Wanted: Faster Running Shoes To Make My Legs Go Faster

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!

Image from Newtonrunning.com

Newton Women's Distance U

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.

Chickamauga Battlefield Marathon

Brook Glycerin 10

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.

Image from Profile-design.com

I've worn these Zoot tri shoes at Rock And Roll New Orleans Marathon,

Heading to the Port a let where all well hydrated runners hang out pre-race

At the Buster Britton Triathlon,

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.

Rock and Roll New Orleans Marathon

I just finished running in the Rock and Roll New Orleans marathon, formerly called the Mardi Gras Marathon.  This is one marathon I have wanted to do for a number of years, but just haven't for some reason.  I think one of the main reasons was that it use to fall on the same weekend as the Mercedes Marathon in Birmingham, Al and I usually either do the Mercedes whole or half since it's in my hometown.  I love Pensacola, FL, but I have to say that the New Orleans Marathon is far superior to Pensacola or Mercedes.  It's flat!  No hills, and yes, there are hills in Pensacola.  More than just the two I was told there were.  The entire first part of the course in Pensacola was a slow, steady, calf burning climb along Scenic Highway.  Beauful, but not good for the calves.  Mercedes has hills, but the most deadly ones are no longer part of the course.  I think my calves are happier with a flatter course like New Orleans.  Besides, it is such a beautful, historic city.

The New Orleans marathon was moved to March, which made it perfectly fit in with my marathon training.  I was able to do the Mercedes half (I added 7 miles at the end to do a 20 miler) and then taper for this race.  My goal time was 4 hours 15 minutes and I was very, very close.  I am also now a firm believer in compression socks.  I wore my new Run Love compression socks (the white ones since I still haven't received the pink ones) and my calves are not sore at all.  The rest of my entire body is toast, including not only my quads and hamstrings, but also my back, abs, and lungs.  My calves feel fantastic!  Thank god for compression.  Maybe I wouldn't be sore at all if I had worn a complete compression suit.  (do they even make those?) I'm just joking, of course,  I have compression tights and don't like them much.  I wore them in the half marathon a few weeks ago and they didn't help my calves at all.

pre race potty stop

There were 22,000 runners today, but Ken managed to find me twice on the course and then at the finish while I was stumbling around a little dazed.  I didn't think I was ever going to find him and the security guard was making me go through the gate out of the finisher area into the huge mass of people on the other side of the fence.  He barely made it in time to see me finish because the cab driver that took him to City Park where the finish line was, let him off about 4 miles away (he says 4, probably more like 1 :)) and then he had to figure out how to walk to the finish area.  I was so happy to see him and to be finished!  

After the race we headed over to Pinkberry Yogurt because I was having a craving.  We were lucky enough to have one right near the hotel.  I got the original flavor with granola, yogurt chips and blackberries.   It's my new favorite yogurt.  Yum!

Then it was advil, shower and a nap since I didn't sleep at all last night in anticipation for the race today.

Now I have run a marathon in five states - Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Massachusetts (Boston -Yea!)  Now I only have 45 more states to go....

Me and the Running Nazi pre race

More Race Photos