Vibram Five Fingers Sprints Take On the Sierre-Zinal

Stéphane, a Vibram Five Fingers fan, wore his Sprints to run in the 31K Sierre-Zinal mountain race in Switzerland. Stéphane shares his story below:

I like to read other people's stories on the BirthdayShoes website and I thought I could also share my recent Five Fingers experience with you. I started to run in them in April of this year after seeing someone run with these in the NY Marathon. I knew they were something special worth trying.

Since I was a little bit bored with running at the time and also suffered from a knee tendinitis after my New York trip, I was looking for something different. And my Vribrams were the answer. I enjoyed the barefoot feeling right away, it gave me wings and sore calves at first though, but I got used to them in four months.

So, for me there was no doubt I could run with them anywhere. Since I’ve been running Sierre-Zinal every year since 2003, I couldn’t miss that opportunity. It was August this year, on 31km through the rocky Swiss mountains. I must admit that I got sore feet at the end because I wasn’t used to runnning on small stones this long, but it is just a matter of getting used to it I think. It took me 5 hours and a half and I usually run it in 4 hours and a half. Despite a few people laughing at me and making me feel like I was some crazy guy to run with these shoes over there, I enjoyed most of the race. What amazed me is how fast my muscles recovered, I usually get really stiff for a couple of days and this time the day right after the race I was feeling fine, except for a few bruises on my feet, but not crippled at all.

I definitely have to try them in my next New York Marathon, I am sure I won’t hurt myself like I did last year. Thanks for all your posts and stories by the way, and keep on running!

Way to go Stéphane! Running the Sierre-Zinal through the rocky terrain of the Swiss Alps in Sprints is quite an amazing feat. Congratulations!