Shoe Review: Mizuno Wave Rider 18

Disclaimer: Mizuno sent me a pair of Wave Rider 18 to test out. That said, the opinions here are my own.

There’s nothing better than coming home to a new pair of shoes that the mail person left on your front step. In this case, it was Mizuno’s new Wave Rider 18. Yippee!

New shoes! It’s like Christmas in October – we’ll call it Octmas.

First off, I must confess that even though I live in Texas, I’m bit of a hippie.

Yes, we dressed like hippies for a recent mud run. Why not?

And since I’m hippieish, I like how this shoe is based on a Japanese concept called ‘Hado’. They say that means, “the intrinsic vibrational life force energy that promotes powerful transformations.” Mizuno says they try to harness the transformative power possibilities of every run in this shoe. Like I said, I like that kind of hippie dippie stuff.

I assume that’s the Japanese translation.

I must also admit that I always wished I lived on the beach and surfed all day. But I’m landlocked in Texas, and so I like the idea of thinking of the roads as waves and the shoes as my board. Wave rider!!

Anyway, once I put these shoes on, one thing immediately stood out to me – these shoes are STURDY. I haven’t put many miles on them, but I feel like they would hold up for a long time. That said, they’re comfortable enough to allow my feet to bend and move freely. And the thick sole should provide plenty of cushioning during the course of training.

Here’s some specs:

• Type: Neutral
• Midsole Drop: 12 mm
• Weight: 9.2 oz
• Cushioning: Med
• Pronation: Normal
• Wide/Narrow: Available in Wide

And here’s some of Mizuno’s Key Features:

• An ideal heel fit and secure midfoot embrace make this lightweight trainer feel like a part of your foot.
• The parallel Wave in the heel, lightweight U4ic midsole and optimal amount of forefoot flexibility all work together to make every stride smooth and flowing.

If you had the Wave Rider 17, here’s what’s new in the 18’s:

• Refined toe-spring delivers a smooth, effortless toe-off
• Upgraded premium sock liner provides more rebound and resiliency at every foot strike
• New outsole design with added durability and shock attenuation

On my feet and ready to surf!

Now the important part…how do they look??? Well, as you can see in the pics, they are pretty slick. If you went to Auburn University, I’m sure you’ll love the colors of the shoes I was sent. I’m not complaining, but my only wish is that they had sent me the green ones (green is my favorite color).

The green ones.

And for the final factor – coolness. When I first put these on to walk around the house, our 5 year old boy looked at me for a minute and then said, “You’re new shoes are pretty cool.” High praise indeed! As we all know, kindergartners are known for their fashion sense and honesty.

Besides fashion, he’s also an expert on running.

Now me personally, I always like to go to a running store to try on the shoes before I buy them. Each brand/style will differ slightly in size, feel, etc. I like to make sure I get the exact right fit. But these were sent to my by the company without me ever trying them on first, and so far, I think I lucked out.

How bout you? Have you tried the Wave Riders? What do you think of them? What do you think of the colors/design?

-Scott

Hell Run #blog

The Hell Run took place in Fall of 2011 in Dallas – well, that’s what they said.  It was actually a pretty long drive to Middle of Nowhere, Texas.  But we made it there eventually, and got our run on.  My sister did this event with me and our dad took some pics and vids, which I put together in the short video seen here:

It was another in a long line of adventure races that seem to be popping up everywhere.  But it was fun and challenging.  The free beer was nice, and in addition to shirts and medals, we also got capes.  Everyone needs a cape, I suppose.  Funny thing is that I had already run 15 miles that morning, but I still looked better at the finish than this guy did, hahaha:

Anyway, not much more to say.  I think the videos pretty much sum it up.

Holla!

National Mudrunner’s Association Mud Run

Summer 2012, shortly before the end of the world, I did yet another mud run.  This one was catchily titled – National Mudrunner’s Association Mud Run, or something like that.  It was kind of a cluster.

I registurd because I had a discount through Schwaggle.  Why not?  Could be fun.  But it was rough.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m rooting for these guys to be successful, but the first time out of the gate for them was not so much successful.  Besides the unfortunate title, the course was kind of jacked.  Right at the start you have a few obstacles, then  you basically go on a trail run for the next three or so miles, then you do a bunch of obstacles right at the end.  So no, the obstacles were not spread out along the course.  And no, the course was not marked very well.  Tons of people kept taking wrong turns.  At one point a group of us ran a half mile out of the way before someone told us to turn around.  Berry strange.

I went as a Parrothead for this race.

And the obstacles, oh mama let me tell you.  Some were very difficult, which is fine, but I skipped several of them because the lines were insanely long.  To give you an idea, it took me like an hour and a half to do this 3 or so mile race – and that’s with skipping the obstacles with the Really Long Lines.  Too bad to, cause one was a zip line that drops you in a lake – but talking to people in line, they said they had been waiting over an hour!  No thanks.  I’ll head to the post race beers, thanks.

Free beer helped!

Not to mention that when I arrived at the race, they had run out of goody bags and the t-shirts you were supposed to get for registering.  But they tried to make good.  They sent me a shirt later on after I emailed them asking for one.  And they sent me a coupon for a discount on an upcoming race from their series.  I didn’t register tho.  Like I said, hopefully they’ll get all the kinks worked out and maybe I’ll try them again down the road.

Mud Medal (it all didn’t smell like mud)

The reason I don’t go to new restaurants is that I know it usually takes them a while to figure out how to make it run smoothly.  I’d rather go then.  I should apply the same logic to races I register for.  Best of luck to them tho!  Hope to see you down the mud trail.

Peace out home slice!

 

Hero Rush

6-16-12 – Irving, TX – I ran in the Hero Rush adventure, mud, race, thingy.  I enjoy doing these types of runs – they break up the monotany of a simple 5k.  Plus, they offer unique challenges.  Plus, I get to wear a costume since it’s not going to be very competitive – they’re more for fun for me.  Plus, you get a medal…I like getting medals.

This particular race was firefighter themed.  So all the obstacles had something to do with firefighting, coincidentally enough.  I’ve worked for several years making videos for firefighters and paramedics, so I get it and I respect it.  And one of my best friends was a firefighter who was killed in the line of duty.  I decided to wear the shirt from one of his stations during the race.  I also wore a child’s fake fire helmet, until I lost it somewhere on the course.

Before the race with my friend Shelley who also ran.

The obstacles in these things keep getting progressively difficult.  There were some tuff ones in this race.  In fact, the one I was most looking forward to we had to skip cause some lady fell off of it and hurt herself just before we got to it.  It was a zip line.  I wanted to zip it up.  Oh well.  Say la vee.

I won’t get into all the obstacles as that would take too long, but I will say that it was a mistake to sign up for the 11 am wave of runners.  I figured that would give me time to sleep in and drive to Irving.  I didn’t anticipate the backup of racers from the earlier waves who had caused queues to form at most of them.  I was expecting to take 30-40 minutes for the race, try doubling that.

Anyhoodle, I had fun.  And as these races usually culminate with (a fire pit), I fabulously jumped over.

I knew a camera was watching.

 

And the medals were kind of cool.  Like I said, I like medals.

I know the image is flipped. Byproduct of Instagram. Too lazy to fix it in photoshop.

 

That’s it, short and sweet today.  Peace out homeys.