17th April: Karrimor Pace Trail 2

With the forthcoming summer of ultras looming large upon the horizon, kicking-off in a matter of weeks with the Jurassic Quarter, I’ve found myself a new pair of trainers for wearing-out on the trail.

As the trail dries-out through spring into summer I move away from my trusty More Mile Cheviot’s and their hardcore tread on the sole to something that is a bit more ‘intermediate’: A trainer that offers grip on the mud still to be found after a summer’s rain on the trail, but one that is also comfortable enough to run in over hardened surfaces - something that Cheviot’s certainly aren’t, and nor were they designed to be!

In my quest for the best ’bang for my buck’ I’ve picked-up another pair of Karrimor’s - this time their ‘Pace Trail 2’ model in black to cope with the summer mileage.

I’ve found with Karrimor that they tend to ‘ape’ the design of Salomon, Inov8 and other ‘premium’ brands but at an rrp of around £20-£25 rather than the £60-£100 you would pay for the premier marques… Yes the ‘build’ quality does not seem to be as good as the premium brands, but they certainly are not 3 or more times worse, so they will always work-out far better in the value per mile stakes. Grip-wise they do not wear-down too quickly either - it always seems with me to be the uppers that give-out first, so loss of grip has not been something I’ve experienced so far.

My previous pair of Karrimor’s are over 400 miles to the good and are still surviving, albeit far closer to the end of their life than the beginning, which has motivated me in buying a new pair as I am not sure whether to trust them to not finally disintegrate over an ultra distance. One thing I don’t want is to end-up with a DNF through early avoidable trainer issues!

As I always do, I’ve put some sorbothane shock-absorbing insoles into them to help with lessening the impact when 15 stone of idiot comes in to contact with the ground over the forthcoming runs. Safe to say I’m looking-forward to getting some decent mileage out of this new pair over the next few months until I finally manage to kill them off and so long as they get me through the Jurassic Quarter, the UT55 & the Lakeland 50 then I’ll be a happy bunny.

Eat pies.
Drink beer.
Run far.