Shoe Review & Running Roulette

I have a few mini blog posts to share with you today:

Shoe Review: Nike Skylon 11
The things I like most about these shoes are that they're very lightweight and very breathable. The things I don't like are the stiffness of the outsole at the toe area, and the deep grooves in the outsole. While I was running today, rocks kept getting stuck in the grooves of the outsole. If you saw me on the corner of Bissonnet and Montrose today, kicking lamp posts and scraping my shoe on curbs, I did not step in poop. I was trying to scrape the rocks out of the grooves of my shoes. I will put my miles in in these shoes, but for next time, I'm going to try to get a light shoe with a flatter outsole. I would buy the Nike Moto 7s again, but they were a limited item apparently, and have been replaced by the Moto 8, which is quite different. Yet another reason to go with a more serious running shoe company next time that doesn't change models so often. I've got my eyes on the New Balance 890s and the Saucony Kinvara and A4.

Running Roulette
I put in 6 miles today in the new shoes out on the popular running route around Rice University. I'm not the biggest fan of this running loop. It tends to be busy, and isn't well lit, so running after dark is not very safe. It's about a mile away from my house, and walking there requires making my way through a bit of traffic. And here is where I rant a bit... sometimes I hate Houston. Two times while I was out today, I almost got hit by cars. I didn't dart out in traffic. Both times, I was leisurely walking across the street when these cars (actually, trucks) decided, nope, let's just go ahead and drive straight at the pedestrian and then come to a screeching halt in the middle of the street. Now, the question is, do I keep up with this route? Am I playing the odds every time I head out for a run in this part of town? Or am I better off driving to the other popular running area at a park that's entirely traffic-free? My other option is to do what I was doing before, and that was doing laps and laps and laps around the other, smaller university where there is less traffic.

The Complete Book of Running for Women
I picked up The Complete Book of Running for Women, while I was out on my walk to the grocery store today. I had read quite a few reviews about this book, and picked it out over a couple other running books for women. I haven't had a chance to look through too much of it yet, but the couple parts I did read were so informative. I think I might just use this book along with the online access to Runners World for running info right now. One of the little sections I read before I went out on my run was about running rate (steps per minute). The book noted that as beginner runners get more advanced, their number of footfalls per minute rises generally from about 160 to 180. One way to better your running off the bat is to focus on increasing your rate. So, when I went out on my run today, I spent the first 15-minutes or so timing/counting my rate, and speeding up my rate. I felt like I was moving a bit spasmically, but I did get my rate up to 180. So far, I like this book and recommend it if you don't already have it.