Light on my feet

2

January 15, 2014 by Amy B

January is historically a light month for me when it comes to running.

Maybe it’s the holiday hangover. Maybe it’s realizing that Easter is the the next “holiday” (and by that I mean a teeny break from the everyday work grind and no, I haven’t really considered Valentine’s Day or St. Patrick’s Day a holiday since I was in my early 20s).

Maybe I’m burnt out from the runstreak. Or maybe it’s a combination of all the above plus the cold, snowy, freezy, windy weather we’ve had that makes it a lot easier to just stay inside and hop on my new bike trainer.

Last January I ran a measly 46 miles. I think I was sick the fourth week of January. Can’t remember.

 

This January the numbers look pretty similar – only about 18 miles running so far –  but I’ve put in almost 92 miles on my bike, and it’s only the 15th. Not too shabby.Yesterday I felt pretty lousy from sinus issues and while the weather seemed perfect for a run, I opted for the bike. It helped that I had an episode of Downton in my iTunes queue and the idea of being able to watch it while spinning, uninterrupted by children, was too good to pass up. I just did an easyish spin of 48 minutes – a moderate amount of sweating but didn’t feel like I killed myself.

Looking back on my calendar for the past two weeks, I haven’t really had a rest day. Even though I want to call 20 min bike rides rest, the truth is I’m still working, still sweating, and probably need to just cool it for 24 hours.

So in lieu of actual running, let’s talk about running gear.

My lovely friend Jenna is training for her first full marathon (yay, Jenna!). Thanks to her alert on Twitter this morning, my problem of finding a spring training shoe is solved.

I’ve wanted to try the Mizuno neutral trainers, and at $60 on Amazon, I couldn’t pass it up.

Mizuno Wave Rider 16 in possibly the coolest fucking color I’ve seen in a long time.

And noooo, I’m not buying these shoes simply for the color. 🙂

I’ve run in just about every brand of running shoe there is (or at least major players), and since no shoe company has been breaking down my door with shoe endorsements yet, I’m not locked in to a single brand. 🙂 My former shoe of choice was the Asics Nimbus until they started screwing with the design; I hated the last iteration and have an almost new pair gathering dust in my closet. Last summer I started my marathon training in a pair of Brooks Glycerins. I found them to be super smooshy, which was fine for short to mid-distances, but on super long distances, I wasn’t terribly thrilled. I started running longer and longer in my PureFlows and eventually ran the marathon in them, but I’d really like a tiny bit more support than what a minimalist(ish) shoe offers. (The Pure line is currently my favorite every day shoe.)

Attention Brooks Running People, I’d be very willing to test out and review the new Pureflow 3s. Just so you know. 🙂

The supposed wider toe box of these shoes intrigues me, which is something I prefer in a trainer. I hope they won’t be too stiff, based on some of the reviews I’ve read.

I’m also going to try and be more Type A and keep track of how many miles I’m logging in my footwear this year.

Also: I’m loving this trainerroad.com subscription I just started to monitor my bike trainer workouts. A review is coming soon.