I've had my Vibram FiveFinger barefoot alternative shoes for several weeks. Based on advise I found both on the Vibram website and on various blogs I broke myself in gently to the barefoot experience. This mean wearing my new Vibram five finger classics for just a few hours a day at first and building up the distances I walked in them. Over the last few weeks I have increased the distance I can walk, and I feel that my feet are getting stronger.

Initially after walking for around twenty minutes in my Vibram Five Finger Classics I found that I was experiencing a little bit of pain in the ball of my foot. Many other first time wearers experience this pain and it is our feet getting used to the lack of synthetic cushioning and using our bodies natural shock absorbers more.

Once I gained confidence that my feet were getting stronger I decided it was time to take my FiveFingers out for a short run. I read that many people have no problem in running with these shoes on concrete or tarmac. As I don't have any grassy areas immediately near to my flat I decided to take them on to a newish car park around the corner that I knew would be smoother and less likely to have stones or anything that could derail my first experience running in the Vibram Five Fingers.

The first thing that I noticed with my run is that the heel striking (where you have the tendency to land on you heel rather than correctly on the ball of the foot) was very noticeable. With no cushioning the impact was felt immediately and I was forced to run properly landing front to middle of my foot on each stride. This caused quite an adjustment to my posture on this short run and I may have been overly concentrating on not heel striking to the point of almost running on tip-toes. After a few minutes I was in to my new stride and enjoying the enhanced feeling of connection with the ground under my feet with each metre I covered.

I decided not to overdo it on my first run out in my new Vibram Fiver Fingers as I didn't want to injure myself from overdoing it when my body is not used to this way of running. There is a wide movement of barefoot runners who claim that they are less injury prone as their body can adapt naturally to the posture of running rather than being forced in to an unnatural position by running shoes with too much padding and build up in the heel and arch support. I am a big believer in the natural biomechanics of the human body and the vibram fivefinger shoes are a great way to introduce yourself to barefoot running, whilst offering your feet some protection from the hazards of modern life.