Winter Trail Run
A group of us went for a nice winter trail run up Little Cottonwood Canyon, just south of Salt Lake City, Utah. We ran opposite of skiers and snowboarders at Alta and Snowbird Ski Resorts. What a blast to take a chilly 32* run in the late afternoon here in the Utah winter. I would not however do this barefoot.
I am really not going to run in FiveFingers in this weather either. There are some of you who may disagree and others that may wonder well if not barefoot or in VFF then how are you staying true to your website and blog. We take on a natural concept to running – and I mean a lot more than a Nike Free. All four of us have altered our running shoes to have zero deviation from heel to toe. This allows us to be natural with our gait and enjoy a stellar winter trail run all at the same time. My feet were warm and were natural. Many trail runners have run into the debate of running on trails with rocks and debris, or even snow, or as I often have on the Oquirrh Mountains here in Utah – Cacti (that would not be fun barefoot 
), versus running barefoot or with VFF through these types of terrain. We need to have some shoes to protect our feet, as we have mentioned before, even the Tarahumara have worn a foot protection sandal. We love to run out in the trails here in the Wasatch and see some amazing sights. We often see Deer, Elk, Falcons, other birds, and even Bighorn sheep sometimes. With the terrain there is a great need for something to protect our feet from major bruising and cuts and cacti stickers and much more. We have resorted to taking the footwear that is available to us and altering it to be more biomechanical in nature.
Today’s run was just a short 4 mile run since it was close to dusk and we did not want to freeze to a rock. Going up was a bit trecherous in places with all of the loose rock and we lost the trail a couple of times, but the scenery was amazing as it always is up in this area! On the way down, once we got back to the official trail, we were able to blast down through the snow covered trail (talk about frost bite barefoot). It is amazing to fly down a scenic trail and just let yourself go. It is one of the great feelings of life in general. We had a blast and are now ready to go do it again anytime!
December 6th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
yes, its hard to run in the cold with the VFF’s but if you wear a nice pair of these:
http://barefootrunningshoes.org/accessories/five-finger-socks/
and you happen to be lucky and are able to fit in the vibrams after that you can still stay warm and run in them!
December 6th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Thank you for the common sense approach to running. I to live in the mountains in Colorado and while I would love to run barefoot I normally use my Nike frees for foot protection. It was 20 degrees below the other day with the usual ice and snow;short of frostbite what choices does a sane and intelligent runner have ?
December 7th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Can you give us some more detail on what you are doing to alter traditional sneakers?
December 7th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
I have found that the Water/Aqua socks that are made for diving and surfing are quite warm for winter running. With socks, they are down-right toasty, as they are made of a water proof neoprene and don’t breath very well.
December 8th, 2009 at 1:31 am
Water Socks and FiveFinger Socks in Winter is one thing if you are just out running on the local paved road or sidewalk or even neighborhood bike path, but with the running that we do here in the Wasatch there is a great degree of debris as mentioned above. We often will not even run in VFF in the summer on many of these trails as that our feet have not become accustomed to the sharp rocks, cacti, and other fun trail debris. We have taken common trail shoes and altered them to have a zero drop from heel to toe. We will write more about this in a later post. We firmly believe in the natural run and the true proprioception of the human body and strive to utilize the available footwear for such a run. We run barefoot and in VFF when running around town and even use VFF on some trails, just when climbing a 12,000 foot peak with granite, shale, and other sharp rock and planning on flying down it at 5:30 minute mile pace you tend to want some rockplate protection for your feet to avoid a nasty bruise or impalement on the bottom of your foot.
January 12th, 2010 at 2:17 pm
I’m new to barefoot running so I apologize if my question is common sense to the rest of you!
I’m from Sweden and have always preferred running on trails (or off trails in the woods) both during winter and summer. This is something I hope to continue doing, so I was happy to see at Vibram’s website that they have a modeled called KSO Trek that is made for trail running.
Have you guys tested it for trails during either summer or winter?