My first run in Vibram Five Fingers (April 2009)

If you've ever researched barefoot running on the internet (I suspect, if you're reading this, that you have), the chances are you'll have come across a type of footwear called Vibram Five Fingers. I was introduced to them by Chris McDougall during his book promotion talk; he swears by them and refuses to wear anything else on his feet.

So, what are they? Well, as the name suggests, they have five fingers - or toes, actually. They're basically gloves for your feet. You slide your foot into them, attempting to separate your toes so that each one fits into its allocated hole (believe me, this is hard than it sounds), then there's generally just a velcro strap to secure and you're ready to go! These shoes then protect your feet from sharp objects such as stones, glass, and sometimes nastier things (particularly if you live in London) without compromising your biomechanics. They come in a small variety of colours - the only option available when I bought mine however, was bright red, so there was no hope of experimenting with them quietly and unassumingly.

I'd tried my first barefoot run (which went quite well I think, my feet were still attached to my ankles) and couldn't wait to test out these funny little shoes. I had a route in mind - a very conservative circuit near where I live which usually would take around fifteen minutes, so not a problem then.

Weeeelll, except it was. I walked up the first road, as I would normally for any run, trying to get a feel for the shoes. It was as though I was wearing someone else's feet. My feet and calf muscles seemed to be working extremely hard and the concrete was unforgiving. It also felt as though I had two toes squashed into one toe slot and I kept bending down to check that each little digit was tucked in correctly. Most of all, I was excrutiatingly conscious of how my feet looked in these bright red clown shoes.

I reached the next road and thought I'd attempt a bit of running. I already knew how I should be running, picking up my feet, landing mid-foot, gently, upright, etc. It was certainly much easier in this shoe; it came naturally. It's difficult to tell which part of your foot you're landing on with cushioned trainers because your whole foot just sort of clonks down in one heavy lump. It felt very strange to have something so light on my feet - I realised my whole body had been working so much harder just to lift the weight of my trainers. I also became aware how unnatural my running style is in trainers; I realised that I was wanting to stride out with longer steps but in the Vibrams I couldn't. They were almost forcing me to shorten my stride and keep my feet underneath me....which is naturally how we should run. These freaky little clown shoes were giving me a very valuable running lesson!

However, my goal of doing a circuit was quickly revised to: "do as much as you can" because my calf muscles were on fire; I didn't check, but I felt pretty sure they matched my shoes. Another revelation: my feet and calves hardly do any work when I run in trainers. So there must be other muscles over-working elsewhere.

I didn't manage much more than a mile and normally would have viewed this as a poor run. But running in Vibrams is like some sort of awakening. You you can really feel the ground underneath you and consequently are bombarded with feedback from your feet. It's like listening to voices when you're underwater and then all of a sudden coming up for air and the voices are clearer, sharper. Or suddenly putting your glasses on when you've been struggling without them. Everything suddenly seems more real and more alive. At the risk of sound a bit "touchy-feely" it's almost a sort of spiritual awakening. And I don't mean that I found God lurking in my Vibram Five Fingers, but that rather than watching the clock and focusing on how fast I was running and how far I could go, I was just enjoying being outside and feeling the ground beneath my feet.....and smiling. Fantastic!