The Young Feller

Following on from my last review, on the Gel-Indicate's, I've also been asked to do some testing of the Asics Gel-Luminus.  They are the 2nd tier of shoe in the structured cushioning section of the Asics road shoe spectrum, only slightly behind the Gel-Kayano.  Again the Gel-Luminus (as with the Gel-Glorify and Gel-Indicate), are InterSport UK exclusives (links at the bottom of the blog!!!) There are other shoes below the Luminus too but if you are looking for a top quality shoe for long distance running, the Luminus is definitely up there and as with competition in a race, you'd settle for a place in the top 2, wouldn't you?! With other brands taking the front in terms of advertising, I feel that Asics are wrongly overlooked by a lot of runners these days, particularly on the road circuit.  People tend to look at the price rather than the quality, which in some cases is fair enough!  But, if you genuinely have the funds to be able to afford a much bette...

After doing some previous product reviews in the past for The Running Bug, Asics and Intersport UK, they very kindly asked me to test out some more kit, starting with the new Gel Indicate shoes. As most of you runners will agree, you can't beat a fresh pair of running shoes so I was excited to receive the email regarding the new kit.  My road miles have been pretty minimal over the past few months as the fell season hits it's boom over the summer with more races than even I can manage to keep up with, and I'm up to 50 for the season at the minute after running at Whittle Pike on Wednesday night.  But, saying that, what better reason to get myself on the road more than new shoes?!  I don't think there is a better reason! Anyhow, I received my Gel Indicate's in the post a couple of weeks ago and I have got myself used to them now, doing a decent amount of miles, although not as many as I'd have liked due to a hamstring twinge I had over the past 5 or 6 da...

The title says it all, as I experienced my first blow out during the Trotters 5 on Sunday morning.  After all my racing last weekend and a decent but not over tiring training week of 30 ish miles, I felt in decent shape to race, especially as I opted out of racing the fast & flat Podium 5k on Saturday night. I ran the Trotters 5 last year, but, due to building work around the area/course, they had decided to reverse the route, therefore also slightly extending it to a 5.25 mile race consisting of 2 laps.  It was a tougher course in general too, about a minute slower on times from last year, apparently.  I did beat my time from last year but I expected that anyway. I started well and my first 2 mile split times were really on the money in terms of my pace, running a 7:20 which was mostly up hill then a 6:55 the following mile.  I felt good and my time was well on course for my pre-race aim.  Then it was actually coming off the back of a downhill, w...

Race The Night (and Day) Away Well I did it, I ran 4 times in 39 hours over the weekend, starting from 7pm on Friday night with our club race, The Dark Un.  Most people will never run a fell race and for most people hills are their worst nightmare but I can certainly say I've only a handful of times had more fun racing than I did doing the Dark Un. Having only ran with a head torch on 3 previous occasions, I was slightly unsure on how it was going to pan out, although 2 of those mentioned occasions were in fact recce's for this race itself.  My aim was to avoid injury and enjoy the boggy moors as much as possible (that does sound odd, but it's a thrill, honest!) the start of The Dark Un (images courtesy of  +fellephant  )  safely crossing the finish line, phew! post race, what an experience that was!! As I mentioned, my main aim was to finish the race unscathed and just add to my fell running and night running experience but I did ...

A Kick Up The Asics  Continuing the Asics theme along with my race updates, this weekend has been slightly different to my normal running routine.  After all my racing recently, coupled with a quite high increase in training miles since December, I chose to rest on both Friday and today (Sunday), just to give myself a bit of a break. Yesterday I raced the Winter Hill Fell Race, in Littleborough near Rochdale.  This was, to date, the furthest fell race I have ran (9 miles) and I was a bit dubious about getting lost on the tops, which turned out to be a worry about nothing in the end!  There were 215 in the race field and I finished 133rd.  This doesn't sound the best but fell running is on a whole different level to road running, where I am disappointed not to be in the top 125 in a field of 500 and if I walked at any point in a road race it would only be for injury reasons, where as fell races sometimes give you no option due to the nature of the climb,...

Mixing Up My Run - The Asics Way After a solid week of trying out the Gel-glorify shoes, I have this week moved on to the 33DFA's, in order to continue mixing up my run!  Monday night is now the hill sprint training night with a few of the clubs members and last night we completed week 3 of our 10 hill sprint reps.  One more week of 10's then we are progressing to the next step, a quite daunting, 15 reps! Before going in to more detail around the DFA's, I will update you guys and girls on my running/racing over the weekend.  On Saturday I went over to Whitworth, just outside of Rochdale to race in Sidney & Andy's birthday 5k trail race.  The series of races, around 1 a month are set up by Andy O'Sullivan MBE, who is a really top guy!  He is one of those personalities who just captures the moment as finishers come in and he really does love running and all the organisation surrounding his races couldn't be better! He had organised this race for S...

So, I have managed to give the Gel-Glorify's a decent run out, 23.5 miles to be exact!  Covering a few miles under marathon distance, running 3 runs in them since receiving them from the guys at The Running Bug on Tuesday morning!  I've kept a close eye on how they run, how I feel when running in them and if the feel good factor wasn't just the brand new shoe feel (you regular runners will know what I mean...you get new shoes and you want to run miles & miles in them, then maybe after 8-10 miles you want to sit down again, ha!) Above are my 3 runs that I have ran so far in the Gel-Glorify shoes (Top to bottom; Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday).  Most of this won't really mean anything to anybody else apart from myself but to feel comfortable running those distances in brand new shoes is a great feature and Asics should be applauded for that!  As soon as I put them on, they just felt like I had worn them in for a few weeks, that's how comfortable th...

Asics Kit Preview; Pre-Run Hopefully you guys and girls followed my last post after I decided to revive my blog due to the Asics campaign I have recently become a part of.  I received my package today in the post and have a host of gear to try out over the coming weeks and months, all very exciting from a runners point of view! I have been sent 2 pairs of road shoes; one aimed at longer runs and the other a more lightweight, minimal shoe, created for speed work I imagine.  I have also received a very, very comfortable pair of socks along with some shorts, a running top and a track jacket.  Some really top notch kit to test and I can't wait to get it going. The kit collection - very blue! As I received them this morning, I am yet to actually try any of the kit out in actual running terms but I have tried it all on and every single piece is unbelievably comfortable.  Even the 33 DFA's, which are on the left of the picture, are really comfortable, s...