I've talked about having a shoe rotation to our customers for years: different shoes, different jobs, different stimulus for the body. Marathon training is putting that to real work since this is far more mileage than I've run in a long time (checked the logs and I'm currently 4x over last year). I'll admit, working in a running store means my rotation is bigger than most people need, but the idea holds even with two or three pairs: one for easy days, one for long runs, one for racing.
Now that I'm this many weeks into such a long training block. I've been able to use a ton of different shoes (as evidenced by the pic…) Most recently, New Balance’s 1080v15 for easy miles, the SuperComp Elite 6 for tempo and race day, and a mix of long run shoes I rotate through depending on the effort. This past nineteen miler I even swapped shoes mid-run, seven miles in the NB SuperComp Rebel, a new one I wanted to test, then finished out the last twelve in the Asics Novablast, which is a shoe I’m familiar with for long runs already.
Going forward, I have one big long run left on October 4th (13 easy, 7 @ marathon pace), which will be a true race simulation run. So I’m going to lock in nutrition, both the pre-run meal and the during the run nutrition, and I’ll run in my NYC race shoes. It should serve as a good indicator for whether I’m ready or not!