Michael: Happy Feet

Without a sunrise
The day begins in a shroud
Of  pessimism.

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

This will be my last post race indulgence before removing my head from the clouds and trying to plant my feet back into the moist soil of Panama and continuing on with our journey here.

And speaking of feet…Whenever I get to try out a new pair of shoes I’m pretty happy. This year, partly due to being in Panama but largely due to trying to get by on less, I’m only going to experience that new shoe experience 4 times. And since I’ve already purchased 3 pairs of magic slippers, that means the final and last pair better be another prince.

What’s Panama got to do with it? Good running shoes aren’t any cheaper here than they are in the states. And where we’re at in Volcan there aren’t any good running shoe stores. There are a few stores in David, but that’s still an hour and a half bus ride away and even those stores don’t have a wide variety to choose from.

It might be possible to order over the net and get shoes from Panama City, but even if the shipping was reasonable, it wouldn’t come with the free return guarantee that many vendors in the states offer. So you’d better be very sure of your purchase, or have a lot of patience and money. That’s why I bought 3 of my new pairs of shoes in the states in February and brought them with me.

This year the criteria was that they had to be on sale for under $70. The last pair I’m going to get, the Hoka ATR Challenger 2s, I’m going to wait until they go on sale as well and have my mom mail them to me. Right now they’re at their ‘gotta have em now’ price of $130. But I’ve still got plenty of tread left in the original version so I can wait.

The shoes I brought with me from the states are the Asics DS Racers 10, the Montrail Fluidflex Sts, and the Inov 8 Trailroc 235s.

The Asics are a road racing flat that I’ve only worn twice. Two races - two age group wins and two very happy feet.

The Montrails are very good all around trail runners that trade duty with the Hokas on jeep roads and firm trails.

The Inov 8s I got to replace my worn down Asic Fuji Runnagades. Nothing wrong with the Fujis but I’ve always wanted to try Inov 8s and a zero drop shoe, so they were a twofer. They’re my Quetzal mud and guts shoes and in the slop they’ve been great. They haven’t converted me into a zero drop zealot, but I wouldn’t hesitate from giving some other zero drop shoes a go.

This year though that’s it, my dance card is full up and Santa time is a long, long ways away.