Archives for August 2011

New Balance MT110 Trail Running Shoe Review by Nate Sanel

Nate Sanel is a fellow NH runner, and quite possibly a bigger shoe geek than I am. He also has quite the running resume – over the past few months he’s completed three 100 mile races, with more to come. So far, his list of finishes this summer includes Western States, the VT 100, and […]

Amazing Finish in the Men’s 10,000m at the 2011 Daegu World Championships: Mo Farah vs. Ibrahim Jeilan

Amazing finish – watch it (via BBC)! Quick analysis – I counted the number of steps that Jeilan and Farah took starting at the 16 second mark (about 26:36.7 on the race clock) of the video and ending at 26 second mark. If my count is correct, both took 34 steps during that segment of […]

Review of Nuun Electrolyte Enhanced Drink Tabs

Shortly after my crash and burn at the Boston Marathon this year, where I wound up post-race in the med tent with mild hyponatremia, I was contacted by the folks at Nuun (apparently pronounced “noon” and not “none,” though I prefer to call it the latter, just like I prefer to say Vybram rather than […]

Barefoot Running Blisters: Interpreting My Pattern and the Importance of the Flexor Hallucis Brevis?

Ever since running with my friends Mark Cucuzzella and Blaise Dubois out in Colorado a few weeks ago, I have been giving another go at a bit of barefoot running. Mark is now running a solid percentage of his weekly his miles fully barefoot (see video below), whereas Blaise supplements his regular training with small […]

Adidas Adipure Trainer Barefoot-Style Running Shoe: Yet Another Fivefingers Clone?

Looks like Adidas wants a piece of the Fivefingered shoe pie. Nick Pang over at Minimalistrunningshoes.org and Bill Katovsky at Zero Drop just sent me a photo of their newest minimalist shoe, the Adidas Adipure Trainer. Looks like the fact that Vibram, make of the Vibram Fivefingers, is suing Fila (who released a four-fingered shoe […]

Preview of late 2011-early 2012 Minimalist Shoes from Merrell, Vivobarefoot, Inov-8, GoLite, Altra, and Teva (via Damien Tougas at Toesalad)

Damien Tougas from Toesalad recently attended the Outdoor Retailers Show in Utah, and posted several videos highlighting new shoe offerings set to be released at the more minimalist end of the running shoe spectrum. Below are a selection from Merrell, Vivobarefoot, Inov-8, GoLite, Altra, and Teva. To see videos from other manufacturers, check out Damien’s […]

Why a majority of runners, even among international elites, are heel strikers by Blaise Dubois

Below is the text of a newsletter that my friend Blaise Dubois, a physiotherapist from Quebec City, just sent out regarding the topic of heel striking. If you don’t subscribe to Blaise’s newsletter, I recommend that you do – he sends out a lot of interesting information, and posts like this one are great for […]

Look What I Found at the Discount Shoe Store: New Balance 310 Trail Shoe

I was at the mall yesterday with my family doing some back-to-school shopping for the kids. Being the shoe geek that I am, I stepped into the Shoe Dept. discount shoe store to see if they might have anything of interest on sale. Imagine my surprise when I came across this: I immediately recognized that […]

Home Cobbling: Cutting the Heel off the Mizuno Ronin 2

Of all of the 40+ shoes I have run in over the past 2+ years, the Mizuno Ronin 2 ranks right near the top in terms of comfort (along with the New Balance MT101 and a few others). The Ronin 2 is very roomy, and the forefoot is both wide and high volume (sadly, Mizuno […]

Inov-8 Road-X 233 Running Shoe Review

Over the past two years I’ve run in shoes made by most of the major running shoe manufacturers, with only a few notable exceptions. This review eliminates one of those exceptions – UK based shoemaker Inov-8. It’s somewhat surprising that it’s taken me so long to run in an Inov-8 shoe given the fact that […]

Elements of a Sustainable Runner: Panel Discussion on Injuries, Training, Form, and Footwear from the Newton Running Retail Summit (Audio and Video)

As I mentioned in my previous post, Newton Running was kind enough to invite me out to Boulder, Colorado to serve on a panel tasked with discussing the “Elements of a Sustainable Runner.” In addition to myself, panelists included Danny Abshire of Newton Running, Blaise Dubois of The Running Clinic, ironman world champion and ultrarunner […]

Newton MV2 Zero Drop Running Shoe Review: First Impressions

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind of travel for me, and my posting rate here on the blog has suffered a bit as a result. My most recent trip was a short jaunt to Boulder, Colorado to attend Newton Running’s annual retail summit. Newton was kind enough to invite me to serve on […]

United States Navy Authorizes the Use of Minimalist Footwear, including Vibram Fivefingers, with PT Uniforms

Just got an email from a reader (thanks Bill!) alerting me to the fact that the United States Navy just authorized the wearing of “minimalist” footwear with the Navy physical training uniform (photo of Vibram clad soldier via Rebecca Frankel at Foreign Policy). This is in contrast to the US Army, which recently banned the […]