I recently bought a pair of Vibram FiveFingers Bikilas to replace my VFF Sprints which had developed a hole on the bottom of the left fourth toe. The Sprints probably only had about 150 miles on them, but I attributed the wear to some time on especially rough pavement.

But now, after less than 30 miles, the new Bikilas are showing serious wear on the same toe.

People normally get well over 500 miles out of pair of VFFs, so I must be doing something wrong.

Advice from Barefoot Ken Bob:

The purpose of so-called “transition” footwear…is to protect you from the pain of becoming aware that you have not, yet, learned how to run barefoot.

His point is, you can’t learn to run barefoot until you’ve actually run barefoot. Near-barefoot helps, but it’s not enough.

What I had to do was get over my mostly-social anxiety about going barefoot and put down some miles sans-shoes. Whatever I was doing to shred my shoes would be immediately apparent. Even if it turned out to be painful, my body would naturally adjust before I tore the skin off my toes.

If you’re a VFF runner and haven’t yet tried running completely barefoot, do it. It’s impossible to explain just how wonderful it feels.

After the initial euphoria wore off, I settled in and focused on my form, especially my left footstrike. Right away I felt a hot spot under my toe and then noticed the expected change in my landings.

I’m pretty sure the abnormal wear came from a combination of the following:

1. Pushing off too much with my toes.
2. A small skid on footstrike from being too far up on my toes, this skidding causes the toes to push down and try to stabilize.

When I first switched to minimal shoes, I think I mentally overcompensated for my heelstrike by running up on my toes too much. There’s a big difference between a forefoot landing and a toe landing. Landing too far up on the toes introduces a slight amount of sliding or skidding before the heel comes down. VFFs let you get away with this, but when it’s just your skin on the ground your body won’t let you. The goal of a barefoot footstrike is kind of a patting motion. The foot lands, the arches absorb energy and the foot is immediately back up. There’s not much toe-springing and absolutely no “sliding into” a landing.

Overdoing a toe landing also redirects a lot of impact stress through the metatarsals, which then pound into the second and third cuneiform bones right over the arch. Coincidentally, I had been having some soreness across the top of my feet, something Barefoot Ken Bob previously attributed to “running up on your toes.” Since making an effort to flatten out my landings, that pain is gone.

Still more from Barefoot Ken Bob, something to work on during my next run:

And finally (at least for now), lift the entire foot – most people just lift the heel, and the toe or ball of the foot, just kind of drags behind – so put a little effort into lifting the front of the foot, at the same time as the heel, so everything comes up, about the same time.

When the barefoot luminaries say to ditch the shoes and learn barefoot, listen to them.

Related: I took my brother Mike out for a short barefoot run (actually I pushed him way too far, but he said he enjoyed it anyway). That was the first time I’d ever gone completely barefoot. I was fine, but he developed a small blister on the exact same toe in the exact same spot as my VFFs. Genetics?

On Sunday October 10th, I’ll be running in the 1st Annual NYC Barefoot Run on Governors Island. (see update below)

I’ve been torn for the past couple weeks about whether or not to do this, since it’s exact same time as the Staten Island Half-Marathon.

Each year NYRR organizes five half-marathons in NYC, one for each borough. I was too late to sign up for the NYC (Manhattan) Half in March, but I ran the Brooklyn, Queens and Bronx races and really enjoyed the experience and am proud of accomplishment. Is easy to participate if you have a place to stay near all these races, you can always find cool obx rentals around the country that fit perfect for this occasions.

But there can only be one first.

There will be another Staten Island Half next year and really there couldn’t be a more appropriate date: 10-10-10.

The barefoot run with Chris McDougall last month was a fantastic experience. Great people and just a ridiculous amount of fun. Chris can’t make it, but Barefoot Ted (ironically, a fellow ACCD alum) and Dr. Daniel Lieberman will be.

There’s a registration cap of 500 participants, so if you’re interested, don’t wait.

Update: Unfortunately, I had to travel unexpectedly and will be unable to attend the run. I wish everyone the best and will put in some barefoot miles Sunday so I can at least say I was there in spirit.

After running more than 1300 miles with Nike+, I’m giving up the sensor.

My main reason has nothing to do with Nike. I’ve just reached a place where I’m more interested in mappable distance and less concerned with counting my footsteps or getting credit for crossing the street. Keeping track of miles does give me a very concrete feeling of accomplishment, I now use RunKeeper on my iPhone, and manually crosspost everything on Dailymile.

“At its heart, running is pretty simple, so I try to keep it that way.”
— Anton Krupicka

As I’ve been stepping down to more minimal shoes, I’ve also been trying to simplify what I take with me. Carrying an iPhone and iPod nano (plus Nike dongle) was kind of ridiculous, especially considering I’ve mostly stopped listening to music while running. Worrying about the shoe sensor had also become a mental obstacle to running completely barefoot. (I did spent a moment imagining how I could attach a sensor to my foot with tape or bandages, but quickly realized how insane that would be.)

I’ve never actually owned a pair of Nike+ shoes. Before going minimalist I ran in Asic Kayanos, with the Nike+ sensor sealed in plastic wrap and threaded under the laces. I did the same thing my Nike Frees and even had a sensor attached to the strap on my Vibram FiveFingers Sprints.

Ironically, I switched from Free 5.0s to 3.0s a week before the Nike Free Run+ shipped, another few days and I probably would have gotten a pair. Then, I decided to give up the sensor completely just as Nike (finally) shipped their Nike+ GPS app.

Nike.com

I wish I had nothing bad to say about Nike+. Mostly, it really worked for me and I’m thankful. But Nike has done some really dumb things which mar the experience. The most glaring thing is their apparent disregard for their users. Basically there’s no guarantee that any site feature will be there tomorrow. I’m not alone in this, their Get Satisfaction boards are filled with annoyed users.

Last year they redesigned the website, which is a critical part of the Nike+ experience. While it looks great, it’s a functional trainwreck. The site is horribly slow, by design and from poor execution. Just getting to the login screen — which, after a year still can’t remember a user from one visit to another — either redirects through the iTunes sync landing page (3.4MB) or the main Nike Running main page (4MB) before finally loading the Nike+ page (924k). The site is also all Flash, so even with a fast connection there’s still a mess of gratuitous animation to suffer through. This year Nike finally added a rudimentary non-Flash mobile site, but I found it slow, clumsy and mostly useless.

The most unforgivable incident happened last year. I used Nike’s “resolution” feature to set a goal of 365 miles in 2009. Throughout the year, the site’s progress tracking was a great motivation and despite a mid-year setback, I caught up and was on track to to meet my goal. Then, with a few weeks left in 2009, Nike shut down the old site and failed to transition everyone’s resolution goals over to the new site. Twenty miles short of something I’d been working towards for a full year, all the tools I’d been using to measure my progress were removed. (I met my goal, but I had to track the last handful of miles myself.)

Related to the resolutions was the disappearance of milestone certificates. As a new runner, my first 100 mile certificate meant a great deal to me. The 500 mile certificate was even better. A few months ago I passed 1000 miles and discovered that the certificates had been discontinued and replaced with a meaningless and arbitrary color-levels indicator. Personal triumph, Nike+ letdown (I’m not alone here either). Yes, I could keep going and get to purple, but all I’d get is a different color label and a vapidly snarky notification on the site. That’s assuming Nike hadn’t dropped the color system before I got there.

The last thing that sticks in my mind was how Nike botched the Human Race 10k last year. I ended up receiving two congratulatory emails (two runs counted) but no credit on the site. Things don’t look good for this year either, September’s almost over and there’s been no news of the 2010 race happening at all. The two previous Human Races I knew of were August 31, 2008 and October 24, 2009.

I greatly appreciate what Nike+ helped me do, but can’t help feeling slighted and I no longer recommend it when people ask what I use to track my miles.

On Wedneday August 11th, I joined about 70 other people and ran from Harlem to Brooklyn with Chris McDougall, author of Born to Run. It was an awesome afternoon.

I wasn’t able to stay for Chris’s book reading at Word in Greenpoint, but the few minutes I got to talk with him confirmed what I’d suspected: When Chris said he was “infected with a spirit of camaraderie and fun” I’m certain he was talking about himself. He’s a genuine, kind and patient person who gave freely of his time and knowledge and who runs for the pure human joy of it. He’s also whip-smart. (and almost as tall as me)

I was really nervous beforehand, not even committing to my Vibram FiveFingers until I was walking out the door. My nerves were misplaced however, this was definitely not a race, and the people running were interesting, supportive and just generally wonderful. The pace was relaxed and comfortable enough that I spent a good deal of time talking to other runners. The group also stopped several times along the way to rest and gather everyone back up. Even though the distance was 3+ miles longer than I’d ever done near-barefoot, my muscles, bones and joints were fine. I did pick up a blister on the ball of my left foot, but nothing that will hamper me in the Bronx Half-Marathon on Sunday.

At the end, A handful of us were sitting with our bare feet in the playground sprinkler on Franklin and Noble. The sun was behind the buildings, and as we talked there was a wonderful, peaceful feeling of accomplishment and community.

Addendum:
Organizer John Durant posted a bunch of photos.

NY Post reporter Susannah Calahan did the run with us and the Post posted this video:

NBC Universal Sports reporter Matt Stroup also ran with us: Barefoot run NYC: The Christopher McDougall experience. Apparently no one warned him about how long it takes to strengthen the calves, I bet he isn’t able to walk down stairs for a week.

CBS News was there too:

Barefoot Fresca: Photos From the NYC “Born to Run” Barefoot Running Event

Barefoot Running with Chris McDougall – a set on Flickr

My follow-up research to Born to Run turned up bits and pieces of what would become the book scattered around the web, dating all the way back to 2005. These provide an unusual opportunity to see how author Chris McDougall crafted the book over almost five years. Great books often seem effortless, sprung whole from the author’s mind, but the reality of the writer’s craft is much different.

Chris McDougall spent years developing the book’s central stories; traveling to Mexico, meeting Caballo Blanco and the Tarahumara, training for and then completing Caballo’s 50 mile race in the Copper Canyons.

I found some of the first steps of his journey in this June 23, 2005 New York Times article, Kick Off Your Shoes and Run Awhile. A year later, a sizeable portion of what would become Chapter 3 of Born to Run first appeared, almost unchanged, in the July/August 2006 issue of Men’s health, titled “The Men who live forever.”

As someone who makes things, I found it fascinating to glimpse how all the elements evolved and to see how years of development and struggle eventually produced such a wonderful book. Some might nitpick and point out discrepencies in the narrative, but discovering these details added another dimension and deepened my enjoyment.

In this interview Chris revealed additional details about the book. The Copper Canyons race took place in 2006 and Chris says he spent the following two and a half years “repeatedly messing up the book.”

In October 2009, Google twice invited Chris to speak as part of their Talks@Google series, first in Mountain View, then in New York City. The talks are about an hour each with some Q&A at the end. He doesn’t repeat much between the two and it’s great to hear some of Born To Run retold in his voice.

More recently, in July 2010, Chris gave a talk at the TEDxPennQuarter conference titled Reinventing Running. Many themes from the Google talks are here too, but reflect several months of refinement and are joined by some new ideas.

During the book’s initial publicity tour Chris appeared on the Daily Show and gave an hour-long interview with Philadelphia Public Radio’s Radio Times. He also took several intrepid reporters for “running” interviews–barefoot. These included the New York Times and ABCNews. There’s a great moment in the ABC interview (at about 2:30) where Chris casually rinses his feet in Central Park’s Bethesda fountain.

Chris often sounds like a big kid who somehow tricked everyone into paying him to talk about running around. In the running interviews, there’s no bravado or machismo in his demeanor, instead there’s an exuberant feeling of joy and of wanting to share that joy with everyone he meets.

When asked where he saw ultra-running in 10 years, Chris’s answer reflected his personal joy that colored so much of Born To Run:

The most exciting thing will be not the races so much as the ethos. Go to the Leadville Trail 100 some time, or even better, Caballo’s race with the Tarahumara down in the Copper Canyons. You’ll be infected with a spirit of camaraderie and fun that will change the way you run every mile afterward. I think the ultrarunning approach, if not the races, will come to dominate recreational running.

“Everyone thinks they know how to run, but it’s just as nuanced as any other activity.” Eric [Orton] told me. “Ask most people and they’ll say, ‘People just run the way they run.’ That’s ridiculous. Does everyone just swim the way they swim?” For every other sport, lessons are fundamental; you don’t go out and start slashing away with a golf club or sliding down a mountain on skis until someone takes you through the steps and teaches you proper form. If not, inefficiency is guaranteed and injury is inevitable.

“Running is the same way.” Eric explained. “Learn it wrong, and you’ll never know how good it can feel.” (page 202-3)

Since reading Born To Run and following up with additional research, I’m running farther, faster and more comfortably than ever. Previously, my best month’s milage was 45 miles. Since March I’ve averaged over 85 miles per month with July topping 100 for the first time. Last year I ran 375 miles. Physically, I’m sure I could go farther, but nothing in the book helps find more hours in the day. I’ve also shaved about a minute off my average mile without really thinking about speed.

I don’t have a coach and haven’t looked at video myself running (yet), but I have become highly focused on improving my mechanics and efficiency. These are some of the ideas I try to keep in my head while running:

• shorter stride
• Faster leg turnover
• soft, quiet landings
• pull the feet up off the ground
• pull legs back with the butt
• feet should be moving backwards before they touch the ground
• straight back
• “If it feels like work, you’re working too hard”
• Do I need to eat or drink?
• midfoot strike (land on the outside front of the foot, roll towards the big toe)
• “release the springs” (try to use the tendon’s natural, zero-cost springiness)
• Relax your hands and arms (don’t waste energy)
• smile

Also, perhaps especially, Caballo Blanco’s mantra from page 111:

“Think Easy, Light, Smooth and Fast. You start with easy, because if that’s all you get that’s not so bad. Then work on light. Make it effortless, like you don’t give a shit how high the hill is or how far you’ve got to go. When you’ve practiced that for so long that you forget you’re practicing, you work on making it smooooooth. You won’t have to worry about the last one — you get those three, and you’ll be fast.”

It’s still awkward, but I think I’ve felt it a couple times, usually somewhere past 4-6 miles into a run. My pace is faster than I’d have expected, but there it is; a grace and feeling of self-sustained movement and a sort of weightlessness and motion that feels like it could go on forever. Barefoot Ted described it well: “Like a fish slipping into water.”

A big part of adjusting my technique simply had to do with changing shoes. Despite having been previously diagnosed as a heavy over-pronator and clamped into motion-control shoes, it didn’t take long to become a minimal footwear convert. Less shoe gave me a better feel for the ground and increased flexibility across my feet. Read the whole story here: From Asics Kayanos to Nike Frees to Vibram FiveFingers and beyond

Getting past awkward

Ken Mierke is the exercise physiologist Chris trained with in chapter 27 and the creator of the efficiency-focused Evolution Running system.

“When I teach this technique and ask someone how it feels, if they say ‘Great!,’ I go ‘Damn!” That means they didn’t change a thing. The change should be awkward. You should go through a period where you’re no longer good at doing it wrong and not yet good at doing it right. You’re not only adapting your skills, but your tissues; you’re activating muscles that have been dormant most of your life. — Ken Mierke, page 206

The introduction to Ken’s instructional videos are online and are among the most helpful things I’ve found:
Part 1 (5:29), Part 2 (4:59), Part 3 (5:02), Part 4 (4:38) and Part 5 (4:23)

The third video especially talks about the zero-cost elastic recoil of the springlike Achilles tendons in our lower legs and how to benefit from it.

Two other articles by Ken, Creating Efficient Horizontal Propulsion and Maintaining High Turnover When Running Slowly (both on one page) talk about improving running efficiency by using leg muscles to reduce bouncing and increasing endurance with faster leg turnover. I’ve found bouncing to be a serious waste of energy and very hard on the joints.

On page 205, Ken makes the case for faster cadence to 62-year-old triathlete Alan Melvin:

“Kenyans have superquick foot turnover,” Ken said. “Quick, light leg contractions are more economical than big, forceful ones.”

“I don’t get it,” Alan said. “Don’t I want a longer stride, not a shorter one?”

“Let me ask you this,” Ken replied. “You ever see one of those barefoot guys in a 10k race?”

“Yeah. It’s like they’re running on hot coals.”

“You ever beat one of those barefoot guys?”

Alan reflected. “Good point.”

Upping my cadence might be the most challenging aspect of working on my form. Fast turnover, coupled with trying to pull my feet up off the ground and reducing ground-contact time has definitely affected how far I’m able to run. I’m going faster but my endurance hasn’t come close to catching up yet. When it works it feels great, but I tend to get winded quickly and am having a lot of trouble sustaining the faster cadence across any respectable distance.

Gordon Pirie is never mentioned in Born to Run, but his freely available book, “Running Fast and Injury Free” is worth reading, especially chapter 3, “Injuries, Technique and Shoes.” Gordon Pirie was outspoken with the confidence that he had lived and proven the ideas and techniques wrote about.

Pete Larson at RunBlogger (who also teaches Biology, Physiology and Biomechanics at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire) has posted dozens of excellent slow-motion videos showing various foot-strikes, both barefoot and in assorted footwear.

There are TONS of other running technique videos online, some of which are just patently awful. (“strike with your heel then roll off?! Gah!!) As an alternate or supplement to the ideas in the Evolution Running videos, I found Pose Running to have more of a direct approach to efficient mechanics which I prefer over the more holistic and metaphysical Chi Running.

It can seem at times while researching all of this, that everyone must know about it by now. Every running-focused blogger read the book months before I did and online community discussions about the book are all well established. But looking around the last race or anytime I run when other people are out, it’s clear that not enough people do know about this. So many people are bouncing along, pounding the ground in enormous shoes and grimacing in pain — the ideas behind more efficient, natural running and minimal footwear obviously have a ways to go.

Born to Run is a true story and as such, the characters in the book are real people. This post is a sort of a Google-ey “Where are they now?” for many of those who played a part in the book.

• Christopher McDougall
  Chris has been happily bouncing around the country promoting Born to Run. He’s got an affable goofiness and seems genuinely filled with joy when he talks about his journey in writing the book.Chris spoke at TEDxPennQuarter in July 2010:
  Christopher McDougall – REINVENTING RunningIn 2009 Google invited Chris to to speak, both in CA and NYC, as part of the Google Talks series:
  Chris McDougall @ Google California (October 16, 2009)
  Chris McDougall @ Google New York (October 22, 2009)

  Chris is also blogging.

• Caballo Blanco (Micah True)
  Caballo organizes the Copper Canyons Ultra-Marathon and leads what can only be called adventure tours of the Copper Canyons at caballoblanco.com.
• Barefoot Ted McDonald
  Ted, of course, has a blog: Barefoot Ted’s Adventures. He also started the Minimalist Runner Google Group and is active on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.In March 2010, Google invited Ted to speak as part of Talks@Google.As an aside, I loved how in the book Chris set Caballo Blanco and Barefoot Ted as the Yin and Yang of natural running.
• Eric Orton
  Eric was one of Chris’s trainers from Chapter 27. He leads the online running community Running With Eric. The site has instructional videos and many well-informed discussions. Eric’s personal training and coaching business is at Train with Eric.
• Ken Mierke
  Ken is the head coach at Fitness Concepts. The introduction to Ken’s Evolution Running video can be watched online where he use different systems of working out as weights and exercise bikes, and also how to get  legalized steroids for improved results.
• Dr. Ruth Heidrich
  Dr. Ruth is the nutrionist, triathlete and cancer-survivor Chris spoke with in Chapter 27 (salad for breakfast? on page 210) and one seriously inspiring woman.
• Scott Jurek
  Scott is active on Facebook and Twitter, he also has a promotional site and blog.
• Luis Escobar
  Runner and photographer, Luis posts his running photos at All We Do is Run.
• Joe Vigil
  Legendary Coach Vigil appears in a few short videos which are worth watching. The first, which Chris referenced on page 94, is his parable about The Goddess of Wisdom and Goddess of Wealth. Another inspirational clip is Great Coaches-Olympic Distance Coach Joe Vigil. That appears to be an outtake from the documentary The Long Green Line, which is well worth watching (it’s on Hulu).
• Dennis Bramble and David R. Carrier
  Dr. Bramble and David R Carrier are professors of Biology at the University of Utah. Dr. Carrier’s research is focused on the interrelationship of animal movement and evolution. Dr. Bramble has recently been focused on human evolution and our human capacity for physical endurance.
• Daniel Lieberman
  Dr. Lieberman is a Professor of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University where he leads the Harvard Skeletal Biology Lab. Together with co-author Dennis Bramble, he has published a number of scientific papers, the latest has been frequently cited as contributing to a scientific foundation for barefoot running. Since his 2010 paper was published, he’s become something of a “science rockstar,” including being dubbed The Barefoot Professor in a video by the Journal Nature.
• Louis Liebenberg
  Dr. Liebenberg is the South African mathematician who ran down a kudu with the Kalahari Bushmen in Africa. His 1990 Book, The Art of Tracking, the Origin of Science is currently out of print (considering the only used copy I could find recently sold for $250, someone might want to consider reprinting this). In 2008 he published “The relevance of persistence hunting to human evolution” in The Journal of Human Evolution. Dr. Liebenberg is the Managing Director of CyberTracker and has a semi-public Facebook page.
• Billy Barnett
  Billy’s living in Hawaii, here’s his personal blog.
• Norawas De Rarámuri (Friends of the Tarahumara)
  This is a non-profit created to support the Rarámuri culture.

Several other people from the book are online, but I chose not to link them out of respect for their apparent desire to keep their private lives private. If someone mentioned in the book isn’t here, it’s because I guessed they wouldn’t have wanted to be here. (If that’s you and I’m wrong, let me know)

I also wanted to comment on an unintentionally poetic edit made to the book’s cover photo. In Louis Escobar’s original image, Billy “bonehead” Barnett is standing next to a seated Caballo Blanco. Somewhere along the book’s journey to print, Caballo was photoshopped out, vanishing, perhaps appropriately, into the sky above the Barrancas del Cobre. Barefoot Ted posted the original photo.

The Japanese release of Born to Run uses the original photo with a restored Caballo.