The Recovery

Well post 3 Forts, everything looked good and it was the following week that I had my foot op.

I was sold on all things trail and ultra by now and spent my recovery time reading Born to run and every running magazine in the newsagents. My recovery plan had me waiting at least 6 weeks before any type of running as this was how long the bone takes to heal, so I looked to get back into cycling again as this was lower impact and carried on reading.

I’d by now also decided that I would give barefoot running a go as I was going to take it easy when I started so I would be doing low miles anyway so what did I have to lose? I’d been doing more research on the type of footwear to use and the two choices seemed to be “hardcore” toe-type slippers or reduce heal drop “minimal” shoes. A good friend at work Mark Williams (get well soon mate!) showed me his Inov-8 rubber footwear and even though they were impressive, they are a little too extreme for me. I decided to go for it and ordered a pair of black Vibram 5 Fingers (or VFFs) off ebay.

The first thing for anyone to consider when purchasing VFF’s is that most pairs sold on the internet are fakes! 100% of the ones on ebay are not genuine and I have to admit I knew this beforehand. If the price is too good to be true, it normally is! A friend though had some fakes and said that they were actually ok and I thought if it goes wrong then better to waste £45 not £115. Well they turned up pretty quick and I have to say they were of pretty good quality. As with everything made in the far east, they were probably made in the same factory but sold out the back door.

They featured a 2mm thick rubber sole with little thread pattern and neoprene upper secure with a Velcro strap. For the next couple of weeks I regularly looked at them imagining what it would feel like becoming “one with nature”

But for now I had to wait L