Feet too "bad" for Vff running?

[LeahC]

Soo, I have always had "bad" feet More than you wanted to know, I'm sure, but I have bad bunions and had since I was 11 (am now 30).

As anyone here who has had bad feet knows, this is precisely why Vffs make sense to me ... Shoes are awful for us 'bad feet' people. I wear my Bikilas everywhere and have happy feet now!

 Now for the running question: short runs have gone fairly well.. Backed off at the first inkling of tofp and am giving about a week and a half before I start again running 1/2 mi and moving it up 1/4 mi each week. Any longer runs will be shod. Are my mechanics going to be too off with my feet?.

[Petermorgan]

Recently i came to know that  shin splints, knee pain, lower back pain, etc can be using VFFs, but the foot pain can makes it impossible to increase the distance.

[jmijares]

You can practice minimalist technique while running shod.  I had to after I was injured with TOFP.  After that, I did a seven month transition to minimalist running.

Basically what I did was for the first two months I ran only once a week in VFFs, and then the rest shod, and then added another day of running after those first two months.  While running shod I made sure to shorten my stride and to consciously land forefoot/midfoot, with the heel lightly touching down afterwards.  Shortening your stride while running shod will feel weird for the first few runs because it might feel like you're shuffling your feet, but it worked for me.