14 years ago I got a pair of racing shoes from Puma. Patrick or Pascal something, a French and German speaking sports director (or one of those guys who look after elite athletes in a company) gave them to me after I provided a couple of weeks of temporary housing for two of his Kenian runners, Laban Chege and his little brother. Man, was I proud, told everyone that Puma is “kind of sponsoring me”, that sounded really bold. Did a number of road races with them (the shoes I mean, not the Kenians) and they never let me down, such as in January in the third race of the Aktia Cup. With 240 grams they are quite light and I believe in the reduction weight around the outer extremities significantly improving the racing results. The muscles don’t get tired as quickly and the pace degredation is slower towards the end of the race.
However this old pair of Puma road racing shoes has one significant drawback, they become slippery on wet tarmac. The grip is immediately gone in drinking areas of longer runs or watery patches from melting snow. The red sole material was chosen for lighter weight but has this negative effect as well, that was the explanation I once got. Well, explanations usually don’t help in winning races, so something’s need to change - and it’s theshoes that will.
After googling racing shoes for 15-20 minutes I’m not much wiser. A lot of normal training shoes come up in all kinds of online shoe shops. Same on the big sports brand’ s web pages, checked Adidas and Puma. Big pictures and all focus on looks but little to no details regarding hard facts such as weight, marathon or 5k road race type of shoe (ok there might not be much of a difference). Any recommendations from you?
today’s training: rest, best friends of ours got their first baby girl yesterday night and we went to see it, our little princess made me run along the hospital corridors with her, was very tired when we arrived back home.
Tags: new shoes, race shoes
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