There's a striking comparison occasionally being made here that I'd like to clarify. I am a fairly new BFRer (3 months, the last month of which I've been on the bench with a left foot stress fracture). I have focused on learning to run BF form correctly by following the textbook methods of starting with no more than 1/2-mile per day, very slowly, on concrete/asphalt, adding no more than 10% per week. I also have used the VFFs to be able to run farther earlier in the switchover process after 25 years of shod running.
Here's where the Frisco Happy Meals come in. Like runners and VFFs, I believe that most (although I'll grant you readily, not all) parents are capable of making smart choices about what to feed their kids without any government mandates dictating those choices for them. Freedom by definition allows for people to make dumb choices about what they do. I am a living, limping example at present. I don't feed my kids fast food very often, and they frankly don't like it very much with the exception of Chick-Fil-A, which is pardonable in my book. I also should have been smart enough not to run as hard and as far as I did in VFFs, not requiring a Vibram (or government) mandate not to do so to prevent me from such foolishness. I knew better, and I made a stupid choice fueled by comradery and competition.
There is nothing inherently bad in my experience with VFFs besides how I choose to unwisely use them. They create a temptation to do TMTS, but handling temptations is my responsibility as an adult. As Patrick McManus, the greatest outdoor writer who has ever lived, once wrote describing a similar situation with 4-wheel drive vehicles, "they will take you to places you should not go and might not be able to get back out of." VFFs are right there with them. I love them for walking around in stores, for hiking and for running without getting tender soles. I prefer barefoot, but that's not always an option. I pledge to think more carefully about how I use them in the future, but it is neither logical nor fair to blame a perfectly good tool for a workman's failure due to misuse of that tool.
I'll be mighty glad to be up and running again in hopefully another 4 weeks, sometimes BF and sometimes in VFFs, whichever is best for the situation at hand.
Here's where the Frisco Happy Meals come in. Like runners and VFFs, I believe that most (although I'll grant you readily, not all) parents are capable of making smart choices about what to feed their kids without any government mandates dictating those choices for them. Freedom by definition allows for people to make dumb choices about what they do. I am a living, limping example at present. I don't feed my kids fast food very often, and they frankly don't like it very much with the exception of Chick-Fil-A, which is pardonable in my book. I also should have been smart enough not to run as hard and as far as I did in VFFs, not requiring a Vibram (or government) mandate not to do so to prevent me from such foolishness. I knew better, and I made a stupid choice fueled by comradery and competition.
There is nothing inherently bad in my experience with VFFs besides how I choose to unwisely use them. They create a temptation to do TMTS, but handling temptations is my responsibility as an adult. As Patrick McManus, the greatest outdoor writer who has ever lived, once wrote describing a similar situation with 4-wheel drive vehicles, "they will take you to places you should not go and might not be able to get back out of." VFFs are right there with them. I love them for walking around in stores, for hiking and for running without getting tender soles. I prefer barefoot, but that's not always an option. I pledge to think more carefully about how I use them in the future, but it is neither logical nor fair to blame a perfectly good tool for a workman's failure due to misuse of that tool.
I'll be mighty glad to be up and running again in hopefully another 4 weeks, sometimes BF and sometimes in VFFs, whichever is best for the situation at hand.
