Kinvara 3 vs Kinvara 4: Part 2

(Part 1 of the Kinvara 3 / Kinvara 4 show-down)

Greetings from San Francisco, where it's been basically 65° around the clock for the last week & a half. I understand that the rest of you are melting and / or evaporating and / or ionizing into a plasma state, and have had to resort to such sadnesses as treadmills and running in the dead of night in order to get your workouts in. I used to live in north Texas, and then in northern Ohio after that, so I feel for you. This is pretty much why you should move to San Francisco. We can run together if you want. :)

On Saturday I had a great (if demanding) three mile run, which was a post M2BM distance record. That night I was already plotting how I would knock out another three miles the next day, excellent posterior chain mechanics & all.

But then Sunday morning happened. I didn't get up until 11:30, felt a bit sore in the hips from Saturday evening's 40-minute Lacrosse ball session, sat on my ass eating breakfast and reading the internet for another, oh, three hours or so, then spent another hour leisurely meandering to get my usual Sunday mocha & pain au jambon, and finally to the park across the street to listen to the SF Symphony for a few minutes.

Yes...That is my actual coffee. #sanfrancisco

These things are like crack.

By 4:00 I'd barely done anything all day & was exhausted from it. In contrast to my feelings driving through Golden Gate Park almost exactly a week ago, the absolute LAST thing I wanted to do was go run. (Yes, even after seven weeks of moaning & complaining about not being able to.) I definitely didn't want to run through my neighborhood again and deal with pedestrians & traffic lights & dogs & what have you when it's taking every spare brain cell I have to focus on my form. So, even though I knew it would only end up being 2-3 miles, I made the 10 minute drive to Golden Gate Park & just got it over with.

My glutes and hamstrings felt a little sore, which I took as a good sign that I'd been using them correctly the day before. So correctly, in fact, that I'd apparently worn them out. Getting the muscles to fire in the same way they had yesterday required speed work levels of effort, so my run ended up being more like 2 x 800m + 6 x 400m than an actual 2.5 miles. I'm not kidding that toward the end I was panting after a quarter mile at ~8:30 pace. Form fixes are WORK!

* * *

Back in June I acquired a brand new pair of Saucony Kinvara 3's as well as a pair of the recent update, the Kinvara 4. I wasn't able to really run at that point, so most of that first post comparing the two focused on how they felt on my feet, construction, weight, etc. I did promise that I would post an update once I was able to really run again, and since that day has come, I've been doing my recent 2-3 milers wearing one K3 and one K4 (alternating sides, of course, so that they wear evenly).

I mentioned in the earlier post that in terms of feel, the two shoes felt just nearly identical, and now having run a few miles in them, I stand by that statement 98%. The differences I have noticed are minute enough that it's taken me several runs to even feel certain they're there:

• The K4 does feel just a touch wider inside in the forefoot (but distinctly not in the heel). This was surprising because you can line up the outsoles lug-for-lug and they're perfectly identical in width, but inside the inner part of my forefoot & my big toe felt like they had just a touch more room to splay. The K3s have never felt particularly narrow to me before, but I'm still enjoying the extra bit of room.
• Either I can feel that 1mm closer to the ground in the K4, or I have convinced myself that I can. Not really sure. (Update: I am pretty sure I can feel it.)
• I mentioned in the first post that the heel counter on the K3 is slightly higher than the K4. I've been running in the 3's for ten months now and never had a problem with its heel counter, but the first time I ran with this particular brand-new K3 on my right foot, it rubbed uncomfortably against my heel & gave me a huge blister. Not sure what that's about since it didn't happen with the left shoe & has never happened to me with Kinvaras before.

The ride still feels completely identical to me. I literally cannot tell the difference. I'm still not sure what's up with the fact that the front of the K4 curves up so dramatically as compared to the 3 & hoped running in them would solve this mystery, but it hasn't.

Anyone have a Saucony connection? This is becoming the sort of mystery I can't let go.