Wednesday, August 16, 2006

New

Sunday afternoon I finally cashed the checks I got for my birthday, so I had some "free" money to spend. Yeah, at 45 I still get money for my birthday from my parents and in-laws. I decided to hit the annual tent sale at Chick's Sporting Goods. The choice of running apparel at the tent sale can be pretty hit and miss, but the shoes are usually fairly decent. I found Brooks Adrenaline GTS 5's, Asics 2110's and New Balance 766's. I decided on the Adrenalines. I'm partial to Brooks shoes. I usually wear Trance. The Adrenalines are one notch below Trance in cushioning and stability. They felt lighter to me and I really liked the feel during toe off. The forefoot seems to be thinner and more flexible than the Trance.

Tuesday after work I made it over to Bonelli for my now familiar 6 mile loop. I wore the new Adrenalines. They felt really good. I had a little twinge in my right arch about 1 mile into to run but it went away. The route takes me down the Cottontail Trail, through the Jungle, then through the RV park and around the picnic area. At the west end of the picnic area there is a trail that follows the spine of the hill that divides the south and north picnics areas. I've run past this trail countless times but always stick to the pavement around the picnic area. Tuesday I noticed that the trail was just recently cleared and widened, likely for fire control. Since I wasn't keeping time, I decided to go exploring. The trail heads up the middle of the ridge at a consistent but easy incline. There are a couple of opportunities to drop back down into the picnic areas but I opted to keep climbing as far as the trail would go. At the far west end of the trail it drops back down rapidly on a single track. It was a lot of fun. For all the times I've run here in the last year and a half I've never ventured onto this particular trail. It isn't very long, probably less than a mile, but it was a heck of a fun run, especially the descent at the end. New shoes, new trail, and the watchless running continues.

The rest of the week will pretty much play out exactly like last week until Saturday.

13 comments:

Rae said...

Extra birthday cash is the best!!! We still get $20 from Brent's side, so I hope that continues for a long time, too!

Unknown said...

Sweet on the extra dough... I have a birthday in the near future and sometimes gets some green. I think I might save up for a pair of racing flats!

Exploring is so much fun!

Donald said...

Happy Birthday! Enjoy the new wheels.

Unknown said...

I have been wearing Adrenalines for the past few years and have had no problems. It is a quality shoe that unless they mess things up and change the design I will stick with it.

Anonymous said...

Darrell -- thanks for stopping by the blog and for the encouraging comment. Hope you had a great birthday. Thanks for reading.

Joe said...

The GTS 5s saved my running. I ended up going through 5 pairs before getting my first pair of GTS 6s about 5 weeks ago. Model 6 works as well or slighly better (for me) than the 5s. I'm impressed you found them in your size...I scoured the Internet and my size had dried up by June this year.

cool run, glad you enjoyed exploring!!

Anonymous said...

The Chick's tent sale is great. I found some good deals there last year. Thanks for the heads up as I will check it out this weekend.

Legs and Wings said...

Everytime I strap on a new pair of shoes I find new energy for the road. Sounds like you've discovered the same Darrell - and logging some good mileage. Congrats on turning 45...I'm right behind you - 44 for a few more days.

Anonymous said...

happy birthday! I hope I never stop receiving birthday cash; it's the best :)

Exploring, what fun!

Sarah said...

For road shoes, I'm an Adrenaline fan too! They're a great shoe.

Mike said...

Happy Bday Darrell!
New shoes and new trails- doesn't get much better than that!

matt said...

you are inspiring me to try this watchless thing a little more, myself. hey, happy belated birthday, buddy! i hope this next year brings you a lot of joy to you and your family :)

Wes said...

In case you didn't know already, I like my Adrenaline GTS 6 running shoes too! See, we both have great minds, now if I could just have your body :-)