking about that). Perhaps if I improved my running technique I wouldn't wear out the shoes in this way but I think I have gone far enough down that road and, if my body has decided that my left foot should land in that particular way, I'm sure it has a good reason for doing so.

I thought I would try something different. Soft Star have started to offer a version of their shoes (moccasins really) with a "tough leather sole". They make it very clear with several disclaimers that the leather soles have much less traction than the rubber Vibram soles and so should be worn with caution, but this is something that doesn't tend to worry me unless I am running in mud or in hectic places like Vietnam, or indeed in mud in Vietnam. The sole is about the same thickness as the Vibram sole (5mm) and has a veiny patina which I guess will make them slightly less slippy than a new pair of dress shoes.

The leather sole is both softer and much more flexible than its Vibram counterpart. This is both a good and a bad thing as it's not really possible to have one without the other. Flexibility is good but the worry I have is how much it will hurt if I land on a stone while I am running. I did some unscientific tests at home involving wearing a Vibram sole on my right foot and a leather sole on my left foot and jumping onto stones and couldn't discern a difference between the two. It's kind of annoying when you land on a stone but it's not really all that painful. The other question is how much more durable (if at all) the tough leather sole will be... These two doubts will be answered over the next few months as I put them through their paces.

Droopy shoes

Happy Feet Too

My wife has been singing the praises of shea butter (beurre de karité) since she first started bringing it back from Mali years ago. As it smells pretty rancid, I didn't really pay her much attention at first, but she suggested that I try it on my feet which are unlikely to smell any worse than they actually do.

I don't know whether to attribute this to the shea butter or just to having given my feet time to adjust to the travails of marathon training but, one thing is for sure, my feet are in better shape than ever with not even a single blister in sight. On Sunday I ran 35 km in my Run Amocs with no socks and not a single blister to show for it. For some reason, I always seem to get far more blisters on my left foot and on my right - usually on the skin of the first and fifth metatarsals - but the new skin has finally come through with a nice leathery thickness that should hopefully last me to the finish line of New York in a couple of weeks' time. Bear in mind that the biggest threat to my breaking 3 hours in the Marathon in Seville earlier this year was, in fact, a piece of very hard skin which was causing the neighbouring skin to ruck up and become irritated which I had to remove days before the race. Blisters are no laughing matter!

Pies libres

I had to do a serious double take on my way to work on the bike this morning. I noticed a new shop in the village that I live in on the outskirts of Madrid, dedicated to minimalist running shoes - in particular, Vibram Five Fingers! Unbelievable. To think that I was getting all those weird looks running right in front of this spot in my Vibram KSO's just over three years ago.

I've been thinking of getting some more for some time now as the KSO's I have are a little on the small side and, in practice, I never use them because my toes feel too compressed. On the other hand, it's not as though I actually need any more running shoes. Between my Soft Star Run Amocs for outside, my 8€ Newfeel Many's from Decathlon for the more sweaty treadmill training that causes the dye to bleed on my Run Amocs and my Vivobarefoot Ultras for competition, I think I have got everything covered. Still, you can bet I will be popping in to investigate the shop on the way home...

POSTDATA: I finally got around to dropping in to the Pies Libres shop last night. "Are you the American cyclist who posted something about us on your blog?" Well, more of a British triathlete but let's not split hairs. As I was so easily recognized I assumed that I must be one of the very few people to ever visit the shop but in fact it was so busy that I had to wait to be attended to! For having blogged about them, I was given a 5% discount on any Vibram Five Fingers, a free class on running technique as well as an invitation to the Expobike event, taking place in Madrid on the 14, 15 and 16th of September.

As usual, I was a little overwhelmed by the number of Vibram models available and ended up with the familiar dilemma of whether to buy a lightweight model for road and treadmill running or a more rugged pair for trail running. I must say, the person who attended me was very knowledgeable about Vibram shoes and seemed to know his stuff about minimalist running. It was useful to confirm that I would probably have to order the biggest size available (47) but not having one in that size to try on took the heat out of the moment and made me realize that I don't really need another pair of running shoes now that I have all the bases covered. It's more likely that I will end up buying a couple of pairs for the kids, now that they make them in their size.

I didn't leave the shop empty handed, though. They offer osteopathy, massages and pilates as well as a lot of other techniques which I hadn't heard of so I bought my wife an introductory session to hopefully help with the back problems she suffers from. If her experience is favourable, I may even go myself.

Soft Star Sale!

(Disclaimer: I have nothing to gain by plugging Soft Star, other than helping ensure that they stay in business!)

Soft Star Shoes, the makers of my minimalist running shoes of choice, are having a sale. I just picked up a couple of pairs of shoes for half price - enough to last me to the end of the year and beyond. The second pair I bought seem to be lasting much longer than the first, which I got about 1,000 km out of before having to buy a new pair.

Article on Minimalist Running Shoes in SporTraining

The article I wrote on Minimalist Running Shoes will be out any day now, in the latest edition of SporTraining. What could be better than to have one of my heroes on the front cover.

Soft Star RunAmoc update

After my original review, I thought I would post an update on how my RunAmocs were holding up to the punishment:

Interestingly asymmetric wear patterns...

Uh-oh

As you can see, the upper has torn slightly - it was probably the result of stepping too close to a sharp rock - but it has been like that for over a month now and doesn't seem to be getting much worse. I'm just glad that it was the upper that ripped and not my foot! On the other hand, after what I estimate to be about 850 kilometers, the soles are starting to wear quite thin. I reckon they've got another few hundred kilometers in them before they wear completely through, so I've already placed my order for my second pair that should hopefully arrive this side of Christmas. The "elves" seem a lot more busy this time of year, though. Last time there was only a lead time of 4 days between placing the order and the shoes being handmade and shipped. This time I haven't yet received the email saying they have been shipped. Maybe my review has turned so many people on to them that they can't cope with the demand! It's a shame that the soles aren't a little more durable - at this rate I'll be getting through a pair every couple of months in Marathon season. In this regard, I think that the Vivobarefoot soles are more hard wearing but, in that case the uppers are the weak point. In any case, I can't imagine training in any other "shoe" than the RunAmocs now.

I've also ordered another model, the RunAmoc "Dash", with a different upper and a thinner "road" sole. I plan to use these for casual wear but I thought I could also try out these options for running at the same time.

Run & Race

I just picked up this month's Run & Race mainly for the narcissistic reason that they have included a photo of me from the training camp I went on in Morocco recently:

There were a couple of genuinely interesting articles on running shoes. Now, when people ask me for recommendations for running shoes, I often start off by saying that there are basically two paths that you can take. The easy one is to have your gait analyzed and be recommended shoes and possibly even orthotics based on whether you are a pronator or supinator. The harder path, and the one that very few people I know have chosen, is to retrain your gait and go for minimalist or "barefoot" running shoes, relying on your own natural cushioning from the arch of your foot, the pronation of the foot and the elasticity of the Achilles tendon. These two paths are pretty much orthogonal to each other so you can't really try one of them out before deciding which to follow. If you choose "minimal" then you have to make a big commitment to reconditioning your muscles, tendons, ligaments and bones to a completely different set of stresses and strains. This means building running up again from scratch, something that few people are prepared to do and that others do not have the patience to stick to. And there is nothing wrong with that. You can perfectly well go down the path of orthotics and motion control shoes with lots of cushioning but you should be aware that you are creating a dependency, rather like someone who needs to take sleeping pills to sleep at night.

 I mention all this because there were two articles back-to-back that appeared to be saying completely the opposite of each other. On closer reading, they both made a lot of sense only that one was for those traveling along the path of motion control shoes and the other was for those traveling along the path of minimalist shoes.

"The truth about running shoes"

The first article was actually written by the guy who recommended I should run with orthotics and who had some custom ones made for me to run in. With these orthotics I could then choose "neutral" running shoes because the orthotics would correct my tendency to overpronate. With hindsight I can see that this was just a patch to correct the fact that I was running with poor technique, with shoes that encouraged me to heel strike (and therefore overpronate) and with weakness in the supporting muscles of my feet and lower legs. On the other hand, just like taking a pill, it worked. The pain I was getting in my ITB (isquiotibial band) immediately subsided and it was only months later that knee pain forced me to choose the other path. Apart from the ostentatious title "The truth about running shoes", I can appreciate that what he says applies to the majority of runners who are not prepared to go down the same path as I did.

"Minimalist shoes - are we ready?"

I was excited to see an article in a running magazine about minimalist shoes that was not an attempt to pass off lightweight racing flats from major brands off as such (unlike the review sections in Runner's World, for example). It's a shame that it has taken two years since I first came across them for it to appear - one would expect the running magazines to be ahead of the curve - but it doesn't take to much imagination to understand why this might be. I wasn't too surprised to see that the author of the article was actually Jonathan, my trainer. In the first paragraph he mentions the impact that the book "Born to Run" (only recently translated into Spanish) has had. In fact, I was the one that gave him that book a couple of years ago! As I would expect from Jonathan, it's a very well balanced article that avoids the evangelical side typical of those of us who have chosen the path of minimalist shoes and instead emphasizes the point that the adaptation to the different style of running that this entails can take a long time. I remember him saying to me in Berlin where he was running the Marathon and I was not (due to my foot being in an airboot for precisely not allowing time for adaptation) something that he also closed the article with, that "perhaps 37 years of wearing shoes can undo millions of years of evolution". In other words, it may be that our feet are amazing works of engineering that have evolved to allow us to run for hundreds of kilometers unshod but that doesn't mean that we can ignore the adaptations our bodies have made in the short space of our lifetime to wearing shoes.

Thanks for following!

No, this is not the profile of one of the stages of the Tour de France. It is a graph of the number of hits my blog has been getting a month since its inception almost exactly one year ago. (By the way, the sharp drop off in November just reflects the fact that we have only just started the month.) Another milestone is that the blog has received more than 20,000 hits. So, thank you to everyone who has been following this blog, either publicly or from the sidelines. I get a big kick out of knowing that people are interested to read what I have to say because my wife and most of my friends are not. This blog has been an outlet for my obsessions much like deejaying was (will be again?) for my passion for music.

I thought this might be a good moment to link to some of my best and most popular posts over the last year, especially for those of you who are new around these parts.

Race reports
Maratón de San Sebastián 2010 - 3:07
San Silvestre Vallecana 2010
Media Maratón de Getafe 2011 - 1:23
Lisbon International Triathlon (Half Ironman) 2011 - 4:44
Ironman Brazil (Florianópilis) 2011 - 10:45
Lake Merced (San Francisco) 2011
Media Maratón de Valladolid 2011 - 1:22

Usung heroes
Graeme Obree
Chrissie Wellington
Kilian Journet
Pertti Karpinnen
Andy Holmes
Marc Herremans

Shoes
Soft Star Original Run Amoc LITE Review
The quest for the ultimate all-round minimalist running shoe
Kids and running
The Imelda Marcos of Triathlon

Running technique
Running Technique #1
Running Technique #2
Running up and down hills
Treadmill versus road: To lean or not to lean? 
Keep those knees up boy!
You gotta have rhythm
Compact arm swing

Trips
Budapest
Morocco

Miscellaneous
Epilogue (post Ironman Brazil)
I'm back with a vengeance
Tempting fate
Time management
A week during my Ironman preparation
Top triathlon iPhone apps
Home gym
Nutrition plan for Lisbon Half Ironman
Master class