Sometimes your body just knows what it wants/needs to do versus what you had planned on the schedule. Today was supposed to be something longer…usually that means 8+, but even though I took yesterday off, the legs felt a bit beat up and we were tired enough that we slept in more than an hour than we the time we usually get up.

Which meant that I wasn’t all that enthusiastic about a longer run today. However, I did have some questions about the Nike Zoom Fly SPs and how they would feel on the road. I have run in them on the track and treadmill, but hadn’t taken them for a road run.

While they are a pair of “go faster” shoes, I figured that I needed to do a road test in them.

I hadn’t done the Middle Road Loop for a while, so that seemed like it would be a good test of the SPs with lots of hills and the dirt roads down-back. It was cloudy, temps in the 60’s, but high humidity, not an ideal day for a run, but better than it usually is during August.

At the start I wasn’t sure about whether I wanted to run faster or if I just wanted to zone out and get to the end when I got there. So I started out slower and let the body tell me what it wanted to do.

When I started down the Philbrick Hill, the body decided that it was time to get going and I was able to pick up the pace pretty well. Going down a pretty steep grade, the SPs did exactly what I wanted. I did tie my segment CR down Shepard with a decent effort, but not a hard effort, so that felt pretty good.

Going along the Middle Road, I kept things at the comfortably hard level and pushed the downhills a little more than usual. I did like the way the SPs felt once I got on the dirt roads. They have more than enough cushion and the plate protected my foot from any rocks that I “accidentally” stepped on. Although I am pretty sure that I wouldn’t want to use them if the dirt road was wet.

Even though I hadn’t planned on running this fast today, the body was into it and it didn’t feel like I was getting into the well. It was enough that it was as far as I can remember the second fastest time – ever – for this course and somewhere in there I managed a 24:05 for a 5K, which is just under 30 seconds slower than my 5K race the other night on a much flatter course

It is not an easy course by any stretch of the imagination. To do it with the slower start and not planning to run hard, is encouraging and helping to build my confidence.

How about the Nike Zoom Fly SPs?

They did everything that I wanted from them! I had lost some confidence in whether they were the “go faster” shoes that I was looking for when I started using them on the track. Where they felt “sloppy” in the heel. However on the roads – WOW!!!, just the right amount of cushion for this old heel striker and a lot more snap/pop or whatever you want to call it on toe off.

The SPs are not a track shoe for me, but on the roads they shined today for me and I plan on wearing them the next time that I race. It was just a completely different feeling from the NB 890v7 to the Zoom Fly SP today and it was the SPs that shined.

A surprisingly good run that I didn’t expect at all before I started and completely blew away my post 60 times for that course. It is great when those kind of runs happen, but I also have to make sure that I don’t overdo and stick somewhat to the script, to help me make stay healthy.

Good runs are great, but focusing on the long-term progress is much more important.