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.