As it turns out, I haven’t written anything about anything in a long, long while, and since I have had at least one post on this site every month for the last decade or so, I figure that putting down a few words to get a timestamp would really be the best thing for all of us. You can stop here if you really want, but there will be even more words after this paragraph!
I have finally made the leap from super-awesome-running-guy to super-awesome-running-guy-that-did-a-race. Yeah, that’s right, one singular race. And it wasn’t even a long one, either. It was only a little over three miles. BUT I DID IT.
I have passed the point of no return, guys. I can’t do “normal” shoes anymore. I have been saying that for a while now, but I think it has finally come to pass. In the last year getting to know my VFFs, the one last major hurdle that has stymied the ultimate switch, the last hurrah for those heavy, foot suffocating shoes that I have in my closet was the cold. If it got cold enough, I would have to wear socks. As mighty of a man that I am, frigid temperatures will still stop me from being that extra bit of awesome* (* “awesome” in this case means wearing Vibrams).
But finally, out of nowhere, this invention of all inventions has found its way to my doorstep: Injinji socks! Now I can wear my Vibrams all year ’round. Suck it, nature!
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RunKeeper has been my go-to running app for a little over a month, and in that time I have not only racked up 30 miles (bam!) but have also gathered a great appreciation for the service. I really enjoy using it; it’s simple and it’s great. There really is not much more to say about it.
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“This isn’t new news! This is old news!”
You are absolutely right. I have been doing this running thing for a while, but I have finally decided to create an account with RunKeeper so that I’ll have a little diary journal of what I have done so I can keep track. It’s the hip and trendy thing to do. If you haven’t heard about this site, let me tell you of its greatness.
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I am not a stranger to odd looks and questions. Living in Oklahoma and wearing Vibrams blows many a mind on a regular basis. I have quite a few conversations about them each week both in my office and out in the wild. There are also those fun times when you hear off in the distance “look at those shoes!” and you know they’re talking about you. It’s a blessing and curse, to be perfectly honest, as sometimes I just do not feel like getting into the conversation of why I’m wearing them. I love my Vibrams, but I don’t always want to talk about them when I’m trying to eat lunch. That is a rant for another day. What we’re talking about today, however, is somewhat along those lines: making your feet as naked as possible and how people react.
Birthday Shoes has an interesting post with the founder of Primalfoot Alliance, a site seeking to promote the idea of “letting feet be feet.” Basically they want to get the word out that wearing shoes is lame.
From the article:
Put simply, The Primalfoot Alliance is an advocate for letting feet be feet first. It is meant to be a unified voice for everyone who believes going barefoot is the best way to function, or who desire to ensure that their feet stay healthy by wearing the most primal shoes possible. We believe that the primal foot is one that is allowed to be free of imprudently restrictive, inflexible or gait-altering footwear. Barefoot is best, but we acknowledge that there are times that footwear is a better choice — just like when people sometimes wear gloves.
I enjoy this idea, but it’s not without its hardships:
The absolute first reaction from others when I go barefoot in public is usually confusion, whether good, bad or indifferent. A vast majority of society has a hard time understanding why ANYONE would want to go out in public without some kind of footwear on.
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I have been told by management or security at a number of establishments that I need to put on footwear if I wish to continue there. They have cited all kinds of reasons; usually they’re not well thought out.
I’ve had the idea that soonish I would try running totally barefoot; I know people do that and have had success. Would that lead to walking around totally barefoot in…IN PUBLIC?! That remains to be seen, but I feel like it would be an interesting social experiment, especially in Oklahoma where a lot things that are different are met with fear and confusion. Well, that might not be wholly true, but I feel like that is the truth.
With that in mind, I can only assume that the public reaction around here would be a conflation of what we already experience with Vibrams plus the added frustration of not being able to go to certain stores. But we shall see.
Is this a phenomenon that should be left only to the experts (like Britney Spears in public restrooms)? Speaking of which, what about public restrooms? Those are already gross with regular shoes and twice as gross in Vibrams. Unshod sounds like a nightmare. Has anyone who happens to read this gone any long period of time where they painted the town red while being barefoot only? Please let me know, I want to hear about it.
Week three of running could have been fraught with danger and failure, but somehow we pulled it together and remained strong through the storm. It really sucks when you take a few days off and your body gets a little out of the cycle of doing things. There were a couple of days this weekend where I absolutely just wanted to snooze like hell (and did for a bit). “A body at rest stays at rest” is what they say and I have been of the mindset that that was all rubbish until I started actually moving. As soon as you stop, you stop hard.
Luckily, being awesome prevailed and I gathered the courage to run these passed couple of days. Tuesday was fine: it was nice outside, a gentle breeze here and there. It was pretty much the best day to run. Today, however, was a tempest the likes of which I had NEVER SEEN. In reality it had just cooled off to about fifty degrees with high winds. I’ll say it here first: running in the cold wind SUCKS. It sucks hard and I hated it. That is until I turned a corner and it was blowing on my back. At that point in time the wind was awesome and it was my best friend and I baked it a cake.
I still haven’t gone too far above the distance that I originally started out running as. I think my problem is that currently my route is just a loop, and once I get to the end of that loop I’m back home again and don’t really feel like going on another loop. I need to expand the loop out and force myself to go further. I will investigate that for tomorrow.
Here is a brief update on how far I have come since a whopping two weeks ago. Things are getting more comfortable on all fronts, and I have added some distance, but I will still consider what I do at this moment to be somewhat sissified.
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