Adventurous Training

Training, Racing, & Blogging about Mountain Bikes, Adventure Racing, and Trail Running

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Snowballs Chance 6 hr MTB pre-race

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Running Shoes

Running Shoes...I've had a love/hate relationship with them.  Not to get into too much detail, but I ended up switching to minimalist running shoes several years ago and I've really enjoyed them, but from time to time, my feet do hurt.  When I decided to take the plunge into doing the 50 miler, I decided I would switch to a shoe with more cushin' for my feet.  So, on the recommendation from a friend, I tried the Inov-8 295 Roclite's:

  After several weeks of running, I started to get a discomfort feeling in my Extensor Digitorum Longus.  It would get inflamed within the first 10 minutes of my run, but then it would go away after 45 minutes of run/walking.  It was weird, but I was too stubborn to switch shoes.  This really affected my training because once the discomfort started, I was relegated to walking, which did not help with my training/cardio.  Finally after a couple months of this, I switched back to the New Balance Minimus.  Since then, I have run pain free, but all the training I did leading up to the shoe switch has been somewhat lost.  I feel like my cardio is not where it should have been.  Here is what I'm wearing now:

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Intro

This is my my induction into the world of blogging.  This will be setup to share my thoughts on my training for adventure races, mountain bike races, etc.  During my training sessions, I'll add some notes, thoughts, and hopefully some awesome pictures on weekly basis (I was about to say daily but that would be too ambitious).

Now to give a little background about myself.  My name is Ken Turner, I'm 33 years old, and I live in Houston, Tx.  I grew up swimming and playing water polo through college, so I've got an athletic background.  After college, I gave running a try, and after many failed attempts, I finally got the hang of it.  The same could be said about cycling.  I hated it for the longest time, but dealt with it due to training for some short triathlon races.  Once I got into mountain biking I have fallen in love with it.

The last 3 years, I've trained for and competed in IronmanTexas (IMTX) which is in The Woodlands, TX.  I finished it the first year, but dropped out of the race the last year...earning the dreaded DNF.  The first year I dropped out was due to poor training on my part, the second time I dropped out was due to severe burning on my feet, which caused blisters.

The last IMTX I did was back in May 2013, so I've been "recovering" from that race.  Since then, I thought it would be a great idea to sign up for a 50 mile ultra marathon.  I started my training back in July/August, but through a series of injuries and illnesses, I dropped that.  

So, here I am, with nothing to train for.  I feel lazy, out-of-shape, and ready to get some good training in.  I found that some of the injuries was due to the shoes I was wearing.  My next blog entry will focus on my shoes.