Quarterly blog post!

In case you missed it, Vibram, the maker of Five-fingers shoe things, settled a class action lawsuit with people who've taken issue with their claims that the foot socks prevent injury.

This is actually relatively timely. When we were in San Francisco, I wanted to get Stef a birthday present and only had a vague idea where the store I wanted to go was in relation to where I was. I walked to the street where it was located but to my chagrin, realized I was some 14 blocks away and up over one of those big hills for which San Francisco is famous. I decided to run it in Vans slip-ons (roughly 2 weeks before a marathon, smart guy that I am) so as to not make the group I was with suffer from my poor planning. Long story, less long, my heel has been jacked up ever since. Even though I am a mid-foot striker and did my best to stay on the balls of my feet, I wound up hurting myself.
This more or less proved what I thought about bare-foot running for a long time. We may be born to run but we didn't evolve running on concrete or asphalt, therefore, we need to give ourselves a technological  advantage which will allow us to do so. I feel far more comfortable running having the added protection from a running shoe rather than a minimal shoe.
I'm glad this came up for another reason, too. As McDougall points out in the third link above, one of his points in the book was that he changed his stride to land lighter and saw positive results, i.e., less injuries. I missed this point, as did many others apparently. A point I did not miss was that we are being sold a bill of goods by shoe companies. The rule of thumb that running shoes are good for 300-500 miles is designed to make us buy shoes before we need to replace them.

I wore these for >2 years and put 2 marathons and 3 half marathons on them without injury. Even the damage above didn't drive me to replace them, I sewed the tear and continued to run in them. I only replaced them when I wore a hole in the sole of the right one. Someone once told me to wear running shoes until they don't feel good anymore, and that's what I did. They felt good right up until they let slush inside them. For something that is nominally cheap to do, running sure is expensive and I see no need to spend anymore money than I need to enjoy what it year-round.
There is a time tested marketing ploy that tries to make us think if we buy Thing X, it will make us do Activity Y better. The notion that Sketchers is doing something right because Meb wore them in his win at Boston is laughable. The same is true that a foot sock will prevent us from injury or that you can shoes with funny soles will make you healthier. Hard work, dedication and training are what do that.