Conor's Bandon Blog

Running, Food and Local stuff from a blow-in

The Hoka Speedgoat 5 Mid GTX boots are life savers - Running Shoe Review

After the horror of the Salomon Vision ankle breakers
As you can read in my review of the truly awful Salomon Vision shoes, my hopes of running the Kerry Way Ultra in 2024 were ruined last weekend. I had an x-ray on Monday to confirm that it wasn’t a break. I then went to my physio/PT on Tuesday. He confirmed multile ligament tears. He was pretty blunt that I’d be nuts to try KWU. Despite all the icing, compression and elevation that I had done since Saturday, I still had very restricted motion and some pain.

The DOA Salomon Vision is another ankle breaker - Running Shoe Review

Or as they should be called, the Ankle Roller 5000s
This won’t be a long review. How could it be when I’ve only done 1 km in the Salomon Vision. It’s more of a rant. I buy maybe 6-7 pairs of running shoes a year. Usually equally split between road and trail. For many years the trail ones were Altra, Hoka, Inov-8 and Brooks. I wanted to try Salomon but every review made it sound like I’d have to remove two toes to fit into them.

The NNormal Tomir 2.0 is a grower - Running Shoe Review

I think Kilian is on to something with NNormal
I can’t imagine there’s a trail runner alive who hasn’t heard of Kilian Jornet. He’s the goat when it comes to mountains. 6 years ago my kids brilliantly reached out to him and John Kelly to see if they could get an autograph or something to mark my 50th birthday. Kilian sent a very cool signed card and John, the legend, sent me a video, which I’ll never forget. So the whole NNormal thing obviously caught my attention.

What happens when every race is a DNF?

The past two years have just been a series of DNFs
I took up running in 2009 to try and lose weight. It didn’t work but I ended up loving the sport anyway. Despite having completed over 25 marathons and a handful of ultras I’m still a terrible runner and brutally slow. Having said that, I see 2021 and early 2022 as the pinnacle of my running, to-date. The Kerry Way Ultra Lite in 2021 was the first time I’d ever finished a race “mid-pack”.

Is the Saucony Endorphin Rift my new do-anything trail shoe?

Finally a Saucony trail shoe that doesn't kill my heel
I have a strange relationship with Saucony running shoes. The Endorphin Speed was the first time I’d bought any shoe from them and it instantly became my favourite road shoe of all time. V2 was equally good. My Endorphin Pro 1, whilst flawed, has more miles on it than any other pair of shoes I still have in rotation. And then there are their trail shoes which have been an unmitigated disaster for me.

The Brooks Caldera 7 is a step backwards from the 6

The main benefit of the 6 seems to be gone - smooth wet rock grip
I did most of my trail running over the past year in 2 pairs of Brooks Caldera 6. They did sterling work in my three Ultra DNFs and many training miles. Strangely I don’t think I’ve seen a single other runner wearing them. I gave them a very positive review last year which I updated when I realised they had one terrible design flaw - the two parts of the upper separated during a run because they were only connected via a thin layer of glue.

Owning your own content, part 986

It's still important, no matter how few people embrace it
I’m one of those tech elites, that Ben Evans is digging at on Threads, who thinks everyone should have their own blog (he said WordPress site). I think his artisanal/mass-production angle is missing the point. The issue is about control and ownership, as always. I was reminded once again of the importance of owning your stuff this morning. This is a topic I banged on and on about from 2005-2010 when I finally gave up and accepted that Twitter/Facebook/etc had won.

The Garmin Forerunner 955 Solar - A great watch with one infuriating design flaw

Its sticking buttons make it feel like a $10 Aliexpress special. The customer support is worse.
After a couple of great years with the Forerunner 935, the ever-reducing battery life started to become annoying and I decided last summer to upgrade to the 955 Solar. Overall I like the feature-set and it generally feels like a solid upgrade to the 935. I particularly love the maps navigation. Being able to load up a course like the Beara Way Ultra and follow it via glances, along with some buzzes and beeps for major turns and going off-course, is an amazing time and hassle saver.

The inaugural Beara Way Ultra - Don't bring a knife to a gunfight

You can tell I just watched John Wick 4
Guaranteed finish I’m pretty sure the great Hal Higdon’s training plan for an ultra would be: Do minimal daily sessions Do one long slow amble a week Skip core and glute exercises for a month Don’t get that long-term hamstring issue sorted out DNF after 88K of a different ultra three weeks prior Don’t sleep for the week beforehand Setup for success like this, I headed to Castletownbere at 3am from Bandon to try the first ever Beara Way Ultra.

The Brooks Caldera 6 is an ultra-devouring monster (but)

My absolute favourite trail running shoe for Irish conditions
UPDATE: See below for a major proviso to this post. My entire history with Brooks until a few months ago was one pair of Adrenaline 19s which did not suit me at all. I always associated the brand with big reliable heavy running shoes for conservative joggers. The Caldera 6 takes that reputation and shreds it, in the best possible sense. The perfect shoe doesn’t exist I’ve been on the hunt for the ultimate ultra-distance trail running shoe since I started going longer in 2017.