My impressions...

I've been running in VFF Classics for about a month now. Not very much as I've been getting over severe sciatica problems but thankfully that seems to be in the past now.

I bought them as I'd experimented with full barefoot running earlier in the year and enjoyed it but running fully barefoot excluded me from too many of my running venues. I think I probably could run many road races fully barefoot but around where I live there's a huge range in tarmac quality so even to run on roads, I was looking for something that would let me enjoy most of the benefits of barefoot running without the drawbacks.

I've now done speedwork in them and some trail runs and really love them. They add another dimension to my running and even when it's uncomfortable, I find I'm enjoying my running more. At the weekend I attempted a 20 mile trail run in my VFFs which was a tad ambitious as my longest run since my 6 month lay-off was just 9 miles the weekend before (and longest run in VFFs was 6 miles).

The first 10 miles were just brilliant, the next 5 got progressively harder due to foot tenderness and at 17 miles I bottled out and put on some regular shoes that I'd been carrying. Given that the trail was littered with stones of all sizes and stacks of Beech mast sticking up like bl**dy clatrops I don't think I did too badly.

My feet are definitely tender today but given my inability to do things in moderation, that's no more than I deserve. ;-) On the whole though I think I got a lot more out of running in the VFFs than tender feet.

At present I'm alternating between ordinary running shoes and my VFFs but ultimately I'd like to be able to run trail ultra events in them.