transitioning to lighter shoes
Since June of last year I've been trying to slowly transition off the Mizuno Wave Inspire (moderate support 10 oz) to Mizuno Ronin (10mm drop 7 oz). Mizuno bills the Ronin as their half/full marathon racer. I've been easing into lower/lighter shoes as it just feels better to train with. But I've had problems with my achilles when I get too crazy with mileage/quality, so I wear an insert in the Ronin's.
Currently I wear the Ronins in all my races, and have done a 70.3 in them. I did all my OS runs in them as well. I'm currently in the full plan, so I alternate wearing the Ronins on my quality days, and Inspires on strides/recovery type days.
Question: I wore the Ronins for the long run last week, and I could feel it for a couple days. I'm wondering if I should opt for the more padded shoe for the long run. Or if the ultimate goal is to wear the lighter shoe during the Full, then, well wear them in training and be diligent about stretching/rolling out.
Comments
What I'm alluding to is that it's natural to feel sore after a particularly long run, how sore depends on a lot of factors. I'm assuming that you might have specific and more acute soreness in your achilles that you are thinking that might be attributed to these lighter shoes? That's a possibility, or it could be just a normal part of stretching the distance.
The million dollar question is whether you should wear more cushioned shoes. I can't answer that without writing a dissertation. The answer is just that it depends. All I can say is to ignore marketing BS from shoe manufacturers, there is no such thing as a half-marathon racer. There are shoes that are made up of objective characteristics, such as weight, amount of support (cushion, ramp angle, lots of other things) and features (motion control).
There is no single characteristic of a shoe that makes it fast for all people, our biomechanics and running background drive what is truly best for us, and there is no simple recipe for what that will be. Ramp angle especially, there is nothing easily identifiable that tells us what ramp angle will work right for what person.
In the end you just sort of have to experiment and find what works best for you... but go into it knowing that there are no foregone conclusions. There is no guarantee that a 'race' shoe will be faster for you than a 'training' shoe. For some people sure, but for you? That depends.
As a final bit of bonus material, I found the following article quite helpful on trying to understand shoes as a collection of quantifiable attributes rather than marketing buzzwords like "minimal" and "race":
http://www.slowtwitch.com/Products/Running_Footwear_by_brand/Defining_Minimal_-_Part_2_3495.html
Thanks for the post Trevor. I wasn't sure how deep to dive into this, but it looks like I'm at the right place
Long run ending up being 14. Before that I had a slew of 10-13 milers, including an open half. My longest run in these shoes was last week's run actually. I'll agree to the long run soreness. It's been awhile since I pushed 2 hours and I forgot about the soreness that comes with that. Not to mention having quality inside of a long run. I got a little nervous when my achilles started tightening up later that day.
We'll probably agree on your next point. My whole forray into lighter shoes was twofold A)I'm tired of wearing bricks B)I felt my injury last year was partly due to too much padding. Plus these shoes just feel better, more connected to the road. So I begin the transition to wean off bulky shoes.
For me, I did see a benefit from a racing shoe vs training shoe. This shoe was substantially lighter, and it helped add to the "race day" effect of putting them on. However I still seem to need an insert.
I'll try it again this week. If the soreness is too much I'll revert back to the trainers for long runs like Brian suggested. Last year for B2B 70.3, I didn't wear the insert and my feet were on fire by mile 9. For open 13.1 couple weeks ago I wore them and it was fine. Long term I'd like to use the Ronins as my daily and go to an even lighter shoe for shorter distances.
Good article
Just an FYI, I'm not actually discouraging you from lighter or lower-ramp shoes. I honestly don't have a really good fundamental understanding of why ramp matters or what ramp is ideal for certain types of runners, I've just been running on low ramp shoes 0, 2 or 4mm for years now and now anything higher just feels 'wrong' to me. The 10mm drop on your Ronin still sounds quite large to me.
In terms of weight, my caution is just a response from going to any extremes with it as we saw within the last 1-2 years when there was a really big push towards 'minimalism' with, in my opinion, not enough understanding by people what they were really buying or why. Personally, I still run exclusively in low and light shoes even through the marathon distance and am quite happy with them, but I've heard enough claims from people about shoes like the Hoka that I don't entirely rule out the possibility that a heavier, more-structured shoe might actually be faster for me over those distances than the shoes I'm running in today.
Not convinced enough yet that I'm ready to run out and buy a pair, but I'm open to the possibility.
12mm drop, 10.1 oz. 24/12. The Ronins are
10mm drop, 7.0 oz, 25/15.
After I get out of this full training plan, I'm going to use the downtime to try out a flatter shoe. My form has evolved over the years and put me on the ball of my foot, so I don't feel like I need all this heel support anymore. Any recommendations in the 6-8mm drop? Or any shoe that would be the next step in getting to a flatter shoe?
My frustration with trying to go to low ramp is self-inflicted. In my haste I pushed it last year, and caused myself some problems. Plus it seems like I should be able to drop 2mm from my shoe and not have this take so long. But in the grand scheme of things, I like where it was heading.
The Newton Sir Isaac is supposed to be 'guidance trainer' to ween people into low drop shoes and mid/fore foot striking. It's still a bit heavy at 10oz, but at a 4.5mm drop. I thought that most Zoot shoes were in that range, but taking a quick look at their line, the Ultra Kiawe seems to be around the sweet spot of a 6mm drop. The ever popular Saucony Kinvara 3 is a little on the low side at 4mm.
But all that said, if you are already a mid or forefoot striker you should be able to tolerate a lower ramp shoe without a huge amount of difficulty, you just may have to go through the normal adjustment period of frequent shorter runs to build up your tolerance in your calves. In my experience, you definitely feel it at first, but I got used to them pretty quickly when I just stuck with them for a few weeks.