gear update

There's nothing like getting new shoes to mark the early days of a new training cycle ... I just got the new Brooks Cascadia 8 trail shoes.

Brooks Cascadia 8 trail shoes

I have run in the Cascadia shoes a lot over the past years.  I've been buying and wearing the size 15 shoes, because I have pretty big feet and like some room in the toe box.  The new Cascadia 8 shoes fit differently - I actually found the size 15 to be too big.  Maybe I'm shrinking (I wish!).  But for now I'm happy running in size 14's for a change.

Another gear update is coming.  I've had my Garmin FR60 watch for a while now.  I like the feature set (I run with the heart rate monitor, and the shoe pod that gives me speed, stride turnover rate, and distance).  And I really want to keep resisting going to a watch with GPS, as the required charging discipline guarantees 1) the watch will be dead when I need it and 2) I'm going to leave that charger behind on some trip one day. The FR60 system just works for me. BUT ...when the FR70 came out with the same feature set, it seems one of the real changes was a better band.  A lot of users were reporting the non-replaceable band on the FR60 was breaking.  My own FR60 is now showing the signs that the band is failing.

Garmin FR60 watch band cracking

I'll probably go with an FR70 when the band breaks.  The one big (unlikely?) improvement I would like to see in the FR70 is a barometer that would record the elevation profile for a run.