The rains came, but the temps were in the 60s, so it was not all that uncomfortable to be out there running. It was just wet and soggy while running.

I had walked with Bennie down-back and gotten fairly muddy, so I decided to run down to Pepin, but not attempt anything overly hard, since I had a long run yesterday and was scheduled for an easy recovery day.

Bennie wasn’t all that impressed by the rain and muddy sections.

One thing that I have been searching for is a recovery/easy run shoe to alternate in with my Beacon 2s. I hate running in the same shoes multiple days in a row and prefer to have a rotation going, especially after wearing a pair on a long run the day before. Unfortunately, I haven’t found a pair of daily trainers to add in that work all that well for me.

So today, I dug out my Nike Zoom Fly v1s, the same shoes that I was wearing the day that I injured myself back on June 5th. As much as I liked them, there is something about being injured in a pair of shoes that makes me meechy about running in them again. I know that it might be baseless, but it is how I feel about things.

The ZF v1 to me feel more like a daily trainer than SP or later versions, so instead of leaving them under the dresser, it was time to figure out if they were part of the problem and go away, or part of the solution and get back in the rotation.

Another thing is that I actually love running in the warm rain and today was just about perfect for wet weather running.

I started out easy, quickly got into wet t-shirt mode and soaked down shoes. I might have splashed around in a few puddles along the way 😉

And then the rains came a bit more seriously…err downpour for about five minutes down on Pepin. I just ran comfortably and even coming back up Philbrick Hill, I maintained a consistent effort and a decent stride.

I did pick it up a little more on the final Philbrick stretch down to the Upper Gate, but nothing all that serious or fast.

Overall, it was a good recovery run where I got to stretch out the legs a bit after yesterday’s long run and got to splash around in the puddles.

How did the ZF v1 do?

Exactly what I wanted. They were comfortable going slower and I really like the way they felt going down the hill and the extra little pop coming back up was noticeable, especially while going slower. I am pretty sure that I have found my “other” trainers for my rotation. A very good thing.