Virgin Voyage of the Brooks Cascadia 4's

I recieved my new shoes in the mail yesterday from Running Warehouse. I busted them in this morning on a flat 20 km mixed surface run. They felt awesome. It is amazing to crank out 12 miles in a new pair of shoes and experience absolutely zero problems with blisters, hotspots, or rubbing of any sort. I had no issues with chin splints and knees which I was struggling with as a result of my last pairs midsole breaking down. I still need to take them on a Mount Doug Gutbuster training run and really push their limits to see how they handle the nasty terrain. So far so good, and I am thinking they are the shoe for me. They don't quite wrap my ankle as well as my asics, and so my only concern is ankle support from the upper. They are a very stable shoe and most likely will lessen the ammount of ankle rolls anyway. I will really push them on the slopes ofDoug next run to see how they handle the slick rocks, mud, steep desents, tricky side slopes, and loose gravel. I can't wait. The final test will come in the form of a 30 or 40 km on Elk Lake this week or early next. I will have a good idea what to expect from these babies by then.

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"The Van Aaken Method" vs. "The Lydiard Method"

I just finished reading a book by Ernst van Aaken Called "Van Aaken Method". I am a huge proponent of long slow distance and started working towards the "Lydiard Method" way of training earlier this Spring. Van Aaken was experimenting with long slow distance before Lydiard, as early as the 40's. Though both methods are quite similar there are some slight differences. I experimented with both over the last bit and have merged the methods into a plan that works well for me, with my plan resembling Lydiard's method the closest. These endurance centered methods are the extreme opposite of the tempo or interval training methods that experienced popularity in the middle of the last Century, the premise of which is to run many anaerobic intervals (using more oxygen than you can breath causing lactic acid to form) without full recovery between intervals. What is Long Slow Distance? In a nutshell the theory involves running every day and running as much mileage

Running Syncope (Losing consciousness after running)

I went for my Saturday morning run today just like any other weekend run in the past. I had planned on running with a small group of people in the morning but thought I had missed them when I noticed their cars were at our meeting spot but no one was around, so I ran on by myself and thought I would see them along the run. I felt pretty good this morning and had a really fast pace. I haven't been sick this week but I could tell I was just a bit off the last 3-4 days. I blamed it on stress from writing my PhD proposal but now I am wondering. I saw someone running quickly about a full Km ahead of me (it is a very straight and flat course). I thought I could catch them in the next 10 minutes so I pushed pretty hard. I met my goal on caught the runner about the time I veered off to run a different side trail. I hit my turn around point and decided to cruise back to my car. I was only running 6 km in the morning and was planning on a steep and technical 20 Km run in the evenin

Enough with the thesis! Lets talk running! The Titans of Trail Running (Anton Krupicka edition)

It is probably apparent from this title that I am burned out of thesis work and running has fought back my studies and crept back into my thoughts, and I hope as of tomorrow, I will be cleared to run. I did not get any running in this weekend like I had hoped in my previous blog entry. I did eat a lot of turkey and had a subsequent triptophan coma. This is my second Canadian Thanksgiving and it felt like Thanksgiving this year I had a great holiday. I am currently wearing my Holter heart monitor as I write this. I turn it in to be analyzed and then hit the treadmill first thing in the morning. Tomorrow will be my first time running since my incident. I am so anxious it feels like the night before a big race. My research has settled down a bit and a change in timing for committee meetings has altered my deadlines, so I will actually have some time to think about stuff other than rocks. As my blog implies I would like to talk about several (of many) trail running heroes I have and why, o

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