Vibram Five Fingers review
After Adam from Fitness Footwear offered a pair of Vibram Five Fingers as a Juneathon prize, I emailed him and said I can’t win them, I’m organising Juneathon, can I have some anyway and he kindly said yes, as long as I write a long review about them.
Well, I don’t know about long, as I haven’t tried them out properly as, after hearing things such as you have to take it slowly in them and build up the mileage and walk in them first for a few weeks before running in them and stuff, I haven’t done any proper research to find out just how I’m supposed to build up and so, after leaving them sitting in the box for a few weeks, I took them out to wear in the house for an evening.
I read somewhere that the best way to try and get them on your feet is to place your toes into the little toe compartments and then slide your heel in. It took me three goes to do this, as my little toe is so little, it didn’t want to go in.
Apparently, you’re supposed to choose a size or two smaller than your usual size but when I was sent a size smaller, they were uncomfortably tight and my big toes wouldn’t straighten in them. This could be because I have abnormally long toes though, as I was told by a man tripping on acid in a park in Brixton at a festival many years ago that I was ‘really long. Everyone else here is normal but you’ve got really long arms and legs.’ Strange man.
Eventually, all toes are safely cocooned in their little canvas casings and if you want to further adjust them, there’s an elastic cord at the heel you can tighten.
As they’re made of a rubber sole with a canvas upper, they’re quite comfy and flexible, although not as flexible as I thought they might be, but that could come with time, I suppose, as I’m sure I’ve seen a photo of someone wearing them with curled toes.
I don’t usually wear shoes around the house as I prefer a barefoot feeling to be caused by actually having bare feet, although I did start wearing slippers last year after moving from my toasty house in London to the arctic climes of Ashford.
I settle down on the sofa with a glass of wine and put my feet up in front of the TV. It’s probably not their main use and I haven’t seen it as a marketing feature, but the rubber soles did stop my feet from slipping off the chrome coffee table.
They were quite comfy, but half way through Eastenders, I take them off and spend the evening properly barefooted.
I’m not sure what this latest craze for barefoot running is all about. I blame it on ‘Born to Run ’ by Christoper McDougall that everyone seems to be either reading or has read recently (including myself). Have Asics, Brooks, New Balance, etc. been wasting their time with their hi-tech shoes with promises of better performance and fewer injuries, when all we need to do really is spend approximately £100 on something that will scare small children?
Next time, I’ll take them for a test lap around the garden.
I also have odd sized toes so have been interested to read this. Will keep hold of my £100 for the time being – at least until I hear how you get on running in them.
I have actually bought some, but they are still sat at the Mail depot waiting for me to pick them up and heaven knows when that will be!
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