Ben finishes first half-marathon in VFF KSOs

By Justin Owings on Aug 18, 2009 | In User Stories | Leave a comment »

A shot taken by Ben's wife mid-race — click for a larger version!

I first heard from Ben back in May with regard to his question about how people are walking barefoot and then again after he submitted a shot with POSE running founder Nicholas Romanov.

As you might recall, Ben was planning on running the NYC half-marathon in his Vibram Five Finger KSOs. Well, just this weekend, Ben completed the half marathon and posted a detail account of the race at his blog — even despite a recent bone bruise. Here's a snippet from Ben where he describes persevering through the last few miles of the race:

There were some DJ's in tents every five to ten blocks or so who blasted some great tunes that lifted my spirits. I remember hearing Lenny Kravitz's "American Woman" and then the beginning chords to Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" a few blocks later. It seemingly took forever to get to mile 10, and then there were no signs for a long time. I figured the next sign I'd see was mile 12, and then I'd only have 1.1 miles to go. Sorry, Benny Boy, the next sign was mile 11. Ugh. Needless to say, it was slow going the rest of the way, and I just tried to keep up with the people ahead of me. When I saw the sign for 800 meters, I felt great. But after what seemed like 5 minutes there was the sign for 400 meters, I think I swore out loud. It's like time slowed in the last mile or something. I finally saw the finish line and made one last sprint to finish my first half marathon in strong fashion. Ahhhhh!

Must have felt good to cross that finish line. Congratulations, Ben! And thanks for sharing!

About the Author — I founded BirthdayShoes.com in April 2009 on realizing just how much I enjoyed having "free feet" - I mostly wanted to use them for weights, sprints, and plyometrics (I'm not much of a runner!). I'm a Googler by day and minimalist footwear aficionado by night; you can find me 'round Atlanta. If you want to catch up with what I'm doing outside of the site here, follow me on twitter @bdayshoes or @justinno or check out my personal site JustinOwings.com.
Justin Owings+ has written 753 articles and 302 comments.