The Running Geek

Time For New Shoes and a Training Update

This week has been a bit of a blur. It’s Thursday already and I have a 10K race this Sunday. I was out this morning for an easy 40 min run, did about 8.6KM at a 4:35 per KM or so pace. It felt pretty good, but I missed my 6 x 600 M workout yesterday due to other commitments.

Tomorrow brings my 6 x 1 Min Fartlek session and then a day off on Saturday before race day on Sunday.

Race Goals

My ultimate goal for Sunday’s race is to run 37:30. This will put me on good pace to break 37 minutes later this season, but if it doesn’t happen life will go one.

To run 37:30 I must run some where around 3:45 min / KM splits.

So that brings me to my second goal which is to start out slow.

The past few races I’ve run I’ve gone out far too quickly and it’s left me feeling BLAH to say the least at the mid point of the race. I almost always finish strong, so this time I want to go out at my goal pace and recognize that I’m not looking to win or anything, I just need to keep a steady pace through out and then finish hard.

The race is 2 x 5K loops, and I’m pretty familiar with the course as I spent a lot of last year running the same route for training purposes as it used to be close to my office.

I’ve spoken with a couple of other runners that have said that the route is quite a bit shorter then 10KM, I’ll know I guess once I”m done and see what my Garmin 305 says.

For my watch I’m going to have it run without calculating 1KM intervals. Instead I’ll allow it to track my pace cumulatively. This way when I glance down what I’ll see is my average lap pace and since the entire race will be calculated as one lap the average pace will be what my average moving pace has been for the race to that point.

New Shoes

So I’m on the hunt now for new shoes. I’ve been running the past year and a half or more in Saucony Guide 3′s. I’ve gone through 3 pairs and I think I’m ready for a change. I’m considering the Saucony Ride’s as they are a similar shoe but lack the supportive post that runs under the arch. I have a pretty normal Gait so don’t really need the support. I discovered this earlier this year in Physio when I found out I had an anteverted hip and it’s not that I under or over pronate. This isn’t something I did to myself recently, it’s unfortunately how my body developed because I did what was called W-sitting as a child.

So anyways, back to the shoes. I’ve been interested in this minimalist shoe development and have begun doing my fast training sessions and my races in the Saucony Grid Mirage. This shoe is sort of the first step to a minimalist shoe before you take the full plunge into something like the Saucony Kinvara. I’m tempted by the Kinvara, however two things turn me off.

1.) I’m not a fan of the short lifespan I think this shoe will have, and while I don’t do huge mileage (35-50K or 22 – 32 Miles per week) I like to run shoes for about 400-500 miles if I can. The estimates I’ve been reading online suggest you might get 200 miles out of a pair of these which makes it a pricey shoe.
2.) I’m afraid that the total lack of support will cause me more injury issues.

I’m till undecided but will make up my mind in the coming weeks.

For any of you fellow Canadian runners out there I’ve been shopping on a great website that has a huge selection Running Free. It’s out of Ontario and pricing is solid. Check em out.