I have joined the swelling numbers of people who are going barefoot - or at least minimalist shoes (VFF), mostly. It makes running feel so much better than in great big lumps of plastic.
The story started for me last year, in the summer of 2008, when I read a walking magazine (Trail or TGO, I can't remember which) that had reviews of minimalist shoes for hill walking. I cannot even remember the other two shoes, but that was when I decided I had to have a pair of Vibram FiveFingers. Barefoot Ted's reviews tipped me over the point of no return and got my money spent on Amazon. When my wife first saw them I was ordered to walk at ten paces behind, and on no account to go into town when people might see me.
I was so excited I walked when I would otherwise have driven, and took a series of exciting shots of my own feet. Almost a year later I have made every basic mistake in barefooting. Very early on I got too excited and went for a 9 mile run shoeless one morning. I thought that my feet felt a little sensitive after half an hour or so, but as I was running on mixed surfaces I thought no more about it - the damp grass was fantastic. It was only as I trailed foot prints of blood across the hall carpet that I realised I might have been a little silly.
I learned a lot about surgical dressings and walking really slowly on my heals after that. Two months lost. But no regrets - when the screaming pain died down anyway.
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