The big news this week for me was the return of the Saucony Kinvara. Version 4 was a big let down due to a poor fitting toebox, but version 5 has fixed that and then some. I ran 11 miles in them last weekend and wrote up a first impression review on Monday. I’ve since […]
Running History: Video of Roger Bannister’s sub-4:00 Mile
May 7, 2014 By 4 Comments
Yesterday was the 60th anniversary of Roger Bannister’s sub-4:00 mile. In an interesting article titled “A Faster Human: Are We Unique In Our Ability To Get Better?,” NPR shared a great video of that famed run narrated by Sir Roger himself. It also included a video of Hicham El Guerrouj’s world record setting mile run […]
Saucony Kinvara 5 First Impression Review
May 5, 2014 By 54 Comments
The Saucony Kinvara is one of my favorite running shoe models. It’s basically everything that a shoe should be – pretty simple in construction, lightweight, and relatively inexpensive compared to other shoes on the market. I’d go so far as to rank the original Kinvara up there among my favorite shoes of all time – […]
Foot Strike Patterns in Barefoot and Minimalist Runners
April 30, 2014 By 4 Comments
Back in 2011 I attended the New York City Barefoot Run. I was in town for a meeting organized by Merrell Footwear (they invited a bunch of folks – scientists, writers, journalists, runners – to talk shoe trends), and the Barefoot Run was included on the list of events for the weekend. Rather than participate […]
Video: David Epstein TED Talk on Whether Athletes Have Gotten Faster, Better, and Stronger
April 30, 2014 By 4 Comments
I came across this TED Talk video on the 278 to Boston blog. In the video David Epstein questions whether athletes really have gotten faster, better, and stronger. He looks at things like the role of technology in improving athletic performance, the role of body types in various sports, and much more (lots of running […]
Skechers GoBionic 2 Review and A Run Through the Development Process
April 29, 2014 By 100 Comments
I have been working with Skechers as a wear tester/consultant for several years now, with the majority of my time spent in the GoRun and GoBionic shoes. My closet is filled with prototypes of many iterations of these shoes, and right now I have protos of a few other shoes sitting on the floor next […]
5 Things I Learned From Running A Trail Race Last Weekend
April 29, 2014 By 17 Comments
It’s been a long time since I’ve run a long trail race. I paced for about 7 miles last year at the Vermont 100 (my runner dropped), but the last trail race longer than a 5K that I ran for myself was the HAT Run 50K back in 2011. I forgot how much fun they […]
The Return of the New Balance MT101 Trail Shoe
April 28, 2014 By 30 Comments
I’ve run in a lot of shoes over the past 5 years since starting this blog. Some were memorable, others not so much. And there are a few that rose above the rest and found a special place in my heart. The original Nike Free 3.0. The Brooks Launch. The original Saucony Kinvara and the […]
This Week in Runblogging: 2/21–2/27 2014
April 27, 2014 By 9 Comments
The past 8-9 days have pretty much been a runner’s dream for me. Near PR in the 5K, Meb wins Boston, vacation to Mt. Ascutney VT with the family (site of the VT 50K each Fall), and I ran my first long trail race (~15K) in several years yesterday. Getting out on the trails reminded […]
Newton Motion III Review: Five Lugs Are Better Than Four
April 23, 2014 By 13 Comments
One of the most frequent complaints that I’ve heard over the years about Newton shoes is that the forefoot lugs compromise mediolateral stability, particularly when turning. This issue arises due to the fact that until recently, Newton shoes had only 4 lugs under the forefoot, and these lugs did not extend to the edges of […]
Meb’s Boston 2014 Post-Race Interview
April 22, 2014 By 3 Comments
“I’m almost 39, I just ran a personal best, and just won the Boston Marathon.” – Meb Keflezighi As a fellow 39 year old runner all I can say is, Meb, you are an inspiration. via Runner’s World (note: video may not work on some mobile devices) And another from Universal Sports
A Tale of Two 5K’s: How a Change in Race Approach Led to a Near PR
April 21, 2014 By 26 Comments
Sometime last year I decided that it was time to step away from the marathon for awhile and focus on shorter, faster races. I love marathons, but the training cycles had become a grind, and I was tired of focusing all of my effort on only one or two races per year. I have also […]
This Week in Runblogging: 4/14 to 4/20 2014
April 20, 2014 By 1 Comment
Another solid week of training in the books, and another 5K race completed (#2 of the year). The race was a bit of a surprise as I finished 50 seconds faster than I did in the 5K I ran two weeks ago, and was two seconds shy of a 5K PR – there’s something to […]
This Week in Runblogging: 4/28-5/4
Sometimes you just need to do something a little bit different, and maybe just a bit dumb, in your training. On Thursday I had 8 miles on my schedule, but wound up running three separate times in three different pairs of shoes for a total of almost 16 miles. It resulted from seizing unexpected running […]