I haven’t posted here for a while for two reasons. One, I have had no athletic accomplishments, and two (and perhaps the cause of one), I have had no time. Right now I am actually on break; we have about 72 hours off every October, and given that in boarding school you are lucky to get a single day off on the weekend it feels good. I have actually run 30 miles in three days. My comeback begins! (Of course it ends the day after tomorrow…)
Anyway, one thing I do have to write about is my favorite shoes. And while there are not yet laws about disclosure for bloggers, I feel I should get that out of the way (incidentally, anyone out there know by WordPress is flagging words like “bloggers” and “WordPress” as misspelled?) just in case. Here goes. Salomon, which continues to give me skis and boots, also makes shoes for trail running. They are great on hard core trails, if I ever have time to go out for 6 hours in the White Mountains again they are totally what I will wear, but I don’t wear them for mixed road/trail training. Reebok used to give me free shoes in exchange for feedback, but apparently they don’t consider “[expletive]! These shoes [expletives]! The [expletive] responsible for these [expletive] should [expletive] and [expletive] in [expletive].” to be constructive criticism. To their credit, Reebok did give me shoes in exchange for that opinion, but they haven’t asked me again since.
Finally, Retailer’s Union, my running club, gives me Mizuno shoes. They are okay.
The shoes I am finally excited about are the Asics Gel Speedstar. I was an Asics fan all through high school and college, from the Gel Lyte III through to the Gel Freaks. But then they introduced the Trussic Bridge, which aggravated my flexor hallucis longus to the point that I could no longer run in Asics. I tried Pearl Izumi, I tried lots of Nikes. I found some decent Loco shoes which were promptly discontinued. This is typical of most shoe companies, but Loco exists for the exact purpose of not doing this sort of thing. And then they did it to me! What kind of people are these? They are a disgrace to the good state of New Hampshire!
Back to the Speedstar. It is light, responsive, gimmick-free, fairly durable outsole, medium width without allowing your foot to slide back and forth. Did I mention it is light? I love light shoes. And simple shoes. And there is something wrong with a world in which I have had to wait 8 years between well-designed lightweight running shoes. But I have four pairs now, and I might buy some more. And with the amount of training I have time for lately, four pairs of shoes will last me two years.

Too many nights of staying up late planning and grading homework. Too little sleep. Two kids to get back to sleep and to keep up with when I’m not teaching. A school full of kids with germs from all over the world. Of course I have a bad cold that I can’t shake. Of course I have run all of six miles this week. And of course I haven’t had time to write in my blog.

It will get better. Someday. Right now I just need to go to sleep.

Oh–that’s right. I’m on duty in the dorm tonight. Sleep is three long hours away…