3rd Time a Charm?

During all my years of running, I've stuck primarily to one brand of shoe. Mizuno road shoes. Whether it be the road worthy Precision or the Maverick/Elixir that's carried me on my journeys on the trails, I've rarely ever strayed away from either shoe.

The two times I have resulted in very poor outcomes. Years ago I went with a North Face shoe that got great reviews in Trail Runner. Think it got some yearly award from them. I thought to myself "I run trails and Trail Runner is legit, so why not try them out." The shoe from the get go was heavy, clunky and slow. Wore them during my first Ascent of Pikes Peak and did I regret straying away from my Maverick's. I think I put in 10 runs with those shoes before retiring them. The experience wasn't so much $100 lost but rather a lesson learned that my road shoes worked great on trails.

Upon moving to Durango, I thought to myself again, I need trail shoes since I run trails. This time was different. I'd actually run trails every day. Not just on the weekends as the Denver lifestyle lent. So I stuck with a Mizuno brand. The Ascends. Sales rep at the Boulder Running Company hyped them saying they'd be no different then my Elixir's. No different my ass. They were heavier, which wasn't the biggest deal. What was a big deal was the amount of space I had in the shoe. I like a shoe that fits like a glove. The Ascend was the opposite. Every time I ran in them I rolled an ankle. Left ankle rolled along the Animas Mt trail. Right ankle rolled on The Colorado Trail. Left rolled while in the San Juans. Right rolled...you get the pic. So these got retired quickly and are now used on day hikes with the wifey and dog.

So here I am a few years later and I got another pair of trail running shoes. After much reading of this shoe and that shoe, I decided on the following:



La Sportiva Crosslite. They fit like a glove. They're extremely lightweight. Now the real test comes in the upcoming weeks to see how they perform. If these fockers don't work, it'll be back to the Elixir's.

Hell they've carried me up and down Pikes, over Imogene and around countless of other trails around this country. Not that I think about, why the hell did I decide on another trail shoe. Time will tell I guess.

February Summary

Runs - 12
Workouts - 17
Injured - 10

The Bad: Pretty simple here. 10 days to start the month on the DL due to some inflammation at the point where the Patella tendon connects to the Tibia. It doesn't sound like much but it hurt like a mother. Once I did get back, I started extremely conservatively. Tough to loose out here since I had been building up nicely in January. However it needed to be done otherwise this injury could have gotten a lot worse.

The Good: Numerous days of cross training at the gym helped maintain a good level of fitness. I also focused a lot of my down time with patella tendon rehab exercise, stretching and massage therapy with the ice. While I hate the elliptical machine, it did it's job with the cardio. The running, while starting out slowly, came around nicely by months end.

Bottom Line: Patience paid big dividends here. My knee is feeling it's best in months and the rest of the body and mind is eager to pick up the miles and get to some real training. I just have to remember to keep up the stretching, massage therapy and cross training thru March. Gotta feeling this will be a solid month.