Stability Through Motion

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.

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There’s always that stage with new shoes – they’re horrible and ugly and big and shiny and white and clean. You want to get them all muddy to show how you’re not out running for the very first time ever, but it seems to take ages, even going out in the rain and through fields, to actually get them muddy. Then finally, they are taken by the mud – literally. Yes, today, on a bright sunny afternoon, I left my shoe behind in a muddy patch before Burgess Field. I hopped about, laughing, trying not to get my sock, which was white of course, coated in goo as well, and almost leaving my other shoe behind in the process, and finally retrieved the newly baptised shoe. Welcome, Saucony Grid Trigon 5 Ride shoe, you with the really stupidly long name and stupid blue flashes. However, it is a great shoe with lots of toe room for my almost-Morton’s Toe condition.

…apparently an African-American quote. Golly gosh is that a specific enough accreditation for you? I like it though. Peeled off half my foot yesterday and decided I probably shouldn’t run on it for a bit

Cross trainer it is then, but my quads are still moaning whenever I try to do anything strenuous like sit down or stand up. Somehow I’m going to have to try to fit in a 20 miler this weekend and finish before 9am.

It’s also that time of year when I get kit-hungry, scouring the magazines for new shiny or clingy stuff to buy. Mmmm, maybe I really need that bivvy bag for my next 6 mile run? You never know when it’s going to get dark these days.