Tigy’s Blog

Well my angelic behavior continues. I have pretty much recovered from my run in with the evil bottle but am gunning for a whole 4 weeks without a tipple… I think my body will thank me for it.

Speaking of body thanking I have managed to end up in the dog box, again. I have been enjoying my running lately and thought I should really invest in a pair of running shoes. Off I go with a massive budget of $100, I warn my darling wife that I may spend up to $120 for the “right” pair.

Well a pleasant trip to Athletes Foot $220 later (plus $20 for some socks) I knew I would be trouble! To be honest $120 doesn’t get you a lot of shoe these days. The girl in the shop was great, foot measured, my balance analyzed, my walk criticized, shoes tried on… Quite an experience. She also promised that if the shoes were no good I could take them back and they would fix me up with a different pair…kewl…

Anyway the proof is in the pudding, or pounding in this case (as in pavement).

The shoes are New Balance 857.They come in extra wide (which is great for my paddles), have a high toe (which is interesting), and pronation control (which I think is good)…

They are very light, flexible and have great cushioning. Basically very comfortable. I have quite wide feed and have certainly found that New Balance has by far and away the best shoes for the horizontally challenged foot!

The high toe of this shoe had me a little worried. What I found was in the toe I had about 1cm movement up and down in my toe, this is an unusual feeling and had me worried that I had too much movement in the shoe for running. However in my test run yesterday I found the extra room very comfortable and actually helped keep my feet relaxed.

The width is good as for a change I am not pushing the sides of the shoe, in theory this should lead to a longer life for the shoe, but we’ll see about that. Certainly it means my foot is well within the sole of the shoe which makes it quite comfortable.

Pronation control is interesting. Apparently my stride rolls in and this shoe is designed to help correct this. I was a little dubious of this and felt that any attempt by the shoe to change my movement may result in discomfort or even pain. But what I have found is that the shoe is very subtle in its control, it feels quite natural which I think is key. I really need a few longer runs to see if there is any negative affect and will update this post accordingly.

After running in x-trainers for the last couple of weeks I found the 857 very, very light. In fact I had trouble getting into a rhythm as my feet were moving faster through my stride than normal, again this is something I will just need to get used to. More miles on the road should sort this out. So all in all very happy with the shoes. I have only run about 3-4km’s in them so far so I’ll give it another couple of longer runs this week and see how they go. If I notice anything about them I’ll update this post.