red shoes……. where’s the handbag?

Above Sofia

and across the road.........

Well, it does look as if the spring is here. Today the temperature reached 19c, the sky was clear and, the down side, people everywhere. After a second week of running in Sofia I feel tired of pavement/road – even if they do resemble tracks for much of the time – and am really looking forward to getting back onto grass and mud, with rocky trails thrown in for good measure. I have kept my distances fairly constant covering 10mile/16km most days with the odd 16-19mile/25-30km (dependant on how lost I get) once in each 5 day cycle. Whether I run the circuit clockwise or counter-clockwise the amount of climbing is about the same so it’s hard to vary the intensity of the sessions apart from running faster. Due to the type of roads it’s impossible to use the route for regulated speed work as there are just too many obstacles and dangers……… maybe if I could get all those dogs that bark at me to be let out…….. I’d certainly get some speed up then. The weekly average for my past two weeks is 55mile/88km so, even if the quality hasn’t been good, I’m still on target.

I did have a pleasant surprise whilst visiting one of the shopping ‘Malls’ (there are many littered around the city) – there is a ‘New balance’ shop (I use the NB101 minimalist trail shoe as detailed in previous blogs) and, to my utter amazement, they had a full selection of the new ‘NB10 – Minimus’ shoe which I had wanted to buy, but was too concerned about sizing to do so over the web. Even more surprising was the price which, on special offer, was around £30 cheaper than the UK. Yes, you guessed, I just had to have a pair – the size does come up very small, I needed a 45/UK10.5 and that’s not big – and what are they like……? Great!! I had the trail version, I had read that the soles weren’t very ‘aggressive’ and could be used as an ‘all-rounder’, which is ideal in BG. Whereas the NB101 is a no frills mountain racer these are much wider in the toe box and seem to offer more cushioned ride. They are a brilliant ‘first’ minimalist shoe, for anyone wanting to give it a try, compared with something like the Vibram Fivefingers, that give more ‘feel’ but which often equates to pain from stones etc.. I have clocked up about 45mile/72km in them so far and find them like running in very light carpet slippers – I took them into the woods today, on mixed mud/stone, and the grip was fine so I’ll be interested to see how they behave on real Balkan mountains.

If you look at the picture of the two traditional shoes (Asic Kayano and DS Trainer) together with the NB10 would you believe that they are, in theory, all the same size. You can also see the great difference between the thick sole of the Asic Kayano and the minimalist approach……….. the Kayano feel like I have battle ships attached to my feet, how did I ever run marathons in these? Isn’t it funny how we change opinions over the years…… or is it just getting old?