It's June

And in the run specialty industry that means two things.

1. New shoes from the fall collections are starting to trickle in.

2. Vendor sales reps are coming out and showing the spring 2010 product lines

The New Puma Vectana will be in any day. I'm real excited by this one as it is a whole new direction for Puma. Wider fit, traditional midsole heights, and a real nice feel.

Asics will be launching the new Gel 3010. This is a huge improvement over the previous version as it will fit better, feel softer and have a better overall ride.

We already received the new Saucony Ride's and Omni's. No major changes but just little tweaks that needed to be done.

In regards to Spring 2010 no major surprises yet, which is a good thing. After being in the industry for 16 + years I don't very often see anything that really surprises me or makes me excited. Typically if something catches me by surprise it is that a good company really screwed things up and so far so good.

Took a look at Mizuno 2010 yesterday and no major changes to what is a solid line of shoes. They did decide to drop their price point track spikes but that doesn't really matter as they never sold very well.

They cleaned up the fit on a few models (women's Inspire in photo) by making just minor fixes. Overall they didn't need to do much as their shoes have been performing real well for the last few seasons.

This morning my time was spent with New Balance for some early release (11/1) 2010 shoes. The biggy being the 769 update, the 760. I've written before about all the updates they made to the 769 (PL-1 last) to make it a much better performing shoe. With the 760 they just went in and cleaned a few things up. The fit should still be great, the ride enhanced with a bit more cush under foot and a little more flexible up front.

They also will have the new 1064 and 905. Both pretty nice updates but nothing that made me say wow. Of course they also will have the 1906 at $200.00, that made me say wow since no one really needs a $200 shoe.

That's it for now. Saucony will be in next week showing me what they've got new. Let's hope nothing to drastic.

Course Recon

Nice early autumn trail run this morning. Cool, crisp, 48 degree fresh air, a few friends and our dogs out covering 10 or so miles. Of course it is the end of May so it should have been much warmer, effing global warming.

The mission today was to make sure that what I thought in my head would be a cool course for the third stage of the DC Stage Race was in fact a good course.

All I gotta say is train on hills this summer. Lots of hills. The course was just as I thought. Hilly early, moderate in the middle and then more hills near the end. I think it flows great and will be an awesome test for everyone that enters.

My hope come November is that a runner who is a few minutes down on the GC goes for it from the gun on the third stage and forcing the leaders to make a decision, go with them early or hope they die and come back. This is going to be fun.

If you like trails and want to try a challenge this fall like no other out there, save the dates of November 14th and 15th for the Fleet Feet Sports Dirt Cheap Stage Race.