I've been looking for a light weight racing shoe for running marathons and half marathons to replace the Zoot triathlon racing shoe that I sometimes wear. I love the Zoot tri shoes, but I want to save them for when I do triathlons and get light weight racing shoes just for runs.
During the Mercedes Half marathon I wore my regular training shoe, the Brooks Glycerin 10. It's a great shoe for me to train in, but it's a little heavy for racing. I wore the Zoot Tri shoe in Mobile for the half and the Brooks Glycerin Sunday and could tell the difference in weight. I thought that by wearing the more cushioning Brooks shoe that the bottoms of my feet wouldn't feel so beat up after the race as they did in Mobile, but there wasn't much difference than when I wore the Zoot tri shoe.
The choices I am considering for a light weight running shoe are the Newton Women's shoe which is only a little lighter than my Glycerin 10. I love the color!
For most of my races the past couple of years, I have worn these Zoot triathlon shoes. The difference between these and regular light weight running shoes is that these have built in lace locks that makes it easier to pull on in the transition area after taking off your biking shoes. All you have to do is pull them on, give the laces a quick yank and go. No time wasted trying to tie them.
At the Buster Britton Triathlon,
I have two other pairs of Zoot Triathlon shoes that I don't wear as much. One pair is turquoise and the other is white and pink and very similar to the ones above except the laces are white instead of black and they are a little stiffer than the ones above so not as comfortable. When I went to Hawaii two years ago to do the half ironman triathlon in Kona, I absent mindedly packed up one of each. The right Zoot shoe with the black laces and the left Zoot shoe with the white laces. What's worse is they made it all the way into my transition bag like that. I didn't realize I had two different shoes until I was in the transition area ready to put them on race day.
Imagine my surprise after swimming 1.2 miles, biking 56 miles and then reaching in my transition bag and discovering what a stupid mistake I had made. I said a short prayer right there in the middle of transition for God to PLEASE make one of them a lefty and one of them a righty or I was going to have to
1. Put two right shoes on and run "awkwardly" for 13.1 miles hoping nobody would notice
2. Run barefoot for 13.1 miles and hope there was skin on the soles of my feet at the end of the run
or
3. Abandon the entire race right then and there and that would have been a toughy because I'm not a quitter and I had just flown thousands of miles all the way to Hawaii just to do this race!
Lucky for me I had a lefty and a righty so the entire run part of the race became a science experiment to find out which Zoot tri shoe felt the best and most comfy to me during a race. It made the run go by just a little bit faster since I was going over in my head which foot was crampy, which one felt all cushiony like it was in a glove, etc.
Guess it's easy to see which pair won! Unfortunately, they are getting a little worn out.
During the Mercedes Half marathon I wore my regular training shoe, the Brooks Glycerin 10. It's a great shoe for me to train in, but it's a little heavy for racing. I wore the Zoot Tri shoe in Mobile for the half and the Brooks Glycerin Sunday and could tell the difference in weight. I thought that by wearing the more cushioning Brooks shoe that the bottoms of my feet wouldn't feel so beat up after the race as they did in Mobile, but there wasn't much difference than when I wore the Zoot tri shoe.
The choices I am considering for a light weight running shoe are the Newton Women's shoe which is only a little lighter than my Glycerin 10. I love the color!
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| Image from Newtonrunning.com |
I also found out there is a new pink performance running shoe coming out this Spring by Karhu. The Karhu reps were at the Mercedes marathon expo and had pictures of it. It is very cute and pink and worth checking out before I purchase anything. And did I mention it's PINK!
I love the Brooks Glycerin 10, but as I said before it is pretty heavy for racing at about 9.6 oz. I really want something under 8 oz for a racing shoe. I wore the Glycerin 10 in the Chickamauga marathon and the Mercedes Half marathon.
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| Chickamauga Battlefield Marathon |
For most of my races the past couple of years, I have worn these Zoot triathlon shoes. The difference between these and regular light weight running shoes is that these have built in lace locks that makes it easier to pull on in the transition area after taking off your biking shoes. All you have to do is pull them on, give the laces a quick yank and go. No time wasted trying to tie them.
Similar one here - Zoot Tri Shoe
Before I got these to do triathlons in, I had to put lace locks on my regular running shoes. They weren't as easy to deal with as already having them built in the shoe itself. The Zoot tri shoe itself is designed to tug on quickly and easily.
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| Image from Profile-design.com |
I've worn these Zoot tri shoes at Rock And Roll New Orleans Marathon,
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| Heading to the Port a let where all well hydrated runners hang out pre-race |
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| Buster Britton Triathlon |
Mobile Half marathon, and many other races throughout the past few years.
I have two other pairs of Zoot Triathlon shoes that I don't wear as much. One pair is turquoise and the other is white and pink and very similar to the ones above except the laces are white instead of black and they are a little stiffer than the ones above so not as comfortable. When I went to Hawaii two years ago to do the half ironman triathlon in Kona, I absent mindedly packed up one of each. The right Zoot shoe with the black laces and the left Zoot shoe with the white laces. What's worse is they made it all the way into my transition bag like that. I didn't realize I had two different shoes until I was in the transition area ready to put them on race day.
Imagine my surprise after swimming 1.2 miles, biking 56 miles and then reaching in my transition bag and discovering what a stupid mistake I had made. I said a short prayer right there in the middle of transition for God to PLEASE make one of them a lefty and one of them a righty or I was going to have to
1. Put two right shoes on and run "awkwardly" for 13.1 miles hoping nobody would notice
2. Run barefoot for 13.1 miles and hope there was skin on the soles of my feet at the end of the run
or
3. Abandon the entire race right then and there and that would have been a toughy because I'm not a quitter and I had just flown thousands of miles all the way to Hawaii just to do this race!
Lucky for me I had a lefty and a righty so the entire run part of the race became a science experiment to find out which Zoot tri shoe felt the best and most comfy to me during a race. It made the run go by just a little bit faster since I was going over in my head which foot was crampy, which one felt all cushiony like it was in a glove, etc.
Guess it's easy to see which pair won! Unfortunately, they are getting a little worn out.
I like New Balance, but sometimes their shoes don't look that good. I wish I could get a pair of Jordan's that were pink, but my feet are too big. Maybe Nike Shox could help you run faster. lol
ReplyDeleteI use to always buy New Balance for the Boy and I had a pair once too, but you are right, they are kind of boring. I saw so many colorful running shoes at the marathon last weekend. Lots of pink for both men and women. I've never had Nike but I see a lot of styles that are cute on other people.
DeleteHave you seen the New Balance Minimus styles? It's what I wear. Of course I'm not a runner, so.... Not sure how they'd hold up to hard core marathoning.
ReplyDeleteThat is funny about your two different shoes!
I looked up the New Balance minimus and I love the cross training ones and the pink trail ones. Maybe I do need a new trail running shoe!! Thanks for telling me about them.
DeleteFunny about the shoe mix up - but the most important thing was you still looked cute!
ReplyDeleteThanks! Luckily, I don't think anybody noticed the shoe differences. It's just in all the running pictures from that race now. lol
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