Victoria and I headed out to Coloma to show her the 10k course we will be running on Saturday.  Last Saturday we did the Dirty Secret Trail run in Cool and I wore my Vibrams.  I was fine the next day and on Monday we hit the trails again. I decided that instead of pushing my luck and wearing my Vibrams that I would try out a pair of minimalist street shoes. Normally I would wear my Brooks Cascadias, but I thought they might be a bit to heavy for me. I was still a little bit sore.

I knew 2 miles in that I had made a huge mistake. The toe box is bigger on these shoes and my feet were not use to it. I couldn’t find my balance at all. I am also use to trail shoes and the grip they provide. These shoes were street shoes and had zero grip.

At 3 miles I was already hurting.  They held up on the up hill and oh boy are there a lot of uphill. Going down was a whole new beast.  Normally I don’t have any problems, but I found that I was heel striking for a good mile.  I couldn’t stop it either.  If I tried to forefront strike I would want to squeal in pain.  The Vibrams have taught me the proper way of running and these shoes were begging me to do the exact opposite and at mile 5 I just gave up and ran like an idiot.

The end of this beautiful trail has a great stream. My feet were sore and hot and I just ran right into them middle and stayed there until they were cool.  These shoes did not release any water at all. I made it back to the car still squishing around in them.

When I got home I pulled them off and my feet were screaming at me.  I ended the night with having to ice my feet.   I have ran barefoot for over a year and many times I have taken off my Vibrams and ran without anything on my feet.  I have never had this issue before.  Now the back of my thighs are sore too.  This is not good for Saturday.

Just two more runs and then I get a weekend off before I have another round of races.

Stupid rookie move with the shoes. Damn it.