Weekend Link Love 5/9/10

By Britt on May 7, 2010 | In general | 1 comment »

Happy Mother's Day!

If you missed it, well, you're probably too late (at least this time around), but the Vibram Five fingers Bikila has been released!

After the jump, Vibram Five Fingers news, videos, links to barefoot running research and how-to, and a few new reviews!

 

Latest Vibram Five Fingers Links

Did you hear about the Guinness World Record attempt for the “Largest Barefoot Race?” It took place this past Friday in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and involved over 140 barefoot runners. Read the news coverage on the attempt here and here. Props to the BRS and Jason Robillard!

This Competitor Runner article attempts to answer the question of whether barefoot running is faster than running shod. The post is undoubtedly biased in favor of shoes and likens barefoot running (and by extension minimalist running) to some religious movement, but for sake of discussion, it is worth the read! And while we're stirring the pot, the forum at Podiatry Arena, makes a connection between stress fractures and VFFs. Is this just an anecdotal takedown, a few cases of transitioning too fast to natural running, or something more?

The Internet Monk puts his faith to the test by walking with Jesus in his new Vibram Five Fingers — a religious perspective on VFFs.

Vibram Five Fingers are hot in Charlotte, N.C. — a nice local news story (And video) on Vibrams growing popularity.

Sean Pelleteir reports on a recent lecture by Chris McDougall at Frederick Community College, on the wonders of barefoot running.

Latest Vibram Five Fingers Reviews

Luau provides some first impressions of the new Five Fingers Bikilas — his new favorites (I like my Bikilas, too!).

Holy Scrap reviews the Five Fingers Sprint!

Here's a "novice runner's" review of the Vibram Five Fingers KSO over at the Green Cloud.

A quick video review of the Vibram Five Fingers Sprint by Jess on YouTube. And one more video review of Classics (Note at least a couple VFF photos in the beginning are from BirthdayShoes!).

Vibram Five Fingers Videos

Jennifer talks about Daniel Lieberman's barefoot running research in the video below:

Joggling Joe Salter talks about his passion for running while juggling:

Chad Mckinney kicks off his vlogging career with a visit to the shoe store to pick up some VFFs.

You can find prior week's link love posts here!

About the Author — Hailing from College Station, Texas (Home to Texas A&M!), I grew up running cross country. Believe it or not, I gave Justin the name for this site back in early 2009 but I didn't jump on the toe shoes bandwagon until a year later. I am also really into quadcopters and drones and have a blog called OddCopter.com.
Britt has written 161 articles and 67 comments.
Tags: news

wait! before you go —

« Splish Splashin' in the Creek with Vibram Five Fingers Classics!The Vibram Five Fingers Bikila is Out! »
Comment from: Rich [Visitor]
RichThat competitiverunner article is huge sack of fail. Asking people whose salaries come from the shoe companies whether running barefoot would be beneficial is like asking plaintiff's side med mal lawyers whether medical tort reform is a good thing.

Beyond that, there are countless possible explanations for why reasons elite runners don't (yet?) run barefoot or in VFFs. First, I think the reason many of use came to "minimal running" is that we were tired of being injured in regular shoes. The runners quoted in the article are not hurt and haven't had the kinds of significant overuse injuries that plague many of us when wearing regular shoes.

Second and related, most elite runners have excellent running form regardless of what they run in. So to the extent people turn to barefoot/minimal running as a way to correct their form, there's no need for most elites.

Third, going barefoot means significantly scaling back your training while you adapt. Most elites can't afford to do that.

Fourth, if you're a highly competitive elite like Goucher, Geb, or Hall, you're probably not going to change what's been working for you unless there's damn good evidence it will give you an advantage (and as we all know, there are not yet studies on speed differences between barefoot and shod).

Fifth, just because they're good runners doesn't mean they understand the biomechanics or physics at play better than any intelligent person looking at the as-yet limited data.

Sixth, the article itself shows that many elites haven't even seriously considered barefoot because of their own biases/pre-cpnceptions. For example, Kara Goucher said she'd be "scared" to run without her arch supports. Ok, so if they work for her then great, but isn't she really saying that she doesn't know if barefoot would be faster, she's just scared to try?

I could keep going, but I think you get the point. Basically, it boils down to this: there's no data showing that either barefoot or shod is faster than the other, and getting anecdotal quotes from elite runners, or even looking at what elite runners do, doesn't solve the question because they're all starting from the assumption that shoes are best and the experience of doing well in shoes.

Oh, and did I mention that the shoe companies pay these people? ;)
05/10/10 @ 10:39