Hi all,
I started running in February this year. I never really liked running when I was younger. Although I did run the 7 heuvelen loop in Nijmegen twice (15k), and did run, with 11 friends, in the Calistoga to Santa Cruz (CA) 199 mile relay once. I preferred cycling, hiking and skiing. Unfortunately I did not do any of these the last 5 years and decided that needed to change. So in February I started slowly with running 12 minutes per time, 3x per week. I had never heard of barefoot running back then, thus I bought some nice new Saucony shoes... After 2 months and running about 22 minutes, 3x per week by then, I suddenly had an injury in my calf muscle. I stopped running for 2 months. At the same time I met with a french colleague of mine. He told me about minimalist running. So I started reading and watching Youtube videos.
I wanted to but some Vibram 5 finger shoes, however while trying them out, in a nice store in Tilburg, I felt my calf muscle hurting again, so I delayed that. I did buy a pair of good looking Vivobarefoot shoes that I am now wearing daily, even during customer visits and trade shoes. I even started running in these shoes. As I wanted to keep them nice and clean for work, I did buy some Vibram 5 finger kso which I am now using for running.
My stride cadence is going up, average at 175 over 5 km, after I did bent my knees more. And my heels are now touching the ground again. Which I did not do at first and resulted in quite some muscle pain in the calves. Recently I bought the Barefoot running, step by step book. During running I am now telling my self: stand straight, relax, bend the knees. Which did help in getting the cadence up.
And now I am beginning to realize that it is probably better to go real barefoot to learn proper barefoot running technique. Somehow I am not ready for that yet, hopefully being here can help me doing so... My end goal is to be able to long trail runs, preferably in the mountains. Not sure if anyone is doing that barefoot?
Hopefully this long introduction was not to long for you.
Paul
I started running in February this year. I never really liked running when I was younger. Although I did run the 7 heuvelen loop in Nijmegen twice (15k), and did run, with 11 friends, in the Calistoga to Santa Cruz (CA) 199 mile relay once. I preferred cycling, hiking and skiing. Unfortunately I did not do any of these the last 5 years and decided that needed to change. So in February I started slowly with running 12 minutes per time, 3x per week. I had never heard of barefoot running back then, thus I bought some nice new Saucony shoes... After 2 months and running about 22 minutes, 3x per week by then, I suddenly had an injury in my calf muscle. I stopped running for 2 months. At the same time I met with a french colleague of mine. He told me about minimalist running. So I started reading and watching Youtube videos.
I wanted to but some Vibram 5 finger shoes, however while trying them out, in a nice store in Tilburg, I felt my calf muscle hurting again, so I delayed that. I did buy a pair of good looking Vivobarefoot shoes that I am now wearing daily, even during customer visits and trade shoes. I even started running in these shoes. As I wanted to keep them nice and clean for work, I did buy some Vibram 5 finger kso which I am now using for running.
My stride cadence is going up, average at 175 over 5 km, after I did bent my knees more. And my heels are now touching the ground again. Which I did not do at first and resulted in quite some muscle pain in the calves. Recently I bought the Barefoot running, step by step book. During running I am now telling my self: stand straight, relax, bend the knees. Which did help in getting the cadence up.
And now I am beginning to realize that it is probably better to go real barefoot to learn proper barefoot running technique. Somehow I am not ready for that yet, hopefully being here can help me doing so... My end goal is to be able to long trail runs, preferably in the mountains. Not sure if anyone is doing that barefoot?
Hopefully this long introduction was not to long for you.
Paul