First run in the new shoes

Where: Loose Park (Kansas City, MO)
When: May 24, 2010
Temp: 90F
Humidity: 48%
Distance: 3 miles
Avg. Pace: 9:13/mi

I have been looking forward to trying out my new shoes since they arrived on Saturday. I must admit though, with the temp a balmy 90F, I almost said screw it! I thought better of it and decided that I needed to get my body conditioned to running in the heat. I changed into my running gear and headed out to the park.

Loose park is a beautiful park not too far from "The Plaza" area of Kansas City. It has a pretty nice asphalt running path that is about 1.38 miles long. I can run through the main parking lot, make 2 loops of the path, and be finished with 3 miles. It's also nice seeing all the other runners out there. It's great for running fartleks as well! I've noticed that when attractive women are running toward me, my pace picks up until they can't see me anymore, I then switch back to a normal easy pace :)

The run tonight turned out very well. I was going to try and take it easy but my legs wanted to go. I knew it was not going to be an easy run when my first mile finished in 9:30. I still wasn't breathing hard so I decided to keep it going. Mile 2 felt good as well and I ran it at a 9:24 pace. During mile 3 I started to feel the heat and my heart rate started to raise a little, but when it was finished I saw why. I finished mile three at an average pace of 8:45. I felt surprisingly good, but decided that a third lap would have been pushing it a bit. Overall I was pleased that my average heart rate was 166.

The best part, the shoes were awesome! No shin pain or knee issues during the run. I never even felt the twinge in my right calf that has been plaguing me the past couple of weeks. I'm looking forward to a good 250-300 miles worth of running on these shoes!