Race Diary: Frank Duffy 10 Mile Race

Race Diary: Frank Duffy 10 Mile Race

Those of us who participated in the Irishrunner 5 mile last month must have been waiting patiently for the next race in the series of the precursors to the Dublin Marathon.

The race itself was great. Following my perfomance in training I set myself a target of completing the race in under 90 minutes. I managed to complete as planned (88 minutes).

My personal best is 86 minutes for the same distance. I have to say I found it extremely hard to keep going in today's race. The weather today was close to what you would wish for, for a perfect race. It was cloudy and a bit of light drizzle here and there. The only downfall was that it was quite humid today. The sun generally stayed away today as it usually does in Ireland.

According to the official commentators from FM 104, there were more than 6000 athletes registered for this race. I came out 2112 overall and in my (over 35 male) category I came 361st. I am probably disappointed by the outcome because I know I can do better and I have done better during training.

Self Evaluation

I have done a lot of training and I do all of the training by myself. This is the second competitive race I have ever participated in. I realized that race psychology is very important. It's quite intimidating to be surrounded by close to 6000 athletes. You do not know what to expect. I could tell that a good deal of athletes were quite experienced from the way they conduct themselves and their demeanor before the race began.

I think this psychologically put me at a disadvantage even before i started the race. When the race kicked off I was in the middle of the 6000 or so sea of runners. I couldn't help but glance at people's feet to see what they were wearing. By far Asics was the shoe of choice for most runners. Incidentally it's the most expensive brand in the local shops. I talked about the psychological influence that the branded shoes give to a racer in my previous post.

I stuck with my 15 euro a pair shoes although I have been training mostly with the Nike. I chose to stick with the tried and tested. During the first few miles of the race there was not much room to overtake or room to run at a faster pace than the people in front of you. My pace was determined by the racers within my vicinity. I thought the initial pace was a little bit slower than what I am usually used to. I like to start with a good 5+ minutes per km because I know that as the race goes on I loose pace slowly irregardless of whether I start slow or fast.

When training I usually like to do much of my work in the first half of the race. I like to go into a comfort zone in the second half knowing well that I have already done enough in the early stages of the race.

Here lies the problem. Most racers seem to find their feet in the later half of the race and many

of them duly did so today. As a result many racers overtook me in the second half.

This affected me pyscholofically. Because I generally train by myself and I am devoid of competitive sessions I was not psychologically prepared to deal with people overtaking me. I lost a lot of pace.

On the other hand one thing that affected possitively was the presence of spectators along the final mile or so. Because you don't want to be seen to be struggling i really kicked up the dust particularly the last 100 meters or so but I guess it was too late.

Dispite this today was a great day and it was nice to see people of all walks of life and ages participate together in today's competition. I salute all the much older people than me who participated today. A good number of them did much better than me. I will take this as motivator to keep going and running for as long as possible.

So I go into the preparation of the next half marathon knowing what my shortfalls are and hopefully correct some of them.

Does the brand name of your running shoes matter?

Runners

A lot has been written about running shoes. The current trend seems to point towards the fact that the more expensive the running shoes are; the better is their return on investment. This is especially so if they were designed by leading Sportswear Gurus like Nike, Adidas, Rebook. Asics, Etc

According to many researches the heel requires much of the foot protection during running because it is this anatomical structure which takes the greatest impact and weight of the body during running.

From my own observation a good number of middle and long distance runners, strike the ground with heel first and then lift their feet off the ground with the toes. I would like to believe I fall in that category as shown on the video below.

During that fraction of a second when the heel is strikes the ground, its reasonable to assume that all the pressure of the body is transmitted through the heel. This should therefore mean that the heel will be put under some significant amount of pressure. One can thus conclude that the heel is the initial contact area during deceleration of the body as it's weight comes crushing under one's leading heel.

I can equate this to an airplane landing as seen in the next video courtesy of Tauntontone.

The last aircraft shows this concept quite spectacularly. As the plane lands it first touches the ground with it's rear wheels before the front landing gear makes contact with the ground. Again the weight of the aircraft is momentarily carried by the real landing wheels before the front landing gear comes into play.

This raises the argument for heel protection. Because of this kinesiological fact, does the heel require more protection that what nature provided it with.

Different sorts of running shoe heels have been designed to protect the heel, in particular and the foot, in general.

This is in spite of the fact that the human race has been running bare feet for centuries with no significant injuries to the leg.

This article makes some interesting reading and put all this into perspective.

I will leave all the research and evidence based staff to the above referenced article.

Experience

In the past year or so I have run with 3 pairs of shoes. I have used the Reebok, plus another 2 cheap shoes whose brand names are Sports and Crane respectively. Crane is the one you can see in the photo besides Nike. I bought the two cheap ones in one of the German discount stores. In addition I have recently added Nike to my collection with the sole purpose of widening the sample size.

Between the 4 of them they have covered more than 500km of the ground and still counting. Have I noticed any difference in their performance? Let us find out!

Price

Each of the cheap pairs did not cost more than 15 euros. The Reebok and the Nike were relatively expensive

Sports- 10 euro, Crane 12 euro, Rebook 40 euro, Nike 60 euro.

You could buy more than 5 pairs of the cheaper runners when you compare with the some premier brands

Longevity

All runners seem to be fairly strong.The Rebook shoe seems to take the Oscar on category of Longevity when i compare the three earlier brands. But then if this is the main reason for selecting premium brands you can buy 5 pairs of the cheaper runners and this will certainly be an advantage on the hygiene front.

Weight

It goes without saying, that weight is vital for running especially competitive. The lighter yet the more protective the shoe is the better it is for running

Here is the league table in terms of weight

A pair of Cranes 250g,

A pair of Sport 300g

A pair of Nike 320g

A pair of Reebok 400g

The Crane is lighter by a mile

Wet weather presents a huge challenge to the runner. If water aggregates inside your runners then definitely you are carrying an extra load that you don't want. Most runners, generic or premium brands seem to have been manufactured with a view to allow air circulation inside the shoe. This seriously makes the shoes rather a water reservoir. I have not worn a pair of runners which is efficient at circulating air inside the shoe while at the same time offering an effective barrier to water entry in the shoe. You could say these two factors are mutually exclusive.

Confidence

Premier brands tend to give you some level of confidence and some positive aura especially in a gym setting or in such public places where you want to impress the girl working out next to you. Besides I am told girls make a quick opinion about you based on the shoes that you are wearing.

If you are the type who depend on public opinion to boost your confidence then certainly the Premier Label runners will be for you.

Appearance

The actual appearance of the runners is not different. The premier brands are of course more recognizable by the wider public because of their iconic brand names and trade marks but when you take away that 'tick' there is not much difference at least to the naked eye. It is a common marketing fact that a good proportion of consumers tend to have a brand loyalty and will believe that their branded shoe is better than the other irregardless of the actual appearance.

The heels of these shoes seem to look the same.

You can hardly tell the difference when you look underneath.

Perfomance

To be honest I have not seen any huge significant difference at least in the short term.
All the pairs have been doing a relatively good job. I did not notice any particular magic bullet with Reebok or Nike I would get the same level of soreness after putting on any of the 4 pairs.

Here is a comparison of running statistics over the same distance when I was wearing Crane on this graph

and when I wore Nike.

There is not much difference in statistics over a short distance

I got the normal soreness that one gets with any new shoes, until the shoes adjust to your foot type and your style of running. I find the current Nike a bit heavy and I am almost afraid of carrying an extra load during the longer distance marathons

My current recession friendly trainers carried me over the 5 mile Marathon.

I may use the lighter shoes for the longer distance because for me I feel light weight is more important. I am rather of the school of thought which believes that the human being is well adapted to running and the emphasis on heel protection is an over exaggeration. (my own point of view)

If the light weight shoes are still alright I will give them a go and use them for the Dublin Marathon. Will let you know if I encounter any feet related problems. Some expects will advice you to get the premium branded runners for a marathon. I will test this wisdom and review accordingly.

I do plan to try another set of cheap ones and possibly a Premier Label runner in order to widen the sample size. In the mean time the jury is out there on whether it is worth shelling out so much money for a pair of running shoes especially in this period of global recession. Is it a mere fashion trend to be buying these runners or it's really worth it, in terms of perfomance?

My experience at least for now is that, it's not worth spending so much on the runners. This may well change when I increase my sample size but for now I have not experienced the advantage.

• This runner business and Premier brands reminds me about 8 years ago when my friend Tarirai and his other friend Anso took me to the cleaners when one day I came to the sports bar wearing a pair of runners that I thought looked cool . I think the brand name was Victory! Just to kick me in the teeth the two guys went about claiming that the runners name was Mike. Has anyone heard about this brand name? Ahh those were the days.

Anyway please let me know what you think about these thoughts. Have you found much difference in the effectiveness of runners. If you did, what where the differences. Note that you are no longer required to be registered in order to leave a comment.

Next blog: Review on Outdoor running Versus Treadmill.

The Running Tally since the blog commenced now stands at 110km

Disclaimer: please note that the views expressed in this blog are views of the writer and they do not constitute expect opinion. They are viewpoints from the blogger's own running experience.