Category: About Running

Today was another half marathon distance in preparation for the Cambridge Half Marathon but it was also to test out supplies for the run. I felt pretty bad the first two times I did 13 miles and a little better on the third. This run I wanted to come home feeling that I’d had a good run but didn’t feel ill at all. My wife had bought me something called Shotblocks and I’d got a collapsible juice bottle to carry water. It was a chilly morning but the sun was rising and soon even managed to radiate a smidgeon of heat to take the edges of the chill away. I ran over the cycle bridge and then onto the busway. The busway is an odd thing where regular buses run between a couple of rails of concrete. The buses have guiding wheels on the side to keep them in place between the rails. At the side of this busway is a lovely wide path much used by cyclists, runners and walkers. It’s a delightfully easy track if you want to get a few miles under your belt.

One thing I did notice this morning was that there’s quite a lot of rubbish building up at the side of the busway. Much of it is probably left by people exercising there. I saw energy drinks cartons, gel wrappers and water bottles. It might be useful if a bunch of us who use the busway to exercise on went along there with some bin bags, to try and clean it up a little. If anyone is interested in a spot of litter picking there then please let me know. I can probably scrounge up some litter pickers and some bags from somewhere.

I ran along the busway and was pleased to see Richard there who had gone out early as he had family stuff to do later on. Passing the back of Histon I decided I needed some sustenance. The water was easy to access. I just removed the top and squeezed the bag. No problem at all. The shotblocks were sightly more difficult. I thought there’d be some obvious tab that said tear here. There was nothing like that but just tearing along the top was incredibly easy. I broke off one of the pieces and popped it into my mouth. It tasted really good. It was a little like a fruit pastille although bigger and without the sugary coating. I did have a little trouble eating it though as I have a bit of a cold and am having serious trouble breathing through my nose. This meant I was breathing heavily through my mouth and trying to eat at the same time. There were several moments that I thought I was going to choke as I almost inhaled the Shotblock thing. This didn’t happen though and I lived to tell the tale. I returned home with very weary legs but feeling sooo much better than any other time that I’d attempted this distance. It seems this body thing is very much like a machine. Fail to keep it topped up with enough fuel and lubrication and you’ll run into trouble.

I didn’t even feel that I needed to collapse into bed after the run but these two cats laying there all cute and that did make it seem like an awfully good idea to snuggle up amongst them.

Details of this run can be found Strava

On Wednesday nights at 1800 the Shop, Up and Running puts on a social run. My friend Richard goes along regularly and occasionally I like to run with them too. Truth be told it’s often a little fast for me but it’s quite good to push myself a little bit now and again.

This evening Saucony are there and they have some fancy new shoes for us to try. These are the new Saucony Triumph ISO. I happily strap some on to give them a go. The lacing is the first thing I notice. There are long tags on each of the lace up points. This allows them to flex and brace all along the foot in different ways. The human foot is an infinitely variable thing and this design allows the shoes to be strapped to any and all shapes of foot and still mould itself to the shape. I take them out onto the streets of Cambridge and feel how they hit the ground. They are a completely foam sole and flex and shift every time you hit the ground. The chap that brought them along suggested that we might like to try a little bit of hitting the ground hard to see what the feedback was like. The theory is that this design will not just absorb and dissipate your impact in the way that gel does but give you some kickback so you feel a little bounce when you hit the ground.

They felt strange at first. There was a kind of squidge in the middle of the shoe when I hit the ground as if I’d stood on a particularly well fed mouse and then a crunch slightly forward of that point as if I was spreading his tiny bones around a little. It took only around 2 minutes before I’d become accustomed to this rather unusual sensation and accepted it as part of what the shoes did. The shoes felt light and gave quite a bit of bounce. I really enjoyed running in them. I asked how much they might be and was told around 125 pounds or so. This is a lot of money. I paid only 48 pounds for the running shoes I currently use but would admit that these seem a heck of a lot better. However – the only way I could convince myself to pay so much for running shoes would be if I knew for sure that they would cut down the number of injuries I receive from running. This is a very difficult thing to prove.

We followed a little of the upcoming Cambridge Half Marathon route and I relished the delicious bounce and sheer lightness of these shoes. Apparently Saucony have gone all out to get them under 300 grammes and I can definitely feel the benefit. They feel good and if I earned about twice the amount that I do then I reckon I would now be the owner of some shiny new shoes.

As for the run – I didn’t enjoy the environment all that much. The streets of Cambridge were very crowded indeed. There were people weaving about in front of us and I felt that I was forever checking my stride to weave in and out of the fantastically erratic movements of the Cambridge Wednesday evening visitors. I quit after the first circuit and left the rest of the gang to explore a little more of the route. I stripped myself of the fancy running shoes and went home.

Here’s a pic of the shoe alongside the foam sole.