Cascadia Diary

This past Tuesday morning I picked up a new pair of trail shoes

The Brand New Brooks Cascadia Trail shoes.

That's right the bright orange ones! Stay tuned for pictures.

The following is a diary of my thoughts, views and experiences with the new shoes.

Tuesday, March 14th 06
Snuck out for a quick 20min run in the Seaton hydrofield just north of my house. Ran up and down the "Doctor's" road and continued on the trail in the valley doing the loop that I used to take my clinic participants on during our Track workouts. I went down the long hill, tried to follow the main trail but the trail was under a foot of water, I then bushwacked my way along the side trail to the sand hill that we would run up. This was a morass of thick mud that I just didn't think would be passable. I bipassed it and went up the long uphill that brings you to the back of the "Doctor's" property. Traction in the wet leaves was difficult. The deer that have run through here have really chopped up the hill. It wouldn't matter what shoe I had on, it still would have been slippery. The shoes shed the mud quite well, with only a few instances of packing onto the treads. I was just excited to be trying them out. When I got back onto the pavement there wasn't any mud to speak of in the tread.

Wednesday, March 15th Rouge Valley from Twynn Rivers
Such a nice Sunny day, I just had to steal away some time today. Plus I had to make up for not really working out at the dome last night. Decided to hit the Rouge Valley for some hard Fartleks and maybe look for a new trail or two. Found a couple of alternate routes which included some hairy climbs and sketchy descents. Strapped on the shoes for another muddy encounter. The first two kms were a little painful on the side hill off camber trails. I found that once the shoes warmed to my feet, that I couldn't feel the ankle rub anymore. Traction was excellent and the shoes never seemed to fade. I did feel my toes rubbing the front of the shoe on a couple moderate downhills, I guess I am reaching with my toes a bit. I also am feeling the heel strike today. I am not sure if it is because of the increase in effort or because of the cold. I think these shoes are lighter than my Trabucos. Today's run: almost 15km in 1:23 with all the hills that I could muster.

Friday, March 17th Seaton trail, bottom loop
Today I went out in the afternoon warmth of the day. Started by running across the train bridge (always a heart pounder. The trail was a mix of the two extremes; either frozen ice and choppy hardpack or extremely thick and wet floodplain type muck. It was really great running on the flattened soft sand of the beaver meadow. The shoes got wet and stayed wet very early. They do let in water quite quickly, but this isn't a problem. Even stepping in deep mud the shoes stayed on with very little heel lift. I really like the heel fit, it just may take some time to get used to how tight I need to keep these shoes tied. Traction is the soft mud was fair. Shoes felt a little clunky on the scree downhill, I had to take it very easy down the loose rocks.

Saturday, March 18th
Today was the first group run with the new shoes. The conditions were frozen, choppy trail w only a few pockets of mud on the trail. Again, I found that the first km or so with the cold shoes on, they felt hard, and unresponsive. There was a bit of ankle rub on off camber stuff, but only for the first little while until the shoes warmed a bit. Shoelaces needed to be tightened at 4 km. I should consider trying the heel lock lacing. Traction today was excellent, especially going straight up the frozen dirt cliffs that we "found" today.

Tuesday, March 28th
Running on jelly legs from the Around the Bay race, I was both suprized by the generous amount of cushioning that these shoes give. Today I was also feeling every off camber stabbing footstep into the side of my feet. I may have just been oversensitive today, but I had to stop 4 times today in the two hour run to re-tie the laces. They were either too tight or too loose. Traction was really good today even though the trail was really muddy-the sticky snot kind of mud too. I did find that the treads tend to pick up a lot of mud and carry it, especially on the one treacherous downhill I "slid" down today. Positive note: the shoes still look great!