Pause... Unpause?

My barefoot-ish running experiment paused a couple weeks ago after my first couple runs in the great outdoors in my Vibram KSO "foot gloves."

The day after my "moment of truth run," foot pain returned. Yuck. It was different foot pain this time though - oddly enough, considering that I'm running close to barefoot, the pain was on the TOP of my foot - go figure.

I quickly turned to my primary healthcare provider (google.com), and came up with all kinds of options - Metatarsal Stress Fractures being the most worrisome. After waiting it out a couple of days with no running (and no improvement), I went to my real healthcare provider (who I probably should have gone to in the first place) who took a quick look and diagnosed my problem as an inflammation of the extensor tendons. She prescribed a high-dose anti-inflammatories (2400 mg of Ibuprofen daily) for 5 days. By day six, I was feeling up to running again, and hit the unpause button on the experiment.

I started slow this time - and for the first two days, ran only half of my 3.75 "commute run" in the VFF's, switching to my regular "old shoes" about 1.5 miles in. Today I ran home the entire way - in a lovely mixture of snow and sleet (Prague's spring hasn't arrived yet), and made it home safe and sound. At least it feels that way so far.

Not sure what caused the tendon problem - I've never had it before, but I have a couple of possibilities:

• It's the shoes - my VFF KSO's have a velcro strap on the top that doesn't have much give, and is (coincidentally) in almost exactly the same spot that my tendons were complaining about. Perhaps it was cinched down too tight?
• It's the shoes (redux) - per "Barefoot Ken Bob", you get pain like this when starting out precisely because you're wearing some kind of shoe and not going completely barefoot. He likens it to "learning a new song while wearing earplugs." He argues that bare feet are going to give you the most direct feedback as to when you're taking things too fast. Good point... but Prague's still a bit to cold and cobbly for me to go foot-naked quite yet.
• It's the weather - my "moment of truth" run was over a nasty mixture of ice, snow, and road snot... all that slipping and sliding might have done bad things.
• It's the gait - this "relearning" how to run is hard work. It's going to take a while to teach my muscles and tendons how to do things they way they used to back when I was a barefooted kid running around the yard.

Whatever it was, I'm watching (and listening to) my foot carefully. Icing up the top of my foot after runs. Loosening the strap on my KSO's. Working on stepping quickly, lightly and gently. A total of seven VFF miles in the past three days, and so far, so good. Some calf pain continues - but much less than in my initial weeks - and I've been trying to work on easing back my landing to the midfoot (from the forefoot), which helps.

Now if this snow would go away, I could start trying out Barefoot Ken Bob's advice and go naked-footing!