Sam, a marathon runner living in London, has made the transition to minimalist running over the last 8 months. After trying to transition too quickly, he stepped back and made a more gradual transition and recently completed the Rotterdam Marathon wearing his Vibram Five Fingers KSOs. His story is compelling and there is much to be learned from his experiences. This is a must read for serious runners transitioning to VFFs.
Sam’s Story
Finding Five Fingers
I got on to Five Fingers around mid 2009 after a pretty bad knee injury I could not shake. I was able to finish my third marathon in a PB of 3h04m46s, but I fell over the line and I could hardly walk for a week. My left knee was shot. After weeks and months of searching on why, I came across the Five Fingers and minimalist running. Something about them just made sense… I get the feeling many others who wear them felt the same when they first laid eyes on them.
Transitioning Too Quickly
Well, I started out with a few small runs after my knee was feeling better, a few km’s at a time and they felt GREAT! I could instantly feel the change it had made to my gait. I was running far more upright, with shorter steps and of course I was landing on my forefoot first. I had the obligatory calf pain, but as I had read this was “something we all had to go through!” As I had just finished my marathon and was planning the next, all I wanted to do was hit the trails on the weekends for my long run in my Five Fingers. I had the fitness, I was strong, so why couldn’t I handle a 25km in the five fingers after only a few weeks running in them?
Well, that was a big mistake! A few days later, my left foot ceased up (I later found out related to an extremely stiff calf!) and I was back to square one. Or was I? Was it due to the FF’s? Was it my poor form? I was at a loss.
Sam ran his next half in traditional running shoes, but wanted to get back to running in his VFFs. Over the Christmas holiday, he had a chance to reconsider his approach.
Reflection
I realised, it wasn’t the FF’s, it was my eagerness and failure to transition to my new style of running. I had been wearing shoes for 29 years. How could I expect to go from that, to running for hours at a time with no cushioning using muscles I hardly new I had! This realisation that I could run these long distances (my next marathon) in my Five Fingers was uplifting, I just needed time and patience.
The New Regimen
January and February were spent, training in the gym and working up to the longer distances slowly. As March came around, I was up to 50-60km a week with 30+km long runs on the weekends. I was finally feeling like running in the Five Fingers was natural. I didn’t have to think about landing on my forefoot, it just happened as my foot followed the last step I had made. I think this was the hardest part of the transition. The shorter runs were fine, for half an hour you could easy keep your concentration on your gait and form. But as the distances and times increased, I fatigued and it was much harder to keep my form strong. I think this significantly contributed to a number little niggles along the way.
Encountering Skeptics
Many of my friends (including my running partners!) thought I was strange, silly, and crazy. How can you run without padding? I even had a Physiotherapist friend plead with me not to run in them as I would destroy my joints without all that cushioning shoes provide. I didn’t have the heart to ask them why the Tarahumara have survived for so long without Nike’s – there are no knee replacement hospitals in the Copper Canyons! But as time has gone on and they have seen me running, week after week, most have come to accept it and even become curiously interested in my adventure in to this new world. Both my running partners (sub 3h marathoners) were very sceptical at first, but now at least acknowledge some training in them would be beneficial, even if they are not going to splash out £100 on a pair!
Goal Accomplished, April 2010 — Sam on completing his first marathon in Vibram Five Fingers
I was ecstatic at the result. I finished in 3h27m08s, my second fastest marathon time. I finished strong, running a negative split for the race and sprinting down the home straight to the finish line. My legs felt fantastic the whole way and the Five Fingers definitely performed very strongly. No blisters, no sore feet and I hardly broke a sweat.
Tips from Sam
Below, are a few of the tips I have learnt along the way that hopefully may help others out there starting their journey into the exciting world many of us now experience.
- Start SLOW and SHORT! – There is no substitute for building into minimalist running. Start slow and short with your runs, no matter how fit you are.
- Use strengthening exercises to help build the strength needed to work into minimalist running, especially in the calves
- Listen to your body – If it hurts, let it rest, you will benefit in the long run, not matter how frustrating!
- RELAX!! – I found I tended to tense up trying to find the perfect gait when I started. When I learned to relax, my best gait just found itself.
- It is never ending process, I always am looking to refine the way I run. Five Fingers are only a tool to allow you the freedom to reconnect with our natural running form our ancestors took for granted.
Thank you very much Sam, for sharing this valuable information on transitioning to minimalist running.
12 replies on “Making the Transition to Minimalist Marathon Running in Vibram Five Fingers”
Thanks for sharing. I am going through a very similar experience. I ran Boston 08 with severe knee pain and have been unable to train for another marathon since. I discovered VFFs a few months ago and, like you, started way too quickly – 4.5M the first day and doing 100% of my mileage in them after about 5-6 weeks. I ended up with severe top-of-foot pain that has kept me out for about a month, and I’m now trying to very slowly get back to running in a combination of regular and minimal shoes (slowly increasing the % in minimal shoes).
Born to Run has been great for spreading the minimal/barefoot message, but more education is needed on how gradual the transition really has to be.
Great Story Sam! I enjoy reading about someone saying to take it slow and demonstrating that. I hate that you had to find that path through injury but most times for runners, injuries are the best teachers. Keep it up and I bet you hit sub 3 hrs soon based on the improvements you have made so far.
I am about a month and half into my transition into barefoot/minimalist running and the thing that has been most beneficial during this time has been taking the shoes off and going completely barefoot. I noticed that when I was barefoot that the calf pain wasn’t nearly as bad, especially on downhill grades. The difference was in my stride. It is much shorter with a higher turnover rate. Once I transferred this form over to my vff runs, it was like a light switch was turned on. I am now able to add distance and speed to my runs with a lower heart rate than running the same speed with traditional running shoes. I am currently running up to eight to nine miles (30 miles/week) at the same speed as I was with my Asics with virtually no calf pain.
I should add that I have added some weight training and bicycling into my workouts as well which have also helped my transition. I am now looking forward to completing my first VFF (sixth altogether) marathon this fall.
Thanks for sharing the story Sam! I 100% agree with your Tips. You’re right. It IS a never ending process.
Here’s to healthy happy running in VFFs!
Sam,
Good story and nice race! I also completed my first VFF marathon in Boston a few weeks ago.
To start off – I AM NOT ADVOCATING THAT ANYONE TRANSITION AS FAST AS I DID! I was able to work into the VFFs in about 2 months. I started out in late January, running 1 – 2 miles of cool down on the dreadmill barefoot (before I owned VFFS). By mid-feb I was in the VFFs for 4 – 5 mile runs (typical on treadmill) with 8 mile runs being my longest. I started out doing about 20 miles a week in the VFFs in February – to keep my cardio “marathon ready”, I was doing about 4 hours a week (in my VFFs) on a cross trainer to keep the impact down on my legs. During the initial break-in, I was only running on roads maybe once per week in the VFFs.
In March I started doing more outdoor work on the VFFs, and went back to an “all running” training. I did about 80% of all my mileage on soft gravel trails to help prevent any foot injuries from making the transition too fast. To get myself used to the roads, I was trying to do about 8 miles a week on pavement.
I didn’t really get onto roads until a few weeks before the race. While I was a little worried about this going in, I made it through the race and haven’t sustained any of the “typical” injuries from a fast transition.
All that being said – I agree with everything you say! The smart thing is to transition slowly – but if you are looking to do it a little faster – it doesn’t hurt to try and stay off the roads and do some work on some nice soft trails (or grass) to prevent the impact injuries to the feet.
Funny how many posts I read about over-enthusiasm when trying minimalist running. Maybe McDougall should add a big banner page at the end of his book warning everyone to slow down.
I am training for my third marathon this year (and in my life), first with VFFs and have made all the mistakes mentioned. Primarily trying distance before discovering an effective stride. The result was cheating with too much heel and not enough forefoot and then limping for several weeks.
Two months into the effort this past week was the “a-ha” moment for me as far as stride is concerned. How? Well I am a 53 year old SLOW runner (4:45 marathon) but love it. I kept tweaking my stride and felt more and more awkward. I bought every book and DVD and looked at many websites. Then it occured to me that none of the strides I was exploring felt natural, too forced, and also I could never hope for distance if I was trying to reinvent myself. So I added more barefoot running into each effort, decided to slow WAY down (180 cadence no longer a focus) and RELAX, RELAX, RELAX. The result was wonderful. I have much more to do and I agree the learning is ongoing. But for the first time my June marathon does not look ominous over the horizon.
I LOVE barefoot/VFF running!
Nice job, Sam! Welcome to the world of VFF marathoning, it’s a great way to go 🙂
I kinda had to rush through my conditioning a bit before I joggled the Philadelphia Marathon Nov 2009 (3:31). It would have been a little better to take more to transition, but now I know the value of gradual training and patience. Just joggled a 10K and I am building up my mileage again. Slowly but surely.
Good tips to go by. Nice write up.
Fantastic work Sam, you’ll be hitting that sub-3 in no time.
Throughout your whole VFF experience have you been using the same pair of KSOs? I’m hesistant to buy myself a pair of them because I can’t deal out that kind of coin and then have them wear out on me in a month. Thanks for the advice!
Nice one. 🙂
Just got some KSO’s this week, but have been walking and running in Vivo barefoot shoes for the past 6 weeks. Prior to this I have not ran at all anywhere for over 12 years, so I figured my overall fitness may as well build up with my feet and calf strength! To start with I could only run 100 yards before getting out of breath, never mind miles! For me there was no chance of overdoing anything. 😉
The reason why I have never liked running prior to trying barefoot shoes was due to my flat feet, and especially my knees doing this horrible ‘clicking’ when I ran in trainers. I probably guessed right that this was *not* a good sign… I was also clumsy. So I guessed I wasn’t designed to run.
After 6 weeks I can now run a 1 mile route 3 times a week (with 3 short walk breaks in each one) This is more than I have ever done in my life, however I have had to take this down to twice a week this week and cut the distance a bit, because the muscles just around the inside of my ankles feel taut and sore. I have no idea what it is as my calves feel ok. Guess I just need to be patient!
Kris,
Without examining your feet & ankles, its a bit hard to tell you what the problem is, but it sounds like a posterior tibial tendonitis.
Last year, I worked my way SLOWLY up to 5km runs, barefoot or in KSOs. My calves looked great by the end of it, though they were limiting at the start.
I took a break over the winter months, since I couldn’t find a pair of Flows in my size, and didn’t want to put the heel-strikers back on to run in the snow. Anyway, back out for the past few weeks, and I got impatient…it just felt so good, and with no calf or foot difficulties this time. So, I “pushed it” one day, and ran twice my usual distance in the KSOs… A day or two later, I was nursing a dull, aching tightness just below and behind my inner ankles (medial malleoli). Anyway, I’ve self-diagnosed myself with Posterior tibial tendonitis – and have forced myself to avoid running for the past 2 weeks. Lesson learned. There REALLY should be a disclaimer on these things… if you can’t run the distance BAREFOOT (and your skin will let you know…), then you CANT run it in a pair of VFF.
Yikes. I’m not doing marathons, but am in the midst of transitioning too soon. I’ve got some of the same signs: pain on the top of my foot in particular. I’m trying to rest in between, but I love running in them so much it is actually hard for me to go out in my Asics.
Been blogging about my transition at http://smckenzie23.blogspot.com.
Interesting that I’m making the same mistakes as everyone else. It is very difficult not to do too much too fast. I just want to do all my runs in them (and maybe double my mileage).
I’ve done several 7km runs & I’m pretty sure I’m going to do the Sun Run 10k here in Vancouver this Sunday. I’ve only been running in these for 3 weeks, but the distance I’m doing seems manageable if I rest a couple days in between.
One thing I think is most important with the running in the vff’s is using a Tiger Tail or other muscle roller before and after running. Really helps with the calf soreness.