Sunday, September 12, 2010

New Running Shoes for a Barefooter

I may run barefoot but I'm not crazy. I figured some shoes might be in order for the recovery period of my metatarsal fracture, plus winter is not far off. I was near the Boulder Running Company yesterday and stopped in to see what was new. I think the young woman (from her physique, clearly a serious runner) was intimidated at the prospects and responsibility of finding a shoe for me after I told her I couldn't go breaking any more bones. She was going to hook me up with Mark Plaatjes (South African marathoner) but I ended up with another fellow who seemed to zero in on the twisting motion that had been creating the callous under my second and other metatarsals. I ended up with a pair of New Balance 1226 2E's after trying several pairs. To me, they are not unlike the Asics Evolutions that I've had. I guess I'll see. A friend asked me, "Another pair of shoes you're not going to run in?"

I tried them out yesterday, running 3.1 miles at 10:45 pace pushing Elliott in the running stroller. Everything felt fine at the time. This morning there was some pain on the top of my foot above the non-break end of the metatarsal. Over the course of my normal activities today this pain subsided.

I plan to hit the urban streets tomorrow with students although we most likely will be doing a mix of walking and jogging. Sounds perfect at this point, although mentally I feel as if I could to do a 50K trail run...even though I never have.

My shoe plan is to use the 1226's for pavement, the NB MT 101's (not yet purchased; I'm concerned that the D width will not work for me) for rocky trails, and I noticed that the new FiveFingers seem much more foot friendly, so those for routine trail runs.

3 comments:

  1. Wow! For a BF runner, I think you have more shoes than I do! Hope the shoe people got you into the right shoe.

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  2. It is a lot of shoe; it's a high mileage trainer. I do need something to run on the road with though. The NB MT101 isn't going to be produced in a 2E.

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  3. love the title. Almost as good as jumbo shrimp

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