First run with my NEWTON

Here's a summarized translation of the article I wrote for my French website www.wanarun.net Please forgive my spelling and syntax mistakes. My English isn't as fluent as I would like to.

I got my NEWTON RUNNING's Stability Trainer on Thursday and decided to take them to Friday's evening team training. By the way, my team, AC CELLOIS http://accellois.athle.com is looking for a sponsor so if you'be got some spare money you don't know what to do with, let me know !

Why am I THE ideal guinea pig to try out NEWTON RUNNING's shoes ? Easy ! Despite my low weight (65 kg) compared to my height (1m85), I'm a heavy runner. Yes, you can be heavy at 65kg. I just mean that I run on the heels. So if what NEWTON says is right, I should improove the way I run.

On the coach's agenda yesterday : 30 minutes warm-up then 6 x 1000m at 4 minutes per km. The training session started with a 15 minutes ... talk show about the NEWTONs. Being the slowest of the team, everybody told me that now, they will have to ... follow me :-)

Then started the warm-up with my ... Saucony. Hey ! Sir Isaac writes : "one mile or so" for the first attempt so I didn't take any risk. I decided to run the first 1000m with the NEWTON (less than "one mile or so").

First of all, I immediatly found myself very comfortable with them and it didn't take me my usual 10 minutes to get the laces exactly tightened the same on both sides. Great improvement !

Then, on the tracks. During the first 994 meters I kept my usual and wide stride and didn't really find any plus with the Newton, moreover I had my calves tighted out (not sure for the translation). Then I remembered what the French importator told me "shortened your stride and just run natural". The last 6 meters were unsufficient to apply this theory so I decided ... to have an additionnal 1000m. This one was perfect and I found the good body position. For the rist time of my life, I felt "light".

As I had overtook the "one mile or so" by 300 meters, I decided to get back to my old shoes and then I felt heavy, heavy, heavy ... like some sort of elephant ... and even ran 0.5 km lower despite a stronger effort to run. So guess what I did for the last 1000 meters ? I got back to the NEWTON !

And I felt light, light, light ... So light than my coach told me "Fred, at least, now you look like a runner" !!!

This morning, I must confess that I don't feel anything in my calves. No pain at all. Contrarily to what I may have feared.

These NEWTON are FANTASTIC !!! Of course, I have still many things to try out and test : long distances runs, full speed runs (on Tuesday I should do 12x400m maximum speed) and so on ... I want to run the Marathon de Paris in April with them. But I'm already in love with them.