Isn't it ironic

Well, maybe those people trying to choose the lightest racing shoe are the ones that have already trimmed their waistlines and are at their optimal racing weight. Personally my favourite spike is pretty basic but I don't have anything against anyone choosing the lightest shoe to help performance. Additionally, there is a difference between weight on the feet and weight around the waist.

cumulus nimbus chick wrote:

Well, maybe those people trying to choose the lightest racing shoe are the ones that have already trimmed their waistlines and are at their optimal racing weight.

Although I must admit that you have a point, you must realize that the group of people you described are far and away a minority in the running-world-universal. They are the elites and sub-elites which most of us aren't.

How many obese people worry about the weight of their shoes?

Seriously, I had one. I once dealt with a fairly large woman, I don't know if she was obese but she was certainly on the border line, who wanted a pair of running shoes in which to walk. Based on the footstrike analysis she had done, I suggested the Nike Air Moto, but she said it was too heavy and that she was walking in the NB 1023s and preferred it. She said that she didn't want too much weight on her feet.

True story.

As for the topic, weight on the feet is completely different from weight on the waist. Try carrying an extra two pounds on your waist and then an extra pound on each foot.

I think that weight is a poor indicator of health.

Nothing wrong with eating candy and drinking soda if you are active.

How about the bikers? They spend 1000's to save ounces or even grams!

Didn't they once make a women's Brooks Beast but did away with it? Maybe the thought of having a shoe store employee suggesting a shoe called the "Beast" for 250-lb. little Tiffany was somehow damaging to the petite thing's fragile self-esteem. I think Brooks might have renamed this model something more sleek-sounding like the Athena.

I always wanted to be in a store when some record-setting marine mammal of a girl wedged her way into three seats and asked for a featherweight state-of-the-art racing flat for "serious runners" - footwear that was clearly doomed to be about nine sizes too small for a sasquatch with a swollen foot. I'd like to see this if only to hear an exasperated salesman sigh loudly and say, "Alright, let's see if we kind find some kind of piano crate we can shove this hoof into," and then yell to a guy at the back of the store, "Hey, Charlie! What's the biggest, widest Beast we've got back there?" - looking directly at the customer while shouting the word "Beast" with extra volume.

Okay, you had me laughing there.

There's the Brooks Ariel (really). It's the saddest thing ever.

Broadview Joe wrote:

There's the Brooks Ariel (really). It's the saddest thing ever.

Yeah, maybe that's the old women's Beast.

Just read my previous post for the first time since last night's booze-up. A non sequitur of sorts and at least one typo in there. And it wasn't as funny as I thought it was while I was composing it, either. That's alky-hol for ya.