Weird things in the woods

Ran about 14 miles at Clinton Southshore/Rockhaven trails today.  Ran into these little guys about 6 miles in:

Not sure what they were,... too late and in too good of shape for halloween decorations.  Some of them had 

Sunday Night Thoughts

Hadn't been thinking about shoes too much lately, but ran in my Saucony Peregrines today and realized that I'm probably in the market for a new trail shoe.  Granted, I have my 50k PR in peregrines, but I have had a series of issues in them that I'm hoping I can find a shoe that solves these problems:

1. Though billed as the trail version of my favorite road shoe (the Saucony Kinvara) this shoe gives  a lot stiffer of a ride, and the tread looks kind of like a boot.
2. The upper is really heavy-much heavier than I need.
3. The insole does this weird thing where it wraps around my foot-especially around 10-15 miles on days when I'm sweating heavily.  I super-glued them in, but it's not a great solution.
4. They don't drop mud.

So, in researching a new shoe I find this.  Quite promising:http://samwinebaum.blogspot.com/2012/01/introduction-saucony-kinvara-3-and.html. 

Bottom line.. they're coming out with a shoe that's a Kinvara with a rock plate.  the Kinvara TR.  Looking forward to this.


Also, I've been steadily increasing mileage since the beginning of the year, hoping to run big weeks from now until April, and then jump into a half/marathon/ultra or something in April or May.

Finally here's my last long run at the Rockhaven trails at south Clinton lake. We had a lot of rain in the last week, so my winter running season on the Rockhaven trail may be ending soon. The usual running season on that side of the lake lasts from when the poison ivy dies in mid-October until whenever we get the first big snow of the year.  I've had a lot of good runs there, and it gives me some good time to think.  I'll post more on those runs later.



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