Tuesday Tangents + Ricochet Review!

I’m savoring every last mile I get before running in the snow begins.  Some years here it starts snowing right before Halloween and some years it waits until December so I’m just crossing my fingers we get a few more weeks of fall running.

I listened to the podcast episode of How I Built This with Guy Raz with the founders of Reddit and it was REALLY interesting!  During marathon training I pretty much only listened to running podcasts because they help my mental game but it is fun now to listen to random non-running ones.

Here is what my month looks like of training.  The marathon was that first week, two weeks off and then 19 miles this week and 25 next week.  My coach has added strength workouts to the training plan (the blue dots) and little 20 second fast intervals mixed in to some of the runs but other than that, it is all easy paced running 4-5 times a week.

PS I’m really looking forward to putting together a racing calendar for next year!

The girls joined me in doing a few planks (less running= more time to do the extras… and I’ll just get into the habit again so that when marathon training starts again, it will just blend naturally).

Skye prefers to crawl underneath me the entire time I am planking and add an extra challenge to the exercise.

I’ll spare you the details of the rest of the day because it was pretty boring as we are getting back into the routine of things again and caught up!

Time for a few Tangents to share:

*Megan posted this and it is very accurate for me.  My bladder is what gets me out of bed the second my eyes open in the morning.

*Right before we were getting on our cruise last week my sister sent me a text to meet her at Knott’s Berry Farm the day we got off the boat.  They were in Southern California visiting my brother-in-law’s brother and we couldn’t turn down time with them at an amusement park.

*Have you ever been to Knott’s Berry Farm? It has been years since I last went and I had totally forgotten how much fun it was.

*My sister’s little boy tripped right before the picture… he was happy to be there:)

*Andrew and I joined my nephew and nieces on a bunch of the roller coasters (one right after the other because there were zero lines..) and I paid for it that afternoon.  The older I get the more my body can’t handle roller coasters but it was sure fun/terrifying during.  The roller coaster below goes 0 to 82 mph in 2 seconds.  My face shoes what I was feeling.

*Have you seen this?!  Best little girl Halloween costume EVER.  I kind of want to copy this little girl…

*Okay, I love this so so much.

*Wahoo’s is a must anytime I am near one.  I love their fish salad so so much.

*I found an old picture from a sprint triathlon I did 10 years ago… Andrew loves triathlons so I’m wondering if I should join him on a few?  <—That scares me.

*October has been my month of accomplishments.  On the cruise I won ‘best Mom dancer’ on the boat.  I might have embarrassed my family a bit during this achievement but my competitive side came out and I went for it.

*Sour Patch Watermelons on the beach.  Does it get any better?

*I love this picture of her.

*Skye has entered the stage of ‘crawling as fast as a speeding bullet and finding the exact things we do not want her to get into’ so when I get ready she just hangs out in my tub with a toy.  This will probably last a week until she figures out how to turn on the tub water but for now it is working.

*When it starts raining on a walk and you just washed your hair that morning and don’t want to have to wash it again for awhile.  Andrew was amused.

—————————————————————————————————–

I’ve already have my 2nd pair of Brooks Ricochet because of how much I love them.  They are a brand new shoe from Brooks that came out this month and I started using them a few months ago.  While we were in Seattle at the Brooks headquarter this summer they explained the Ricochet as a cross between the Launch and the Levitate… I love both of those shoes so I was beyond excited to try out a shoe with the best parts from two of my favorite shoes combined.

The Ricochet comes in at $120 (The Levitate are $150 and the Launch 5 are between $75-$100 so even the price is a mix between the two:).

I have used the Ricochet for every type of workout besides track workouts.  I’ve gone up to 22 miles in them and absolutely loved them for my 2 x 6 miles at MP workout.  They’ve accompanied me for mile repeats, tempos, hills, easy runs, long runs… everything.  I was planning on wearing them for the marathon because I love them so much BUT then chose to wear the Hyperion.  I made this switch simply because the Hyperion are much lighter (5.4 oz) and they just felt like my marathon shoe.  The Hyperion are not a shoe I would do all of my training in because they don’t have a lot of support and with marathon training, I needed shoes that could keep me injury free doing all of the different types of runs each week (I rotated mostly through the Ricochet, Levitate and Launch for this last training cycle).  Maybe training in a bit heavier shoe and racing in a light one helped me out too…

The Ricochet are 9.2 oz (the Levitate 2 is 9.9 oz) and they are a neutral shoe. The purpose of this shoe is to ENERGIZE you which I definitely feel when I put them on.  When I wear the Ricochet I feel a bounce in my step.  The Ricochet have BioMoGo DNA and DNA AMP midsoles which are made for ENERGY RETURN.  “You give.  Ricochet gives back.”  They definitely have the responsive feel that I love in a pair of running shoes.  When I feel flat, these help make me feel springy again.  I fell in love with the bounce of the Levitate and while the Ricochet doesn’t have quite has much technically, I don’t actually notice a difference between the two shoes in terms of bounce.  It is a high mileage shoe, you will get plenty of mileage on it.  They are a bit more narrow than the Levitate along with a little less flexibile but I think both of those things help me to run faster in them vs the Levitate.

The upper of the Ricochet is made of Fit Knit which is extremely comfortable and shapes to my foot well.  It gives my foot a sense of being locked in/secure with a bit of a give from the stretch.  The knit makes the shoe very breathable which I love in a shoe. The arrow point pattern on the bottom of the shoe helps you to move from heal to toe quickly and maybe it’s the placebo effect for me… but I feel like it helps me to twist my foot out less (naturally my toe points out).   I used these shoes in the rain a few times and the rubber on the bottom was great for traction.

The very first time I wore them (for a 19 mile long run with 3 x 3 mile intervals) I did get a blister on the back of my foot.  I was wearing socks that didn’t go up very high and so the black portion rubbed the back of my ankle.  Every time that I’ve worn them since then I have chosen taller socks and have not had any blisters since then.  I just needed a bit of sock in between the shoe and my foot because the back does move a tiny bit while running.  That is the only negative thing I can think of them.  I judge a shoe by how often I think about it during the run and that is the only thing that has popped up during the run besides thinking I love the speed that I get from them.

Don’t they just look fast too?  I look for the Levitate for a more comfortable ride when I need my shoe to give me some energy because I’m feeling flat… I look for the Ricochet for an even more springy ride to help me to go faster.

—————————————————————————————————–

The winners from my 8 years of blogging anniversary (ps I read every comment, thank you so incredibly much)!

The Brooks shoes go to: MEL!

The $50 gift card of their choice: KRYSTAN!

—————————————————————————————————–

Does your bladder get you up in the middle of the night or just in the morning?

Rollercoasters?  Yay or nay?  If you like them… where do you think the best ones are?

Do you like to dance or not so much?

-On one of our first dates Andrew warned me before things get any more serious that he hates to dance.  He had learned how much I love to dance and just wanted to prepare me that he wasn’t going to join me;)

What color are your toes right now?  Do you paint your toes or not so much?

-Hot pink.