Can you make regular shoes work as minimalist shoes?

The Tale of Woe (you can skip this bit if you don't like consumerist whining)

I tend to be a bit obsessive.  Once I decided I wanted to wear minimalist shoes to work I went online an bought a pair of Terra Plana's vivobarefoot Lucy shoes, and even paid the extra $10 for 2 day shipping.  Too bad the shoe size conversion between US and EU shoe sizes was way off.  I'm a 9.5 in US sizes, so I bought the US 10/EU 40 size.  My left big toe touched the end of the shoe.  I had to ship them back and wait for them to ship another pair to me via 6-10 day shipping.  The next pair was an EU 41 (still too small) and the wrong style.  Apparently I originally ordered a pair of Lucy Black Nappa, and they sent me a pair of Lucy Black Eco back.  I snail mailed them back and ordered a replacement pair of Lucy Black Nappy in size 42.  The total time it took me to get the final pair was: +2 days, +4 days back, +6 days to me, + 6 days back, + 7 days to me, for a total of 25 days to get the correct pair of shoes in the correct size.  This is the reason why people don't like to buy shoes online, but I was willing to do it to sort out my correct shoe size since there were no local retailers who carried the shoes I wanted.

Lucy Black Nappa

Lucy Black Eco

 The Experiment using a pair of flats

Regardless of how long sorting out my vivobarefoot order was going to take I wanted to get started on my new shoe odyssey.  I decided to see if I could find a really flexible pair of flats to wear in the meantime.  I went to the local DSW shoe store and bought a pair of Born flats on clearance.  They were the best (affordable) pair of shoes I thought I could make work.  The heel seemed only slightly higher than the forefoot.

The Good

With the approximately 1/4 inch insert taken out the shoes seemed really flat.  They were fairly flexible in the forefoot and definitely lower than any other pair of shoes I had.  I noticed an improvement in the ease of my barefoot walking after several weeks of wearing the flats at work.  I didn't wear them out of work due to cold winter temperatures and the open structure of the flats.  I did experience general foot fatigue in the first week or so of wearing the flats, but over time that went away.  My fitness goal is to take 11,000 steps a day, and during the experiment phase I was averaging 9-12,000 steps a work day.

The Bad

With the insert taken out the top of the heel hit much higher on my Achilles tendon than usual.  This new position on the back of my foot had the tendency to push my toes farther forward into the front of my shoe than normal.  Since my toes were father forward they did not have as much room to splay when I walked as I would have liked.  While it was okay to deal with for a few weeks, it wasn't comfortable enough to wear all the time, or for more than the experimental period while I waited for my shoes to arrive in the mail.

Comparison to the vivobarefoot shoes

It is possible that I could have dealt with the minor discomforts of the flats without their inserts if I had not finally gotten the EU 42 Lucys.  The instant I put them on my feet said YES.  My toes had plenty of room to move about and I now have about a scant 1/2" between the tip of my big toe and the inside of the front of the shoe.  This is a huge improvement over the regular flats.  The first time I walked in them I noticed a definite difference in how my heel felt.  First of all, it felt the ground.  I had some minimal ground feel in my forefoot in the flats, but no ground sensation in my heel at all, beyond the pressure of planting my foot when I stepped.  While the flats were the lowest shoes I owned prior to the tpvbs, the heel was probably still 1/4 - 3/8" thick, preventing me from walking with a barefoot gait and feel.

Compared to my other shoes the flats had great flexibility in the forefoot, but compared to the tpvbs they were stiff, which affected how my foot rolls through a walking step.  I've noticed that I seem to land on the outer edge of my foot and roll onwards toward my big toe as I step down.  That motion was muted in the flats but very evident in the Lucys.  I also seem to step softer/lighter in the tpvbs than in the flats or in any other pair of shoes that I own.  The Lucys have a much lower heel back placement than the flats, and have a notch cut out to allow full ankle movement without causing any friction on the Achilles tendon.

As with the flats, I have noticed increased foot fatigue in my arch and forefoot during the first week of wearing the tpvbs, but that is fading as the days go on.  I have no problems wearing them outside - the lace up area keeps the top of my foot comfortable in the cold wind, and I use the very thin inserts that came with the shoes to insulate my sock clad feet from whatever cold would seep up through the 4mm soles of the shoes.  The inserts do seem a little cushy, but they don't seem to be marring my road feel very much.  Without a doubt, the Terra Plana vivobarefoot Lucy shoes are the most comfortable shoes I can remember wearing.

Conclusion

Terra Plana shoes are great, but they are also expensive, and may be prohibitively so for many people who would like to try wearing minimalist shoes in the office workplace.  Removing the inserts from very flat shoes can bring them closer to a barefoot style shoe, but may also shift how your foot rides in the shoe to an unacceptable degree.  The fewer degree difference between your heel height and your forefoot height, the more flexible the shoe is overall, and the more room your toes have to move naturally the better.  I will follow up this post with one on potential minimalist shoes for women in the workplace.