Toe Shoes and Other Purchases

I first read about toe shoes on Mark's Daily Apple and was intrigued.  The claim was a shoe that felt like you were barefoot.  (Mark and his followers are advocates for bare-foot running.  Of course, if I lived near the beach and not in a frozen tundra, I would probably advocate it as well.)

The shoes that Mark mentioned were Vibram FiveFingers.  After laughing at how stupid they looked and wondering how they could honestly charge nearly $100 for a shoe that appeared to be the illegitimate child of toe socks and water shoes, I decided that I was just fine running in my New Balance shoes.

Then one day, I was doing yoga - barefoot - in my basement family room.  As I tried to do a certain pose, my feet kind of slid on the carpet, and just about caused me to do the splits.  It was then that I looked at some options.

I first checked out yoga socks but they all looked a little too...well...girly.  Then I tried to do it in my water shoes, but I felt that I might as well just be wearing regular shoes.

Then I heard about FILA's Skele-Toes.  They were cheaper versions - although not much - of toe shoes. Granted, they were just as stupid-looking.  In fact, they may have been even more stupid-looking than the Vibrams, because they don't have five toes, but three toes and a space for the two small toes.  But I argued that I would only wear them when I worked out at home and never, ever wear them in public.

But the cost was still too much for me.  (As you can tell from this and past posts, I don't like spending hundreds of dollars on exercise equipment.  I mean, exercise should be free, really.)  So I waited for the planets to align when I had extra cash and found a smoking deal.

Yesterday, was that day.

I went to Big 5 and happened to find a display pair of blue FILA Skele-Toes in my size and they gave me a great deal on them.  (Even though I don't get any sort of endorsement fee for this, let me say that Big 5 Sporting goods is an incredible place to buy exercise stuff.  Take it from a cheapskate, like me.)

This morning I put the shoes on to do some yoga.  And even though I still think they look ridiculous, I love them!

Along with the new shoes, I also picked up some cheap workout DVDs on Amazon.  (Some of them brand new for one penny.)  I picked up a couple Biggest Loser DVDs.  I love those because the people on them are a lot like me.  I also bought a Robert Ferguson cardio DVD and a couple of walking DVDs starring George Foreman.  (Including one called "Walk & Box", which I am very excited to try.)

With all of these, March could definitely be a great month for exercise.