Running: I love it. Not wearing shoes: I’m all kinds of down with that. In fact I’m so comfortable not wearing shoes that one morning last week I left my house to go to work before realising my feet were naked. So how come it’s taken so long for me to put these two pastimes together?

I bought a pair of Vibrams from the Mecca that is REI when I was in Seattle last September. Since then they’ve spent a very cold winter on my cupboard. Until today.

I was nervous about how to run in them. I needn’t have been. There’s a bit in the film ‘The Santa Clause’ where Tim Allen finds a note in dead Santa’s pocket. (Bare with.) It says: ‘Put on the suit, the reindeer will know what to do’. In this metaphor the Vibrams are the Santa suit and my feet were the Reindeer.

It was only a mile and it was on the pavement but I felt like I was gliding along at a million miles per hour. My feet were on autopilot, those reindeers totally knew what they were doing. And although I got a few funny looks, I think I kind of liked that.

I’ve been worried about messing with my running style because, other than constant black toenails on two toes, I’ve been lucky enough to avoid injury so far. I’m, therefore, unsure how significant a part in my weekly routine the Vibrams will play. But I will be wearing them again and am excited about my next run with them.