Lasse Viren brings old shoes back into the lineup

I found an old pair of trail running shoes in the closet. Found may be the wrong word. I’ve been aware of their presence there. The last time I wore them was for the Mount Wilson Race in 2008, the year I ran my fastest time (so far!) At that time I was still following the industry guidelines as to how frequently to retire your old shoes and “buy” new ones. How dumb could I have been? Even at that time they’d already been semi-retired, being used only occasionally. I’m not sure why I chose to race in them that day but I did and it went well. Now, after taking my last shoes to 1000 miles, I know a few more things about shoes and running. And I believe I can bring these back into my running shoe lineup for many more miles. My current running shoes are fine and good but they’re a little heavy and maybe better for training. Plus they’re road shoes so they’ve got a little less traction. The new/old pair is pretty light and they’ve been proven effective. They’re also a little on the tight side so I don’t think I’d want to wear them for longer than a couple hours – Adidas always run a little small and narrow. But for short to middle distance trail runs they could be just fine. And it just so happens that I’ve got a middle distance trail run coming up at the end of the month – Lasse Viren 20K. I just signed up for this race about a week ago after being reminded about it by one of my friends. I’ve never run this race before but have heard about it for years and have always wanted to run it. So the time has finally come. I don’t know too much about Lasse Viren, the man that the race is named after, other than that he was an Olympic middle distance runner in the early seventies from one of those Scandinavian countries. I only know him from the Prefontaine movies. I’m pretty sure I don’t have to link to Pre from this blog but look him up if you need to. Viren and Prefontaine raced against each other in the Olympics. Then in the late seventies, weirdly, a Finnish scultor/runner started this trail race in Malibu and named it after Viren for some reason and Viren actually raced in it at least once. So, back in the present, this is the 34th running of the race and I’ve got to go fast because there will be a couple people I know there and because well, it’s The Lasse Viren and he would want me to go fast. So that’s why I’ve been digging through my closet to find those magic shoes that once led me to a PR on Mt. Wilson. Plus these shoes! They look really cool! (And they fit in my toeclips!) And looking cool is cool. And part of the fun. They’ve got tons of tread left on them compared to the 1000-mile-shoes and the traction really is noticeably impressive. They’ve got 418 miles on them. Don’t ask me how I know that. I’m going to test run them tomorrow. This could change everything. Did I mention they look cool?!


I can’t wait to go running! Something is happening to me. Something has really shifted. I can’t wait to go running. I can’t wait to go running…