Brooks T7 Racing Flat

There is a wide selection of racing flats on the market and I choose to go with the Brooks T7 for my Boston Marathon.

When I am choosing a racing flat, I focus on two requirements: weight and flexibility.

How heavy of a shoe should I use? During all of my training runs, I wear a much heavier shoe – usually above 8 oz and most of the time around 12 oz. This is not by accident. Rather, it is something that I do on purpose. Wearing heavier shoes puts an additional load on the muscles. Then, swapping down to a lightweight racing flat makes it easier on the muscles and improves my running form. This alone can justify runner selecting to use a racing flat over a training shoe for a race.

The second requirement involves how the shoe is design. In a long race such as a marathon, the last thing I need or want is shoe that is stiff across the mid-sole of the shoe. This is why I always select a shoe that is extremely flexible. The greater the flexibility in the shoe, the less energy I feel is needed as the foot rolls through each contact with the pavement.

Before Boston, I spent a lot time looking at different racing flats. Of all the racing flats, I like Brooks T7 the best.

Before Boston, the only change that I made to these shoes was to substitute out the laces. I always use the Yanks so that untied shoe laces never become an issue during the race for me.

Wearing the shoes before hand? I have heard different opinion on this topic. Sometimes people say wear them beforehand. While others say they wear them just on race day.

For me, it all depends on the shoes. For the Brooks Green Silence, I probably had 3 or 4 runs in them before my marathon. For the Brooks T7, they never touched the earth until I put them on the night before Boston.

As with all information that I share on my blog please take what I have said in with a grain of salt. No two runners are exactly the same so there might be something that works one and doesn't work for another runner.

 

Thoughts from the Cool Down Runner