First Run in Vibram Bikilas
November 16th, 2011 § 3 Comments
Yesterday I got my Vibram Bikilas from the little brown truck. After reading a bunch about barefoot or minimalist running I have been wanting to at least try it. I know a number of folks who indicated that they have had less problems with the typical running injuries since they have switched to either barefoot or minimalist running.
The Vibram Five Fingers website cautions that runners should take the transition from regular running shoes to Vibrams slowly. In fact, the cautions and caveats are so numerous that I was kind of worried how my first run would go.
After I got my shoes from the UPS man I put them on to wear around the house. I must say, it does take a bit longer to get these things on. You have to kind of wiggle all your toes into each individual toe pocket. My little toes were kind of a problem because of the fact that they normally curve inward towards the rest of my foot. It took a bit of wrestling to get them settled in their own pocket instead of crammed into the adjacent pocket with their neighbors.
I then wore them around the house for a bit to get used to them. After about a hour or so, it was my daughter’s and my running time. Lately, my daughter has been running with me. I usually do the first mile with her, and then run 3 to 3.5 miles solo on weekdays and then do a long run on Saturday morning of 10 to 15 miles. We usually start out with a brief walk to get warmed up before we get running. The walk didn’t feel as odd as I thought it would. This was a hopeful sign.
Then as we began to run I was very surprised that I didn’t have to change my gait much at all. I have always had a pretty efficient gait and am a mid foot striker. My gait didn’t feel jarring or that I was striking the ground very hard. I finished the mile with my daughter and then continued on for another mile. It felt good. In fact, I probably could have run my usual four miles but decided to be prudent and heed the warnings from Vibram.
Today, I noticed that my calves were a bit tight. However, instead of wearing normal shoes I was wearing Birkenstocks that also have a zero drop heel. My daughter and I got our regular run in this evening though I wore my regular Nike Air Pegasus shoes and cut my mileage down to 3 miles just to be on the safe side.
I’ll probably also wear the regular Nikes on my long run this Saturday morning. However, I’ll get a few more runs in next week wearing my Bikilas and hopefully within a couple of weeks, will have made the transition completely.
Nice review, I’m gonna get myself a pair of Bikilas soon. My goal is also to switch to the FiveFingers completly, althow I’m probably way to impatient for a smooth long-term transition
Enjoy the natural (barefoot) runs!
The Vibram website recommends a 13 week(!) transition. I don’t have that kind of patience. I run about 1,000 miles a year and have been a runner since 1992. I think I can probably get away with short cutting the transition period somewhat. What I have been doing is dropping my mileage down to where I am running the same number of runs a week, but instead of doing about 25 last week, I only did about 15. I have been very pleased so far although you can expect some tightness in your calves as you transition.
[...] couple of weeks ago, I bought a pair of Vibram Five Finger Bikilas. They are what are called minimalist running shoes. [...]