Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Wednesday November 28, 2007

10 miles 1:24 Painted Hills Trail out and back (July Slingshots)
I felt pretty decent on this run--I'm betting that tomorrow will be the first run that I feel like a "real runner" again. Wearing the Slingshots seemed to help a lot with gripping the snow and ice that is everywhere, mostly because the tread on the bottom is fairly fresh and the forefoot has a broader base than the Inov-8's so there is more contact with the ground. My ankle/foot was sore a little bit again. It's hard to say whether it was worse than yesterday or not. It was very comforting to see that the foot didn't get any worse in the course of the run. I iced my whole foot/ankle in a cooler of ice again, and wow, is that rough; sometimes I wonder if maybe I'm risking frostbite, but it seems to really help with keeping the foot happy.

This particular trail is a real gem as far as urban trails go. Within four minutes of my front doorstep I can be running virtually exclusively on dirt (well, I would be able to if there wasn't snow and ice on everything) for basically five miles south out of town. The Painted Hills Trail itself is only about 1.5 miles long or so, but it's all tiny, winding singletrack along a drainage that goes through the Painted Hills subdivision. The Gallatin Valley Land Trust deserves big kudos for getting trails like this established. Right now there is about 600 meters of private land that is preventing the Painted Hills Trail from connecting all the way to the Gallatin Mountains south of town (via the equally nice, singletrack Triple Tree Trail)---hopefully whoever will wake up and realize that a couple yard swath of right-of-way to allow the trail to connect across their pasture really isn't a big deal.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Just a quick question or two for clarification. I understand the need for more shoe than the H street but why not wear more of a true flat like your New Balance rather than the sportiva of especially the inov-8(neither of which is as light as a road flat and both have about the same traction)? I would also assume that you just run shoes into the ground since you are not big on extra cushioning and once your foot is conditioned there is no need to swap shoes every 500 miles, etc?

Anton said...

Hi Lindsay,
Thanks for your interest. The main reason I don't wear a "true" flat like my NB 152s all the time is because the trails I run chew up the outsole in no time flat. I'm talking, in three or four days I've completely destroyed the outsole on a pair of road flats. The main way that road flats cut a lot of weight is by using blown rubber (air is injected into the rubber) instead of more durable carbon rubber and by barely covering any of the bottom of the shoe with actual outsole material. The traction and durability is most definitely NOT the same as a trail flat.

I wear/wore (it's now discontinued) the Sportiva Slingshot because it was the lightest, lowest profile trail shoe available to me a year and a half ago and because they approached me after Leadville '06 about sponsorship. Free shoes are nice.

I run in the Inov-8 250s because they are the closest thing to a racing flat that exists in the trail shoe market; and they really are racing flats. They are honestly light and low profile and are basically a "true" road flat with a more durable carbon rubber outsole. Inov-8 is coming out with an even lighter shoe (the 230) that I'm very very excited about--when I saw it at the OR show in August I thought it was definitely the best shoe for trailrunning (out of all trail or road shoes) that I've ever seen.

Finally, yes I do basically just run shoes into the ground. The Slingshots use just sheet EVA for their midsole, so that compressed VERY quickly (could feel lots of rocks...not so nice), but I also completely grind off the outsole on my shoes on the outer forefoot...that's just the way my footstrike is. When a big chunk of the midsole is exposed, I get a new pair. The last time I changed for a new pair of Inov-8s was because the outsole had completely separated/been worn away from the midsole on my right foot---time for a new shoe.

Hope that helps.