The running shoe company Hoka (One One) is known *among runners at least) for its oversized soles that allow more cushion than competitors. (It was created in Annecy, French Alps, for local trailers, before being bought by an American group. The name of the brand means flying on Earth in Maori.) I had never tried any of their shoes, primarily due to the cost of the fastest ones, but in the days after Marseille-Cassis, I saw an add mentioning a free return after a 30 day trial and thus decided on testing a (pricey) competition model, the Cielo X1. Advertised as the fastest in their collection (with no mention made of any car brand!)I received the package a few days prior to my Boulogne half-marathon.
The shoe is highly unusual (for me), in that its soles are far from flat and make walking with then unpleasant. (When I travelled to Boulogne, I had to jog to keep my [detailed] balance!) The design is intended for (aggressive) forefoot attack, followed by a bounce from the talon created by a massive carbon plate. The upper part is also original, with a light but tight slipper that stabilises the foot inside the shoe. When I first tried them (the day they arrived), I was most puzzled and did a first short 8km run to check I could at all run with them. And realised that even without trying, I was running at a higher pace, especially downhill. The next day, I pushed a bit harder on my 10km route and noticed the same improvement, hence got confident that I should use them for the Boulogne half-marathon. Post-race, I remain convinced them helped in keeping a below 4mn pace, if not enormously (with a 90 second gain compared with 2023), as my muscles started protesting about half-way. But the end of the race was not as dreadful as usual, possibly thanks to the shoes, possibly thanks to a higher training volume. Will I keep the shoes? At that price, I am afraid not! But this was a great experience (and I will keep looking for sales in the coming months).
Archive for Annecy
trialing a Porsch[o]e
Posted in Mountains, pictures, Running, Travel with tags Annecy, Boulogne-Billancourt, carbon plate, competition, design, detailed balance, foam protection, France, French Alps, Hoka One One, Maori language, running shoes, semi-marathon, trail running, ultramarathon on December 5, 2024 by xi'anjournal of the [second] plague year [away]
Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, pictures, Travel, University life, Wines with tags Annecy, Canada, detective story, Fred Vargas, French Alps, gangster movie, Jeju Island, Kill Bill, Korean cinema, Netflix, pasta, science fiction, South Korea, steampunk, Venice International Film Festival, werewolf on June 12, 2021 by xi'an
Read Fred Vargas’s Seeking Whom He May Devour (L’Homme à l’envers), which I found on a bookshelf of our vacation rental in Annecy. And got more quickly bored by the story as it is plagued with the same defects as the ones I read before, from a definitive issue with Canadians (!), to an attempt to bring supernatural causes in the story and reveal them as fake by the end of the book, to a collection of implausible and caricaturesque characters surrounded by the usual backcountry morons that would rather fit a Paasilinna novel, and to the incomprehensible intuitions of Inspector Adamsberg. I also went through the sequel to Infomocracy, Null states, albeit this was a real chore as it lacked substance and novelty (the title by itself should have been a warning!).
Watched Night in Paradise (낙원의 밤), another Korean gangster movie, which seems to repeat the trope of bad-guy-on-the-run-meets-lost-girl found in my previously watched Korean Jo-Phil: The Dawning Rage, where the main character, a crooked police officer is radically impacted after failing to save a lost teenager. (And also in the fascinating The Wild Goose Lake.) The current film is stronger however in creating the bond between the few-words gangster on the run and the reluctant guest Jae-yeon who is on a run of a different magnitude. While the battle scenes are still grand-guignolesque (if very violent) in a Kill Bill spirit, and the gang leaders always caricaturesque, the interplay between the main characters makes Night in Paradise a pretty good film (and explains why it got selected for the Venice Film Festival of 2020). Also went through the appalling Yamakasi by Luc Besson, a macho, demagogical, sexist, simplist, non-story…
the 3 X loop
Posted in Mountains, pictures, Running, Travel with tags Annecy, cross, French Alps, Hautes Alpes, jatp, Lac d'Annecy, lake, outdoor swimming, rain, sunrise, vacations on June 6, 2021 by xi'an
Lac d’Annecy [jatp]
Posted in Statistics with tags Annecy, French Alps, Hautes Alpes, hiking, jatp, Lac d'Annecy, lake, Mont Veyrier, vacations on May 31, 2021 by xi'an
Lac d’Annecy [jatp]
Posted in Mountains, pictures, Running, Travel with tags Annecy, French Alps, Hautes Alpes, jatp, Lac d'Annecy, lake, outdoor swimming, rain, sunset, vacations on May 25, 2021 by xi'an
