Tom a.k.a. “Tommodore64” took his Speed FiveFingers to the Penny Arcade Expo—or “PAX”— recently and saw 50+ other Vibram fans sporting their toe shoes over the course of the three day event — that’s gotta be some kinda record outside of a minimalist/barefoot running specific event! Here’s Tom’s account of the weekend:
I wasn’t the only one VFF-ing it at PAX either. I saw probably fifty or sixty people over the course of the three day event in various models.
Last year I wore normal shoes and my feet were killing me by the end of day three. This time, it made such a difference to wear my Speeds!!
On a side note, its great that even the USNC from the HALO universe are embracing civilians and barefooting it on HALO. 🙂
– Tommodore64
Awesome to hear the Speeds—er perhaps better said, allowing your feet to be a bit more free—made for a less painful PAX experience this year!
Thanks for sharing!
Administrative note: you may have noticed a cutback in our user-submitted stories over the past few months. We’ve been working through trying to balance day-jobs and site maintenance whilst having some challenging circumstances. Things haven’t “changed” per se, but we’re trying to adapt! Anyway, no guarantees we will post your VFF, minimalist, or barefoot story, but keep’em coming!
4 replies on “FiveFingers Speed at the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX)”
Its awesome that more people are wearing minimalist shoes to conventions and places where you stand all day. Being an expo vendor for 6 years at the end of an 8 hour day your feet hurt. In my “modern” shoe days I would wear insoles and rent carpet to “Pad” my way through the day only to have my feet hurt worse.
Last year I wore my minimalist shoes for the first time for a 3 day 10 hour a day convention and my feet didn’t hurt at all.
My only question about the above article is about the growth of minimalist shoes amoung “gamers”. Does it really matter what a gamer wears around the house? The fact the “Halo” guy was barefoot made me laugh. Did he wear his sweet pants and t-shirt as well? A great article either way.
This is very interesting to read-
IMO, this is one of the *few* activities
(along with standing concerts) where the minimalIsm
of VFF’s can become a problem, but I suppose more padded varieties would do better. If I ever wear VFFs to a convention again, they will almost certainly be Komodos.
However, I will *never* wear Classics or Sprints while standing/walking slowly on a hard floor for hours again-
that was a very painful mistake!
PAX 2011 was my second year on staff, and my second doing the entire con in VFFs. Last year, I saw a few people in them (both staff and attendees), this year I saw many, many more. I switched between Classics (for the flight each way), KSOs, and TrekSports. While I was tired at the end of each (18+ hour) day, by the time I woke up (with a whole 2-3 hours sleep!), my feet felt fine and ready to go again. I do think having the different pairs to switch between helped, as it let them dry out inbetween wearings. On Tuesday, after teardown, I checked the pedometer I’d been carrying, apparently I was walking about 20,000 steps/day during the con and only slightly less the surrounding days.
Tl;dr- PAX was awesome and I love my FiveFingers!
Yeah, those are ODST’s (marines), not “chiefs” (Spartans). Same game, different people.
Can someone explain his sidenote? I don’t understand.