Last night, as there was a mix of rain and snow falling, I decided to strap on my headlamp and go for a run up on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail from Davis Creek, south (blog post coming soon, perhaps). I figured that higher up on the trail, it would be snow and not rain. Thankfully, I was right. Just snow…and some crazy thick fog banks that the trail kept on climbing up into and then descending below, and then climbing back into. But, that isn’t the point of this post. The point, is my feet.

For the snow, I have a pair of Montrail Badrocks. They are UBER waterproof and have nice grippy soles and lugs. Not knowing how slick it would be, I strapped them on. I got them last winter and only put about 20 miles in them before being laid up with injuries for most of February and March – but I enjoyed how they felt on the snow.

In the interceding 9 months, however, I bought a pair of Altras (the Olympus), and then another pair (Lone Peak 2.0), and then another pair (Paradigm). With the big toe box, zero drop, and MAX cushioning (which is why I picked those specific models), I found that the shoes solved a lot of my prior injury problems. In other words, I completely converted to the brand.

So, last night was my first time running in non-Altras for about 9 months. They felt fine, but I could tell there wasn’t as much cushion. Then, I woke up this morning. Wow. The soles of my feet hurt way more than usual, my knee and hip-joints felt a bit more beat up, even my back hurt more. Was it the shoes? I suspect so. My body has grown accustomed to that max cushioning on the Altras. Well, lesson learned!

As for the snow – maybe I’ll take an old pair of Altra Lone Peak 1.0s that a friend gave me (hand-me-down) screw some 1/2 inch sheet rock screws in there and use them!