Stability Through Motion

I was referred by the Nature Recordists emailing list to the following site, which pokes a bit of gentle fun at soundscapes:

http://onepercentfortheplanet.org/blog/2010/01/new-album-new-artwork/

Meanwhile 2010 brings me a new piece of gadgetry, with exciting flashing green lights ‘n all: the Sound Devices MixPre, identical to the one I’ve hired out in the past, but now all mine, all mine.

Oh, and recently there’s been some snow in the UK … here’s the view over Oxford from Wytham Woods taken on a recent run. The Mizuno Wave Harriers stood up to the conditions really well, much better than I did in fact.

Hmm, now I look at this again, most of these are old old shoes that I’m not even wearing anymore. Must update picture!

Shoes

Saucony Grid Trigon 5 Ride – road shoe. Very comfy supporting shoe with room in the toes, no problems so far in 2007, except when I laced them up too tight. Slightly better grip than the Mizunos on wet grass.

Mizuno Wave Riders 2006 – road shoe. very comfy, but on longer runs have tended to crush my second toe a bit. No grip on wet grass.

Saucony Grid Jazz – combo road/off-road shoe. Really good grip on off-road conditions, not so great on wet tarmac surprisingly. Designed to take a bit of street pounding, but overall for trail. Very supportive – so a bit hot in the summer. Done me proud for long runs up to 24 miles in the hills with no blistering and only a light bit of nail bashing.

Mizuno Wave Harriers 2006 – off-road shoe. Very little support/cushioning, so not to be used on roads at all. Tried this on Offa’s Dyke path in the Black Mountains – hard stone slabs, ouch. But a brilliant tight fit, feels like a great big sock, and tough soles to protect feet. Fantastic grip in all conditions so far. Unfortunately gave me a darned big blister on a downhill training run, but that may have been not lacing them up tight enough.

Innov-8 Terroc – off-road. My first off-road shoes, bought for canal running, with oodles more grip than road shoes for rocky, slippy towpaths. No cushioning to speak of, but I wore these by necessity for my first marathon, Stockholm 2005 and they gave me no problems apart from six months of achilles tendinitis. However, they’re much better looking than most running shoes, and I still wear them around town far too often.