Rich bought me these fancy Newton running shoes for my birthday and I tried them out for the first time this week on one of my shorter runs. The shoes are extremely light and designed to change your running form so that you run more on the midfoot. The alleged advantages are less pain, better form, improved times, etc. The overall concept is that the shoes allow you to mimic the advantages of barefoot running (chi running).

Combined with the book my brother recently sent to me, "Chi Running," I'm all set to try this new experience and discover the "10 Laws of Better Running" for myself. Since we're mid-marathon training, I plan to evolve slowly (sticking to the Asics for long runs so far). But I'm hoping this will help me hit that "feeling great" stride that I'm seeking on those long runs. Have you tried Newtons or the Chi philosophy? Rich loves his and is a convert. Let us know what you think!

We finally found our new adventure. Dublin was for us. Boston, April, 2010 will be for the Children of Boston’s Children’s Hospital. We’re running for Miles for Miracles, raising funds to help children and families.

For more information – or to kindly sponsor us – check out our marathon page on Miles for Miracles, here: http://bit.ly/4vRBkj

We’ll still be posting on our training at this blog – we’re well into it by now but we got a slow start, and it’s winter, so it should be interesting to see how things end up. We know we can finish a marathon now, but can we improve our PRs? We’ll see!