So last week I was dithering about carpet vs rugs vs no area to run etc etc in our living room. Everything felt way up in the air with a lot of decisions to be made. A lot can happen in a week! We’ve been going flat-out getting our house ready to put on the market, and we’ve been looking at houses to buy – many of which don’t have carpet in the living room, because everyone hates carpet these days except me. Either way, I was looking for solutions that wouldn’t eat up a lot of money (in this house or a new one, if it didn’t have carpet in a large, downstairs room for me to run in). And on one of the days Jason and I were driving to showings, I suddenly remembered how back in 2011, I bought a pair of Vibram five-finger shoes.

Those shoes look so weird, but they felt GREAT. I’d noticed that when I stood around at home, even for long periods of time, my feet wouldn’t hurt. On the other hand, when I went to BEA or other events where there was a lot of standing around in shoes, my feet would be in a lot of pain by the end of the day. I bought the Vibrams specifically for standing, but I used them periodically when I was running as well. (They didn’t do so well in trail areas, because I didn’t buy trail Vibrams, and most of my running was on trails.) Eventually, I got rid of the Vibrams. As I lost weight, I lost a size or two in my feet, and the Vibrams no longer fit well. Also, as I lost weight, my feet didn’t hurt so bad when I stood around for long periods of time. But for those few months when I used the Vibrams a lot, they were good to me, and I’d forgotten about them…until that drive with Jason this week.

I realized that I might have a solution to my current problem! I can’t run in shoes in my living room, because that whole half-running-in-place, half-moving-forward motion gives me shin splints in regular shoes. In barefoot shoes, however… The best thing about Vibrams is that they give your feet the same structure as being barefoot, while keeping them protected from whatever’s on the floor/ground. (I really, really hate walking on bare ground without shoes. My feet feel every particle of dirt as if I’m walking over rocks. Ugh.) With this in mind, I bought a pair. They’re not cheap, but certainly cheaper than carpet or rugs…

This time, I chose to fit these slightly smaller. I’m kinda between two Vibram sizes, just like in 2011, and that time, I chose to go to the larger of two choices. Since eventually that backfired on me, I’m hoping these will keep for longer. I have yet to actually run in them – our living room is currently a disaster zone as we work on house projects – but I’ve walked around in them and I think they’re going to be perfect. Yay!