A bit of retail therapy and Running Shoes Galore!

After a bad morning at work I made the mistake of going into Pete Blands at lunchtime and ended up buying a pair of Hoka's!

I have been researching running trainers on the internet for several days! 

My current shoe of choice for short runs are Inov8 Road X's and I am currently on my third pair! 

However, last year whilst training for my first full marathon I discovered that these are only good for me for distances up to a Half Marathon. Running in these further than this resulted in me having sore feet and painful calves. 

I invested in another pair of running shoes and I trained for and ran my first marathon in ASICS Lady Gel-Nimbus 14's. Although I have not had sore legs or any blisters from these shoes I have never felt truly "at one" with them like I do my Inov8's. 

I have had 2 pairs of these shoes and on both pairs the backs have broken down really easily. As I had had this problem with my first pair I made a point of putting the new ones on very carefully ensuring I didn't squash the back at all and the same thing happened.

I am currently training for my second marathon and needed new running shoes.  I have always resisted even considering Hoka's as I hate the look of them (Clown shoes come to mind!) and many people have put me off by calling them "cheats" shoes.  However, after hours of research I decided they might just be the shoe for me.  

Apparantly they are good for people with foot injuries and one website said ... "This is a forefoot striker’s dream shoe".  

Inov8's are minimal shoes designed for forefoot strikers so I am hoping that the Hoka's might be my long distance dream shoe! 

After looking at and trying on at all the different styles of Hoka's I decided that I could possibly bear to wear the "Kailua Comp" ones as they look fairly "normal" and a lot less clown-like than the others! 

In the end there were two things that convinced me to buy Hoka's. 

The first being when I discovered that the name Hoka One One (pronounced Ho-kah Oh-nay Oh-nay), means “Time to Fly” in Māori!  I definitely want to fly! 

The second was when I was told all the staff in Pete Bland's have been converted and all run in Hoka's and that the winner of the 2013 Windermere marathon wore them too!

 Maybe this was just a sales pitch and I'm being gullible but I will never know if I can fly if I don't give them a try!

Unfortunately tonight is a circuit training night so I won't have the opportunity to give them a go, but I will keep you informed with how I get on!

I will sneak them into my running shoe collection and hope my husband doesn't notice the addition!