I am getting DESPERATE, Saucony…
Can you PLEASE poop out the Kinvara 15s in Canada? I know they’re out in the States, but they’re still not out here. I’ve been a size 8.5 for like six iterations of the Kinvaras now so I’m tempted to just order a pair of 8.5s from the Saucony site, but you know this would be the one time my size would change.
Pleeeeeeeeease, Saucony?
Edit: okay, so desperation has driven me to explore alternative Saucony shoes, and it sounds like the Saucony Ride might be a good option for me (and one that’s not $200+ per pair, haha). Market Mall’s Sporting Life apparently has some in my size, so maybe I’ll just have to try those out unless the Kinvara 15s come out in the next few days.
I really am getting desperate. I have a huge pile of old Kinvara 13s, but they all have 500+ miles on them and I have marathons to run, dawg.
The Last of the Kinvaras (by James Fenimore Cooper)
So that last pair of Kinvara 13s in my size finally came from the Running Room the other day and today was the day to put them on!
OH
MY
GOD
I forgot how GOOD a new pair of 13s felt. It’s like I’m walking on ANGELS’ SOULS.
Saucony, please just bring these back. I promise we won’t be mad.
(The Running Room doesn’t have the 15s yet, but I’m scared of them already, haha.)
Saucony, I am BEGGING you…
Please return to the Kinvara 13 style. I have exclusively worn Kinvaras since 2012 and I have never had a single problem with any of their iteration until I hit the Kinvara 14s. Once I started wearing them, I had tons of foot pain and lower leg pain – things that I’ve never had. It was to the point where it was incredibly difficult to walk* and I actually reverted back to my previous Kinvara 11 pair (see this blog for the out-of-order shenanigans of my past few shoes).
Then today I thought: why go back to the 11s? I have a whole pile of Kinvara 13s that have about 500 miles on them each; surely a few days of walking/running in those won’t be too bad.
So I wore an old 13 pair today while running and guess what? The foot pain disappeared.
Entirely.
It’s like there was never any pain to begin with, which is pretty shocking given how bad the pain had actually gotten.
So yeah. Please please please please PLEASE go back to the 13 style. Your most loyal Kinvara customer will thank you.
*I did anyway, though. And ran. So I’m sure that didn’t help.
I’d like to issue a formal apology to the Kinvara 11s
Ugh.
SO.
I’m having a really rough time with the Kinvara 14s – rough enough that I actually reverted back to wearing my old worn-out Kinvara 11s (the ones I just finished with prior to this pair of 14s). While they’re not nearly as comfortable as the Kinvara 13s, they’re better than the 14s because it doesn’t feel like my ankle is getting actively eaten by a chainsaw when I wear them.
An angry bear, maybe, but not a chainsaw.
ANYWAY.
I was looking at the Running Room website last night to see if they had the Kinvara 15s yet and they had ONE PAIR LEFT of the Kinvara 13s in my size. I have never gotten my credit card out so fast, haha.
So at least I’ll have one more pair of 13s before having to go back to an inferior iteration again.
I have not been having a good time with shoes lately.
These Kinvara 14s…
Hurt.
The accidental Kinvara 11 pair I was wearing before this hurt the top of my feet constantly except when I was running. When I was running, the 11s were amazing.
These 14s don’t hurt the top of my feet, but the right one is grinding into the base of my outer ankle and it feels like someone is stabbing it with a row of needles.
Not a fun feeling.
Also, they already feel really worn down, as if I’ve already gone 500+ miles in them. Especially when running.
Sooooooo yeah. Not a fan.
The Kinvara 15s are out on the Saucony website, but the Running Room doesn’t have them yet. And though my sizing has been consistent for like the past eight iterations, I don’t want to risk ordering a pair of 15s without trying them on first to be sure of the size.
So I guess we’ll have to deal with pain for a bit.
No pain no gain, though, right?
So I’m Dumb
(title states something that is obvious and well-known by everyone who knows me)
A month or so ago, I finally ran out of my stockpile of Kinvara 13s, which have been – by FAR – the best-fitting versions of the Kinvaras that I have ever worn (and I’ve been wearing them since the Kinvara 3s).
I had bought one pair of Kinvara 14s a while back and had been saving them until I ran out of the 13s. So last month, when my last 13s died, I reached into my pile of shoeboxes and pulled out the one box containing a pair of shoes, put them on, and went about my nonsense.
I’d assumed that I was wearing the 14s, which was super disappointing to me, because these shoes were TERRIBLE. The tongue was way thicker than it was on the 13s and the laces (no matter how loosely or tightly I laced them) really hurt the tops of my feet. Like, to the point I had to sit with them unlaced for the first week or so until I really broke them in. They felt amazing when I was running, but if I was just wearing them or if I was walking in them, they felt like garbage.
But I have hunted the 13s out of existence, so once that pair of shoes started to wear out a week or so ago, I decided I’d just have to get another pair of the 14s and suffer through them (and possibly future pairs as well) until the 15s came out.
So on to Amazon I went and bought some 14s with a gift card my mom-in-law gave me for Christmas ($40 for shoes? YAY!).
Well, I finally had to switch out the first pair of 14s today because they had 500+ miles on them. So I open the Amazon box and, upon taking out the shoes, noticed that they looked really different than the 14s I’d been wearing. Different tread, different tongue, different laces, those kinds of things.
I was like what the hell, did I accidentally buy the Kinvara Pros (a supposedly better and definitely more expensive Kinvara)? But I checked the box and it just said Kinvara 14 with the correct size and everything.
Then I went back into my pile of shoeboxes and hunted for my original Kinvara 14 box.
To my surprise, that box still contained a pair of shoes.
So what had I done? Well, several years ago, I had bought a single pair of the Kinvara 11 shoes but never wore them because I also had a stockpile of Kinvara 10s. Once I worked through all the 10s, the Kinvara 12s were already out, so I decided to keep that one pair of Kinvara 11s as an “emergency pair” and just jumped right to the 12s.
Well, that “emergency pair” was actually the pair I had been wearing. Yes, I had grabbed the Kinvara 11s instead of the Kinvara 14s from my shoebox pile.
LIKE AN IDIOT.
In my defense, the two pairs were almost identical in color, so I think that when I grabbed that box, all I really noticed was that it was full of shoes and just assumed it was the 14s box and not the 11s box, since I thought I’d tucked the 11s box far away from all my others.
But I guess I didn’t.
The upside? I will never have to wear the horrible 11s again because they don’t exist anymore, and the new actual 14s are really comfortable.
So…
Yeah.
Good job, moron.
The Great Purge
I have trouble getting rid of stuff.
This includes stuff that is no longer of practical use, like my dozens of old Kinvaras that I’ve worn down with 500+ miles each.
But there are too many old pairs in the house; they’re really starting to clutter up the back room where Pepper’s litter box is (and the recycling bins and the furnace and the water heater), so I finally (with a lot of prompting by Nate) had to get rid of them today.
Here is a picture of them all before the purge:
That’s 45 pairs of shoes. You can see Pepper sitting next to the pile for scale, haha.
Now it’s time to start a new pile!
Kinvara Shoe Grave: Party Hard
Look at this madness.
LOOK AT IT.
I can’t remember when I got rid of all my older burned-through Kinvaras, but this is the newest graveyard. They fill up a whole recycling bin.
I have a problem.
New Kinvaras!
NEW SHOES, YO!
I burn through Kinvaras so quickly (every month and a half) that all the employees at the Running Room know who I am, haha. I went in there to get these and one of the guys was like, “you’re back here already? Didn’t I sell you shoes like six weeks ago?”
Party time.
(Sorry, there’s not much going on and I’m stressed about getting through the rest of this semester.)
OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW (sorta)
Hello there.
So it’s the start of a new month today! That means trading out a few of the old things that I’ve been using for a while and starting with some new.
1. New backpack.
This actually isn’t something I’m just starting to use today, but that’s only because the old one was literally unable to be used in its final state and I needed some sort of backpack before today. But it’s new enough, so I’m counting it.
2. New shoes.
Look at these gorgeous Kinvaras! They’re so bright and festive and soon-to-be-demolished-by-my-walking.
3. New iPod!
The iPod I’ve had since February 2012 is finally to the point where it won’t hold a charge long enough to last one of my walks. It’s also to the point where its storage is completely full of music. So I got a new one with double the storage and a new healthy battery. I was also able to find an owl case for it, so that’s really good.
WOO!
Oh my god, shoes.
I AM THE KINVARA QUEEN
And this isn’t even all of them, holy hell. I have issues.
Shoe-In
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE KINVARA 8’s!
They’re so pretty! And new!
That won’t last long.
I’ll break them in on Saturday, because Saturday marks 2 months since I got my current pair of shoes. By then, I should have close to 850 miles on them. WOO!
Edit: Remember when I did that project where I took a picture of the soles of my shoes every 50 miles to document the wear? Nate gave me the idea to take a picture of the soles of these new shoes every day, because that would basically be increments of approximately 15 miles. It’ll be a lot of pictures, but it’ll also look super cool when I .gif them all together. (Edit 2: LAWL, THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN)
The Pursuit of Kinvaras
Dear Calgary:
Dafuq are your Kinvaras? I’ve checked three different Sport Chek stores and a few other outdoorsy stores and there isn’t a single Kinvara to be found.
What gives?
Sincerely,
I HAVE HOLES IN MY SHOES AND I AM IN SERIOUS NEED OF REPLACEMENTS
Oh my god, shoes.
KINVARA HAUL!
Tri-State happened to have three pair in my size (two of the pairs were the new Kinvara 7s!), so I did what I had to do.
I’m not ashamed.
(Hopefully these will last me the rest of the year at least.)
KINVARAAAAAAAAAS!
I got my new shoes today!
(Picture from website because I can’t find the picture I took of the ones I bought)
These are the Kinvara 6’s. I actually had to buy a size 8 (which I’ve never done; I’m usually a size 6 in most shoes or, in the Kinvaras, a size 7.5) because the 6’s are narrower than the 5’s and my feet are like freaking flippers.
But no holes in the soles!
Can’t wear them until Friday, though. Those are the rules.
Also, from the Canada Revenue Agency: “On April 24, the CRA issued a communication to some Canadians that referred to an incorrect filing deadline for 2014 income tax and benefit returns of May 5, 2015, rather than April 30, 2015….As a result, and at Minister Findlay’s request, 2014 income tax and benefit returns filed by midnight on May 5, 2015, will not incur interest or penalties.”
Hahaha.
i’m in ur country, walkin ur cities
HEEEEEEEEEEEEEY, guess who hit 1,000 miles on her pair of shoes?
*points at self*
Nate and I went on a very nice 11-mile walk this afternoon (which included getting poutine and candy), which put me above 1,000 miles on my shoes. Check them out!
So that’s 1,000 miles since I moved to Calgary, which was September 1st of last year (though I guess I didn’t wear those shoes until the 8th, but whatevs). I’m going to try to get to 1,500 miles on them before I break down and get a new pair (mainly because I want to wait until the Kinvara 6’s come out), but no promises. The heels, as you can see, are really starting to wear through.
Here are some stats:
Miles: 1,029.41
Time: 265 hours, 44 minutes, 43 seconds (that’s like 11 days)
Steps: 2,173,614
Woo!
ALSO: we watched Guardians of the Galaxy last night, so now I’m all caught up for Age of Ultron in May. I’d have to say my three favorite movies were, in order, The Avengers, Thor, and Iron Man 3. Thor: The Dark World had the best soundtrack, though.
ALSO ALSO: rainbow sprinkle pretzels. Is there a better candy to represent me? I think not.
This blog sponsored by…
I’m going to shamelessly plug some products/brands in this blog. Because I want to.
Actually, this was brought on by buying like seven pairs of headphones at the Moscow Walmart because they don’t have these headphones in Canada and they’re my absolute favorite.
So let’s start with those!
Claudia-Endorsed Product #1: Koss Headphones
Everyone knows (or at least you do now!) that I listen to music when I walk. I wear on-ear headphones because the little in-ear buds hurt after about 10 minutes and I can never get them placed in my ears so that they stay put when I’m moving around. I have a really good and expensive pair of on-ear Bose headphones back at home—they’re soft and noise reducing and have great sound—but I don’t usually like to wear them during my walks because I’m super rough on headphones and don’t want to break those.
Instead, I wear these:
Not only do these headphones only cost $4.88 at Walmart, but they have really, really good sound. They don’t sound like $5 headphones. They sound more like the Bose ones. Sure, they’re not nearly as durable and thus break more frequently (though I guess “frequently” is a relative term; I go through about 3 or 4 of these a year because I’m rough on headphones), but they’re cheap to replace. If you like on-ear headphones and don’t want to spend like $50+ on a good set, I’d recommend these, since the sound is still really, really good despite the low price. You can also order them from the Koss website.
Claudia-Endorsed Product #2: Saucony Kinvara Shoes
You knew my shoes had to be on here. I love my Kinvaras. Not only are they very comfortable (at least for my feet), but they are very, very durable little shoes. Note that I don’t run in them, I just walk, but I’d suspect that they’d endure running pretty well, too.
Here is my current Kinvara 5 pair next to my original Kinvara 3 pair. They both look holey and ratty as hell, right? That’s because I have at least 750 miles on the newer ones and 1,500 miles on the older ones.
The older ones are still technically wearable, too. I bet I could go another 400 at least before the soles actually start wearing all the way through, haha. If you walk a lot or just want a pair of shoes that will last you a long time, try these out.
Claudia-Endorsed Product #3: L.L. Bean backpacks
I think I’ve gone through a total of four of these backpacks, and I’ve been using them ever since I was in first grade. Not only are they durable (I think I might be even harder on my backpacks than I am on my headphones), but they can hold a LOT of stuff and they’re pretty waterproof, too. Plus, you can get one in lime green. What’s not to like?
I had like five other things in mind, but I got distracted by R and now I can’t remember any of them.
OOH! R!
Claudia-Endorsed Product #4: R
I don’t know if this even counts as a product, but whatevs. R is a great statistical software package because a) it’s free, and b) it’s like SAS’s little brother who wants to be just like big brother SAS, but cheaper, because c) it’s free. So if you’re ever in need of some statistical analysis software and aren’t afraid of a little coding, go here and download R.
SHOE PARTY
So remember way back when I got my new shoes? I promised I’d take a picture of the bottoms and tops of them every 50 miles to get a progressive representation of how they wear. I was hoping to do this until the new shoes were as worn as my old Kinvaras. However, I’m going to stop at 600 miles for a few reasons:
- I think these shoes are wearing considerably faster than the previous pair. They’re probably 80% as worn as the old ones and have only been worn for 600 miles, not 1,300-ish.
- I’ve been trying to keep the background of the photos consistent across all of them. Since I had to move out of my office (where I’d been taking the photos), I can’t do that anymore. And that jump in consistency would bother the hell out of me.
BUT ANYWAY. Here are gifs of the top and bottom, a picture for each 50 miles between 0 and 600 miles.
Here’s slower, too.
Yeah, I was bored today.
Oh My God, Shoes.
Check out the new footwear, yo:
Okay, this time I promise to take progress pics of the soles every 50 miles. I really think it would be a cool thing to show the gradual wear-down rather than just the “these are new!” and the “these are hardly wearable anymore!” pics.
1,000 more miles, here I come!
1,000-Mile Shoes
I’ve walked 1,000 in my Sauconys since March!
Okay, well, technically, I hit the 1,000-mile mark on Tuesday, but I wanted to reach 1,200 total miles for the year before I posted anything. ‘Cause I’m like that.
Now, pictures!
4 miles’ worth of wear:
1,000 miles’ worth of wear:
A gif!
Pardon how messy my desk is in the “after” shot. I’d just drawn a bunch of crap so there were pencils/shavings everywhere.
Anyway. If anyone’s in the market for some durable running/walking shoes, I highly recommend Saucony Kinvaras. They’ve only just started to become unwearable after 1,000 miles—mainly because there’s a huge hole in the heel of one of them—but they’re still ridiculously comfortable. Also, did you see how brightly colored they are?? Awesome. Always a plus.
NEW SHOES TOMORROW! Stay tuned.
Do you think I need new shoes?
Yeah, me too.
Well, I got some!
If there are shoes on this planet more suited to my style of dress than these, please let me know.
Edit: 16 miles, no pain. These shoes fit perfectly.
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