Wednesday, May 21, 2014

News On The Shoe Front....

Back in December I wrote a post about my search for the perfect shoe. The gist, really, was that I have several shoes that I really *like* but none that I am absolutely, 100% in *love* with. Saucony Kinvaras are my most reliable go-to's, and I have a feeling that that is probably what I will run Santa Rosa in, but if I could find something with with similar ride, fit, & flexibility with just a *touch* less cushioning & a *tad* more ground feel & just a *wee-bit* wider in the toe box for the 10K/half range, I'd snatch it up in a heart beat.

I gave the Mizuno Hitogami a try, to no avail. The Ekiden--next lightest in the Mizuno lightweight family--is not bad so far, but I'm afraid I'm not quite nimble & efficient enough of a runner to go for very long on concrete with that little support & cushioning. If anything I think it will end up being a track shoe / racing flat for me. (I haven't reviewed it yet because I think doing it justice will require doing some speed work in it, which I haven't done in months for obvious reasons.)


Mizuno Hitogami


Mizuno Ekiden

The Altra Ones, though ugly as sin (Don calls them my Donald Duck / clown shoes), also showed early promise, but after several two-to-three milers in them, I got over-ambitious the week before we left for Italy & took them out for one of my first post-injury four-milers. Sure enough, 2.5 miles in I took one wrong step & strained my left calf/Achilles (you know, the one that was so tight it effing broke my fibula) so badly that I could barely walk on it. I tried walking it off, ill-advisedly ran another painful half mile, then gave up & limped the rest of the way home. (This was the main reason I couldn't run while we were in Italy. It also made walking 5-10 miles a day, um, interesting.) So as much as I love them and would love to get comfortable in them & work up to longer distances, zero drop is off the table for me at least until after SRM.


Altra One. Why is this color not banned?

When I said hadn't yet found a shoe I loved, I actually kind of lied. I HAVE found one I absolutely love, one that was practically perfect in every way, the Mary Poppins of running shoes. The trouble is, it was a prototype that I wear-tested in February/March, so I am barely allowed to talk about it, let alone buy it. Rest assured, though, the *second* it goes on the market, I'm stocking up & will tell you all about it.

Until then, there is one more shoe I'm planning on trying out while I'm training for Santa Rosa, & that's the Brooks PureDrift.

My experience with the first iteration of the Pure line was not great. Based on descriptions of the shoes & who the different models were designed for, I picked up the first version of the PureConnect and tried So. Effing. HARD to like it. It was light and flexible but with more support than a racing flat, which was what I was looking for for the 10K/10M/half range. But it was also SUPER narrow, had an arch so high it gave me foot cramps, and the sole was so thick and bubbly-feeling that I couldn't feel the ground at all. I think I put all of 40 miles on them before I gave up & admitted that they just weren't going to work.

I've heard better things about the recent iterations, but because of that first experience, the Pure line really hasn't been on my short list of shoes to try. In the course of reading reviews about several other shoes, though, I ran across several that raved about the new Drift for many of the same features I've been looking for: lightweight, flexible, low-but-not-zero drop (it actually has an insert so that you can go 4mm or 0mm), ergonomically shaped, wide toe box, but with more support & cushioning than a flat.

They're currently on closeout so I'm not really sure what the point of reviewing them is, but I'll at least post something about how they're working out for me once I've had a chance to get some miles on them.

8 comments:

  1. I absolutely love, adore and drool over the kinvaras and haven't found anything else that comes close. I did try some PureFlows once when I had a gift card to a place that was out of my Kinvaras. (So, so impatient.) I barely ran 2 miles in them before deciding I hated them so I give you props for at least giving some other shoes more of a chance!
    Very curious about this mystery shoe...

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    1. We will see what happens! They are supposedly 4mm drop with the inserts, but they feel like somewhere between that & 0mm.

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  2. This post is may-jah shoe porn! Those Mizuno's are sharp!

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    1. Hopefully I'll have a chance to wear them sometime soon!!

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  3. The later Pure Connects are much wider, and I'm wearing them (I have very wide feet and wear the men's). But I don't adore them. They wear out very quickly and I'm in between sizes, so I lose toenails like crazy.

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    1. Yeah, I've definitely heard that the Pures don't last long. (I certainly never got to find out with that pair...) These seem wider in the toe box for sure, so that's a good sign.

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  4. Oh my, you have more shoes than anyone it seems like! lol! I only really wear 1 pair right now (Newton Distance), I really need to get aboard the shoe rotation bandwagon that you all seem to be on. What other pair besides that do you recommend? I probably need a trail shoe, and maybe another road shoe I would guess.

    Thanks on the PR congrats! I just registered today for SF half marathon, so it is game on. Let's try to meet up if you are doing that race. Surprised that you have never done B2B since you practically lived on the course lol. Thanks on recognizing the Impalas - didn't they do track workouts at Kezar when you were working out there? That would be so intimidating, yet so awesome seeing such fast people blazing by on the track doing workouts. For whatever reason I'm fascinated by those fast running clubs.

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    1. Heh, I do have a lot right now, but many of them are either flats that I can't wear right now, ones that I decided just aren't right & don't actually run in anymore, or brand-new pairs of Kinvaras that I just buy whenever there's a deal on them. I only actually maybe run in 3-4 of them right now. I like Brooks Launch & I don't hate my Newton Gravities (they just seem too expensive for what they are), but other than that it's pretty much been all Kinvaras lately!

      Yes, we'll have to arrange an SFM meet-up! I kind of want to wait to do B2B until I can get sub-seeded, but that doesn't seem likely to happen any time soon so maybe I'll just run it next year as a regular person.

      Oof, those Impalas--totally intimidating. I think they're track workout night is Tuesday, which is normally when I was there. I felt very slow. :)

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