Tuesday, January 03, 2006

New Shoes

This is a post about running shoes.

Last year I heard about a small local running shop (Tortoise & The Hare (Dougall & Cabana), for anyone who is local) that has a 50% off sale, but by the time I heard about it, it was too late, they were out of my sizes. I went there this year and got two great deals.

I have a fairly neutral gait. I have been running in the Asics 1090, a good shoe for neutral-slight overpronators. My only complaint was the blister I got during the summer. That was probably because the size was about a half size to small. So I was hoping to get the same model, in a larger size, but there were none left. I really love the way Asics shoes fit my foot. They grab my foot nice and snugly in all the right places. So I tried the Asics Cumulus VII. Asics themselves describes this shoe as like being on a cloud. They are right, these are keepers.


There was very little in the store that compared with it. Believe me, I must have tried about six or seven other pairs of different brands. Nothing else came close to the cushioning of the Cumulus. But I plan on getting about twice as much mileage this year, so I figured it would be a good idea to get two pairs now, rather than pay a lot more later on down the road. There are a lot of serious runners who rotate a few pairs of shoes, so that none of them get worn down too quickly. Plus, if I like one pair more than the other, I can use one for long runs and the other for short runs.

I very nearly got two pairs of the Cumulus, but I also really liked a couple of Saucony models. Both were very similar to the Asics 1090 in cushioning and stability. In the end the Grid Phoenix won out because it felt the closest to what I currently have.



I'll retire my 1090's at the end of this week.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I had no idea guys could talk about shoes this way.