Huaraches instead of Vibram Five Fingers

Every year we go to France to spend our holidays, this year was great. The weather was great, four week blue sky and temperatures between the 32 and 39 degree Celsius. I like the high temperatures like a snake lying on a rock in the sun, also I like to run in this temperatures. It’s a great feeling to feel the sun on your body ( I am working on my tanning while I am running so I only wear my shorts) and watching your shadow on the ground in a perfect cadence. The only thing I don’t like is the France asphalt, it’s a bad surface to run with bare feet. They use very sharp gravel to cover the surface to protect the asphalt from wear and tear. The first time I go out barefoot, after returning from a 30 minute run I had real damage on my feet and also melten asphalt. So there was no other choice than to use my Vibram Five Fingers. It’s the first time that I have to run on my VFF’s. After four weeks running with my VFF’s I am reasonably satisfied with them during training. The protect your feet good against the rough surfaces and the melting asphalt, but the lost of sensitivity is major. The last 10 minutes there was a new part of the road with white stripes on the side, great to run on when it’s hot, so I put of my VFF’s and go barefoot. The difference was huge!! Comparing with barefoot running with VFF’s feels like running with heavy shoes. This experience made me to look for an alternative for the VFF’s, and I decided to order some huaraches, the famous running sandals of the Tarahumara. I ordered a DIY – kit on Invisibleshoe.com and I am waiting for them. I cannot wait to put these on to try them!! If I receive the package I will write about them as soon as I tried them. Until then I will use (if necessary) my VFF’s.

My Vibrams 

Sunflowers Chateau Neuf sur Isere

No heel strike

Sometimes the answers are easy!  Looking at the picture of my last run I was confused, it looks that I landed with a heel strike. But that is almost impossible if you ran barefoot on a surface that is very rough. By chance I met a guy who is working for a company that is specialized in motion sensors and he told me that he had a colleague who is also running barefoot. So I contact the guy and he send me some links to video’s he uploaded, and one of these showed me the answer on my questions about the heel strike. Just watch this video and you will understand why. On this site from Xsens you find a video where they demonstrate how to use motion sensors in sport, at 3 minutes and 10 seconds you will find Vibram Five Fingers in action!

Heel strike ?
Barefoot running has everything to do with pushing the boundaries. First you have to put of your shoes and start walking barefoot, after that you have to start running barefoot. Then you have to increase your time and mileage. And if this is not enough you have to encounter different surfaces which also has influence of all the items I mentioned before. This weekend I reached another stage, in mileage, time and surface, running the Kadeloop in a place called Schipluiden. The track is 7 km of asphalt and 5 km of trail with pebbles, stones and gravel. I was a little nervous for this trail but it went well. At the trail I changed my strike to a more mid feet strike to land more softly. After the run I don’t had any blisters are other damage on my feet, positive feedback on my running style! But after looking at the picture a friend of my made I was surprised because it looks like a heel strike! I am almost sure that it is not possible, because a heel strike on a surface like this will hurt very bad and I did not feel any pain at all during the run. It is the only picture I have so it is not possible to analyze it but it made me very curious!

Improving Running form

After the session with Wouter Buist I made a great progression. With the adjustments in my running form I ran more easy with the same speed. A week after the session I ran a 5K and I realized the same time as the race where I had blisters on my feet. This time I had no blisters and I ran with using less energy. The most spectacular improvement is the change of landing, I had an extensive forefoot landing with a stride which was a little shorter than my shod stride. Now I changed it to a fore-mid food landing and a much shorter stride. This results in less “crawling” with the toes and with that no more blisters. Also the impact on my calf’s is reduced whereby I can run for a longer time. Before the session I was running maximum 30 minutes and in four weeks I made a progression and I had my first 10K race (51 minutes). For now I keep on working on improving and training my running form!

Wouter Buist

After the experience with the 5K race I thought it was time to consult an expert to figure out what I did wrong and how I can improve it. So I made an appointment with Wouter Buist, a Dutch movement scientist en physiologist which is a specialist in barefeet running. It was incredible what he learned me about my running form in a two hour session. This session gives me a total new point of view considering the right running form and it also becomes clear what I did wrong. My longest training I ever did on barefeet was 35 minutes during this session we where training for almost two hours and it wasn’t a problem at all. I made a great progression in understanding the running form. I also learned that I have to slow down to adapt this new running form. Wouter gives on a regular basis workshops barefoot running, but you can also consult him for a personal training. If you start running, barefoot or shod I can recommend you to do this! For more information about Wouter and the barefoot workshops I recommend you to visit his site

My first 5K race!

On the 21th of april I ran my first 5K race barefeet, the time was not very good but that was not the goal of the race. But even when I was not running full speed, I was confronted with a change in running form due of the higher speed. Two blisters on the top of two toes make that very clear. But besides that it went very well, and the most important thing for me I felt great!! With this experience it is time to go more in dept how to improve my running form so I can ran on higher speed. So time to listen to the body!

Running as if you are riding a bike

Yesterday it was 11 degrees Celsius and almost no wind, the perfect conditions to go out and run. I am still building up with barefoot running so I had to run 22 minutes. I always start inside with a warming up of 20 minutes on the cross-trainer, this prepares your body for action and your feet are wakening up through the relief on the footsteps. Outside I start slowly and after 5 minutes I speed up if the body and feet feel good, yesterday it felt good. I speeded up to a speed I never did before with bare feet. I ran with I high cadence from over 180 and it felt like I was riding a bike. With my history as a amateur road racing cyclist I have ridden a lot of time challenges. During a time challenge you have to reach a stage where your legs are going round in a perfect cadence. Yesterday I reached that stage while I was running, I think I reached a new stage in barefoot running!