birthday shoes

This week's latest FiveFingers reviews:

• Vibram Five Fingers at Life, by Adam Kayce [Sprint]:

  
  

  Think about it: for millions of years, we’ve been barefoot. How were we able to run after mastodons, trek over mountains, and still survive if we hobbled along, muttering, “Ouch! Ooch! Oaff!” every time we stepped on a rock? Because we didn’t, that’s why. When you go barefoot, your feet adapt. The ligaments, tendons, and musculature of your feet are strengthened by walking and running barefoot. It’s the wearing of shoes that weakens your feet, by doing the work that your feet should be doing for themselves.

  I hike in the mountains wearing these shoes, and four days a week, I do my CrossFit workouts in them. Whether I’m Olympic lifting, sprinting, or doing any of the myriad of exercises I do in CF and the M.E.B.B. protocol I follow, I haven’t had any problems doing them in my VFF’s.

  Adam's also got a video up on doing dead lifts in his VFFs. Good stuff!

You can read last week's latest Vibram Five Fingers reviews here.

Alan sent in the above photos taken recently on a trip to get a Christmas tree:

Here is a recent photo of me harvesting a Christmas tree near Highlands, NC while wearing my black Fivefinger KSOs. I have been running in the KSOs for about 2 months and recently completed my first 5k in them ... I am definitely hooked.

Alan
Greenville, SC

Great looking family, Alan, and I'm happy to hear you're enjoying your newfound foot freedom!

The photos above were sent in by Chris, who recently ran the Richmond Marathon in Flow Five Fingers. Though Flows are probably the least represented VFFs in the community, they're starting to get more attention as the seasons are changing and Five Fingers fans seek out a bit more foot warmth!

Here's Chris on the marathon:

Hey Justin,

I thought I'd send in some pictures from the Richmond Marathon I ran recently in my VFF Flows. It was really an awesome experience, from answering around a million questions about my "shoes" to being back on the road running taking only 2 days rest! I ran my first marathon last year in road shoes and got achilles tendonitis so switching to VFFs was a welcome relief. As for the Flows (a unique present from my girlfriend), I notice that people wear them much less than the other types, but on the 45 degree rainy morning of the race, they were nothing less than perfect. After 3 hours and 43 minutes, everything felt great and I can't wait to run another in them! Thanks for putting together such an amazing site -

Chris

Thanks for sharing, Chris! Nice time and good to hear that VFFs are enabling you to run injury-free. That your girlfriend hooked you up with your Flows — well, I'll just say that she might be worth hanging on to!

I got the above photos from Joe Salter who recently ran the Philadelphia Marathon in his KSO Five Fingers joggling. Joggling is a combination of running and juggling and according to Wikipedia, "Jogglers say that the arm motions of juggling with three objects feels natural with the action and pace of jogging."

Joggling is a fascinating niche for runners and this is the first time I've heard of anyone running a marathon in Five Fingers while joggling.

Here's Joe on both joggling and the marathon:

On November 22nd, 2009 I "joggled" the entire 26.2 miles of the Philadelphia Marathon while wearing my VFF KSO's. Joggling is the fringe sport/activity that combines juggling and running/jogging. This was my 3rd marathon, but my first for joggling in the KSO's. I've been joggling in the VFF KSO's for around 3 months. For more information on joggling, go to: justyouraveragejoggler.com or my YouTube channel.

Race Highlights:

Set a PR finish time of 3:31 (15 minutes faster than my previous marathon in regular shoes with joggling, and 21 minutes faster than my first marathon in shoes without joggling)

I got questions and nice comments about the KSO's before the race; but during the race people only focused on the "joggling." Joggling kinda steals the attention from the VFF's during a race ...

Legs felt great joggling in the VFF KSO's. Met one other runner wearing KSO's during the race.

Three Jogglers (Two juggling three balls, and one juggling five balls) were in the full Marathon, thus setting a record for the most amount of jogglers in a marathon.

Best Regards,

Joe Salter
Pensacola, Florida

Way to be a VFF joggling pioneer, Joe! I wonder if joggling is starting to take off? Thanks for sharing your Five Fingers joggling experience with BirthdayShoes!

You can read more about Joe via this joggling interview he gave.

Finally, "Zataod" has a blogged dedicated to barefoot joggling. Check it out at Zen and the Barefoot Joggler.

Josh submitted the above photos of a recent hike at Ransom Canyon, which is near Lubbock, Texas. Josh hiked with his friend Barrett — they were sporting their Vibram Five Fingers KSO (Grey and Palm and Black, respectively).

No doubt the VFF-shod feet were loving such a gnarly terrain!

Matt emailed in the above photos taken this past Thursday morning: he ran a 5K in his Flow Five Fingers. Here's Matt:

Hey!!!

I ran a 5K in my VFF Flows on Thanksgiving morning in Shelby, North Carolina. Out of over 600 participants, I was the only one in VFFs! These pictures were taken by my mom and sister at the race. Finished with a decent time and had a great time running with everyone else in their sneakers!! Love these shoes for cold-weather running and I have a pair of Sprints for warmer running.

Thanks for having such a great site! I look at it all the time and it's great to have a website like this where all of us VFFers can see others with the same awesome shoes!

Sounds like you've got a nice one-two punch for year-round VFF running! It's not often we see Flows, so thanks for sharing!

And glad to be of assistance to the Five Fingers fan community!

Update: Matt sent in a couple few more photos from a hike he took earlier this year in his VFF Sprints:

Matt poses on a hike in the Appalachian Mountains near Boone, North Carolina!

I went on a day of hiking in the Appalachian Mountains up near Boone, NC (where i go to college.... Go App!!) with my family earlier this semester and enjoyed all of the beautiful scenery and great views in my VFF Sprints. I sure got some weird looks by people passing by and lots of questions about what the heck i had on my feet and why i would ever hike in them, including people from my own family!! It was a lot of fun and i can't wait for warmer weather to do it again soon!!

Enjoying the VFF-view!

Ellyn (Who has previously been seen mini-golfin' here) sent in the above photos taken on a "VFF Road Trip" with her sister. Ellyn wrote:

This summer my sister and I took a Roller Coaster Road Trip from Wisconsin to Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey, Hershey Park in Pennsylvania, and Cedar Point in Ohio. We also spent an evening in Atlantic City to stroll down by the beach. We wore our VFF Classics at the parks each day and ended up with some pretty awesome VFF tan lines! We got so many comments and questions about our shoes that we created a little business card with information that we could hand out to people in the future. They come in very handy and have helped to make a few VFF converts!

Ellyn sent in an image of the aforementioned card:

Many folks in the Five Fingers fan community have considered making a card to pass on to inquiring minds. Looks like Ellyn actually put one together!

Looks like you two had a good time on the road!

You may have noticed I didn't post the latest reviews last week — that's because there were none to post!

• Cody's YouTube review of KSO FiveFingers [KSO]:

Here are the latest Vibram Five Fingers reviews from two weeks ago.

Hope you all have a great Thanksgiving holiday - Justin

Shawn is quite possibly the biggest Vibram Five Fingers fan I've encountered so far. Shawn got his 25^th pair of VFFs, the black and orange KSOs, on Friday (Shawn tweeted it here or you could have seen his photo via VFF Now!).

Shawn's collection has grown large in an attempt to color coordinate outfits with his VFFs. His first pair was the orange/vapor Sprints, which he got off eBay back in early 2007 — unfortunately, in the wrong size, which is why he has two pairs in that color.

Here are some collection stats:

• 7 pairs of Classics
• 7 pairs of Sprints
• 5 pairs of KSOs
• 2 pairs of Flows
• 2 pairs of Mocs
• 1 pair of KSO Treks
• 1 pair of Surges

Shawn's current favorite VFF style is the Moc, which Shawn finds "Perfect for bumming around the house." His least favorite? The Flows, which he finds too constricting on his toes: "[Flow Five Fingers] are very tight around the toes to the point where you can never 'forget you have them on.' But they are good for the winter months." And as for the Treks, "The jury's still out although they performed extremely well on my last hike of the season."

Incidentally, Shawn was one of the first VFF-fans to submit photos to BirthdayShoes way back in early May of this year.

With so many pairs of Five Fingers, it's got to be hard to decide on which ones to wear!