The Road Ahead

Christened my Road Gloves this morning. Woke without much of a sore throat, and able to breathe through both nostrils - so I figured I could run. ;-)

I planned to run *towards* the fire trail near our place; I thought it unlikely I would reach it before having to stop running, and certainly didn't think that even if I did reach it, I'd be in any state to run along it.

I surprised myself, and ended up running comfortably most of the way along the trail: I walked up the last hill, which I think ends less than half a km from the end of the trail. At that point I was too knackered to even keep walking though, so after a brief pause I turned back.

Still, I was out for 40 minutes, and went about 5km. I did walk about half the way back - as I thought of Arthur Lydiard's advice that one should be able to speak a sentence. Thus I'd walk until I could do so, then start running again.

I had a surprise at one point. This fire trail has on it two enormous (and seemingly everlasting) puddles. Or so I thought. Rather than being a wuss and skirting them I decided that I was a hard man, running trails, and I wasn't scared of getting a little wet. ;-)

However....

Puddle, the one on the right - at which I had directed my hard man trail running self - is not. Pond, it could be labelled without too much of a stretch. Certainly when my leg slipped down what proved to be the bank, I went in quite above my knee. ;-) All good though. Being a hard man, I got up and out, and kept on running. ;-)

I came back through the other puddle though - which actually is so. xP

I can also report that the Road Gloves are great. Comfortable, light (when not full of water xP ), didn't slop around on my feet at all, good grip on the wet, stony, muddy ground (as seen larger here), and made it really easy to run landing on the forefoot. I was able to feel the terrain and adjust to it, but without rocks being driven into my sole. Great shoes. I need a second pair now, so I can still run if one pair gets soaked.

As an experiment, on the grass on the way back, I tried switching between heel-striking and forefoot landing. Stark contrast, and really reinforced to me that we've created a monster with this heel-toe style of running.

Final point: it felt really great to run - especially on a trail like this. I'd encourage everyone to get into it.