So yesterday I headed out to the 3000 ha of the Koeberg Nature Reserve on the Cape West Coast (Eskom Power Station) and had my first run in the Saucony ProGrid Peregrine. Sandy, grassy and loads of gravel, the Peregrine ate it all up.
Built on the same platform as the Kinvara, the Peregrine boasts a 4mm heel drop. Traditional running shoes or the type of shoe that most people run in or are familiar with have a 12mm heel drop. Trust me, the 8mm difference is epic and I am loving life in my flatter shoes. I only run in 4mm heel drop shoes or complete flats.
The Peregrine won the Runner’s World Editors Choice award April 2011, and that’s up against some big names including Brookes, New Balance, Asics, Adidas to mention a few.
The Peregrine has unbelievable traction. The sole is pretty stiff and these shoes are certainly not for the on/off road kind of race. These are serious trail racers that will give you all the grippy confidence of flat out hiking boots at a fraction of the weight. Having said this hey are still responsive and deliver enough feedback but the soles and the lugs were certainly not developed for the urban warrior.
If you steer clear of the tarmac and head for the rugged, not-for-sissy-boys stuff the Peregrine will be hard to compete with.
Xtenex (indeXed-TENsioning-nEXus) is a worldwide patented elastic lace technology that produces adjustable tensioning between shoe eyelets. Xtenex laces have an elastic core and a series of knots along the entire length of the lace at consistent length intervals. Stretch the lace and the knots disappear, allowing you to thread the lace through the eyelets. Release the tension and the knots reappear. More knots between eyelets lessens the tension; fewer knots between eyelets increases tension.
Currently, most laces are not able to provide variable tension as laces are tied by creating a knot at the top end of a shoe. The problem with this way of lacing is that all of the tension sits around the ankle area and that results in a restriction of blood flow and circulation. The problem is compounded by people creating a double knot so as to avoid their laces coming undone.
With Xtenex laces the shoe contours to the unique form of the foot by adjusting the tension between eyelets producing a custom fit every time. Once you have your perfect fit the laces will stay in place and your shoes slip on and off with ease. Xtenex laces eliminate the tightening and restricting pressure at the top of the shoe that leads to foot fatigue, pain, numbness and restriction of natural foot swelling. The Xtenex flexible core expands and every laced shoe becomes a comfortable slip-on.
One of the major problems that I experienced with many other elastic laces was the pressure they placed on the bridge of my foot. Since using Xtenex, I am able to reduce that pressure thanks to the fact that the clever technology allows for adjustable tension at any point along the lace. If you want the most comfortable fit from any shoe, I’d suggest fitting Xtenex to them.
The Saucony Type A4 is essentially the perfect triathlon running shoe. Super light at 189g, they are quite simply the best shoes I have ever run in.
Yes they are great looking shoes and very comfortable, but there’s little doubt that they were designed purely for speed. For more leisurely runs I use my Kinvaras (See my Kinvara review here).
The Saucony Type A4 is truly fast and although I may have mentioned that already it’s really no understatement.
There are also a number of features which give this shoe a certain edge over other racing flats. The sock liner is soft and tight which makes these shoes a pleasure to run barefoot in. As a matter of fact, out of more than 20 shoes I have tried, these are the first that I can run in without getting blisters or drawing blood. That alone is enough to get my excited. However they also have the “hydrator” pad inside the top of the heel which prevents the back of the shoe from slipping. This also means that your laces don’t need to be as tight. Looser laces mean it’s easier to put them on… faster.
The only thing that doesn’t work for me is the elastics which keep the tongue in place. I simply cut mine out because I got blisters thanks to my wide mid-foot.
Other than that, these shoes are absolutely perfect racing flats and possibly even more perfect for triathlon use. I can’t fault them… now that I’ve cut the elastics out.
A lot has been said in recent times about the fact that humans should be running with a more midfoot/forefoot strike. In certain segments of the running community this certainly has taken a firm hold. A midfoot/forefoot strike is said to make for more efficient running and is said to significantly reduce the risk of injury.
Recently launched in South Africa the new Saucony ProGrid Kinvara is one such shoe that was designed to facilitate a midfoot/forefoot strike. Classified as a neutral lightweight trainer the Kinvara is light (218g) and although it may be frowned upon by die-hard minimalist runners for its 14mm forefoot, there is only a 4mm drop from heel (18mm) to forefoot.
Saucony ProGrid Kinvara
This shoe is ideal for those who are looking to experiment with a more midfoot/forefoot running style. I would actually say that this is the perfect (if not only) shoe for those looking to make the transition from traditional running shoes to racer/minimalist shoes. The Saucony Kinvaras are an excellent choice for the “first time minimalist runner”.
Although this shoe might not look like much or even feel like much when you put it on at first, it just gets better the moment you use it for what it was intended for.
Someone asked me what I thought about the Kinvaras after my first run in them. My response:
“At first I wasn’t totally convinced… until I ran in them.”
Yes it is extremely flexible and lightweight/minimalistic, but Saucony have designed a shoe that somehow manages to offer enough support and cushioning to use this shoe for your daily runs.
If you are looking for something a little more supportive however, I’ll let you in on a little secret. Saucony will be introducing the Saucony ProGrid Mirage in 2011, which is basically the Kinvara’s successor, with a heel cup and torsion support added for those who are still not totally convinced.
Saucony ProGrid Mirage
The Saucony ProGrid Kinvaras are exceptional running shoes. If this whole minimalist running thing has got you confused and you’re not sure which way to turn for your next pair of shoes, I would strongly suggest that you try the Kinvaras.
A great article from www.runnersworld.com by Amy Burfoot, 2004
As a teenager, I loved to run barefoot on the Connecticut beaches, splashing through the waves. A few years later, I often ran without shoes while training for the college cross-country season, completing workouts that were the hardest, fastest, most puke-able, and yet most enjoyable of my life.
Those are strange bedfellows: extreme effort and high pleasure. I have wondered if someone was spiking my Kool-Aid, a popular sports drink of the time. Then I close my eyes and recall how my friends and I snuck onto Shennecossett Golf Course as dusk descended. How we giddily removed our shoes, and felt the fairway underfoot. How we ran an undulating six-mile fartlek loop, sprinting and jogging, sprinting and jogging, the summer sweat cascading off our bodies. How we finished, not another gasp of oxygen in our lungs, and flopped onto the 14th green. The kinesthetic memories are fullblown, from the slight chill of the grass on my feet to the heaving chest and the lightheaded dizziness of the effort. Was it the barefoot running that made the memory so vivid?
Famous runners had gone barefoot before us, of course. In 1960 Ethiopia’s Abebe Bikila, the greatest Olympic marathoner of all time, won the first of his consecutive gold medals sans shoes in a world record 2:15:17. My high school coach, “Young John” J. Kelley, was the leading American finisher (19th, 2:24:58) in that 1960 Rome Olympic Marathon, and his descriptions of the torchlit race have always entranced me. Except the part about the stones.
“On the ancient Appian Way, we had to run on huge, rounded cobblestones that were completely unyielding,” Kelley says. “They had no ‘give’ at all. I remember that I was afraid of slamming down too hard on them, and I still can’t imagine how Bikila did it.”
While Bikila was making Olympic history, England’s Bruce Tulloh was running European record times from 1955 to 1967, almost always in bare feet. He ran 13:12 for three miles on grass, and 27:23 for six miles on cinders. Later, Tulloh taught in Africa, coached, wrote books, and ran solo across America (2,876 miles, albeit in shoes). At 68, his mind is as sharp as ever, and he is ever eager for a good barefoot jaunt. “I’ll be running on the beach at Devon this weekend,” he said in early summer. “The only reason that more people don’t run barefoot is that they’re afraid to be unconventional.”
That wouldn’t apply to either Charlie “Doc” Robbins or Zola Budd, both important contributors to barefoot running. Robbins, winner of two USA National Marathon Championships in the late 1940s, completed 50 straight Thanksgiving Day Road Races in Manchester, Connecticut, before calling it quits two years ago. Most Thanksgivings, Robbins went shoeless, though he would resort to a pair of socks if the temperature dipped below 20 degrees.
Budd set a track world record in January 1984 when, just 16, she ran 5000 meters in South Africa in 15:01.83, more than six seconds under Mary Decker’s existing record. (Too bad Budd is better known for her fateful collision with Decker in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic 3000 race. Decker was thrown horribly off-balance, and twisted and fell to the infield grass.)
Interest in barefoot running seemed to wane until 2001, when Michael Warburton, an Aussie physical therapist and 2:42 marathoner, published an online paper titled, simply, “Barefoot Running.” (You can view the paper at the sports science web site sportsci.org.) In his section on running economy, Warburton points out that the extra weight of shoes on your feet is much worse than a pound or two around your middle. Weight on your feet is subject to constant acceleration and deceleration (runners call these movements “strides”), which have a high energy cost. According to Warburton, research has shown that 100 grams of extra weight on your feet decreases your running economy by one percent. Simple math says that two 10-ounce shoes will make you more than five percent less efficient. That’s a big deal. When you add five percent to Paul Tergat’s marathon world record 2:04:55, he’s a 2:11 guy, which doesn’t net him enough for a warm bowl of ugali in the Kenyan highlands.
But we don’t think much about running economy when we buy a pair of new running shoes. First we want protection from harmful objects. And then we expect cushioning and/or motion control–the stuff of injury prevention. But this is where things get strange, because scientific studies have had a hard time proving that shoes represent a big step forward from the naked foot.
To learn what’s going on inside the body, which, after all, is where we runners develop all our stress fractures, Achilles strains, and so forth, a medical team needs to take measurements from–ouch!–inside the body. I’ve actually seen this take place in a biomechanics lab, and it’s a blood sport. The combatants typically include a mad Ph.D. scientist and several grad students (a.k.a. the “volunteers”) desperate to finish their degree work. (“Sure, I’ll be happy to let you drill a metal accelerometer into my shin bone before my next treadmill run,” says a grad student.) The results of several of these intrusive experiments have shown little change in shock absorption or motion-control in shod versus unclad feet. This apparent difference seems hard to believe. All that foam padding and all those posts, bridges, and dual-density midsoles have to be doing something, right?
Of course they are; they’re deceiving the body. Here’s an explanation, based on your body’s proprioceptive abilities–that is, the way it can communicate up and down all pathways. When you run barefoot, your body precisely engages your vision, your brain, the soles of your feet, and all the muscles, bones, tendons, and supporting structures of your feet and legs. They leap to red alert, and give you a high degree of protection from the varied pressures and forces of running.
On the other hand, when you run in socks, shoes, inserts, midsoles and outsoles, your body’s proprioceptive system loses a lot of input. “This has been called ‘the perceptual illusion’ of running shoes,” says Warburton. “With shoes, your body switches off to a degree, and your reaction time decreases.”
The way I see it, there’s a simple explanation for the high IQ of barefoot running: We descended from the trees to walk and run this planet’s surfaces six million years ago, and we’ve had time to get really, really good at it, from the soles of the feet to the top of the brain.
By now, you might be worried about your Reebok stock or your friends who work at the local running store. I wouldn’t sweat it too much, at least not to judge from the number of bare feet I saw at my last big road race (zero). Even though a guy named Ken Saxton is running a marathon a month this year (barefootrunning.org), I doubt his preference will take off the way instant messaging, low-carb diets, and The Apprentice have.
Besides, many podiatrists think it’s dangerous. “Most of my patients aren’t worldclass runners,” says foot doctor Stephen Pribut, DPM. “It wouldn’t make sense for them to risk getting twigs and glass in their feet. And I think some soft surfaces increase plantar fascia and Achilles problems. Of course, what doesn’t kill you might make you stronger.”
This a-little-medicine-is-good-for-you perspective is shared by a number of other podiatrists, physical therapists, and coaches. Their theory: Modern man does spend too much time in shoes, and this weakens many of the foot and leg structures. To correct this, you can walk barefoot around the house, do simple foot strengthening exercises, or run a few barefoot miles a week on safe, secure surfaces.
And then put your shoes back on before you hit the pavement. Even Abebe Bikila gave up his barefoot ways. Four years after winning in Rome, he wore Pumas in the Tokyo Olympic Marathon. He won again, despite having had an appendectomy 40 days earlier, and set a new world record, 2:12:11.2. Apparently, the shoes didn’t bother him at all.
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