Monday, May 17, 2010

Montrail Mountain Masochists. 3 runs. 3 conditions. ALL GOOD!


Wow. If you pronate at all, this is the trail running shoe for you. I'm actually about to embark on suckering Mrs. AK into letting me buy the gore-tex version also. They're sooooooo good at holding a line, and I have very few complaints thus far. I've run in them 3 times so far, all at 5 miles a piece.

(for the unboxing, look here)

Run 1: Warm and Dry
I love these shoes when it's warm out. They breathe like a champ! I felt like the padding was more than adequate for the hard dirt, rocks, and roots of this 5 miler. Everything from single track to horse trails, all were comfortable in the Masochists. One complaint, when going donwhill, they tend to force you into heel strike rather than mid to forefoot strike. I'm not a huge fan of this, as it tends to put more stress on your knees (the closer to 180 degrees when your foot strikes the ground, as compared to your hip, the worse the stress... in many, many magnitudes). With a little practice, I was able to modify my foot strike to minimize the superfulous stress.

Run 2: Mud, Grass, Flat as a pancake
While camping at Chain O' Lakes State Park, IN, Mrs. AK and I went for a run. I forgot how boringly flat Indiana is. Plus trails are mostly grass... and grass is dewy and muddy in the morning. The masochists did just fine, of course so would have my Mizuno road shoes.

Run 3: WET, pouring rain, Technical as you get in NE OH
What an amazing run! You can really judge the inteligence of a runner based on his or her decisions as what terrain to run in what conditions. Count me a fun loving idiot, because in a disgusting mess of a rain storm, I decided to go for the hardest, technical run I could find. My 5 mile run was full of sand, rocks, tree roots, hills, and some nasty, sloppy terrain. See the attached video for the insane traction these suckers throw up on the slippery rock. Albeit it was sandstone, yet still very, very slippery! So much fun to sprint up a 50 degree incline rock, for about 15 feet. They held a beutiful line and didn't let me slip until going back down and only when I hit the 70 degree decline. How in the world did these suckers manage to have such a great rock plate, beautiful grip, and breathe so insanely well? Well done Montrail



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