Newtons

This Spring, I read Born to Run. It's a really interesting book about ultra running and evolution. One of the author's main findings was that the modern running shoe - circa 1970's - has not only slowed down the average runner, but is *causing* most of the running injuries. The running shoe has a cushy heel which makes it easy to heel strike, a movement humans would never make barefooted and one our skeleton is not designed to do. The solution is to run either barefoot, or in shoes that allow the same movement as barefoot running.

I thought I had come up with a good compromise by working on my running form but keeping my shoes. Then I went into Newton last weekend and found out otherwise. The average running shoe has a 12-15% slope from midsole to heel. Even though I was concentrating on keeping my feet under my body and not heel striking, my shoes made that impossible. Either I would heel strike (because of the raised heel) or overstride (the Newton's employee's opinion on why my quads hurt so much in Boise).

Newton shoes have a 2% slope, wearing them feels like the midsole is actually higher than the heel even though it's not. There are also squishy lugs on the midsole, which make it feel like there is a hump in the middle of the shoe.

Newton let me take a pair of shoes outside for a mile run and I really liked how they felt. If you remember from my shoe saga earlier this year, I have been unable to find different shoes that don't hurt my feet. That first mile in Newtons felt great, no foot pain or anything else pain. They showed me how to refine my form - lean and just lift foot. Don't throw your foot out in front of you, don't try and push off the ground. Just lean and lift.

Against Newton's recommendations (they suggest that when you switch over, stop wearing your old shoes and only wear Newtons for a mile at a time for the first week, then gradually increase distance over several weeks), I decided to wear them for last week's Stroke & Stride. I figured that I would just run easy in them and those extra 2 miles wouldn't matter. And in fact, I did take the first mile really easy, about a 9:15 pace. And then Liz ran by and I stayed with her a bit. My next mile was 8:30 and that felt so well that I pushed it a little on the last mile to finish in 26:20 (though I have always believed that course is short, probably only 3.05 miles). Either way, it was a full minute faster than when I did SnS two weeks ago and I felt way less beat up.

That went so well that I wore them for my long brick workout on Saturday in Summit County - about 3.5 miles at an easy pace with a minute of walking. My legs tolerated that well, so I took them out on a two hour run. And this is where I messed up. I even brought my other pair of shoes with me, thinking I could run 30 minutes, then come back and change. But at 30 minutes everything still felt good so I went out another 30. That meant when I turned around at 60 and my legs started hurting, I still had an hour to run. That last hour was not fun. My calves were very stiff and I was very worried about injuring myself. I was gimpy all day and took ice baths that night and the next to help with recovery. It's Thursday now and my calves are still a little sore, but everything else feels fine and not injured. I don't believe it's the design of the shoe, but rather my legs are not used to using those muscles while running so they are unconditioned.

For my group run on Tuesday I went back to my old shoes. The run was not spectacular but it didn't hurt either. I just got back from an easy 2 mile run in the Newtons. They still felt great but what I really notice is that I'm much more efficient in them. When I did these same two miles 10 days ago, my average heart rate was 146 bmp. Today it was 130.

So now I have the conundrum of how to switch over to the Newtons without injuring myself under my Ironman deadline. I think they are fine for 30 minutes, but not over at this point. I will probably not wear them for the Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half Marathon next weekend. I may have to bring two pairs of shoes for longer training runs and switch out halfway through. But my review so far is that I like these shoes, I only wish I had tried them earlier.