Tripp’s 5K in Vibram Five Finger Classics

Hey Justin,

You’ll recall that when I first got my VFFs, I said I might “eventually” think about doing a 5K later this year. Well, call it enthusiasm about the shoes (or just stupidity), but less than a month after getting my Classics, I decided to race in them.

The good news is that the race itself was fun. Didn’t get a PR or anything (more on that later) but my feet, ankles, achilles and calves all feel relatively good. Amazingly, I wasn’t the only one in the race wearing VFFs. One of my fellow Crossfit athletes ran in his KSOs, and did pretty well too.

I was particularly pleased that running on asphalt wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. (I typically run on the golf course in our neighborhood). But I think it was just because the pavement was a welcome relief from the gravel path we ran on for the second mile.

Now, the VFF’s are great on jogging paths with cinders or fine grain gravel. But I’d never tried to run at a good pace on sharp, golfball-sized gravel. Gotta be honest: my soles took a beating. I’m convinced that, because I was dancing around the rocks, it added about 2 mins to my second mile split. (That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it…)

As you can imagine, there were a lot of furtive glances at the shoes and a few folks asked about them before the race. After I finished, though, people were much bolder about asking what they were, where I got them, and of course, how did they do on the gravel! But, as you can see in the photos, I really enjoyed the run.

All in all, I’m sure I’ll be a bit sore tomorrow, and I will probably have to get more work on trails in the VFFs. But these shoes definitely proved themselves to be race-able.

I’ll be in touch!

“Tripp In Austin”