Reading Roundup

Well heres a recap of the blogs, articles, and other stuff that Ive been looking at this week.

First off the article by at Runblogger on brooks entering the minimalist shoe market perked my interest. All of my shoes to date have been from brooks and i have to say that on the whole ive been very happy with them. They seem to have a toe box that accomodates my mutant toes. Im planning to try and move to more minimalist shoes after i complete my first marathon in Vienna. So ill be looking foward to what Brooks has to offer.

I was also doing some research into Compression wear, in particular compression shorts. Ive already decided that i should invest in some compression sleeves for my calfs but was wondering if compression shorts might not be a good idea for Vieena. I found the following two articles quite good, Compression Shorts: Are They Worth the Hype? at No Meat Athlete, and How do Compression shorts work? at livestrong. Im was still undecided until i saw that next week a local discounter will have own brand compression shorts, and tops on special, at a price that cant be passed up.


I also watched a video series from a natural running symposium that i stumbled over on youtube.

The Natural Running Symposium took place in October of 2010 at the Maine Running Company. Danny Abshire from Newton Running, Kirsten Buchanan from Impact Sports Medicine and Jamie Raymond from Raymond Chiropractic joined John Rogers to talk about barefoot and natural running in front of a crowd of about 60 people.

The complete series including the Q&A can be found here. I found it quite interesting, In particular the differention between barefoot, minimalist and natural running. Personally i think i agree with Kirsten Buchanan that id say barefoot is natural running, and would rather call what newton evangelises as forefoot running. However i do think you can class all three as promoting a natural running style.


I was also interested to see that there have been changes to the Boston Qualifying Times, and registration process. Personally i dont have a problem with the changes to the times, just means im going to have to traing even harder to be one of the privilaged few that get to run Boston. I also see no problems with the stagered registration process, after all IMHO its a race for the best and most commited, not those with the best internet connection on registration day. Oh yeah, looks like runnign Boston has entered my head as a long term goal... or at least to BQ