Week #13 -- learning lessons

Summary for week ending Sunday, March 27, 2016:

Number of workouts: 6
Total miles run: 47.70
Average miles per run: 7.95

Miles in March: 203.41
Miles in 2016: 575.28

Not as many miles this week, due to increase in intensity of quality runs (though, too late to change the daily miles, I decided to swap one of those intense quality runs to next weekend). I felt good to start the week, felt less good in the middle, and ended the week feeling OK because I think I've finally learned the importance of running actually easy. I will carry that lesson with me going forward.

15 miles today, overcast but temperature great for a middle-long run. Somewhere around 135 bpm effort, you just feel like you could run all day; then 10-11 miles comes around and you realize that you can't run all day, but you've still got enough left to finish what you have planned.

Next weekend is the Caesar Rodney, so I'm not going to aim for 60 miles which is what the schedule demands. If I do 50 I will be more than satisfied, but the goal is to run well at the race so I will play it by ear, as far as mileage is concerned.

My beating heart

After last Sunday's physically and mentally tough long run, I felt I had rebounded by Tuesday, feeling like myself and running comfortably at a pace I would call "honest" -- not easy, not hard. A kid made a comment to his mother as I passed that irritated me, and for a while I ran faster than I needed to. By the time my temper had cooled off, it had been a couple miles and now my mental treadmill was stuck at that pace. Wednesday, I ran similar pace -- that "honest" one, but it did not feel quite as free as Tuesday. I also had another HR monitor episode that really got me concerned. Tuesday's HR data had looked pretty normal, but Wednesday's ended up baffling me again.

It looked a lot like Tuesday’s, up until between 4.5-5 miles, when it appears to have gone up over 160, maxing at 180 at 5 miles then hovering between 170-175 until 5.5 miles, when it dropped, suddenly and precipitously, to the low 140s. (I believe I was going downhill at this point.) It climbed back to the low 160s for the last half mile, but during that point, I was climbing as well, up the steeper long hill in the park. So while that it sense for my heart rate to go up while I went uphill, the values didn't make sense and the prior sudden leap to >170 and the sharp drop back to what I’d consider “normal” does not.

Nothing made me mad on Wednesday, so I didn't have anything to help float me through a few of those miles, and as I went on, I felt more and more glad that I was only doing 6 miles. As I worked up the last hill at the end of that 6 miles I felt quite done enough, thank you. Ok, so I did feel like I was working a little more than on Tuesday, but did I feel like I was working 180 bpm? I just don't think so. I’m thinking back to a month or so ago when I was doing hard intervals at 7:00 or better. My HR never hit even 170, let alone 180, during those intervals. These relatively-easy running periods with allegedly high heart rate were bothering me. I don’t feel like my heart is working that hard. When I was doing hard workouts where I’d expect my heart rate to be high, it was accompanied by everything you’d expect to feel from working your heart rate up that high while running: increased and heavier respiration, fighting against tiring legs, etc. I did not feel those things in that 170-180 period. I just felt like I was in the last mile or so of a run where I’d been going around under 8:15/mi. No elevated breathing. No rapidly tiring legs. And it just doesn’t feel like my heart is racing that fast. Can it beat that fast and just not feel like it??

Thursday I ran a T workout that felt more tough than usual. I'd like to blame it on longer T segments, but I wasn't even halfway through the first 15 minutes when I knew I wasn't going to make another 15 and a 10 as scheduled. I worried about my heart rate, but it was mostly my legs that were simply unresponsive, and I was crashing and burning just to make it through 10 minutes as the second interval. I even struggled through 1.1 miles as a cooldown. I worried about what my heart rate was during all this (I couldn't really keep track while I was running hard).

Looked fine. Normal range for T efforts, nothing bizarre during the easy segments. Ok ...

So it didn't happen every run. Maybe it was just some technical glitch that happened sometimes. I washed the strap and cleaned the snap contacts and when I went out for an extra easy-peasy trail run on Friday, everything heart-rate seemed to make sense. While I felt awful leg-wise for most of it (so only ran a little more than 4 miles), my heart rate tracked as it usually does on the trails with no outrageous excursions. Ok, that was encouraging.

Though I felt (feel?) reasonably confident it's not me, rather the equipment, I still couldn't help worrying that my heart might be doing wild things without me knowing it. While trying to figure out why the HR data was going so crazy, I wondered if maybe I'm on the verge of overtraining, which might lead my heart rate to start doing some funky things? I have never run so many 50+ mile weeks before so I'm in uncharted territory here. I reviewed what I've been running and decided I am probably running my non-quality days too fast (especially when something makes me mad). Even though the miles at 8:00-8:15 pace feel mostly fine, it's probably not easy enough to really allow me to recover, either from the quality workouts or from all the other days. It would explain why I have struggled to feel good for recent T workouts and have very heavy legs by the end of the week. Whether or not the apparent heart rate issue was real or not, I could probably stand to do easy runs easier and perhaps that would 1) bring any actual heart rate issue back under control by not overtraining and 2) help keep my legs fresher for when they have to run harder. So ...

Today I went out for an easy run and I made the effort to run easy. It's just not easy to run easy, and this is not something I just discovered today. I'm running along, easy, and my legs know they can run faster without feeling a whole lot more effort. So they just naturally want to run a pace that feels comfortable, and running easy does not necessarily feel comfortable. I often feel like I'm applying the brakes the whole time, because my system just wants to do more. I kept an eye on my heart rate today, to keep it from going much over 140. I didn't care what that pace turned out to be; over 140 is where it starts to feel "honest" -- not easy, not hard, but too hard for easy. Except for going up hills, I managed -- but it took vigilance. I did not notice any excursion into way-too-high territory, so I hope that by cleaning the strap I have put an end to this weird behavior.

On the flat, 130-135 bpm was 8:30-8:35 pace. That is plenty fast enough for regular, non-quality mileage. I'm going to make an effort to aim for that on non-quality days, and see if that helps keep my legs from crumbling after the week's miles start to pile up -- because except for next week, the weekly total isn't going to go down, and I don't want to have to back off -- everything I read says volume matters when you want to reach your marathon potential. But if you're not doing it right, you're not going to get there. I need to try to do it right. I'm still learning here, learning on the job.

Next weekend is the Caesar Rodney half. I don't want to pretend like it's just another Sunday run and train through, because I want to make a real effort at racing, so I'm going to back off on the mileage a little this week and not run hard until the race. My schedule had me doing a 12-13 mile run at marathon pace tomorrow, a 15-mile long run next week, and a very tough mix of T and long miles the following week; rather than do three pretty hard and long efforts three weekends in a row, I'm going to switch this week and next week -- just do 15-16 miles tomorrow and do the half as the either the MP run or the following week's T run. I'll see how I feel the week following the race.

Week #12 -- feeling rough

Summary for week ending Sunday, March 20, 2016:

Number of workouts: 6
Total miles run: 56.45
Average miles per run: 9.41

Miles in March: 155.71
Miles in 2016: 527.58

Started the week with a 10-miler that bored me; refreshed myself with an easy trail run; then a T workout with a bubbly, squishy stomach and tired legs. On Friday I debated resting my legs or taking it easy on the trails again; I opted for the latter, and mostly enjoyed it, telling myself that it was going to be the last nice day of the week and I should take advantage of it. Saturday's hour was very slow, much slower than I thought, but I didn't really even try to work hard -- kind of like how I let my legs go on the trails, except this time not on the trails. I guess 9:00/mi is me not even trying to work. It was one of those have-to-get-it-done, just-get-it-done-whatever efforts in discouragingly overcast, low 40s; I almost overdressed because I guess I have quickly forgotten what one wears when it's 43 out, but even a light wind across the reservoir feels uncomfortable at that temperature so my layers weren't too much after all.

Sunday's scheduled workout was no walk in the park; I suppose there isn't much point to walk-in-the-park Sunday workouts if you want to try to run a PR or get as close to it as possible. T workouts are supposed to be tough. 2 mi E + 4(5 min T) + 60 min E + 15 min T + 2 mi E. I had actually looked forward to it, because the forecast Nor'easter bringing snow/rain for the day fell through and it was going to be dry, if cold -- I had expected to be running it on the treadmill, and instead I was given a reprieve and could run it outside. It was low 40s again and I wanted to do the run at Paper Mill Park, where I am never far from the car for fluids and fuel for the long effort. The sun was even coming out a little bit as I approached and saw, to my dismay, the park was overrun with kids playing soccer. I didn't know how long they were going to be there, so I wasn't even going to try to attempt to run fast on the path with all those little creatures sure to get in the way. I should have driven up to a high school and run on a track, but the idea of doing 60 min around and around was only slightly less zzz-ing than the idea of doing it on the treadmill; instead I turned around and went to the reservoir, where the flat 1.1-mile loop would seem to be a fine substitute location for this T workout.

One problem with the reservoir is that the parking lot is at its base, a 0.35 mile spur off the loop that is one, long hill. So, if I need a drink or gel, I have to figure in 0.7 miles into the workout, easy one way, not so easy the other. I decided I would run the 2 mi E and then just go right into the 4x5 min T, and get a drink and gel on my way out to do the middle 60 min E on other paths away from the reservoir. It wasn't hot out, I would probably be OK without having a sip in the middle of the T intervals.

I think I was wrong. My right side flared up and it was agonizing during the first two and a half T intervals; this happens typically when I have not had enough to drink, even though I did not feel thirsty. It was cold and I didn't relish the idea of that 0.7 mile spur just to get a sip, so I toughed it out, having to forcibly concentrate on maintaining form and breathing through the ache. Partway though the third interval, it seemed to dull somewhat -- still there, just not as on fire. It was enough of a relief to get through the fourth, and then head down to the car for fluids.

I was in a bad mood. The sideache was a complication I did not like to deal with, but mainly I was sour about the other problem with the reservoir: it is up and there is nothing around it that blocks the wind, which was blowing constantly at ~15 mph (according to the weather report). So for at least half of the loop, I was running right into a hand of chilly wind that has every malicious intention of making my T effort worse than it needed to be. I like doing T intervals where it's flat so that I can maintain a pace/effort correlation that makes sense. When the wind interferes, that pace/effort correlation is impossible to resolve. I decided that if I could get the intervals done in an average pace of less than 7:30/mi I'd call it satisfactory, but I'd have to look at the HR data later to see how it compared to other T workouts to get an idea if the effort was appropriate.

I wasn't feeling all that hot, let's face it. Sideache-plagued, defiant-wind T intervals, lowering sky and a temperature that was just on the edge of being too cold for shorts; and I was only about a third of the way done. I trotted down the spur to the car. In the parking lot, a pair of tiny dogs came racing toward my feet, yapping wildly and indignantly that I dared tread on their asphalt; their owner jokingly called out to me, "Just kick them!" (Only if they bite me.) The other owner asked me if it was very windy up there. I did not mean for my answer to sound smart-alecky, but I'm afraid it did. I wanted to say it was if you were going in one direction directly into it and indicate which direction that was, but it came out "Half of it is!" Oh well. At least she laughed.

I had some water and Gatorade and put on a pair of pants and a second long-sleeved shirt for the easy hour, which I did away from the reservoir on paved rail trails. My side did not bother me and I ran slowly, again not even bothering to try to run faster than 8:50 or so pace. It was during this portion of the run I noticed that the Garmin was apparently having difficulty with my heart rate. Normally it is quite sensible and pretty consistent between paces, but today I couldn't believe what it was telling me. That 8:50-9:00 pace I was running did not feel quite as slow as it sounded like it should, but my legs were getting tired after a long week and some hard running, and when that happens sometimes what seems like it should be easy isn't as easy as all that. But the discrepancy between pace and perceived effort was nowhere near what it should have been had my HR actually been what the Garmin said it was -- over 160 bpm and often over 170. When I do T intervals, my HR seldom goes over 160, so I was astonished to see it claim that. No way did I feel I was working as hard as a 160+ bpm heart rate should feel no matter what the pace. I stopped a couple times to feel it for myself and it didn't feel physically out of control like that, so I was puzzled. When I started back up, it would drop to a more expected value of 140-145, hang out there for a while, and then next thing I knew it was back up to 160-170 (!).

I don't know what was causing it to fluctuate so wildly high this time, but it seemed to start during the T intervals earlier, where it spiked over 170 during the 3rd and then soared up and hung out well over 180 (!!) during the 4th. Ok, I was working hard in those intervals, but come on. Even if I could maybe buy 180 during a too-fast T interval, I do not believe 170 during easy 9:00/mi running. Something was causing a misread there, and even though I figured I could ignore what it was saying, it still bothered me and staying in the corner of my mind; what if it was that fast and for some reason I just couldn't reconcile it with how it felt? Was it going to be dangerous for me to do the 15 min T after the easy hour?

I did the 15 min T, but at a pace much slower than I would like T to be, but, that wind and those tired legs meant the effort was 7:30/mi and that was just going to be good enough. 2 mi E after that and I was done. I guess to put into perspective how bad I felt for much of this workout, that tough last 15 min T and 2 mi E felt the best of it all, and that's not saying much (gives me evidence that those gels really do work, though -- I took one after the 60 min and before the final T effort). I got the whole workout in, I got the whole week's worth of workouts in, and I am very glad to call it a job done well enough and take Monday off to let my legs recover, to hope the sideache cools off and recharge myself for another 50+ week. Here's hoping for something warmer than 40 and can we please keep the wind to a minimum for once?

The Caesar Rodney half-marathon is in two weeks. I really can't guess yet how it might go. If I can feel good during this midweek's T workout and the extended marathon pace run on Sunday, I will be better equipped to make a judgment call.

Shoes and brand loyalty

This is going to end up sounding like an ad for a particular brand of running shoes, but I promise that I'm just going to tell the story of my running shoes: what I've worn, how much I've loved them. I suppose it is a testimonial, but I can't help that for most of my running career, my needs have been best served by that particular brand. I did not always run in Sauconys. When I started running on the junior high track team in 1989, I did not have a pair of real running shoes. I ran in whatever shoes I currently owned at the time -- I specifically recall a pair of Reebok three-quarters high tops in white, fuchsia, and purple -- not exactly made for running. I was wearing those Reeboks in my 800m debut and when I ran the race well, our assistant coach suggested I might get shoes that were knee-high and see if I ran even faster. Running shoes have always been relatively expensive, so it wasn't until the following season that I could convince my parents that I really meant to stick with track, because I was pretty good at it, so please could I get a real pair of running shoes?

Impossible to forget that first pair: Nike Air Pegasus, gray and silver with teal. I am not in possession of family photographs from that era, so I can't look through them to find a picture of me wearing them, but that is how I remember them. The difference between actual running shoes and my street shoes, which were probably at the time a pair of stylin' BKs was amazing. Even after the track season, I continued wearing them during my last summer of rec-league softball, and my teammates called me "Wheels" because I was so fast in them. (Not really because of the shoes, though I sure felt faster because of them.)

It was no longer difficult to convince my parents of my need for real running shoes, but I did not yet know that there are different shoes for different types of runners. I wore the Air Structure strictly because I thought they were super-cool. John's Sporting Goods in Iowa City only carried a men's version; I would not consider any other shoes, so they special ordered a pair small enough to fit my feet. Looking back, I can see that the salesman seemed uncertain while I tried them on; now, I imagine he was dying to tell me that there was no way I should be wearing those, but I was so clearly not going to leave that store with anything else, he probably just decided to keep his mouth shut. I was (always have been) a lightweight, 5'6", probably 110 pounds; no doubt the Air Structure were in no way appropriate, but I wore them through the cross-country season and survived. I ran workouts in them and I raced in them, because I didn't even have a pair of spikes for races until toward the end of the season, when the coach provided me with a used red and yellow pair of Nikes to get me through the important late-season meets. I got the message, and my own pair of spikes: a very flashy set of Reebok Harriers, black/white/neon green/neon pink.


(Photo from the Reebok Shoe Archive Facebook page.)

These served me well through the rest of my high school career.

For the 1991 track season, I had a pair of Air Span or Air Span II (I can't remember offhand) that were probably more appropriate for my frame, but my style of running while racing or doing track work had me up on my toes, and I was plagued with blisters, particularly beneath my little toe; Coach suggested my shoes might be to blame, they might be too narrow. I also have the distinctly unpleasant memory of their smell toward the end of the season; something about the fabric of the upper was not conducive to staying fresh after a few months of hard use in all sorts of conditions. The Air Span were my last pair of Nikes, ever: for the track season in 1992, I wore my first pair of Saucony, and, with the exception of two pairs of trail shoes,¹ I have never worn anything else since.

I wised up to Saucony through our assistant coach, who wore them. They had a wider toe box, which would give my forefoot more room and cut down on how badly my feet would blister (they were not a panacea, but they helped; the only thing that stopped the blistering entirely was me no longer running up on my toes while training and racing). Those first Sauconys were awesome: they had a clear plastic window in the heel that allowed observation of the "G.R.I.D." system and they were obnoxiously colored -- red/black/white/yellow. I wore these even after my toe rubbed a hole in the upper. I found a photo of me wearing them while on a school trip to Germany in the summer of 1992:

Following these special G.R.I.D. shoes were numerous other pairs: a burgundy/cheddar/silver pair whose model name I cannot recall, but whose laces I adorned with plastic torn from finish line flags; and I wore numerous pairs of teal/purple/silver Jazz, a model which would be my go-to shoe for many seasons and years.



I wore several other forgotten models (Shadow?) too, during those Jazz years, up to the early 2000s. I believe it was in 2002 that Saucony introduced the Trigon, sold as three different models: Light, Responsive, and Durable, which had different midsole densities and outsole materials targeted toward runners of different weights. I mostly liked the Responsive, though by weight I was supposedly slotted into the Light category; I did wear them one season and found the outsole was a bit plasticky which could be a little slippery. While running a 5-miler in Media, PA I discovered they lacked a firm grip on wet pavement, particularly when rounding a corner. The lightness was nice, but after that slightly harrowing experiment, I stuck with the middle version. They were great -- cushioned, but responsive as the name indicated. I wore several pairs as these made their way up from the original to the Trigon 2 and on; eventually Saucony dropped the Light version and the Trigon went on as two, the Ride and the Guide.



I continued to wear the Ride until undertraining for the Philadelphia Marathon in 2008 led me to develop a stress injury in my foot (that pair were white/silver with red); after that, I bumped myself up to the Triumph, which had more forefoot cushioning.

I had experimented with the Triumph some years before, when they first emerged. After wearing the Trigon (those got me through my first marathon in 2004), I liked the idea of a very plush shoe when I read about the Triumph so tried them on and indeed, they were very cushy. They were certainly not lightweight, however, and I considered them to be sort of an off-season trainer. The Triumph were expensive, though -- when I first bought them they were the $100 shoe, which was a lot to a post-doc living in an expensive part of the country, so I did not stick with them and went back to the Trigon (not $100).

Though happy with the Trigon, while browsing running shoe catalogs in 2003 I saw that Saucony had a lightweight "performance trainer" called the Azura i. I had recently started to bump my mileage and was interested in trying something lighter to see if it might make me faster (though back then, I was still pretty informal about training relative to what I have done more recently).


(on my feet while having a walk by the Coralville Reservoir)

I could not find the Azura i at any store in Iowa City (!) but found them at Fitness Sports in Des Moines. They immediately found a spot in the Favorite Shoe Hall of Fame. I was living in Pennsylvania when it came time to replace them, and again I was unable to find them at a nearby local store, so I called up Fitness Sports and had them send me another pair. In 2004 I ran some of my best times wearing the Azura i (which might be part of the reason they hold such a vaunted place in my running shoe history), including at the Bix 7



but later in the year I started training for my first marathon and thought it might be better to do my long mileage in a more substantial shoe, so went back to the Trigon. The Azura became scarce, anyway, their last model being the Azura LC (which my friend Robert called the Vitamin C shoes because they were so brightly accented with orange and yellow)



which felt different from the Azura i and I did not like nearly so much though I did wear them through a couple races in the fall of 2004. In 2007 I found some Azura LC at a discount dealer at a race expo and bought them, hoping that I would like them more, but I did not, and one pair still sits, pristine, in their box in my closet. (Taking them out to snap that photo -- whoa, the smell of 2000s-era Sauconys is still fresh and takes me back!)

These light-weight shoes were only a diversion, for they came and went. For several years after that stress injury in late 2008, I wore the Triumph, which has stuck around. These were no longer the $100 shoe, which I thought was steep in 2004, but now more around the $120 shoe and as I was buying 3-4 pairs of new running shoes a year, that started to feel a little steep too. So I was doing the cost-saving measures where you buy last season's model and or buy two pairs when they were on sale and so forth. I could usually get them below $100, which is sort of a maximum price in my mind given how often I have to replace running shoes. I always liked the Triumph, from that first white/orange/silver pair in 2004 up until I quit wearing them in 2014. I have always liked the plush ride, and a few years ago they lowered the heel drop which at first felt odd but then completely fine. The toebox was always roomy and comfortable, and with the cushioning over the whole foot I never had another issue with stress injury. They always seemed a heavy shoe to me, though, and one summer I bought a pair of Kinvara 2 as a lightweight trainer for speedwork, thinking I might wear them if I were to run some 5Ks or 10Ks -- something shortish.



The difference between the two was astonishing. While not pillowy like the Triumph, I thought the Kinvara was pretty soft as well, but felt like I had nothing on my feet. Thus, I worried that they may not be enough for my feet to withstand through a marathon, so I only wore them while doing speedwork, and did all my high mileage training and racing in the Triumph.


I ran my first, horrible Boston in these. I haven't gotten rid of them yet, because I guess I haven't quite let it go.


Ran my second-fastest marathon in these, in Atlantic City.

My last pair of Triumph were in 2014.
I wore them at Vermont City and after that, I was done, because when I went to buy new shoes after that race that summer, the Triumph were no longer the $120 shoe, but the $140 shoe.

Saucony, I love you -- I have loved you almost exclusively for more than 20 years -- but no flaming way, pal. And you didn't even stop there. I'll admit I'm interested in your newest Triumph incarnation, those ISO 2, partly because they look so soft and chiefly because now they are less than 9 oz. (weight being something I always felt was the Triumph's big negative, but it seemed like if you wanted cushion, you suffered for it), but $150? $150. I can't, Saucony. I simply cannot.

So I've turned to a different shoe. I always liked how light and fast those Kinvara 2s made me feel, so I thought I'd give them another try, and bought a pair of Kinvara 4. They were purple (seemed to be quite popular for a couple years there) and I liked how they felt on my feet. I wanted to love these shoes. The first time I wore them, I loved that they were soft enough, how light they were on my feet. However, they gave me a terrible blister on my Achilles within the first couple miles. I don't normally have to "break in" a pair of Sauconys, but I loved how they otherwise felt and thought "Well, they are different from my other shoes" so I wanted to give them another couple tries. Not only did that hotspot on my Achilles never ease, other hotspots developed too. I tried physically cutting away the top of the heel counter, because it did feel like it angled in too hard and certainly rubbed the tendon more forcefully than any of my other running shoes. That didn't really help because I couldn't cut it down far enough and leave any integrity in the shoe back there at all. Reluctantly, I gave them up. They just weren't going to work. I wore a pair of Cortanas in the meantime (I was lukewarm about those -- they were OK, not lightweight, also expensive), while also experimenting with the zero-drop Virrata.

It did not take me long to adjust to the zero-drop, but I did try to sort of ease into them. I couldn't believe how light they were -- at least as light as the Kinvara, definitely lighter than those Cortanas -- but they were nowhere near as soft as I liked and I don't think I ever wore them on a run longer than 12 or 13 miles, which was plenty long enough to realize that I wasn't enamored with the firmness. If I was going to use these, they would have to be a short-mileage shoe for shorter races. But I didn't really have any of those on tap and so they fell by the wayside. Last fall I thought I'd try them again, because I found a pair of Virrata 2 very on sale, and again, found them to be just too firm for my taste. Perhaps it's for the best, as it appears that Saucony is not going to sell them anymore.


They still look like new, but they have more than a hundred miles on them. Bye bye, Virratas.

I couldn't take my eyes off the Kinvara through all of it. I didn't want to spend the money to go back to the Triumph, but I was worried about always struggling with blisters if I wore Kinvaras. So I skipped over the 4 and went for a pair of 5s (full price!) and there was improvement ... to a point. The heel counter was lined with a slipperier fabric and it didn't seem to angle inward nearly so much, so I did not get blisters, but there were still hotspots that made me incredulous. I had never, ever had difficulty with any Saucony shoes, so it was hard for me to accept that there was just something about these that didn't fit my feet right. An area near the ankle would bump up underneath the anklebone every step, essentially bruising it, and the plastic stabilizer across the instep rubbed badly. If I force-shifted it so that it did not rub my foot itself, it pressed on the edge of the tongue so that it rubbed badly. Other than those problems, the shoes were soooo wonderful! And I didn't want to shell out another $100 when I had just paid for these, so I got out the heavy-duty scissors again and did some pruning, trimming the area under the ankle enough so that it no longer rammed against the bone, and clipping the edge of the tongue so that it no longer chafed. I ran the miles out of those shoes with those modifications, and enjoyed every one of them (as much as you enjoy every mile you run) but it bugged me that in order to have such satisfaction, I had to essentially mutilate the upper.


You can't see the full extent of the mutilation, but this gives a flavor for it.

I wore two pairs of Kinvara 5s, the above blue and a pair of lime green that will forever be considered among the very top of my Favorite Shoe list (right up there with the Azura i) for aesthetic reasons as well as for the race they got me through (Boston 2015). I go between orange and green as being my favorite colors -- I am not sure if I had to pin it down to one, my answer would always be the same -- and the shade of green of these was just right. And then, while at the expo at Boston, I saw the race's special edition Kinvara 6, and knew that I had to have them. I did not have to decide which was my favorite color; these displayed both (if perhaps a little too much yellow to round it out).




Since that special pair of Boston Kinvaras, I have worn many pairs of Kinvara 6s (with the very brief dalliance with the Virrata 2). Only one have I had to chop to relieve the hotspot under my ankle; all the rest have fit perfectly. They have all been "red/orange/mint" which I have found quite to my liking -- mostly red, not as good as all green, not as good as all orange, but bright and cheery and oh so light on my feet.

I hate to say that it matters what colors my shoes are, because whether they are snazzy cherry/lime or orange/green or silver/blue, they function the same. It was not that long ago that you did not have a choice about what colors the shoes were; a particular model came in one colorway and if you didn't like it, tough -- just wait until next season and see what they offered. Then they started offering a couple versions, which was nice, and now there are often three or four colorways to choose from. I almost never end up with something that isn't exactly my flavor anymore ...

except a couple weeks ago, when I bought new shoes at the Delaware Running Company instead of buying them online. I like to support the local running store, but I mentioned somewhere above that when I have to start buying so many pairs of shoes a year, it starts getting quite expensive, and if I can buy my shoes for under $100, I'm going to want to do that. Still, I try to buy a couple pairs at the local shop (and also try to buy other gear there now and then) and when I was about to run out of the cherry red Kinvara 6s I got as a Christmas gift (my second pair of such), I decided this next pair would come from the store. Well, they did not have any other color but the blue/citron, which is OK but very second fiddle to the red. My feet cannot tell the difference -- well, they can tell that they are new and do not have 300+ miles on them, but they cannot tell what color they are. And I'm guessing no one else notices, either.



Saucony has just offered for sale the next iteration of the Kinvara, #7. Their website declares "YOU SHOULD GET YOUR FEET ON THIS STUFF" and describes the newest version: "Lightweight and well cushioned, the Kinvara changed the running shoe game by nailing the blend of those unlikely companions. The newest addition to the iconic Kinvara family hits the road with more resilience, thanks to EVERUN cushioning, while continuing on its fast and durable bloodline. Kinvara fans, rejoice." Kinvara 6 were $100 new; the 7 are $110, so I see Saucony is creeping the price up just like they did with my Triumphs. I am very interested in the new version, but you know what? I'm pretty happy with the 6s right now, and because the 7s are now on the market, the 6s are starting to fall into a price range I find very economical as someone who will probably buy another 4-5 pairs of shoes this year.² I will enjoy all the miles and races I will cover in a few more pairs of 6s and perhaps this fall I'll go to the running store and try the new ones on. It's about 24 years now since I wore those first black/yellow/white/red Saucony G.R.I.D. shoes; their technology has gone through a lot of different transformations in that time, so I'm interested in seeing how this Everun stuff feels.

Saucony's shoe boxes used to say "Loyal to the sport". I always liked that, and 24 years since I found the shoes that made my feet feel good running, I don't see any reason to veer from the course.



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¹In 2008 I did all of my long running on trails at Fair Hill in Maryland, so decided I wanted to get a pair of shoes dedicated to trail running. Saucony did not have that many offerings in that area at the time, and what they did have did not feel very cushioned or comfortable; so I broke with tradition for two seasons, when I wore an Asics shoe. (But only for trail running!) It was the first time in more than 15 years that I had worn something other than Saucony to run. It did feel like I had betrayed them; but Saucony stepped up and in the years since then I have worn the Xodus (nice!) and the Peregrine (light!) and even once the Kinvara TR, which I had hoped I would like as much as the road shoe, but did not. Alas -- back to the Peregine it was.

²I just bought two pairs of the red/orange/mint on sale (online) for $45 apiece. That, my friends, cannot be passed up.

Ten things I saw on my ten-miler today

1) Girl wearing a backpack that had kittens flying through space on it.
2) Guy whose jeans zipper was wiiiiiide open.
3) Trees starting to flower purple/pink.
4) Random dayglo yellow golf ball.
5) Some runners dressed as though it were 30F out. (It was mid-50s)
6) Boys playing roller hockey.
7) A Rabbit and Jetta on either side of my Jetta.
8) Kid learning to ride a bike, wearing a bright orange helmet.
9) Dude in red car, yelling something? at me.
10) Man wearing a Big Sur International Marathon t-shirt.

Week #11 -- up again

Summary for week ending Sunday, March 13, 2016:

Number of workouts: 8
Total miles run: 56.62
Average miles per run: 7.08

Miles in March: 99.27
Miles in 2016: 471.13

After last week's step-down, this week felt like all I did was run. Logged 10+ Tuesday and Wednesday when the weather was quite warm, had a T workout on Thursday (including warm up and down, approximately 10 miles there too) that left my legs feeling a little heavy by the end, some easy relatively short running Friday and Saturday on the trails (which were in fine shape after a week of dry high 70s), and a 15-miler on Sunday, at the end of which I was feeling every single one of those miles run during the week.

The weather went from cool to hot to cool again over the week, and it was not exactly nice this weekend. Sunday's long run was mostly done during cool showers or sprinkles and was not comfortable or pleasant in general. Over the last year, whenever I have to run in the rain, I make myself feel better about it by viewing it side-by-side with 2015's Boston race: either it's the same cold rain and I can remind myself that I don't have to run anywhere near as far in it, or it's not as cold so I can tell myself I don't have to run nearly as far in it AND it's not going to turn me into a popsicle. Either way, it's an improvement and I can get through the unpleasantness OK. I noticed that along one side of the reservoir, a single long line of purple crocus were blooming, which was a nice sight every time I came around to them. I wouldn't say this was a good long run, just OK. During the last five miles, my legs were feeling wooden and in an odd way like I was on a treadmill -- they were just turning at the rate they had to turn as though the treadmill belt was moving under me at 8:15 pace and I just had to keep up, though I did not feel like I was forcing that pace or working hard at it, nor did I feel like I needed to or should slow down. They mechanically kept going and I didn't even have to think about it much.

But I was looking forward to being done, as it was getting a little boring looping the flat reservoir trail and taking my one detour down to run along Creek Road a ways. Need to start mapping out some variety in long run routes. Trouble is, it's just so hilly in my neck of the woods -- long, long, and not-so-shallow hills that really start to take their toll well before you are ready for them to. Hill running has its positives, and Vermont City has a brutal hill in the middle so I can't avoid working them entirely, but the rest of the course isn't all that horribly hilly so I don't need to be doing excessive hillage every single weekend!

Next week will be another in the upper 50s for mileage, with two quality T workouts in the mix, so I will make sure to enjoy my rest day today and hope for good conditions when I head out tomorrow afternoon for the scheduled 10 miles. I'm not going to split it up with a treadmill morning the way I have been this winter (I have an early meeting, plus with daylight saving time upon us, I shouldn't have to be running in the dark by the end of it) so we'll see how that feels.

Week #10 -- take it easy

Summary for week ending Sunday, March 6, 2016:

Number of workouts: 7
Total miles run: 42.65
Average miles per run: 6.09

Miles in March: 42.65
Miles in 2016: 414.51

This was a scheduled step-down week. Weather was generally poor and chilly but not so bad so as not to get outside much, though when I did I typically had to contend with wind as well. The weekend quality workout on Sunday was very good -- not nearly so windy as last weekend (though it is March, so ...) but right at the temperature line where shorts is maybe slightly too cold but tights would definitely be too warm. 2 mi E + 6(5 min T) + 2 mi E with the T at 7:10-7:15 pace felt very good and my legs feel quite recovered from it today; I will still rest them as scheduled and look forward to ramping the mileage back up in the opposite temperatures forecast for later this week. While out around the reservoir a couple times this week I heard red-winged blackbirds, a sound that means warm sunny countryside to me; I took that as a welcome sign that perhaps the snow that we saw on Thursday might be the last for the season. The clock changes next weekend too, so this will be the last week I will have to worry that I might be out running when twilight drops, and I won't be confined to the park with the lights anymore. The first after-work trail session of the spring always makes me happy.

Week #9 -- things get in the way

Summary for week ending Sunday, February 28 2016:

Number of workouts: 6
Total miles run: 45.06
Average miles per run: 7.51

Miles in February: 187.44
Miles in 2016: 371.86

I was a little short this week compared to plan. Did a tough workout Wednesday night which left my legs a little too cooked to hit the treadmill Thursday morning, which meant I didn't run Thursday due to evening plans. Sometimes you just have to go with how things feel and life can get in the way -- no big deal, but I did have to let myself off the hook about taking an unscheduled rest day. Weekend T workout was next to impossible to judge because of the gale that blustered all day; even just trying to go off effort was useless because going into the wind was difficult and when the wind was at my back (which somehow seemed to not be half the time as you'd think it should be, going in a loop), how do you know how fast you're really running? Oh well. As part of Sunday's 12 miles, I got 2x10 min at ~7:20 pace in, whatever that means with the awful wind. February letting the lion out before March gets started.