Vibrams, worn and photographed by Dr Rajat Chauhan

13 October 2009: Rose Garden, Hauz Khas, New Delhi

Regular readers of this blog will have noticed that I waited a bit before sharing my MRF running experiences. I waited, because I wanted to see if I could survive the first few days of going minimal!

But once I donned those Vibram FiveFingers KSOs… This was the real deal! I no longer had any excuses.

When I pulled on my KSOs today, some of my running buddies — Amit K, Anita, Aseem, Benaazir (all runners training for Airtel Delhi Half Marathon, with Back 2 Fitness) — were there. They weren’t sure that I should have attempted running in them, but they don’t even bother calling me stupid or crazy anymore. They think I crossed that line a long time ago.

Since my KSOs are black, my feet very much resembled a slightly-less-hairy gorilla’s.

For that reason, I decided not to pay attention to my sexy legs, but just concentrate on running.

The KSOs made me realize how heavily I land on my heels.

For the first 3km today, I was just trying to figure out how to run.

It was amazing to note that I didn’t feel any pebbles. Well, yes, okay — I did feel the big sharp ones. But this is something coming from a guy who won’t even last 2 minutes walking barefoot on gravel.

I did a gentler 9.6km, followed by a fast 400m, 600m and 800m with my running buddies. And it all felt great.

I did get a lot of funny looks from morning-walkers. Some actually wondered aloud why I was running in socks. I don’t blame them for their ignorance — it was my moment of bliss.