With the Damn Wakely Dam Ultra coming up next month, I decided to check out my trail running shoes. I was pretty sure one pair was worn out, but I thought the other ones might still be good. I dug out the shoes. I wasn’t sure which pair was older. I had to check my blog. I found the first pair of trail running shoes I bought were Nike Air Max Assail’s in October of 2006. But I long ago retired those. I think I donated them to Goodwill. Then I bought some Nike Air Max Conceal’s in May of 2007. Then I bought another pair of Nike trail running shoes as, but not sure when.
Anyway, I did a training run the other night, and decided to try out the shoes to see how they felt. The first pair seemed to have cushioning still left, but I noticed it seemed to be hitting me in the outside ankle bone on my left foot. It was very uncomforable.
So I tried the other pair. These shoes were definately worn out. They felt like they had very little cushioning. Time to buy some new trail running shoes.
I stopped in at the local sporting goods store (Dick’s). I scanned the shelves looking for trail running shoes that were on sale, but didn’t see any. It can be hard sometimes to tell what is a trail running shoe as opposed to a regular running shoe. So I left. But later I checked their weekly flyer, and found they actually had some New Balance 474 Trail Running shoes on sale for $39.98. That’s a good price if they were reasonably comfortable.
So yesterday at lunch time, I headed back to Dicks to try on the shoes. Thy didn’t even have them hidden in back. I found a pair of size 12s in medium width and tried them on. They felt okay. I ran round the footwear area a little bit, and they seemed to be reasonably comfortable. So I bought them.
Tonight I am meeting some guys for a 6.5 mile trail run. So I am planning on wearing the new shoes to see how they do. If they do okay, I will maybe do another short training run in them again. But if all goes well, I plan on wearing these next month for the ultramarathon. I will probably put them aside, and reserve them for trail running type races.

Posted by Rob in Running on June 26th, 2008 |