Back to the Bridle Trails

Over the weekend I was at REI and saw that they had a surplus of Vasque Transistor FS shoes on sale for $70. On a lark I checked the sale rack and found that they actually had them in my size. I tried them on and walked around the store and over their fake rock structure several times. I even went as far as to pull up a recently posted review on my iPhone from a blog that I follow. They felt pretty good on my feet, especially for a lighter less cushioned shoe. Everything pointed to positive so I bought them.

I took the new shoes straight out on Monday for a run before work. I didn't go anywhere special, just out the corridor trail and down to the Bridle Trails for a few miles in the sloppy mud. It's funny, in January at the Bridle Trails Winter Running Festival, the mud was very minimal. Now it's the start of Summer and the trails are a sloppy mess from all of the rain recently. The shoes felt great and I did my best hop around the big mud puddles where I could. Naturally my feet still found a few good steps in gooey deep mud unavoidable.

I was trying to concentrate on my running form (straight back, stand tall, land mid/forefoot, lift the knees, good leg follow through) instead of focusing on speed or time. I had the iPod on and Eminem's Lose Yourself came up on the playlist during the run, so I sync'd up my cadence to the 182 BPM of the song and enjoyed my run just a little bit more. I skipped the section of trail that parallels 132nd st as that's usually the muddiest area with the tightest shoulders around the trail.

I was a little tired on the way out of the trails and back to the gym but I tried to keep a decent pace while working on my form. I was surprised that I kept the pace < 8:00/mi. I expected to be much slower while relearning my running form. No complaints though.  Overall I really liked the Vasque shoes. I hope to try them out again tomorrow at lunch and get in a few barefoot miles at a park near work, the same one I ran last week.

Overall, a great way to start the day.  I wish I could do a run like this before work more often.

Time: 1:01:39
Dist: 7.6
Avg: 8:08/mi
Alt: Much less than the Garmin-claimed 3374'