519

          So here in Georgia we had one last cold snap last week when low temps fell into the mid-20s. Balmy for some, pretty chilly for us.

  

         What it meant for me is that I got out my Smartwool socks for the first (any probably only) time this season. There’s a fair amount of yellow color to these socks and it showed through so that when I bent down to begin my prerun stretch I noticed something:

I managed to blow a hole in the forefoot of the right shoe.

          These were my Saucony Ride 3 shoes that I got in June of 2013 when we lived in Tuscaloosa. The wife and I went to one of the outdoorsy-type stores to get her some sandals, and I my eyes lit up when I found the Rides on sale for about $30 in a size 9. That is a deal you just can’t pass up.

            This was the end of an era when many shoes were larger and foamier, and as a result bulkier. The Ride 3 had EVA foam in the midsole and progrid cushioning. The Runner’s World write up shows them being pretty stiff and having a 15-millimeter heel-to-toe differential. That feels about right. Of course now their shoes have a drop of 8 mm, the shelf isn’t as high, and they’ve got the supersoft Everun foam in there so that you feel like you’ve got a pillow on each foot.

           

forefoot treads are pretty well done for

            My first run with the new kicks was on June 26, 2013 when I headed out for a sweaty seven-miler and did five miles at 8:15 pace. The last ride (see what I did there?) was a neighborhood four-miler on a cool January morning a few months ago. They got some desert work when I went to see my folks in El Paso last summer, giving me my first real taste of summer running in the southwest.

the sockliners are out, as I used Green Superfeet
inserts in these neutral shoes

            I ran in them for almost four years and 519 pain-free miles overall. Then they just start to come apart. Pffft. If you can’t judge a football recruiting class until three or four years down the road, maybe it’s OK to wait a similar length of time to review a shoe.     

            They did right by me. Great shoes. Seriously.