Up until the end of last year I used to run in the New Balance Zante (6mm shoe, same as my then trail shoe). Overall they worked quite well, exepct that the lack of cushioning was starting to get to me (my left knee was giving me endless pain). And that is basically where most of my problems started for this year. So first I went for a 8mm neutral cushioned from Reebok. I didn't allow myself enough time to transition into this shoe and picked up a calf injury. After my marathon in January I felt, hell why not try another shoe and went with the Adidas Ultraboost ST. Initially it felt okayish, albeit a bit heavy. This caught up with my big time in Two Oceans, where my left hamstring went into spasm at 28km already.. So the moral of my story. To switch shoes take time, especially if you go from a relatively more minimalistic shoe to something traditional. So what I'm doing now is to train in the heavy shoes, and mix it up the different drops (4mm to 10mm), to basically train/exercise all the leg muscles. Anything more than 32km, I will go for the lightest shoe in my collectionwhich in in my case is the Reebok. When your legs are tired, you feel it 4 times more with heavy shoes. Even my new trail shoes are lighter than the Adidas. I thought the extra stability of the Adidas will help my later on in Oceans - It helped boggerol. My shoe rant/problems this year...
