Posts Tagged ‘Brooks’

Christmas seemed to come and go so fast last month and I completely forgot to post about some great running gifts I received.

It all started with the Daily Mile Secret Santa when I received a very cool and reversible New Balance skull cap.

It turns out that Daily Mile co-founder Kelly Korevec drew my name. I put my new cap to use the very next day and have already worn it several times.

On Christmas morning I posted a fuzzy photo to Twitter with a pile of my running-related gifts.

Pictured below are Swiftwick arm sleeves, Brooks shorts, Brooks Nightlift Arm/Leg Bands and Brooks gloves from my mom; and a Brooks Nightlife Infiniti jacket from my mother-in-law:

In addition to some great family time and my son being disappointed that Santa was not sitting in the living room that morning, Christmas was topped off with a nice, quiet 4-mile run. I believe that Christmas Day is the perfect day to run — it’s a great gift to give myself a simple run with no pressure on time, distance or pace.

Only 356 days until the next Christmas!

I’ll admit that I used to be difficult to shop for when it comes to Christmas. I’ve realized in the past couple of years, though, that I am in fact VERY EASY to shop for.

Simply put, I’ll like pretty much anything to do with running. Fortunately, through my various races that give out moisture-wicking shirts and my bargain shopping with shoes, my “need” for things may be at an all-time low. That said, there’s nothing wrong with having a wish list, right?

I got a head start a few weeks ago through the Brooks website to create a wish-list of Brooks products. I did it to initially enter a chance to win a shopping spree, but once I was on the site I actually found things I could use. You can click here to check it out.

I have several things on there I don’t own — arm warmers and nightlife bands to name a couple of things — and some other bigger wish items, such as shoes. Anything else on there would be fine with me, too. That’s really about it except for a Garmin.

One of these years my Garmin 205 will die and I’ll be on the prowl for a new one. These days, I think a Garmin Forerunner 210 would be the perfect fit for me.

Nothing too complicated — just push the button and go. (As a side note, the link I used is to Holabird, which has the best deal with a bonus gift card.)

Otherwise, I’m not going to spend time putting together anything else. Brooks makes it simple, as does the Garmin love fest.

Merry Christmas everyone!

A while back I mentioned trying on a pair of Brooks Ghost 3, but I never had a true follow-up.

Sometime soon after my post, Holabird Sports had a “Deal of the Day” featuring, you guessed it, the Ghost 3. With a coupon in hand, I snatched up a great deal. I’ve had several runs in the shoes now and really like them.

While it’s too early to tell how they’ll impact my overall training, it’s been awesome so far having them in my rotation of two Brooks Ravenna.

I am very content with my shoe situation right now and continue to strongly urge people to rotate shoes. Mileage wise my two Ravennas are at 287 miles and 206 miles; my Ghost in their young life have 24 miles. With the rotation, I didn’t plan to get two pairs of shoes over 200 miles at the same time, but they’re both in good shape. I’ll probably get 350 miles or so out of each pair while I mix in a third pair of Ravennas in another month or so.

I’m also always keeping my eye open for good deals as it’s closeout season on many shoes.

* * *

A few weeks ago I was running along with Duke when all of a sudden my Garmin fell off. The band, which was starting to show a lot of wear, had completely broke.

It’s an old watch that’s been a lot of miles with me — I’ve had it close to 4 years, I think, and it was used before that. The band breaking was not a big deal, but it was two days before a race.

I would have been fine not racing with it and would have patiently waited for a new band to show up in the mail. After discussing this on Twitter, though, someone sent me this link that made perfect sense — use my Road ID as a band.

Well, duh! It works great and is one less thing to have to keep up with day to day. My only concern is having the pins exposed, but after a few weeks of running with it like this that worry is less and less with each run.

Today is my 33rd birthday and I’ve had a variety of blog posts in my mind this week on marking this occasion. My birthday, though, is not something I tout too much. I’ve even taken my birth date off Facebook because I HATE to see Walls filled up with generic “Happy Birthday” posts.

So to mark today, which is just another day closer to a new age bracket in races, I thought I’d share 33 random thoughts about running – from lessons learned, to favorite moments, to pieces of advice, to some very random things, I feel like this is a good way to mark the beginning of a new year in my life.

1. If I ever stop calling running fun, I’m quitting. From sights and sounds, to pushing myself, to a new level, to running with my dog, there’s an element of fun in even bad runs.

2. I want to break 1:40 in the half marathon. Part of me doesn’t want to train for another marathon and instead focus on that distance.

3. With No. 2 being said, I want to run a marathon and not be injured afterward. Thus the reason for my drive and desire to run the Baltimore Marathon in October.

4. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I once ran 5:45 in the mile in high school, good enough for next to last place – the only track meet in which I wasn’t last in the mile.

5. For no real reason, Guns ‘n’ Roses “November Rain” is my favorite song to run to, on the rare occasion I listen to music.

6. When hydrating for a race, you shouldn’t really do anything different than you did while training.

7. When doing a long-distance race, see what type of gels they’ll hand out. Don’t be surprised. Try it out on a couple of long runs to see if it settles well with you; otherwise bring your own. And don’t complain if you don’t like them.

8. If you need to stop to walk in a race or slow down, MOVE OUT OF THE WAY. Or you may get a slight elbow from me.

9. A year and a half later, I still look at an adventure I took in the mountains as a game-changer.

10. Don’t wear the event shirt until you earn it.

11. Injinji socks are the best. And if anyone gives me birthday money, I’m buying more to wear every day.

12. Wear sunscreen if you’re going to be running in the sun for a while.

13. While I’ve been blogging for four years about running, there’s about 3½ years worth of stories before the blog that I’ve only mentioned a few times. I’ve thought about doing retroactive race reports, but I don’t know how much I remember about those early races.

14. This photo from last summer is my most favorite picture that I’ve taken on a run:

15. And this photo is my most favorite from after a run:

16. And, quite sadly, I don’t have a favorite race photo.

17. Fitz at Strength Running has a great post this week about seven things that changed his running forever. I suggest checking it out HERE.

18. My 5k next weekend in Ohio is just my third out-of-Virginia race. The other two were also in Ohio and were two-mile Turkey Trots.

19. I’ll have a separate blog post on this, but I did buy the Brooks Ghost 3 that I wrote about a month ago. I’ve had four good runs in them so far.

20. I think there are a lot people out there who get caught up in thinking/saying “my favorite weather is now,” but I will forever say “bring on the cold.” Perfect conditions for me would be in the low 40s and cloudy. Still warm enough for shorts. I can certainly handle colder. BRING IT.

21. I’ve never publicly questioned the 10 percent rule – in fact I have embraced it many times – but this old article confirms what I’ve said many times: different things work for different people. Here’s an even newer article on the topic. It’s another subject for another blog post.

March 2003

22. Whenever someone asks me why I run, I talk about how I needed to lose weight. I do have a “before” photo of me on my About Me page, but the inset photo tells an even better story.

23. The next #runchat is this Sunday on Twitter. Head over to iRunnerBlog to read about this week’s great giveaway.

24. My post after my first marathon is still my favorite post ever. I am a marathoner and no one can ever take that title away from me.

25. My Stung in the eye post still picks up a lot of page views. People enjoy it when other people suffer.

26. I never knew how the Yasso 800s worked until recently. Now I just need easier access to a track to do them.

27. If someone tells you their product is “scientifically proven,” that doesn’t mean it will actually work for you.

28. If you’re looking for an alternative to ice, use a bag of frozen peas.

29. I really want to have a 40-mile week this summer. That’s a distance that still eludes me.

30. The best thing I’ve ever done to help my running: buying all non-cotton gear.

31. My son wore his race medal for nearly an hour after his race the other day. That makes me proud in many ways:

32. I want to run an ultramarathon one day. In particular, one of these.

33. Did I mention to make sure you have fun? No matter how far you go, or how fast your are … HAVE FUN!

In the mid-1990s when I ran some track in high school and then from 2004 to mid-2006, I didn’t worry about what shoes I wore. I would try on a few pairs and buy what was the most comfortable and economical. Then I joined a training group in the summer of 2006 and got what I thought was an education on shoes.

Don’t get me wrong — I learned a lot about shoes and myself that summer, but it’s also easy to trace my steps back to that moment and see a pattern. My first injury happened at the end of a training cycle that summer. Could it have been my increased mileage over time? Maybe, but in hindsight I know that the mileage buildup wasn’t drastic. Could it have been the change in shoes? Possibly, but it wasn’t like the injury happened right away in those shoes.

This is one of my Brooks Adrenaline from a couple of years ago.

Fast forward a few years after battling plantar faciitis, going through different shoes — mainly the Asics 2100 series line and Brooks Adrenaline, both stability shoes — and I got a different answer at a race expo at the end of summer 2009 (I first wrote about these shoes here).

Simply put, the shoes I had been wearing may have been too much for my feet. The Brooks Ravenna was still a stability shoe, but just barely. I then strung together my longest injury-free streak since I first got fitted for shoes.

The story of my most recent injury isn’t one I need to rehash, but as I slowly build a base and prepare for marathon training again, I’m analyzing everything. I attribute most of my recent trouble to sloppy running — poor form, not doing enough cross training, etc. Perhaps those are things I’ve always done that led to previous problems. But as I string together a solid couple of months or so, I can’t help but still wonder — do I need to do something about my shoes?

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, but haven’t been able to find the right words until this week. I’ve been rotating two pairs of shoes of the same model for a year and a half — it definitely helps increase my mileage, I think. I recently started to wonder if I should rotate two models of shoes though. I see so many of my Daily Mile friends doing it, but no one really explained why.

Then, this week, I read this post from Fitz over on Strength Running who discusses this very topic. In a response to my comment, Fitz credits Pete at Runblogger for discussing this subject as well. (Both blogs are great, by the way, so add them to your blogroll/reader. You’ll learn a lot from them.) In reading Fitz’s post I realized what my “problem” may be — I’ve learned this certain way to think about shoes and gotten in my head what I “need.” Yes, I do need good shoes, but do I need just one model?

Despite working on my form, always running on hills by default and mixing up the types of runs I do, the fact remains that running is a repetitive motion. Eventually my body is going to get used to all that and, very likely, have some sort of injury. That’s not negative thinking — it’s the truth.

But looking at my friends on Daily Mile who rotate different types of shoes, there’s a pattern — they remain free of major injuries.

All this brings me to present day and what I did yesterday — for the first time in 5 years, I tried on a shoe that didn’t have “stability” labeled in front of it. I was in a chain store, so I didn’t feel guilty about just trying on a pair, and didn’t have a salesman try to talk to me about why or why not I “needed” a certain shoe.

I tried on a pair of Brooks Ghost 3, a “neutral” shoe. I’ve heard a lot of good things about this shoe and my trying-on test didn’t disappoint. They were very comfortable. I also tried on one shoe while wearing a retired running shoe to see if I could feel the difference. There wasn’t much.

As with any shoe, though, the true test doesn’t come until there are several runs in them, which is unfortunately impossible with any shoe.

Last night I posted on Twitter and Daily Mile a question about making the switch from stability to neutral and I got no reasons not to do it. In fact, several people have made the switch with no issues.

So why am I writing all this? I’ve already answered that — I’ve learned a certain thing about shoes that I can’t get out of my head. For a while with my Ravennas I’ve had the “if it ain’t broke” mentality, but an injury proves that something — perhaps several things — is broke. I’ve worked on everything else without even thinking about my shoes, which is a mistake. I’m not going to get rid of my Ravennas, but perhaps it is time to mix it up.

If you’ve ever switched types of shoes, or have any advice on this subject, I’d love to hear it.

* I often forget to blog about #runchat that now officially happens the second and fourth Sunday of the month. It’s an awesome event that me and Scott from iRunnerblog started earlier this summer to have conversations about anything and everything related to running. We’re happy to announce that this weekend’s #runchat will have an event giveaway thanks to the kind people at Brooks. Visit Scott’s site to find out more about the contest, and be sure to log onto to Twitter at 8 p.m. ET Sunday to join in on the conversation. Be there … or be out running.

* It’s fall … but don’t tell the 90 degree temperatures that. I have a feeling that sometime in the next few weeks we’re going to snap our fingers and have that feeling of going straight from summer to early winter. I just hope it’s nice and cool for the marathon. The weather for this weekend’s Virginia 10 Miler isn’t looking too bad with temperatures probably close to 70 at the start.

* My legs are really tired this week. Thankfully it was a built-in recovery week anyway. Not sure how this will impact what I do Saturday; I’m just glad that I’m cutting the miles back this week. Last week I did fine pushing through it, but there’s no way I have that willpower this week, except come race day.

* The summer heat and extra sweat seems to be taking a toll on my shoes much more than I’d like. They still have some decent mileage left in them, and alternating between two pairs helps, but I am going to need to buy a pair for the Richmond Marathon. Not that I’m complaining. Who doesn’t love new shoes? It’s just rough on the wallet.

* I reached the final hole in one of my belts this week. It was on the third hole at the beginning of the year. I have to make sure that I don’t use that as an excuse to go eat like mad for the next week.

To the guy who talked me into buying Brooks Ravenna at the Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon race expo in Virginia Beach: thank you. My running life has never been better.

When things are going good, I often fail at talking about what is really working. And since last Labor Day weekend, things have just worked well when it comes to shoes. After a good summer in another brand and another model, I was very hesitant to make the switch to Ravenna. If one thing was working, why would I switch?

Well, I did switch for whatever reason and it’s worked even better than I expected. I am now in my fourth pair of Ravennas, alternating between two pairs. I quietly retired pair No. 2 on June 28 at 310.7 miles. Pair No. 3 have 127.2 miles; and pair No. 4 is just shy of 20 miles. I’m not sure what the original pair got since I wasn’t keeping close track of shoe mileage the last part of 2009 — they lasted from Labor Day until February, getting more than 105 miles in them in 2010. No matter what the overall mileage was, I’m happy with the shelf life.

Shoes will come; shoes will go; shoes will be discontinued; shoes will change. I know all this, but I’m focused on the now and I’m focused on continuing this good thing I have going on. And these shoes are a huge part of that.

It’s nothing unusual to think about what’s next after a big race, especially one as satisfying as this one. But I already know what’s next — the Richmond Marathon. At least that’s what I signed up for four months ago. After setting a PR in a half marathon, I’m still on Cloud 9 with my speed at a long distance.

While I’m celebrating my success, there’s part of me that knows I can go faster. I know that getting in the 1:30s is very much reality — shaving just three minutes off my time puts me at 1:39. Is it worth it training for a marathon? In 2007 when I had some of my best running going on, I was training for the marathon … after that though, I was filled with a whole lot of disappointment.

For now, I’m not making any decisions. I just know that right now I can capitalize on what three great months of training has already done for me. Waiting until November for the next “big” event just seems weird. Community races in between will be nice and I have some times I’d love to beat … but I love the half marathon.

Anyway, here some more thoughts following this past weekend’s Shamrock Half Marathon …

* I am the owner of a Power Balance wristband. Take a look at the website for yourself. In looking up things on the Internet, some say it’s a scam. I say it works. If it’s just a mental thing, so be it.

* I bought a new pair of Brooks Ravenna even though I don’t need them for a while. They were 20 percent off and I saved about $5 from what I paid for online earlier this winter. The nice thing is I’m set for shoes until mid-summer probably. I hope longer — these shoes tend to have a good life on them more than other shoes have worked for me. I’ve stayed injury free since I switched to these, so no reason to change.

Speaking of being injury free, a little more than a year ago I went to the doctor about my lingering foot problems that started at the end of 2007 (after the, um, marathon). After wearing a special insole for a couple of months and then switching to nothing at all, my feet haven’t bothered me much. I’m not putting anything else into my shoes again. I didn’t have any problems for a long time, and then for some reason I put gel insoles in. While it was initially comfortable, they haven’t really “worked.” And by “worked,” I’m not really sure what good they do anyway. It’s a personal thing, I think.

* The Shamrock event expo is great. After some issues with it in my first Shamrock in 2007, they’ve made drastic changes to the layout of the floor plans and picking up the race number and T-shirt. It’s been mostly flawless ever since. The Virginia Beach Convention Center in general is just a good place for a race expo — even as much as I’ve complained about the Rock ‘n’ Roll Half event, the expo is always great there.

* The Shamrock Half Marathon is the first event that I’ve done four years in a row. I have also done the Bedford Christmas Classic four times, but one of those events was a 10k. It’s pretty cool to look at my race times since 2004 and scroll to the end and see this:

1:42.52, March 2010 – Shamrock Half Marathon
1:44:23, March 2007 – Shamrock Half Marathon
1:46:53, August 2007 – Lynchburg Half Marathon
1:49:07, March 2008 – Shamrock Half Marathon
1:49:30, March 2009 – Shamrock Half Marathon
1:55:28, August 2006 – Lynchburg Half Marathon
1:59:19, September 2009 – Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon
2:06:16, August 2008 – Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon

All four of the Shamrocks are in the 1:40s. It’s kind of weird to think that I beat last year’s time by almost 7 minutes. It’s also very satisfying to know that I’ve done eight half marathons since 2006.

* Lastly I wanted to give a big thanks to the Shamrock organizers, the hundreds of volunteers, the sponsors and all the people who lined the course this weekend. This is always a special event no matter what the time was on the course and each year it seems to get better.