My first 2 months journey with Vibram Fivefingers Sprint

189km in total.......80km of it in MacRitchie Reservoir Trails and the rest on tarmac roads or concrete pavements...

That's how far  have covered with my Vibram Fivefingers Sprint in the last 2 months after ditching my "proper" running shoes..

The journey so far has been very exciting and exhilarating. Every non-trail run is also getting easier and faster than before. I have entered physical barrier that I have not achieved using "proper" running shoes which can be seen from the following 3 run logs:

1.This route is my favourite route to test on my fitness. It consisted of first 2.9km of flats and followed 3.4km of hills



The runs that are highlighted in orange are the ones I did with my VFF. You can see that other than the first run which is the 2nd fastest when it is done, only to be slower than my PB in 11/3/2009. The rest of the runs in VFF are faster than the past when I used my "proper" running shoes

(Click on the table to enlarge)

2. This 8km route is usually the next route that I will advance to when I am conditioned to the previous route. This route is 100% flat on tarmac and concrete pavement



The first 2 attempts using my VFF Sprint broke my "proper" runing shoes PB.

3. After conditioned to 8km, I will proceed to do this route which the first 7km is flat and the last 3.4km is hills




My 1st run on this route is the one which I got the most exciting about. I did it below an hour and this is the first time in past 4 years that I have done a 10km below an hour easily.

However, increasing the distance on VFF has to be done progressively depending on how the calves can handle. The only muscles that cannot handle the load when I switched from Nike Free 3.0 to VFF are my calves. When I first started, my calves started burning after 2km. Till present when running on hard pavement, my calves started to strain when I hit more than 5km. So I am now slowly conditioning my calves to go longer distances.

However, this is not the case when I run in the trail. The longest distance I ran using VFF in the trail has hit 14km and I do not feel any calves strain at all....I suspect, I can go much further off-road.

Runing with VFF is not without its problem and injuries. However, injuries so far are minor which can recovers within 203 days...knocks and bruises on the under-foot is common, especially after a run in the trail...mainly due to landing wrongly on large sharp stone. Blister can happens sometimes but it helps in tougher than skin and the most serious injury so far is a black toesnail on my right last toe....knock against a rock during my second run in MR.

Looking forward to the 2 events that I have signed up and they will be the first road run with VFF in Sentosa for 2XU 12km run and  F1 Eq Nature Run 15km in MacRitchie Trail.