Phasing out..phasing in..shoes

It is generally recommended for runners to change their shoes after about 400-600 miles or 700 to 1000 Kms of running. I have done over 1500 Kms in my Brooks Defyance 5 - a shoe I switched to in September 2012 after using the Adidas supernova Cushion family of shoes for nearly ten years. Being a neutral runner my shoes wear out fairly evenly. I have used my current pair of shoes (shown below) for 3 full marathons and one half marathon : Mohawk Hudson River marathon in October 2012, SCMM in January 2013, AHM 2013 in August 2013 and Auroville Marathon in February 2013.

The Bangalore Ultra on 9th November 2013 will be the last race with this pair of shoes. In preparation for the two most important races of this running season(perhaps of my running career) I started breaking into a new pair of Brooks Defyance 5 last week. I will be running the Mumbai marathon on 19th January 2014 and Boston marathon on 21st April 2014 with this pair shown below.

Having done one tempo+cool down run of 9Km and a longish run of 27Km with the new pair of shoes it seems quite comfortable. Plan to switch to it completely after the Ultra next week.

Some more posts giving guidelines for changing shoes:
When to retire a running shoe
How often should I replace my running shoes?
How often should you change your running shoes

Less than a week to the 7th Bangalore Ultra

Looking forward to completing  my 7th consecutive year of 50Km or longer run at the Bangalore Ultra on Saturday 9th November 2013. SCMM in Mumbai ,the 10K in Bangalore and the Bangalore Ultra are three events that I have run every edition.  The first five editions of Bangalore Ultra were held in a trail at Hesarghatta . In 2012 the race moved to a new route in the bamboo forest off Hennur road. The first edition in 2007 was an out and back loop of 6.5Km  each way- so runners ran multiples of 13Km. The ultra runners ran 4 loops to do 52Km. In subsequent years at Hesarghatta the route was standardised to an out and back loop of 6.25Km each way so that participants ran multiples of 12Km. And then from 2012 the new route at Hesarghatta is 12.5Km out and back for a loop of 25Km. 

As in the past I do not plan to race at the ultra. That is, I plan to run at a moderate pace without pushing myself too much. The intent is to reduce chances of injury and conserve energy for the two important races of the season , that is, SCMM on January 19th  2014 and the Boston marathon on April 21st 2014. Depending on how it goes in first half of the race my goal would be to do better than the time of 5:07:31 in 2012 - in any case keep it below 5:25; My 50Km timings over the years has been  5:50 in 2008, 5:22:29 in 2009 and 5:24:17 in 2011.

My strategy will be run at an average pace of under 5:30/Km to complete the 1st 25Km in under 2:30 and then pace myself comfortably to try and finish in around 5 hours. Followed the same last year and did the first 25Km in 2:19:19; however slowed down considerably in the second half . This was due to the lingering fatigue from my first sub 3:40 race at Mohawk Hudson River marathon on 7th  October 2012 just 5 weeks before the ultra. This year the gap between my last FM at Hyderabad and the Ultra is much more (11 weeks) so I hope to achieve a timing of just under 5 hours.

The 50Km at the Ultra  will replace the 2nd of the five 32Km long runs that are part of my 16 weeks 'Run Less,Run Faster'  training program from FIRST for SCMM on 19th January 2014 -  I anyway convert one of the five  32Km  runs (usually the last one)  into a longer one of 36Km