VFFs & broken toes

[miker]

Has anyone else had a problem with running trails in their VFFs and breaking toes? I have run on some fairly technical trails here with my KSO Treks, and have kicked some rocks and roots that didn't move very much (read: not at all). I have been able to finish my runs, but when I take my Vibrams off, my toe is some varying shade of purple. This has happened to each of the three toes on the outside of my left foot.

Maybe I'm not breaking them, but they are very tender and it is hard to talk them into going back into their respective places. They argue that they never had this problem when they could hang out with their friends in one large toe box.

But they are definitely purple and definitely sore for several days. Maybe I'm just jamming the he!! out of them (which, of course, is how one might break a toe).

Does anyone have experience with this?

 

[Barefoot TJ]

No, thank God.

No, thank God.

 

[saypay45]

A friend of mine who works

A friend of mine who works for a running store hears about this happening with KSO Treks all the time. He says he tries to talk people out of buying them because the toe protection is so minimal. Told me a story about a guy that kicked a root and pretty much shattered the bone in his toe.

IF you can put weight on your feet then I doubt your toes are broken. But probably not a bad idea to get that checked out.

 

[miker]

SP, I can put weight on my

SP, I can put weight on my feet, though curling the toes was painful. It's been 3-4 weeks since my last trail run. I googled images of broken toes, and I just gotta say "some of those folks are gonna be limping for a while". But my purple toes look like a lot of them also. Whether or not I broke them doesn't really matter, since I didn't do anything for them (because I'm not sure you can).

It usually happened after I was getting tired, so I'm sure I wasn't picking my feet up like I should have been. And I like running in them, except for when I try to rip one of my appendages off and leave it as a trail marker!

I'm thinking about getting some of the new Merrells, or maybe the NB Minimus for my trail runs, and trying to do all of my road races this year bf. Although I may try a short trail race bf, just for the "awe factor" after the race. But given the technical nature of my local trails, I would have to forget about time, because I would be walking part of it.

 

[buzzie]

Yeah, my toes seem to want to

Yeah, my toes seem to want to stay behind on the trail...

I have found that keeping them all together makes the individual toes less likely to want to stray. So, looking forward to getting my new Merrells out on the trail for the first time soon.

 

[twinkletoes]

Feel your pain Miker, only I

Feel your pain Miker, only I wasn't wearing anything when I bashed my big toe and left a trail of blood in the snow.

Have to say that it all usually comes down to whether I'm tired and my form is sloppy. I never seem to stub or trip on the way out, just on the way back.

A couple of my toes got together last fall and staged a mutiny against going into the VFFs, so I stopped trying to make them. They like the water shoes though.

 

[Nyah]

A couple weeks ago I

A couple weeks ago I accidentally kicked the edge of a stiff piece of plywood that was leaning against a wall. No footwear at all and it was my 2nd to last toe (bruised me all way up into the forefoot area). My toe wasn't broken (I had it x-rayed) and was only painful for a couple of days afterwards, however, it got me thinking that I'd rather only splay my halluces and keep my outer toes together - like what happens with tabi shoes rather than VFFs. Unfortunately there are no minimalist shoes that are foot-shaped enough to do that with (other than tabi shoes - which I don't want, because only conventional socks are made of wool). For what you're asking, I'd suggest to at least use huaraches instead of VFFs.

 

[migangelo]

OOh, sad. I've kicked things

OOh, sad. I've kicked things twice in my vff. After that i learned to pick up my toes. I have kicked a few things bf. You can ask Joshh. We were running and i kicked a rock barely sticking out of the ground. It didn't move but luckily i kicked it with the ball of my foot so no pain, just a loud thump.

another time i was running and talking with some girl i met. Well i only had my right contact in so when the stick in the ground got into my blind spot on my left side i kicked it. She was scared but it didn't hurt, was just loud. I've been quite lucky. Mind your toes, don't forget to pick the up.



Mike