Michael: 4 Hour Shoes

Cinnamon brown eyes
Silently surveys the world
And discovers joy.

Saturday,September 2, 2017

With a quickly planned visit to the states coming up in about a week, I checked out the race calendar and noticed that I’d be there for one of my redemption races - The Los Pinos 50k.

Two years ago I DNFed with an injured foot. I was going to wait until next year and end a visit to the states with Los Pinos, but hell, why not strike while the iron’s hot, so they say. And in Southern California at this time of year, the iron could be very hot.

But for the most part I feel pretty prepared with one exception. And that again has to do with my feet. No, I’m not injured, thank God. I just don’t have a pair of trail shoes I have confidence in to move me over the course of a near 6 hour race (the website’s calculator has me finishing in slightly under 6 hours. I figured 6, so I appreciate the slight nudge to shoot for a marginally better time.).

My last two long races I used the Nike Terra Kiger 3s  and up until 4 hours I was pretty pleased. After that, I started to develop a pain that felt like a growing bruise under my heels.

So what to do? I don’t really have time to break in or test out a new pair. And beside that, despite raving reviews, shoes rarely turn out to be the magical red slippers they’re pumped up to be. It’s no wonder that Dorothy tripped over those cobblestones and knocked herself out. Lesson learned; don’t let that charming Ginger Runner of the North talk you out of the comfortable flats you’ve been satisfied with all your life.

But that’s probably just sour grapes. Three times I’ve used a drop bag to change shoes in a race and only once did it actually work. The other two times I was hoping the changes would allow me to run through an injury. They didn’t.

But now I’m not injured and the one similar occasion where I wasn’t injured and changed shoes and completed the race, the change worked wonderfully and I ran my best 50 miler.

So I’m going to give it a go again with just a bit of a twist. Instead of swapping out the Nikes for a different pair of trail shoes, I’m going to switch into my road trainers; Saucony Breakthru 2s. They’re lighter and have a substantially larger drop, which should prove helpful over the last 10 miles. They don’t have the tread the Nikes have, but the course is substantially less hilly from that point on.

We’ll see if it works. If not, I at least hope I can objectively evaluate what all the factors are that will have contributed to any mistakes I might make, and not just automatically assume some new and shiny slippers would’ve seen me clicking my heels after a magical performance.