I’ve needed a new pair of every day shoes to replace my tattered old NewBalance MR1224′s and three weeks ago I decided to hit up ZombieRunner in Palo Alto and try on my first pair of Vibram Five Fingers. The staff at ZombieRunner were very pleasant and helped me get sized correctly for the VFF’s which use European sizing and on top of that, differ from most other shoes. I ended up finding out that my left foot is a 41 and my right a 40 – not a total surprise, but I guess this explains why my hockey skates have never fit quite right.
I tried on three different pairs of VFFs and one thing was immediately obvious: my toes weren’t used to being spread out. It takes quite a bit of wiggling and maneuvering to get your toes to cooperate and spread out enough to get them in the little toe pockets in the VFFs and yes, it does feel a bit weird. I was starting to feel a little embarrassed that I was struggling so much to get these things on but two other people came into the store looking to try out the VFFs while I was there and they all suffered the same fate – especially the guy that walked in with dress shoes on. When I actually did get them on and started walking around the store it immediately became obvious to me that we get conditioned to walk “heel-toe” in normal sneakers and when you do this in VFFs you sound like an elephant stomping around due to the lack of shock absorption. Having done some research on the VFFs before I went in to try them out I knew to walk on the balls of my feet and let the action of the front of my foot splaying out absorb the shock instead of my heel. If you’ve never tried this before it feels very weird and unnatural when you’re used to wearing sneakers all the time – I assume you ladies who wear heels have a distinct advantage over us men in this regard. After a few trips around the store I decided that the VFFs were worth a shot so I snagged the last pair of Sprints in size M42 since they didn’t have a pair of KSOs (Keep Stuff Out to the uninitiated) in my size – apparently they burn through their stock faster than they can get them delivered.
After leaving the store, I put on my Sprints as soon as I got back to the car and wore them for the rest of the day. I didn’t have any of the ankle pain that some people report after their first day wearing the VFFs but my shins were a little tight as was the lower part of my butt. The tightness went away after a couple of days and I’ve been wearing them for about 4 days a week since then with no issues… except for the stench.
The stench seemed to start after taking photos at the Lake Stevens Ironman 70.3 when I stepped into the lake to get a better shot of a friend swimming to the finish. I followed Vibram’s directions and washed the shoes in my washing machine and then dried them in the sun which worked, but the stench came back after a week or so of wearing them. I recently found a few threads on the net talking about “Vibram Stench” and the consensus seems to be soaking them in vinegar for a few hours and then rinsing them. I’m about to try this now as the repeated washings have to be shortening their lifespan.
After about two weeks of wearing the Vibram Five Fingers I can happily say that my toes spread apart and now slip easily into the VFFs which are now quicker to put on than tying shoes. One neat side effect is that after about a month of use, I seem to have more dextrous control of my toes and my arches haven’t hurt a bit. I think I’ll pick up a pair of KSOs to take on my next hiking trip.
