I am glad to report that I scored a pair of “trail runners” last weekend. These are sneakers specifically designed for racing along mountain trails. It was an amusing purchase.
Dropped in at the local sports shop (Omega Sports) where I have bought a gazillion pairs of regular sneakers over the past year and asked one of their knowledgeable attendants what they offered in this realm. The guy quickly admitted it was a short stack and there were only three different models in stock.
Trail runners span a broad swath of design features to accommodate the widely varying terrain ultra runners might face. I communicated the essential ingredients were solid traction to help me avoid plummeting to my death and that I would definitely be dipping these babies into some water. My research proved valuable because the attendant directed me towards the model with Gortex, but I had read that these might be a detriment for long hauls (because the water barrier also keeps water in, which translates to carrying a lot of excess weight).
So he reviewed the attributes of another model and I was leaning in that direction. He followed up by asking whether I had ever read the book “Born To Run” and (if you’ve been following this blog, lol) I confirmed. Then he told me the sneaker had been designed by the author! This confused me because a theme in the book was the author’s disdain for expensive sneakers, the theory being that all the cushioning to protect feet in modern footwear is what causes knee injuries.
After raising this point my confidence was boosted when the attendant didn’t blink and agreed. He asserted this model was designed to accommodate the author’s concerns and demonstrated the sneaker’s rigidity by having me flex all three models --- this one definitely was tougher to twist. The only bummer was that for my shoe size the only pair in stock was blazing red!
In spite of the rather loud color, I was pleased to have added another quality component to my arsenal for the assault on Reunion. Well, at least until I perused the Forums on the web site for the race. Once again my brother-in-law came through and advised me to upload the Google Chrome browser so I could automatically translate web pages from French to English. This made reading the forums possible, despite the often clunky translations.
Just randomly sifting through the entries after I had proudly purchased my trail runners, I read some very detailed forum posts where runners detailed the three different pairs of trail runners they would deploy, indicating the shoe characteristics and at what point in the run it would make sense to unveil the particular breed. Criminy, I feel like getting a t-shirt made up that says R-O-O-K-I-E now!!!
My Trail Runners – so much for being subtle!
Need to close with a thank you for a nice donation I received. I met with the owner of Massage Envy at the Greene in Dayton, OH, to try and arrange a fund raising event to support my drive and even though plans fizzled (due mainly to my lack of time to cobble things together), they were kind enough to write a nice check to my JDRF drive. Thank you so much, Matt and Massage Envy!!!
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