Shoes!

Those are all my shoeboxes from the last four months or so. I started off using the Mizuno Wave Alchemy, which is a fairly standard road running shoe. I then briefly got attracted to the whole barefoot/reduced cushioning shoe craze, and went for some Nike Frees and the Mizuno Wave Elixir. I then came to the unfortunate conclusion that it would probably take me 6-10 months of training to re-learn to run in them without injuring myself terribly. The Frees do make absolutely wonderful walking-around shoes, though.

This, along with a few pairs of climbing/casual shoes, makes up the bulk of the boxes shown, and brings us chronologically to the weekend of the Cranmore Hill Climb. Massive amounts of mud were not very kind to my shoes:

I'm still not sure if they survived, since I've only run a couple miles in them since the race. Todd C., a fellow mountain runner from Somerville, suggested that it was time for me to get some trail shoes. He was definitely correct, so I got a pair of Mizuno Wave Ascends at Marathon Sports. They've been pretty nice, with the sole exception of some friction issues. I got a couple of small blisters on my first long run (which is very rare for me -- but I've also apparently been wearing my shoes about a size too big for about 1-2 years), and my feet's soles got very warm during the Loon Mtn. downhills. I've recovered from about 90-95% of my potential ankle sprains using them, they help protect my feet from rocks well, and the cushioning is about right as well.

Looking forwards, I'm probably going to get another pair or two of trail running shoes... I've been hearing fairly good things about the inov-8 Roclite 295, especially for shorter races and training runs. I'm probably looking for a pair of racing shoes and a good long run shoe. Any recommendations, Dear Reader?

The Loon Mountain Race Report and the story of last Friday's epic long run will be upcoming shortly.