Since recovering from my knee injury, I have run further, faster and better. Fewer races, maybe, but I’ve managed to squeeze a couple more parkruns in and the races I’ve done have been more meaningful to me.

Numbers first (pre-knee in brackets):

5k – 23:38 (26:40)   10k – 49:29 (56:13)   HM – (2:10:08)

distance: 861.10 km (758.50 km)

To be honest I thought I’d run further than that this year, but I haven’t filtered out the Garmin lies that include car journies and other nonsense, so who knows?

Now, then. A couple of weeks ago I ran the Lakeland Trails Helvellyn 15k – more about that in a minute because first I want to explain why. A few months ago I received an email from Lakeland Trails offshoot Ultimate Trails (you can see what’s coming here) announcing that entries had opened for the 2015 55km and 110km ultras. I followed the link, idly filled in the entry form and there it sat on my work screen for three days before I thought WTF and clicked the big shiny button that said “Take my sixty quid. Please.” I’m only half the fool I might have been because I bought my way into the 55km. And it isn’t until the end of June next year (this year if you’re reading this next year or last year if you’re reading the year after). The route of the 55 meanders around various Lake District fells but going around anything in the Lake District usually involves significant climbs and descents. MapMyIdiocy informs me that the total ascent is 1632.82 m. Huh…nothing. It also reports the distance as 50km, but that doesn’t surprise me as Lakeland Trails always get their distances wrong.

I don’t really have a training plan yet, but that’ll come.

Bollocks. I’d hoped to embed the MapMyRun route here, but WordPress.com says no.
Heres a link instead.

Back to the Helvellyn 15 (actually 14km – see!). The first 10km of this race covered the first 10 of the UT55, so it was part recce, part wanting to run the race. Lakeland Trails events are quite pricey but they’re very well organised and the routes are unrivalled.

I was a bit worried before starting that the first 5km was going to be hard. Very hard. But it was really not that bad. The race I was in had 460 runners so the trail, which was pretty much single track, was crowded and the run a little processional. I started the race in an ultra frame of mind – prepared to walk the hills – and the initial climb passed reasonably painlessly.

The route was a vehicle track to start with, so not too crowded, but once at the top of the climb and across the beck, overtaking became fairly precarious. I managed to push myself and pass quite a few people but speed was definitely limited. I tripped and fell past one runner – quite a good manoeuvre as I’d been trying to get past her for about 2km. Inflight dialogue was, “Shite! Sorry!” and I was gone. Later she was one of the few people to re-pass me. I’d slowed to a walk to sort out my water. I never caught her (or saw her) again.

I twisted both ankles quite a few times but just continued falling forwards for 10km until I lost my grip on wet grass and slid to the bottom of a bank. Popping up onto my feet at the bottom, I ran across was looked like a muddy patch in a gateway, but managed to find a hole that had me upto my waist on one leg. The other leg and momentum had me out and running again before my foot had found the bottom.

The last 5km was an exercise in endurance, so I just pushed on plumbing the depths of my reserves. I even managed a sprint finish.

The race went exactly as planned – I had in mind that I’d need to do the same thing three or four more times next summer. That pace would have me finishing well inside the 12 hour cutoff. Of course I’ll be moving a lot more slowly on the day, but I’m very pleased with the recce.

The only thing I would’ve changed is my shoes. I’d used my trusty Vivobarefoot Breathos, but they’ve worn a bit thin – not surprising as I’ve put over 1000km on them. My family bought me a pair of Inov8 Mudclaws for my birthday, but I was worried that the road sections would shred them. With hindsight, though, I got them for racing and this was a race, so I was silly not to wear them.

from couch to ultra
my journey from wheezing fat git to lean long distance runner

and I’ve changed the url to something a little less stiff than ‘blog’ – it’s now http://leoponton.org/couch2ultra/.

The theme is updated as are the header photos. You really ought to go and look. And sign up to the email notification thing and then don’t come back here. Go there instead. It’s a nicer place.

I’m hoping to get a look at the registrar’s notes once the NHS get their information ducks in a row and then I’ll be able to find out what to do about it.

Meanwhile I signed up for the Asics Paris Marathon lottery – free kit, expenses paid marathon entry / travel / accomodation. Too good to be true with a declared injury, but you have to have a worm in the water to catch a fish.

So, no training unless I tentatively spin the wheels of an exercise bike or swim a little.

I achieved my stated aim of running a half marathon. In fact I ran two in quick succession. I had just started planning my first ultra – either Sherwood Forest (Dukeries) or Kielder Forest. I know, I mentioned them at the end of October, but now they’re off the cards. There’s no way I’ll have time to repair and train for that distance before April. A marathon maybe, but that’s another story.

Anyway, I’m putting my energy into splitting my blog from the cozy but restrictive embrace of wordpress.com and I’m now hosting it myself as http://leoponton.org/blog. Perhaps I could have thought of a better stub than ‘blog’ but it was late at night that I set it up. Mebbe at some future time I’ll change it to something super-exciting like ‘runs’ or ‘running’.

What this means, of course, is that all you multitudinous followers (29) will have to decide whether to continue to follow my labours by visiting the excitingly named new blog and signing up or being lost forever in the digital wilderness without me. There will be some overlap, but then one day, without warning, it’ll be gone.

I’m struggling to think of a jaunty title for the new blog so I’m open to suggestions, but if you want to see what I’ve set at the moment then you’ll have to head over there (and while you’re there sign up)(please).

1. It won’t be any more difficult than the Karrimor Great Trails Challenge. Wrong.
2. I’ve just run two half marathons – how bad can it be? Very bad.
3. I’m going to have to carry all that mandatory gear in my backpack. Wrong, I’ll be wearing it.
4. The weather forecast says it’ll rain for the duration. Wrong (not my wrong but the Met Office’s) it only rained while I was on the boat – that I noticed.
5. My knee will be alright. Very wrong.

Spoils of war.

This race marked the end of the Lakeland Trails 2013 Series (there were actually four races over the same course and mine was the penultimate) and started with a half hour steamboat ride from the finish to the start. The kit list (cagoule, over trousers or tights, hat and gloves) was mandatory because half an hour in running kit on an open boat in the Lake District in November would have overloaded mountain rescue and the local hospitals with hypothermia cases and corpses. One fool in shorts and a vest was turned away.

The steamboat was a little late which meant that the cafe on the pier was packed with runners keeping warm – the weather had just turned cold after a reasonably mild spell and, as if to underline this, some of the higher fells were capped with white. It all looked very pretty, especially with the contrapuntal blue skies and thunder clouds. Even though I live and work at the edge of the Lakes, I rarely get to see the beautiful views, so this was a real treat particularly as the tops (and bottoms) weren’t in cloud.

We were entertained on the boat ride by some geezer with a guitar who sang stuff like ‘I am sailing’ while we cheered runners in the previous race occasionally visible through the trees and were informed that Patterdale Mountain Rescue were en route to attend a suspected broken ankle.

As we changed course, the sun went behind clouds and the rain came down accompanied by cold wind. At that point my full body covering started to seem insufficient and I wasn’t the only one shaking with shivers. Soon, though, we docked and were tipped off the boat to make our way to the start. Without great ceremony we were walked up the road fifty metres and sent on our way. From here it all started to go horribly wrong.

I like to warm up gently for a kilometer or so – it takes that long to beat my achilles tendons into submission. The first 500m was on road up a moderate hill that became footpath on a less moderate hill. As we progressed the path deteriorated and became rockier and steeper. By 1 km I was pooped and walking. I’d passed a parked mountain rescue vehicle earlier and now someone passed me in the opposite direction who I assumed to be a MRT member (he had a radio clipped to his backpack). After about 2 km I’d warmed up enough to take off my gloves and cagoule. I was worryingly close to the back of the field but eventually we reached some downhill and I was able to make up some places, overtaking runners who were picking their way more cautiously along the rock strewn path.

It was now becoming clear that my knee wasn’t as well recovered as I’d thought, but it wasn’t bad enough to stop me running. I had no intention of DNFing this race – my philosophy was WFW (will finish whatever). All I had to do was keep going. Walk up the hills if necessary.

Very soon the hills became rocky scrambles and the downhills the same or very steep gravel paths. Running downhill was, for the most part, no longer an option, not helped by my knee which was perfectly mobile but reluctant to lock. Just keep going. Somewhere around here another MRT woman with a front slung nitrox cylinder jogged past me in the opposite direction. I asked her if they’d sorted the guy with the ankle injury and she said she had and was now on her way to treat a woman somewhere behind me.

After about five kilometers I got into a tussle with a couple of other runners, swapping places as we each reached terrain that suited our strengths. This lasted quite a while with the lead swapping a few times until my knee finally called it a day and I had to back off. I kept telling myself “I’m here to run” and every time I had the opportunity I did just that, pushing through the pain until I hit another scramble.

I’m the one in orange, of course.

As I reached the bottom of what was the last real climb I spotted the photographer and managed what I like to think was a smile and a wave (it doesn’t look like he caught the moment). I was actually running at the time which was a bonus.

That’s me with a smile and a wave (not).

The climb was a steep walk. Every now and again I’d manage to run three or four steps, mostly to try to keep my knee working. The top was a bog then a rocky stream bed. A runner wearing a bib number streaked passed the other way, on his way, it turned out, to inform the marshal at the beginning of the hill of another casualty. I trundled on and as I reached the bottom of this particular bit there was a guy with a bloodied face who had slipped and tumbled face first. He was being looked after so I kept going. I was worried that if I stopped I’d become another casualty. Another kilometer saw another MRT woman in running kit with a pack and a sheepdog running to help him.

The last big climb. This isn’t me, but it is what most of the course looked like.

I could hear the announcer at the finish line now. I could even see the inflatable gate, but I knew it was at least two or three kilometers still to go as I had to run a big loop down the hill then back into the village. I’d been suffering with cramps in both legs for the last two or three km and the spasms were making my knee problem worse, but I knew I had to keep going or the cramps would take over. As I limped down the hill – too steep for my knee to run – backmarkers started to pass me. I knew the last part was a level run in and I was determined to do just that. Although I had to stop doubled over with leg cramps two or three times and stagger out of the way of an oncoming mountain rescue Landrover, blue lights and headlights flashing,  I managed just that – a running finish through the park and across the finish.

Not a bad shirt – technical, not cotton, and printed front and back. Shame it’s post office red…

I picked up my bag containing a Cartmel sticky toffee pudding, a weird little Asics vaseline pot and something that may or may not be a medal or a keyring. The shirt I’d picked up before the run, so I needn’t have bothered with the agony. No free hot drinks or sports drinks were to be had but I got a cup of water and found a seat to collapse into.

Something that may or may not be a medal or a keyring, a sticky toffee pudding that turned out to be chocolate and a weird little pot containing sufficient vaseline for one small nipple.

I wish it ended there, but no. It took me about half an hour to cover the quarter mile to the car. My knee injury had emerged from its adrenaline suppressed state and was biting back big time. Plenty of people kindly asked if I was okay, one of them advised me to walk back to the first aid tent (nice idea, but the car was closer). What I really wanted was a carry. I knew I’d be okay to drive as the problem was locking my knee to walk. All I wanted was to get some dry clothes on, get home eat and have a bath. Which is what I did.

A night of rest didn’t improve things and I had to ask Jane to drop me off at A & E in the morning. Surprisingly, for a nation that saves up its weekend injuries to scam a morning off work on Mondays, the hospital was very quiet and I was in and out in an hour. The doctor, who uncharacteristically seemed to know what he was doing, twisted, pushed and pulled my leg and poked his thumbs in all the soft bits of my knee, quickly concluding that my cruciate ligament and iliotibial band were okay but I seemed to have some damage to my lateral meniscus that didn’t really concern him. In other words I had damaged the cartilage in my knee. His lack of concern suggests that it is bruised rather than torn. Can I run? No. Can I row? No. How long for? Until it’s better. Rest and plenty of fluids then. Doesn’t look like I’ll be running for the rest of the year. That’ll be 2 DNSs to my name.

Was it a good run? Uh..yes? Will I do it again? Hell aye. As a mate pointed out, it’ll be an easy PB next year. Something strange has happened to me. I enjoyed pushing myself through all of that. I didn’t once think, “What the fuck am I doing here?”. It’s a difficult thing to explain and to reconcile given that I’ve spent my life hating running. But, looking at the title of the blog, I’ve achieved my aims. I ran two half marathons within a month and I am now enjoying running.

Support your local mountain rescue: Three Runners Rescued within Three Hours

Very, very, very bright.

My latest knock-off acquisition is a head torch. Yes, the season of head torches is upon us as I discovered last week when, out for an evening run, I took an awkward step in the total darkness beneath trees resulting in a mild injury. It’s a kind of ache on the outside of my knee. Standard runner self diagnosis says it’s probably something to do with my ITB, but that’s a bit too twee and easy an excuse for not running, so I’m happy to say my knee’s fucked and I’m resting it. I have a race in two weeks’ time, I’m fit enough for it so I’ll just leave it at that and do a couple of easy runs if I can.

I wanted a lamp that was more powerful and considerably cheaper than the likes of Petzl. I’m not averse to customising and hacking to make fit for purpose and was toying with the idea of cannibalising a large LED hand lamp for which we’ve lost the charger, perhaps uniting it with a defunct Petzl Zoom, that must-have headtorch of the 1980s.

Petzl Zoom and powerful 3-LED lead-acid torch.

Immediate need, however, nudged me down the road to China and so, for the outrageously low price of £11.99 including P&P I have a Cree Q5 headtorch that will burn the retinas of anybody heading towards me. You can get the same for about half that without battery and charger straight from China, but mine came from the UK (so I didn’t have to take the risk of paying Parcel Force’s twenty quid fee to charge me 99 pence import tax) with a charger and two very high powered batteries.

This is what I bought – a Cree Q5 LED headtorch for £11.99. The light is a reflection of the flash on my phone, not the torch itself.

Is it worth it? When I was a kid ‘Made in Japan’ and ‘Made in Hong Kong’ were synonymous with poor quality junk made with recycled plastic. RoC now seems to hold that particular accolade – incongruous, perhaps, as they also manufacture some of the finest electronics on the planet. I’m pretty sure that a lot of this stuff even comes out of the same mould, literally, as more expensive goods like Led Lenser headtorches and in this case it did. And it didn’t. So the answer is yes and, I suppose, no. But more of that later. Before I had even put the torch on my head one of the tabs clipping the battery cover on had snapped. The plastic for the battery compartment is very brittle – rather like the bakelite of old – and the case appears to have been designed by someone unacquainted with concepts such as ergonomics and aesthetics. It looks and feels like a laptop charger strapped to my head with funky elastic. Comments for similar products on Amazon say that it (the headtorch) seems to have been made for people with small heads and I agree that the elastic is lacking in adjustment – mine is set to the largest size and is still rather tight.

It’s really difficult to take a good photo of the back of your head. The thing that looks like a laptop charger is the battery box. The rubber bands hold the cover on – see text.

The other common criticism of these torches takes us round to the business end. The tilt mechanism is poor – it tilts okay but the ratchet that holds the light at the desired angle is,  again, designed by someone who has no aptitude for this sort of thing – it’s a tiny little grooved bit on the pivot that supposedly engages with a tab of the same brittle plastic as the battery box.

The ratchet used to set the angle is pathetic.

The ratchet’s location and diminutive size mean it has to deal with a lot of leverage and the not inconsiderable weight of the aluminium light housing coupled with the bouncing up and down of the runner wearing it. I solved this by packing out to the desired angle then taping the whole thing up with electricians tape. That’s okay by me as I don’t expect to be messing around with the angle.

I taped the pivoting head into the position I want.

On to the light itself… The manufacturer claims that the LED is a Cree Q5. Cree LEDs are the dog’s bollocks when it comes to this sort of thing and I have no doubt that this is the real thing. It’s difficult to make sense out of Cree’s specs, but I think this is a Q5 XR-E and it’s probably chucking out 3-400 lumens. Tech stuff, yeah, but for comparison, a Petzl Myo costing £75 makes half the light at 205 lumens. I could have bought a T6-based torch for similar money and an output of over 1000 lumens, but it would only have half the battery life. It’s enough to say that this torch is as bright as my car headlights. If it was a band it would be Motörhead. There are three settings: low, high and seizure inducing strobe. They’re selected by consecutive pushes on the button, so it’s low -> high -> flash -> off. Nothing outstanding or vaguely interesting there.

What’s it like in the woods?

I don’t know. As I said earlier the reason I bought it was because I goosed my knee running in the dark. I started writing this a week ago and I’m still resting my leg so I haven’t used it in anger. I’ll let you know when I have. It’s bright enough to light up my whole garden, so I don’t anticipate problems there. It’s more likely that there will be issues around the weight or the construction. I expect it will be at least as good as the old Petzl Zoom  which is quite a monster.

Battery life

The batteries supplied are white-label (blue, actually) lithium cells and claim to be 2400mAh. That means a lot of stored power. Sure, you can get bigger ones and some guy, whose website I’ve lost, did a check on dozens of batteries to discover that, surprise surprise, they aren’t as high capacity as they say they are. It doesn’t really matter because on high setting the battery lasts for two hours. On low over seven hours. Low is brighter than any headtorch I’ve seen and two hours is longer than I want to run in the dark. Battery life is good enough for me, then. And, of course, I was suppied with two batteries (and the torch uses one).

Would I buy another?

Hell yes. I’d probably experiment with the other models and styles available though. In fact, since I started writing this I’ve ordered another model, direct from China at the all-in price of £4.75 and, being a bit of a hacker, I’ve also ordered, again from China, a circuit board to charge the lithium battery from a phone charger (or usb cable) – two for £1.60 including delivery!

Would I recommend it?

Uh…I’ve said a lot about it. If what I’ve said doesn’t bother you then yes, I’d recommend it. If you want a pretty, does what it says, costs-way-more headtorch that you can wear in the pub, then no, I don’t recommend it.

What alternatives?

Trip over tree roots or stay at home!

So I bought a Chinese headtorch. I haven’t been able to use it yet (twisted knee).

Very, very, very bright.

I’ve been pretty critical of fell running and marathons in the past. I think fell runners are barking mad and (repeated) marathon running is a clinical condition akin to anorexia. With this in mind I’ve entered a fell race and I’m seriously considering a marathon – a trail marathon, albeit as a stepping stone to something slightly bigger. That something bigger has been on the back burner for a long time and was going to be the Ultimate Trails 50km over big hills and stuff, but unfortunately they won’t be doing it again until June 2015. Now my focus is on one of two trail ultras: Kielder 50k & Dukeries 50k. The thing is they both happen before the stepping stone marathon, so maybe I’ll be excused the indignity of that minor hypocrisy.

Kielder Water, largest artificial lake in the United Kingdom surrounded by Kielder forest, the largest man-made woodland in Europe.

The first of these ultras is local, in a big forest, hilly  and, at that time of year, cold. Sounds like fun. The second, Dukeries, is around Sherwood Forest which is much less of a forest than Kielder and is very user friendly with roads, people and villages. Probably reasonably flat, too. Which to do? The first is probably closer to my heart, but we used to live near to and go cycling around Sherwood Forest before kids happened and I’d like to try running around there. It’s probably less cold and less technical to run as well. Decisions, decisions.

Anyways, my next race is a 14km trail down the side of Ullswater this Sunday, 3rd November. Whether or not my knee will play DNS, DNF or JFDI remains to be seen.

The course was described by the organisers as undulating. It was and there were some lengthy climbs in the first half of the race. There were even a couple in the last few miles. Not really surprising given that it was in Cumbria, land of lakes and what we here in England like to call mountains (they’re really big hills or fells in the local lingo).

For the first 7km of the route, which was most of the uphill part, I ran with a slower colleague, Stu, partly for altruistic reasons, and partly self-interest. Ii’s good to have some company and I knew that if I ran with Stu then my pace would be slower and probably steadier than if I was alone. That would be useful for the later, generally downhill, stages where I could pick up my pace. It meant that he had company and motivation through the hardest part of the run too. I knew he could go the distance but it’s hard when you’re on your own.

Stu always looks like he’s having fun. He assures me that’s not a smile.

At the agreed point – as we passed another running colleague, Adam’s house (and cheering family) – I legged it. It was a fantastic feeling upping the pace and flying past all the people who’d passed me earlier. Even better that I managed to maintain that pace for most of the remaining 14km. I knew I wasn’t going to beat my GNR time, but that didn’t matter. The local support was great – small groups of people in villages, but vociferous and encouraging.

I was really enjoying the climbs and I realised that this was the first time I had actually enjoyed a run while I was running it. I’d enjoyed runs in the past, but only on reflection. At the time it was more a feeling of ‘what the hell am I doing this for?’. I never thought I’d enjoy running a half marathon, only that it would be something to achieve. It bodes well for a future of harder and/or longer runs.

Running the last hill through Rickerby Park in the pissing rain. The sunglasses weren’t used. At all.

Running the last mile became increasingly difficult as I neared the stadium – finished runners were walking back down the course and blocking it! They didn’t even really make an effort to get out of the way or offer encouragement. Not what I’d expect from other runners. Navigation was difficult too as the yellow jackets seemed to have packed up and gone home (it was pissing down) and the signage was minimal. Kind of typical for an event organised, in part at least, by Carlisle City Council.

Running the last 300m on a bouncy track was wonderful. Looks like a bit of a heel strike there – I’ll have to work on my gait.

I ran the GNR in my Breathos – really a trail shoe. I ran this race in Vivobarefoot Evos which have a slightly thinner sole and no tread to speak of. I had no issues with them apart from a short stretch where we diverted along a path made of broken bricks (and probably glass, hypodermics, rats’ teeth etc.) that even Adam in his fluffy shoes said he could feel. I elected to run along the shit infested grass to the side of the path instead. I’m very confident in my minimalist footwear now, having done two halfs and a mountain trail. The next big test will be my next race which is a rough trail on one side of Ullswater.

Now I need to think about a new blog title. I’ve finished the journey from 0 to 13.1 and, surprisingly, learnt to enjoy it. I’m in training limbo at the moment so maybe it’ll help me focus. Do I aim for a marathon or something bigger? Do I just try to improve my halfs or concentrate on 10km?

I’ve got just over three weeks until the Ullswater trail, then another three until the Brampton to Carlisle. I don’t think I’m going to do that one – it’s a boring one-road straight-line dash. I can enter on the day so no pressure I suppose.

An hour driving in fog and a misty destination. Talkin Tarn ARC unloaded and ready to race.

I was over in Durham yesterday for a rowing regatta at which I wasn’t competing. My plan was to do the local parkrun which is right next door to the regatta. Unfortunately we arrived about ten minutes too late for me to make it to the start line. Plan ‘b’ was to go for a run along the river but the timings of the races of interest (both daughters and wife) meant it took me five hours to make it to the toilet and six before I managed to get some food. Running just didn’t happen.

Plenty of wins for the club.

Jane’s boat after destroying everything in its path (including sections of riverbank) except the boat that beat them.

So forward to today. Another day of family visits and activities. I’m hoping to get out this evening for half an hour before it gets dark. Time will tell.

Update @ 7:39pm 29/9/2013: I managed to get out and run a fast (for me) 5k. Bloody annoying, though, when you put everything into beating your previous best and fail. It’s not quite as bad as it seemed at the time: I thought I was 46 seconds slower, but it was only 19 seconds.

Karrimor trail shoes: cheap but well built and functional.

Fortunately I don’t suffer from shin splints – I don’t even really know what they are. I was, however,  suffering terrible knee problems and achilles problems. Enter Vibram Snakeoil. Yes! Vibram Five Fingers look cool and they’ll cure all of your running ailments! And they look cool! And they cost loads but they look so coool!

Don’t buy the fake Chinese ones though because they’re inferior copies and nowhere near as good as the real thing. Even if they look cool. Vibram are so worried we’ll buy the wrong ones that they have a whole section on their website devoted to counterfeiting and even a special page to aid identification.

Sorry Vibram I’m not that easily fooled. I checked a few reviews and found that the ‘fake’ shoes are identical to the ‘real’ ones, that sometimes the ‘real’ ones have manufacturing faults. It would seem that all of the fakes are coming out of China. That’s where VFFs are made, so my thinking was that the fakes were actually coming out of the same factory as seconds or ‘extra production’ or perhaps just locally priced genuine stock. Companies have their stuff made in countries like China because the workers get paid shit and work all of their waking hours so like good communist capitalists they try to earn a few extra yuan however they can. Anyway I bought a pair of Bikilas off eBay for a quarter of the shop price.

After a week or so I received my new shoes which, if they were fakes, were very well made. Who would go to the trouble of faking VFFs? Sadly, the shoes were the wrong shape for my feet – the line of my toes is quite sharp and my big toe is, well, bigger than my other toes. The VFFs expect the line of your toes to be much nearer to square across your foot and your big toe to be smaller than mine. “That’s what happens when you buy fake stuff!” I hear you screaming. Not so – a colleague bought some VFFs and I checked them against those and also official stock in running shops. Mine were real. Maybe not strictly legit but real nevertheless.

At about this time SportPursuit, a UK website that sells expensive sports stuff cheap, had Vivobarefoot (sometimes known as TerraPlana) shoes at less than half price. I promptly bought a pair of Breathos – one of their trail designs – for £29, about a third of their retail price. It took a while for them to arrive because you have to wait for the sale to finish, then they bulk order, blah blah blah. The VFFs went on eBay and sold for more than I paid for them easily covering the cost of the Breathos.

I should point out here that I tend to buy trail shoes because I run on mixed surfaces (I hate road running) such as loose gravel, earth, wood(!) and, unavoidably, tarmac (sometimes known as blacktop). And where I live if it’s not raining it’s going to.

So, a bit long winded I know – and if you’re still here thanks for your patience, my shoe pile now contained a pair of bright yellow Karrimor trail shoes, replete with gel and padding, and a pair of Vivobarefoot Breathos that were so thin I could roll them up and smoke them.

So thin you can roll them up. And that’s my bigger toe growing out of my wrist.

My everyday running track is a lakeside path that measures 2.15km (1.34 miles). It’s mixed surfaces: gravel, earth and tarmac. I decided for my first run, rather than carry my yellow Karrimors and run half way round the lake then change, I’d run half way and walk the rest. Easy, no problems and my legs didn’t fall to pieces. Next time out I ran a full circuit – still no problems – I could still walk, drive and kick dogs & kids. Then I put the Karrimor shoes in a dusty box in a dark corner. I’ve been using these shoes ever since with the exception of my Evos which I’ll talk about later.

Within what seemed like days – probably two weeks or less – my knees had no pain, my heels had no pain and I’d increased my distance to 5km or more. At this time my long runs were only about 6km so I suppose the shoes grew with me.

In January I decided I was going to enter the Great North Run – the biggest or second biggest or whatevever half marathon in the world. Naturally my weekly mileage would increase and I’d be doing a lot more road running. I was worried that so much non-trail work would wreck my Breathos and tear the lugs off so I started looking around for a pair of Vivobarefoot Evos. By chance a budget sports store had bought up a bankrupt not-so-budget sports store and they were selling Vivo shoes at flood sale prices. I picked up a pair of nice red Evo IIs for 25 quid.

The Evo IIs I got for road running

So now I had two pairs of minimalist running shoes and something to use them for. To date these two pairs between them and I have logged almost 600km. And how did we fare? Well, read on…

Vivobarefoot Breatho

The innersole is removable for extra barefoot feel, but I’ve only used them without once. I don’t remember having any discomfort or problems, but for some reason I put them back in and they’ve stayed like that ever since. The sole is heavily cleated giving good grip on all surfaces although I haven’t had the opportunity to run in really slippery mud.

One of the good points of the VFF Bikilas was the elastic lacing system. It was so good that I fitted them to my yellow shoes, some other shoes and these. As a result the lacing is always perfect – never too tight or too loose and I’ve never had to stop to retie or adjust them, which was something I had to do every run with conventional laces.

People talk a lot about barefoot feel, but rarely talk about the overall sense of well-being. These shoes are light, very flexible and, thanks to the mesh uppers, very airy. I love wearing them.

The big test for me and the shoes came in June when I ran the Karrimor Great Trail Challenge. The name hypes it a bit, but it was a 12km trail (billed as 11km) over a Cumbrian fell (hill). Not a big one but still a hill – a total climb of 314m (1030ft). The surface ranged from tarmac to rough rutted mountain trail and fast, uneven descents on loose rock, earth and gravel. The shoes took it all without any fuss and my confidence in them soared. On the descent I think the feedback through the sole was key to my stability. With a numb shoe I can imagine taking the grip for granted and eventually having a spill, but these let you know when you have a poor foot placing and your brain deals with the information.

They’ve been through the washing machine a couple of times – not because they were smelly – the ventilating upper prevents that – but because they were dirty, thick with trail dust. They cleaned up well and dried quickly.

The cleats have shown little wear, but two or three of the cleats at the heel have torn off – probably as a result of walking on tarmac before and after runs. Not a problem as I don’t run on my heels.

Some of the heel cleats have torn off.

At the other end of the shoe there is still plenty of mileage. The colour detail is a separate moulding which has become a little detached. Now that I’ve noticed it, I’ll repair it with rubber cement and I reckon the shoes will be good for another few hundred kilometers.

One of the coloured cleats has become detached

All in all a great shoe, fantastic value for money even at full price. When I need to replace these, I’ll be getting the same thing again.

Vivobarefoot Evo II

Apparently the main problem with the Evo I was a tendency for the material over the toe box to crease causing toe blisters where it rubbed. The Evo II used new fabric to overcome this. The result is that the Evo II is slightly less breathable than the Evo I. There’s another Evo now but I don’t know what differences there are.

So, Evo II, what about them. As I said earlier I bought these for all the road miles I’d be doing in preparation for a half marathon. They are every bit as good on the road as the Breathos are on the trail but off road, even on relatively compressed gravel paths, I find they give a little too much feel.

The sole is quite thin and not having the aggressive tread makes them feel even thinner. This is fine while running on smooth road surfaces but I find that the balls of my feet get a bit of a pounding after a kilometer or so on rougher surfaces.

The material of the uppers makes them feel a bit more shoe-like than the Breathos and not being as breathable, they get stinky quite quickly. Like the Breathos they wash and dry easily, but they let you know when they need washing. Again, the inner soles are removable, but I always leave them in.

I’ve done plenty of long runs in these shoes and, so long as I’m on roads, they are very comfortable. When it came to race day I was split 50/50 between wearing these (I’d bought them for the race) and wearing the Breathos which, although I’d never used them over that distance on road, I thought would be more comfortable towards the end of the race. On the day – and I had both pairs with me – the weather decided. I was more confident in the ability of the Breathos to handle heavy rain and unknown road surfaces.

Again a great shoe and I will be wearing them for my next HM in a couple of weeks. The soles show no appreciable wear and after a quick wash the shoes look brand new again. I think they’ll last forever.

On the day I opted for the Breathos for the Great North Run. Foul weather was promised and delivered. The shoes did their job well.

In conclusion, they’re both great shoes that are well suited to their intended terrains. If I had to choose one pair it would be the Breathos – if Vivobarefoot made a road version of the Breatho it would be a no brainer. Normally, though, if I know I’ll only be on roads I’ll wear the Evos. If there is any off road involved I’ll go for the Breathos.