Shoe woes:
I absolutely love my NB Rebel V2s. Lightweight (7.2 oz), springy, responsive, superbly comfortable right out of the box. The retail price is $130, and just about all sellers price at or very close to that. Call me cheap, but I have trouble paying full price for shoes. So when I found this week if I bought two pairs of Rebel V2 shoes from a particular seller, I could buy them at $62/pair, I'm in!
 |
| The very next day after ordering two more pairs, I find this! At 280 miles, I'm getting close to the rule of thumb of replace every 300-500 miles, but seriously? Googling online (as opposed to a paper Google search?) reveals that a number of runners commented "excellent shoe", "love it", etc, but many (not all) have experienced this issue with the upper tearing and separating. Supposedly this will be addressed in V3 due out in the fall. |
 |
| Meanwhile, I've introduced the Prism V2 into my road shoe rotation. Heavier than the Rebel V2 (9.4 oz), more of a stability trainer, I am hoping this will be a decent addition. Not the love I'm feeling with Rebel V2, but in the same FuelCell family as the Rebel V2 and Speedrft (which I do not like). Comfortable shoe. |
So how many shoes should I have in rotation (for a given surface)? How many do you have? Reading online suggests 3 is the minimum optimal, and not for all the reasons that I thought. One site stated "Training in a range of shoes give a diversity in the same way that changing running surfaces (road, trail, grass, treadmill) reduces the repetitive part of repetitive stress injury risk from runners that run on the same surface all of the time."
OK, that one is the reason that I follow for shoe rotation. But what I had no idea of and was repeated on several sites was the additional reason that with so many foam-based shoes nowadays, it takes 24-48 hours after running for the foam to decompress, and the longer the shoe itself has to rest, the more this can extend the life of the shoe. Huh. Who knew? Probably everybody but me.
 |
| I like this chart! I'd like to get the RC Elite V2 (carbon plate), but I typically only buy shoes on discount and I just can't pull the trigger on a $230 price tag. Ordered the A9 to try something different (retail $100, purchase price $74). |
Monday: 8
AM: Charlestown, RI. 2.5 miles solo. Between meetings, I snuck out for a run on Burlingame roads, but I frequently tend to underestimate time for runs, and needed to cut back mid-run. Promised myself I'd get out there again in the afternoon.
PM: Charlestown, RI. 5.5 miles Burlingame trails with Brady. Yay, I actually got back out here. Campground trails were in great shape. I was not. Just no pep.
Tuesday: 2 walk, 8 run
AM: Westerly, RI. CCC monitoring, finishing up Grills Preserve. Today we monitored the borders south of Bowling Lane, mostly behind houses, and hauled out five full bags of trash. One resident came out and was positive; another clearly angry with me for taking a picture of her vehicle parked on private WLT property. Was able to take the high road and diffuse her stream of profanity, but she came out with keys in hand to move the vehicle and clearly knew she was parking on WLT land. I explained I'm just a volunteer doing my job of annual required monitoring and documenting encroachment on our borders as part of accreditation, and she scowled and went back inside. Not sure why some people only look at situations from their own myopic view. I was tempted to ask if it were her property, wouldn't she want to know how people were using it, but I'm certain that would not have helped.
 |
| Just a portion of the garbage we bagged, loaded into my car, and hauled off our property today. As is always the case, when we encounter nature on Land Trust properties, there is no issue. It's when we encounter (a small percentage of) humans that things go awry. |
Noon: Charlestown, RI. Solo Quonnie loop from Dave's Coffee. Great weather and a great run, but unfortunately had to cut it a bit shorter to hightail it back home for a business meeting.
Wednesday: 6
South Kingstown, RI. Dreary run at DuVal. Typical perimeter route, with Brady. Mid-40s, gray, wet, breezy. The upside to the weather is there was not a soul there. According to Strava, this was my first visit to DuVal in eight months! Can that be true? It's really a great place to get in technically, hilly trails.
Thursday: 10
Exeter, RI. Late afternoon run at Arcadia with Brady. Parked and started from the hunter check station for something different. Mount Tom Trail => Escoheag => Breakheart => Penny Cutoff => Shelter => JB Hudson => Mount Tom. Nice route. Felt out of shape. Need to get more runs in like this (hills + some mileage). As I was running past Frosty Hollow Pond, I heard my name called, turned around, and it's Crutch! Really good catch-up and talk on respective families, upcoming races, etc.
Friday: 6 run, 1 walk
AM: Westerly, RI. Walked the WLT's newest property, Cottrell Preserve, with four other Land Trust folk. Reviewed a proposal for trails, which I'm hoping can be slightly modified to take in some more hilly aspects. It's tough because this property is quite wet. Possible future tie-in with Westerly Town Forest and Whitely Preserve.
 |
| Came back home, and Jana pointed out this guy sunning himself in some mulch in our front yard. Beautiful! Decided to leave him be. It looked like he had already done so much work to get himself coiled up like that. Do you suppose that's for warmth? |
PM: Hopkinton, RI. Run with Brady at Yawgoog. Narragansett Trail and then Tippecansett up to Dinosaur Caves, over to Hidden Lake on the Freeman Trail (flooded), and back via the west side of Yawgoog Pond.
Saturday: 7
Charlestown, RI. Early morning run with Brady on the VG loop. Last night's weather forecast mentioned scattered showers, but we really got caught in a downpour. It was fine, and the last couple of miles the rain stopped completely.
We drove up to UNH to watch Matthew run a 5K, only to sit around in a rain delay with torrential rain and thunderstorms, and then to have the meet finally cancelled! As Jana mentioned, at least on the bright side, I got a pair of shoes. I had written above in this post about rounding out my road shoe rotation, and today I took care of my trail shoe rotation. At the Eastern States race check-in, the local running store in Portsmouth (Runner's Alley) gave us all a 15% coupon. Probably not enough on its own for me to go back to the shoe store and use, but in addition, this week I received a $30 gift card to the same store for my age group placement. OK, now we're talking.
I was really impressed with Runner's Alley for the depth and breadth of shoes for what I'll call "advanced runners". At a number of local running stores, I'll find a dearth of trail shoes for example, and certainly very few if any more expensive shoes. There were several carbon fiber shoes there, as well as a nice mix of "higher end" competitive running shoes. I was also pleasantry surprised to see the running store packed with customers; I had to wait until a sales rep freed up. I ended up buying a pair of Saucony Peregrine 12, which I had read up on and are a full ounce lighter than the 11. Retail price $130, but between the coupon and gift card, I scored $50 off!
Sunday: 16 run, 1 walk
AM: Hopkinton, RI. For something different, I had mapped out a route starting from Grills Wildlife Sanctuary and including a series of rolling hills. Ended up with over 1,000 feet of vertical gain. Average pace 6:51, and every fifth mile harder (5:58, 6:07, 5:51). This was a good run for me. Hilly and challenging, and mostly on the comfort of quiet roads.
In the afternoon, I finally got around to at least starting spring yardwork, which for today was mostly cleaning up leaves and sticks in the yard.
 |
| Really, you can't play with your ball on the grass instead of digging up mulch in our beds? Hard to get angry with him. It's just mulch. |
PM: Westerly, RI. Post-dinner walk with Jana and Brady, at Avondale. I probably had one too many helpings of curry cod at dinner, and it was good to walk it off a bit.
Weekly mileage total: 61 run, 5 walk
Weekly synopsis: Happy with the mileage and varied efforts this week! Probably a bit lower mileage middle of next week going into Newport Half on Saturday. Mostly trails this week, but got in some good road runs as well.
Weekly Highlight: 16-mile road loop on Sunday. Despite being hilly and challenging, I felt really good on this one.
Weekly Lowlight: Dealing with angry people and littering people on WLT property.
No comments:
Post a Comment