Are you close to peaking in your training?Had been feeling OK on Saturday itself but for some reason, Sunday just was bad. Weird hotspot blister popped up on the inside of my big toe, where I'd never gotten one before. And then holy sh!t talk about a catastrophic case of hemorrhoids. Brutal. Close to kidney stone-level of pain. And out of nowhere.
Took it very easy Sunday - Thursday; ironic, supposed to be a large-mileage week but didn't end up working out that way. Ran 6 miles on Friday, cruisey pace, generally felt OK although developed a weird blood blister on another toe. Drained that sucker but damn, all weird things out of nowhere.
So I decided to take advantage of the sale at REI and picked up some Altra Lone Peak 8s. Hell yeah. Couldn't resist breaking them in. I hadn't been running many trails because of the rains but things were more or less dried out, still a lot of mud. But hit up the local trail, absolutely beautiful sunny day in the 70s, just what the doctor ordered. Calves felt super tight at first but loosened up and I was able to pick up the pace. Nothing like a good trial by fire for those shoes, mud, grass, rocks, you name it, 17.25 miles in under 2.5 hours, with about 2500' elevation gain. Love those shoes already - worked well with the Darn Tough socks.
I just got my first pair of new shoes in many years. My old ones were Merrell Trail Glove 4s. They are now on the Trail Glove 7. I read a lot of negative reviews about the new Trail Gloves and I was feeling some pain on the sharp gravel with my old Trail Gloves during that last long run, so I went and tried on a bunch of shoes (REI folks were very patient with me). I liked the Altra Lone Peaks, very similar to the Trail Glove in fit but with more cushion, but they were not on sale when I went. I settled on a pair of Merrell Nova 3 which were on sale. We went for a 7 mile hike yesterday and it felt weird having cushy shoes. And these are rated "moderate cushion." They did protect from the sharp gravel. But I cannot imagine having those Hoka "maximum cushion" shoes. No thanks.