Tuesday, September 16, 2014

New shoes....yes please!

So last week was my week of starting off some trail running...this time with proper trail running shoes, Monday morning came and I picked up my new trail running shoes which meant I didn't get in my usual 5mile morning run. 

My shoe choice in the end were the "Saucony PowerGrid Xodus 4.0 GORE-TEX Waterproof Trail", I've been pretty happy with my last few Saucony shoe choices and I'm finding them cheaper then Mizuno's so thats also an important factor as well.

To break in the new shoes I decided on 5miles of running on some football pitches in the evening for a change, what should have been a easy enough run but I felt good so I actually ended up upping the pace on each mile 7:53, 7:18, 7:08, 7:00 and 6:43. I then did a recovery run of 1mile at 7:52min pace. Overall I'm pretty happy and couldn't wait to get to use them on some proper trails at the weekend!

During the week i took it easy enough with a handy 5mile run on Tuesday a much faster 8mile run at 7:31min pace on Wednesday, a rest on Thursday and a handy enough run again on Friday.

Friday I meant to take it easy but I actually ended up upping the pace in parts to make sure I was out of any danger on the road due to heavy fog.

Saturdays run was a very early start again at 7am (this is early for the weekend!), and it ended up being sub 8:00 for a change which was probably no harm in the end as it forced me to push myself that little bit more.

On Sunday I planned to test out the trail shoes again by running Slievenamon, this time I started and ended the run at the village of Kilcash at the base of Slievenamon. This new starting point also meant my route was now over 5miles and I'm very happy with how it end.

Unfortunately my Garmin froze when transferring over the Slievenamon training profile and it eventually corrupted the data which was annoying, but luckily I noted the distance and time prior to uploading the data.  Luckily I've previously walked the route so the profile for the new route is below:

Kilcash to Slievenamon & back
I suppose the question is did the trail shoes help on Slievenamon?  They certainly did, the grip was far far superior to my other runners and I felt when my foot hit the ground it wasn't going to move unless I wanted it to.   I will say though when I hit the road back into Kilcash they weren't as comfortable.

My week consisted of:

- Monday:5miles @ 7:12min pace & 1mile @ 7:52min pace
- Tuesday:5miles @ 8:39min pace
- Wednesday: 8miles @ 7:31min pace @ 2miles recovery with
- Thursday:Rest
- Friday:5miles @ 7:55min pace
- Saturday:17:15miles @ 7:52min pace
- Sunday:5:22miles @ 11:32min pace


Weekend Total:  46 miles
Miles This Year: 1445 miles

2 comments:

  1. I wouldn't have gone for gore-tex shoes, to be honest. The problem with them is as soon as you get water inside the shoes (usually from stepping into a puddle), it does not drain and you'll be waterlogged for the rest of the run, which is the complete opposite of the desired effect.

    Avoid puddles I suppose. Should be easy enough right now with the weather we're having.

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    1. Interesting you say that, I did have that thought while up the mountain the other day as normally the top of it is pretty waterlogged up near the trig point.....by its been bone dry recently.

      I sort of wanted to reserve judgement until I get to properly test them out and see was I just imagining it would be a problem or would it actually be a problem.

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