Trail, Snow, Ice, Dark

I would not have done this in even your typical trail shoe. I have taken a pair of Low Profile Trail Shoes and zero dropped them with my local cobbler. I have created a zero drop running shoe through eliminated or cutting out the additional heel midsole height.  There is a little Wikipedia post on zero drop out there that discusses this. Tonight I went for a run in the Shadow of Mt. Timpanogas in Utah. It was a balmy 43* when we started and cooled a little, but never really too much. There was not much snow on the ground at the trail-head, however, as we accented up the mountain landscape the snow pack thickened and we were post holing a bit through about 6″ of softer snow.
We lost the trail for a time. We saw a beautiful sunset and then as we descended down we were bushwhacking through snow and brush. It had gotten dark by this time. I had great feel for the ground and came down rather smoothly amidst not being able to see as well as normal, running in occasional deep snow, and muddy terrain. With my zero drop trail shoes I had great proprioception keeping me balanced and flowing with the mountain trail and whatever it was going to throw at me. Twelve months ago (before discovering the zero drop concept) I would have ended with rolled ankles, scraped up face and hands from loss of balance and maybe more (let alone the horrid achy knees I once had).
This again attests to me the importance of having the right shoe for the job. I Run Natural and always intend to from now on. I believe in barefoot running and employ it when possible – if I had tonight I would maybe not have any toes though so thanks to my merino wool socks and zero drop shoes for traction and warmth. What a fantastic run.
Run Natural

This entry was posted on Friday, February 5th, 2010 at 3:24 am and is filed under Minimalist Shoes, Technique. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.