RunningPoint

I will admit that I am rather new to the world of blogging and product reviewing, but I had noticed a pattern in the way things work: I contact a manufacturer or they contact me and product is sent for review. Not so many days ago, I left my office for my daily lunchtime run and returned to find an unexpected delivery waiting for me. I wasn't expecting anything so I took a quick look at the shipping label and noticed that it was from VIVOBAREFOOT. I was immediately excited since both Ronald and I have had very positive experiences with the VIVOBAREFOOT Neo and the Ultra. I had no clue what would be in the box so I quickly opened it and I found a pair of VIVOBAREFOOT Neo Trails. I was so excited that VIVOBAREFOOT appreciated the reviews we had done in the past enough to send me a pre-release pair of Neo Trails to test and review. Hey, we must be doing something right!

In Dutch there is a saying that applies to the general population, me included, “Act normal, that’s crazy enough”. The attitude is slowly disappearing nowadays, but for me it still holds up. I do not like to act crazy or grab everyone’s attention in one way or another. I rather like just being a normal guy who happens to like running in minimal shoes. The barefoot running thing has always been a bit weird to me, especially when you see the VFF, which I still haven’t tried because they look weird and demand attention (I will try them eventually though, no worries). In this respect, the VIVOBAREFOOT Neo is perfect for me. The Neo looks like a shoe and stays in a category appearance wise that I feel is “normal”.

I apologize for taking a long time to get a proper review up of this shoe. It’s not because I didn’t have time, but I felt I couldn’t do many miles in them from the start. I am learning to run minimal and it has simply taken a few weeks to get to the point where I felt confident enough to run longer distances with these shoes. In the middle of testing them, I got the Invisible Shoes as well (which was admittedly a fun experience and I will look into those again) which set me back a week into testing the Neo.

When I heard that Somnio was introducing the Nada, a minimal shoe, to their line of footwear I was immediately perplexed. For those of you unfamiliar with Somnio, their claim to fame is producing a biomechanic running shoe with interchangeable footbeds, heel padding, and forefoot padding designed to allow each runner to customize the shoe and to put his/her body in perfect alignment so that stresses and injuries are reduced. The engineer side of me is completely fascinated by the science behind their design philosophy, but the minimal runner in me knows that my body responds amazingly to putting my two bare feet on the ground and just running pure.

So here's the question that popped in my mind when Somnio offered to send us a pair of their Nada's to test and review, “What are these guys doing making a minimal shoe?”. Answer: Somnio markets the Nada as “A supplemental training shoe that is meant for strengthening, tuning and stretching. The Nada is designed for a runner who wants to incorporate barefoot methodology into their routine.” With this fact in mind, I set out to view the Nada as if I were still transitioning from a traditional shoe to a more minimal shoe.

InvisibleShoe has been kind enough to give both Derek and I a pair of their new 4mm Connect and 6mm Contact huaraches to test and review. This is extra fun because we have never owned the same footwear and this is the first time we can compare our opinions. Derek is interested because he already owns the 4mm Vibram Cherry Invisible Shoes huaraches and has absolutely fallen in love with them. I don't think I have caught Derek saying anything negative about them, but I am not sold on huaraches yet. It will be interesting to see how our views differ from each other and how differently we approach running in the huaraches. 

Derek lives in the mountains in the eastern United States, and I live in a colder and mostly rainy country (The Netherlands). Sandals are worn here on vacation when you go camping in a country like France or Italy. They are worn when the sun is shining all day and the lovely warm sand is slightly too hot and you have a cold beer in your hand enjoying the sunset. That is when I am accustomed to people wearing sandals/flip flops/huaraches/thongs. So yes, I am a little bit skeptical of the huaraches, but Invisible Shoes has offered me these to test so I will attempt to do so with an open mind.

I will be testing both models from my point of view alone which is very different from Derek’s point of view. He already loves the huaraches and he will post his impressions later. Below is a collection of my observations and ramblings about these sandals and really just my experiences figuring out if they are any good. I have been testing both models for about five days straight, walking in them during the day and doing a short run each evening.

I have wanted these shoes since I had the opportunity to test the VIVOBAREFOOT Evo at a barefoot race in Tilburg a few months ago. They felt excellent, but at that point I was still a new runner and investing such a large sum of money (160 euro) was not in my budget at that time. I kinda regret not getting them now because I could have been running in minimal shoes for the past two months instead of starting now with the VIVOBAREFOOT Neo.

It took a while to receive the shoes, so that gave me ample time to do some research.  I am a worrier, and the more I found out about the VIVOBAREFOOT Neo, the more I worried. I started to wonder if this was more of a casual shoe in lieu of a running shoe. I worried: Will they be too heavy? Are they way too minimal? Will they ventilate properly with so much fabric? They market the Neo as a performance shoe which could really mean just about anything.