Vibram Five Fingers and Beginning to Run

I recently started running after long years of a sedentary lifestyle.  Not much beyond chasing around my kids at the park and a bi-annual bike ride.  I'm not really quite sure why I started, maybe my 38-year old body was packing on a bit too much in the bowling-ball-stomach area and I wanted to arrest it.  Typical reason to start.

When I decided to start, however, I was pretty worried about how my feet would react to being jammed into a running shoe, as I already have ugly, gnarly feet (bunions, plantar fasciitis, stinkiness).  I had read a bit about the barefoot running movement (see The Running Barefoot) and a pretty funky Wired story.  Long story short, I purchased some Vibram Five Finger KSO's (keep stuff out) and have been running exclusively in them since February.  I'm up to running 3 miles a day on pavement/asphalt through Oak Park and am feeling pretty good in them.

I have had some pain in my ankle area and in my calf muscles, I can't say whether or not I would have had the same pain if I had begun running in traditional shoes.  I went too fast with my training at the beginning but have now worked through (what I hope to be) the last of my running growing pains.