I have posted before that my old shoes had seen some better days. I invested in two nice pairs a while back because I knew serious distances required me to have the proper shoes. This is a lesson my husband is learning. He, like many people, thought he could just throw on a pair of sneakers and run. I still maintain that when you are a person like him, which is small build, very little body fat, and a gifted runner that running in any shoes for 3 miles or less won't kill you and you may not even notice. But someone like me, who is the polar opposite, I need good shoes. Those good shoes are finally at the end of their life cycle. In fact they nagging injuries I was starting to receive in my ankles, I suspect are from my worn out shoes. I decided to rest up, after all, I had the Baltimore 10 miler on 6/16 and I didn't want to do more harm then good while training in bad shoes. Eventually, my ankle swelling went down, but I decided to delay doing any working out until today. I wanted to make sure I was adequately healed, something I have neglected to do in the past. I was always too anxious and it ended causing me further problems. In the mean time, I started to look for new shoes.
After several days of researching the perfect shoe because my Mizunos were no longer being made, I decided to purchase my shoes from Dick's yesterday. Usually, I take the recommendations of the shoe finder/calculator and I plug the recommendations into amazon.com and bingo bango I have the shoes I need at at least $10-30 less than the retail price. However, I have bad feet so most shoes that I need are not discounted at all. I had two option $145 pair of Mizunos and $110 pair of Brooks. At the last race I ran, I looked around and saw a lot of people, even my friend, were wearing Brooks. Not that I am a follower, but clearly the running community must be okay with this brand if a lot of people are wearing them. I decided to use my coupons from Dicks and save myself some money, since ordering them online would only cost me more and delay their shipment to my house and in that case, I might not get my shoes before my next race.
What do I think? With my first run, I think they are a pretty good shoe. I ran between 5 & 6 miles and the only thing I could tell is that they really were stabilizing my ankle. There was a little bit of soreness in my left ankle, but from what I gather it is because these shoes were preventing it from going all wonky. I have no blisters and I felt like I could run a tad bit faster because it was a little bit lighter shoe. The cushioning in these shoes is also incredible. I found them to be a very comfortable ride and it didn't feel like I was carting around two cinder blocks on my feet. Don't get me wrong, I loved the mizunos, but one of the only issues I took with that shoe is that it felt like I was clomping along like a Clydesdale in just about every race. Even sitting here now, my feet don't feel tired and my legs feel great. Considering it has been about 2 weeks since I last ran, I am very pleased with how I feel. If these shoes continue to be great, then I may invest in a second pair to keep on hand and to reduce wear and tear. I can see them being an excellent marathon shoe.
Until next time, happy running my friends!
No comments:
Post a Comment