Finally my big feet have come in handy. Usually I hate the fact that I look like a golf club and that when I see a lovely pair of dainty shoes on a shelf and ask for them in my size, the shoe which is brought out looks like it was made for a drag queen, however today they have made me a very happy girl. I was selected by Inov8, thanks to Adrian Hope, to go to the Lakes for a day and do some shoe testing but to get on this trial you needed to have size 8 feet. I am a size 7 to 8 depending on the shoe but as my X-Talons are an 8, as are my Mudclaws, I asked if I could be included on the test and I was fortunate to get through.
I drove up to the Inov8 offices in Staveley and met Adrian and Albert there, along with all the other staff and shoe testers. There were eight of us testing shoes altogether and I was mortified when I was told that before we went out, we would all have our feet measured for scientific accuracy of the testing. My feet are a disgrace! There’s the odd black toenail, a weird bloody blistery type thing under a big toenail, not to mention the week old blister plaster on the bone at the base of my big toe, which is now all black round the edges (the plaster, not the toe) and flapping about the place. Yuk! My feet measured at size 7.75 for the right foot and 7.5 for the left. I don't think a single person there measured at dead on an 8 which was quite surprising given that we all wore size 8 Inov8 shoes, including the only other girl on the test, Charlotte, whose feet measured at a size 10!
After the embarrassment of the measurement exercise, we all got taken up to the car park at the top of the Kirkstone Pass. As usual at the Kirkstone Pass, the clag was down and it was raining. A course was flagged out taking us part way up Red Screes along a rocky path and then we had to turn off the path for a short grassy loop before coming back down again on a grassy slope by the side of the rocky path, although you could go down the path itself if you so chose but it was incredibly slippery so nobody opted for that route. As evidenced by my Strava trace, I appeared to go down a different way almost every time.
We had eleven pairs of shoes to test in total, so that would mean eleven times of running up and down the hill. They were a mixture of Inov8 shoes and other brands, for example La Sportiva, Salomon and Asics. We had to answer some feedback questions about comfort, fit, appearance, etc. before we ran in them, then answer the same questions, plus extra ones, i.e. grip, performance, etc. when we came back from the run. We also had some jackets to test which were all really nice and flattering.
The first pair of shoes I wore, in my opinion, had poor grip (not Inov8 shoes I feel I must add!) and my feet rolled inside them. This resulted in me slipping… a LOT and so I really lost my confidence on the descent. The next pair were far better though but I was still quite tentative after the amount of times I slipped on the first loop. I tensed up every time I put my foot down on a rock because I was scared it was just going to slide out from under me. I was running like a big girl!
After testing five pairs, it was time for a break and so we all went over to the pub for lunch. I opted for soup and a roll because I didn’t like the thought of running straight after eating a heavy meal but I got huge food envy when others' meals arrived, particularly the curries people were having. They looked delicious and I was still really hungry after my soup. How people can eat all that and still run comfortably though I don’t know. I would need a couple of hours for it to go down.
I’m sure that between the time we went into the pub and the time we came out, the temperature had dropped a few degrees, it felt freezing! My teeth were chattering away and I couldn’t wait to start running again to get warm.
One of the shoes I tried on this afternoon was the most comfortable shoe of the lot. It fitted really well and felt lovely. If I had tried this shoe on in a shop I would have bought it. Good job that didn’t happen! Whilst it was fine going up the hill, I absolutely hated it coming back down. My ankle was going over left right and centre and I ended up pretty much walking down for fear of breaking my ankle. Just goes to show that a shoe you think will be great can turn out to not be suitable at all.
Very soon I was on my last pair. By now I was so tired that I didn’t even bother trying to run any of the up, I just walked the whole thing, save for a couple of flatish bits. I was quite gutted when it was all over though as I’d really enjoyed myself, as had everybody else. Hopefully the guys at Inov8 will have got some useful feedback from it too.
The only thing I would change about the whole day is that I wish I’d worn a different pair of shoes on my first test. Because I had slipped so much in the ones I had on, it knocked my confidence and I was really tentative coming downhill for the whole test. I can be a bit wimpy coming downhill sometimes, depending on the terrain. A lot of you know that I’m a pretty quick descender on the hills near us, particularly the Pike for example, but the reason for this is that I don’t really have any fear. If I fall coming off the Pike, it’s nice and grassy so is unlikely to hurt much but the terrain we were on today meant that a fall could be pretty painful. So basically, I’m a wimp, it’s just that I hide it well when running on the hills near us but get me onto a ‘proper’ hill and the cowardice shines through.
HUGE thanks to all the guys at Inov8, particularly Adrian, for an amazing day out and thanks for lunch and all the goodies!
Photo taken from Inov8 Facebook page
Total distance – 7.1 miles
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