There is a duathlon coming up in a couple weeks that I am thinking about racing in. And even if I don’t do this one, I would like to try one sometime. The duathlon is a 2 mile trail run, followed by a 10 mile trail ride, followed by another 2 mile trail run. I decided that it might be good to have shoes made for trail running. I have my nice new $100+ Reebok Ultra 3’s, and I don’t want to take them out and get them off messed up running in who knows what. I have some nice Montrail hiking boots, but they aren’t designed for running. But I remembered that when I was hunting for hiking boots, I had seen various kinds of hiking shoes, and some that looked like they were almost sneakers. I remembered seeing some Hi-Tec shoes for some good prices. I thought I saw them at Famous Footwear. I checked their website and found a pair of Hi-Tec trail running shoes for $25. But unfortunatly they only had size 8.5. I decided to check their stores.
So today, I stopped in at one of the local Famous Footwear stores. I didn’t see any of the Hi-Tec trail running shoes. But they did have some Nike Air Alvord shoes on sale for $39. But they didn’t have size 12’s. I tried some 11.5’s but my toe was near the front (and I normally wear size 11 shoes, except for running). I tried on a pair of 13’s, but they were too big. The guy at the store searched the computer, and said the nearest store to have that style in size 12 was one that was 45 minutes away, and in the opposite direction from my house. I decided I didn’t want to go up there. I stopped at another Famous Footwear that wasn’t too far out of my way. They didn’t seem to have the Alvord’s, but had some other styles. I found a couple styles of Nike trail running shoes for $49.99, and they had size 12’s! I grabbed boxed with the size 12’s from the below the displayed shoes. I tried on the one style, and ran up and down the aisle in them. The felt okay. I tried the other style (Nike Air Max Assail’s), and they felt much nicer. So I put back the first pair. Then I noticed the shoe I had tried didn’t resemble the one on the display. I looked, and found the shoe I had tried a little over from it, and found the shoes I liked were $59.99. Grumble! Oh well. I went ahead and bought the $59.99 Nike Air Max Assail trail running shoes. So I went from seeing $25 shoes, to $39.99 shoes, to $49.99 shoes, and ended up with $59.99 shoes. Isn’t that always the way? They should last a while as I don’t do a lot of trail running at this point.
I brought them home, and ran my scheduled 7 miles on the treadmill wearing them to help break them in a bit. Then I went out for a 10 mile bike ride still wearing them. They are pretty comfortable.

Posted by Rob in Running on October 7th, 2006 |