First real training experiences

When I started this I knew I would likely follow no methodology to adapt to minimal shoes.  As I stated on the previous post I decided to ignore the “10% rule” during the first trainings and, surprise, I’m still ignoring it now, after 5 trainings on minimal shoes, all over 10kms.

And despite taking this risk, the “listen to your body “ rule is working and I have made significant progress and learning. 

Another disclaimer here: I’m an experienced runner, I’ve been running for quite a lot of years now (and hopefully a lot more to come). This is just to share my experience, not my methodology ;)

As said before I have completed 5 trainings over 10kms exclusively on minimal.  Some learning:

Landing on the forefoot is now easier and automatic. The shoes invite you to lean a little bit forward when running and this makes the landing on the forefoot process easier. As a result the stride is probably slightly shorter, I have to count those over 1km in order to confirm this.

Calves have more stress, now they have to work more than before. After the first training over 10km the calves were hard as I had ran a race, and the day after… wow they were pretty sore. But nothing that couldn’t be solved with a little bit of stretching.

As the gravity centre is lower you feel more confortable on uneven surfaces but whenever you step over a sharp stone, ouch, it hurts. Maybe the f-lites 195 are not appropriate for rocky surfaces.

The last training (13km) I was tired.  Due to that I took me a little bit of extra effort and concentration not to land on my heels. I guess my calves were asking for a little bit of rest J

In the middle of those 5 trainings I did one on conventional shoes, and the first strides were strange, as the body was asking to land on the forefoot. But you get back to the conventional landing easily.

My question now is: imagine I do adapt 100% to minimal shoes… how is it combining conventional shoes and minimal shoes on a regular basis? Does it make any sense?

First kms on minimal running

And the day came to run on the Innov8's.

Love how light and flexible they feel, I'm really looking forward to adapt to this kind of shoes, as this feeling is so so great

The first strides on them really show you are running on something very very different:

The lack of drop just pushes you to land on your forefoot immediately, but after a few strides your heel, and the way you (I) have been running for years comes back again. So you have to think concentrate a little bit if you want to land the way you are supposed in this kind of shoes.

Many videos/articles claim the change in the stride is unconscious and immediate: Not for me.

The first day it was just run a little bit and walk, run, walk.... for about 20 minutes. And was just ok. The pace was very slow, so no real feedback at this point.

The second day I planned to run a little bit more on them. Theory says that to adapt to this kind of shoes you must apply the 10% rule:

Run the 10% of your distance on minimal and the rest on standard shoes. After one week, if you have no pain then increase another 10% extra.

That would imply logistics in order to carry to pair of shoes, running on a gym,....  and if there is one thing that I don't have is time to invest on logistics. So I decided to apply the "listen to your body" rule that has worked fine for me for more than 10 years as a runner.

I went to the nearest path in order to avoid tarmac, as in minimal shoes I really feel more confortable on sand than tarmac, and run for about 5km.

Have to say that I had no pain what so ever, was pretty relaxing and easy. I just logged 5km in order to be cautious, that's it. As I pointed out previously you have to concentrate in order to land on the forefoot,  but it is easy as the shoes help. The lightness push you to run faster, but I took it intentionally easy.

The day before I could feel the calves slightly "heavier" than usual (and more considering I run just 5km), meaning that some different muscles were used but honestly, no big difference to any other day.

More updates to come, stay tuned ;)

First impressions on minimal shoes

Disclaimer: sorry if my thoughts are too obvious, but this is my experience and I want to share it no matter how trivial it is.

The first remarkable thing you notice when you hold a minimal shoe is its lightness. I can say I have beach flip-flops heavier than that. They claim 195g (remember they are the f-lites 195) but in my not-very-scientific-scale their are 230g with laces.

This lightness is also noticeable once you first wear them. They make my NB890 (310g in my scale) feel like boots. 

What about suport? well, no support at all. Once you are in them, you are on your own risk... at last, this is one of the axioms minimalist runners claim; let you body learn how to support your stride, but theory is theory, practice will prove this right, or not.

The lack of support is non existing either on the sole nor the upper. Feels like a thick sock actually.

And the second remarkable feature is its incredible flexibility. You can flex them with a finger (kids, don't try to do that with a pair of standard shoes) This is obviously linked to the non-support but I have to admit that the freedom feeling with that lack of restrains is a pretty cool sensation.

This is just standing up with the shoes on, let's see what it is like to run on them. Well in fact I have already logged some kms on them, but that will be on the next post ;)

As a fashion note I have to say I love its minimalistic look and if they don't work as proper running shoes they will make it as shoes to wear with jeans. And as they are black they match with everything ;)

Let's give it a try

Yes, that's what I said to myself when I had the chance to try a pair of minimal running shoes "let's give it a try".

Although I've been aware of the minimal/barefoot running thing for long I would say I have ignored this trend, not because I'm reluctant or something, no, it is just because I was ok with the running shoes I'm faithful to, i.e, Nike Pegasus, Mizuno Wave Riders and New Balances eventually, and I had no need to try anything new.

I won't explain what the minimal running is about. There are tons of info over the web from many different sources. If you need some info let me know by dropping a comment.

In the meantime, the minimal running trend has grown exponentially and some well reputed trail runners have become the spokesmen of the minimal sole shoes.  Anton, Killian, and many other fly over the paths and trails with under 200gr running shoes with almost no drop.
As a consequence of the marketing machinery and due to the experiences shared by many anonymous runners all the brands have models in their offerings claiming the advantages of the minimal shoes trying to run as barefooted as possible.

The Tarahumara (an indian mexican tribe famous by running long distances on their hand made "huaraches") are now trendy. Many studies claim their superhuman ability to run hundreds of miles are, in part,  due to running barefoot and the energy saved by running on your naked forefoot.

But if you find one article, paper, video claiming how incredible it is to run barefoot or with minimal shoes and that you have been and idiot using your good old fashioned cushioned shoes, you can find the same amount of studies claiming just the reverse.

Well, now I have the chance to prove that for myself as a pair of minimal shoes were available for me to be tested.  To have an credible opinion on something, well, you should have experienced it before.

Will they be good enough to run a marathon or 20kms under a heavy former semi-fast runner? or will be just be relegated to be used with jeans on the weekends?

Don't know, I'll try to find the answer over the next months as I decrease my running mileage on summer and the timing is perfect for experiments.

Previous experience on "light" shoes was on using exclusively 300 gr-ish shoes for long periods of time some years ago. Yeah, I know, that's not "light", but I'm a 75kg runner and used to run at paces close to 4'/km, and that's light given those standars.

Injuries... well my left knee is starting to complain after many years of abuse and my right hip has given me problems in the last year.

And at last but not for least the shoes. A brand new pair of innov8 f-lite 195. You can find a lot of reviews of these shoes over the web, for example follow this link. Innov8 is not as well known as other brands, they focus on the minimal running. You'll find a lot of info in their web site

Disclaimer: Innov8 is not sponsoring this blog at all. Just had the chance to test this model in particular and thought it would be interesting to share the experience.