Barefoot in the snow

I’ve never been the kind of person to keep new toys in their boxes for long.  So its hardly surprising that after receiving a new pair of trainers for Christmas, that snow or no snow, by boxing day I was itching to get them on and get out for a run.

The trainers in question were Vertram Five Finger Sprints. These strange looking shoes are a little bit special, they’re regarded as a barefoot trainer, which means the’re pretty minimal, consisting of a thin rubber sole, an individual pockets for each toe, a couple of velcro fastenings and very little else.

I first heard of ‘five fingers’, when I read the book ‘born to run’ and I have to admit I was pretty intrigued, sceptical, but intrigued none the less. I mean surely my feet couldn’t take the kind of hammering they’d get on the open fells, with uneven surfaces, rough tracks and razor sharp rocks without at least a little protection.

I wasn’t quite intrigued enough to buy a pair straight away, but after reading Desiree’s posts on Dailymile about running in her five fingers I was giving it serious consideration, I guess it was talking to Henda on our trip to India that finally convinced me to go out and buy a pair though. When I say, going out and buying a pair, what I actually mean is I bought a pair online… they are still not that popular in the UK that I could find a local stockists.

As I set off into the snow, on that first run, I wasn’t all all sure that I was going to get much further than the end of the street before having to turn back. Not least because I thought my toes might freeze, or my feet be battered and bleeding after running on those harsh roads with so little cushioning. Much to my surprise though, my feet didn’t feel cold at all and while I could feel in the ground under my feet in an entirely new way it wasn’t at all painful. Running in the five fingers actually came quite naturally and I’d go as far as saying that the felt strangely comfortable.

The sensation was not dissimilar to running in inov8 xtalons, which have a relatively little protection with their 6mm soles.  You can feel the ground beneath your feet far more clearly than ordinary trainers, in my case the squigginess of the snow, the roughness of the trail, and the toughness of the roads, in a strange sort of way this gives you a grounding in your surroundings that you don’t normally feel, yet its not as hard on your feet as you might expect.

As I ran, I found myself running far more lightly, gripping a little with my toes, but not putting as much weight on my heels. Normally I struggle on the uphill sections, but in the five fingers I seemed to have a new energy, on the downhills on the other hand where I normally fly I seemed a little slower, pull back more than normal  especially on the roads.

The idea of running in barefeet is that its a far more natural way of running and that it helps to strengthen your arches and improve your running style. But I guess that any change in style, requires some sort of learning curve and time to build up new muscles.

All in all I  really enjoyed my first run in five fingers. I’m not saying that they are for everyone, or that I will run in them all the time, but they certainly will have a place along side my Asics and my inov8s and I look forward to running in them many more times over the coming months and getting used to a new style of running.

[Side note: Some of my own earliest memories are of running around in bare feet at my parents caravan near Pooley Bridge, in the Lake district. We would spend much of the summer there, running around and playing outdoors and I seem to recall taking my shoes off at the first opportunity and not wanting to put them back on. To this day I still take my shoes and socks off as soon as I get into the house and quite often drive in barefeet.]