Last Saturday I was at Mall of Asia with family. As if a foreshadowing of things to come, security informed all stores to close their shops around 6pm. We were left with no choice that day but to go home early. And the ordeal began. What could have been an hour of travel from Mall of Asia Pasay City to Dasma Cavite turned out to be a 10 hour travel time.  It was too difficult to travel going back, especially Bacoor flooded up to knee level. People coming from Pasay were all walking already going back to Cavite as most provincial buses going to Batangas were stranded. I reached home around 5am, slept and woke up after 7 hours.

I immediately checked the Internet and I was shocked with the devastation created by this typhoon. As of this writing, more than a hundred perished and thousands were displaced. It’s a good thing Hector of SecondWind store initiated something to help flood victims. Here’s his email:

Greetings friends in the running community.

In light of the typhoon that has left most of us emotionally drained, we would like to encourage the running / multi-sport community to pitch in and help out.

Kindly help us spread the word that we are extending help to our friends who were affected by the typhoon ondoy. Lets maximize however we can help, announcements in your blog, multiply, tweeter, or your status in facebook will be greatly appreciated.

Secondwind will be accepting donations:

- blankets
- singlets, jerseys or shirts
- old footwear
- food
- other items that can still be used

We will be accepting until Thursday (end of day) and will donate to ateneo thru Neville Manaois, PUR team principal, secondwind teammate and ateneo professor. Volunteers to pack and help transfer goods on Friday will be most welcome.

Maraming salamat in advance sa lahat ng tulong na maaari niyong mabigay.

Salamat.

wait for it to kick in -
Hector of Secondwind
email:
secondwind.proshop@gmail.com

site:
www.secondwindrunningstore.com
www.thesecondwind.multiply.com

Hardcore runner Sir Jonel also initiated his own drive. See TKO 250:Takbo Kontra Ondoy . Here’s an excerp from his blog:

team hardcore in cooperation with runradio (nu107, fridays, 9-10pm)  and the generics pharmacy is making its enduruns 4.5.5 (4 full and 2 half marathons)and laguna lake 200k marathon relay a fund-raising event.the runs will be collectively called TKO 250.

enduruns and the laguna race will total 250 kilometers.in particular, these are the races that the team will run; october 11 milo42, october 18 qcim im42, october 24 sim42, october 25 adidas21, november 8 pim42, november 15 timex21, november 28-29 laguna lake 200 (each runner of the 5-man team will do 40k).

for every kilometer we will do, a  prospective donor will be asked to donate 1 peso thus making it 250 pesos as his donation.it is most welcome if you give more than that amount. all donors/donations will be published later.

Fellow takbo.ph member were also not spared from this storm namely Edu, Chelly and Eric. I heard that their homes and personal belongings are soaked in flood water, except Edu who managed to save his Garmin and running shoes

Please let us all extend our helping hands to those who are in need.

Three weeks ago, I joined the Mizuno Run Clinic to help me improve my running form, make friends with other runners and learn new drills from Coach Ige. As I haven’t owned any Mizuno pair before, I was glad and excited when Ms. Jai Cortez, marketing officer at Mizuno gave me the opportunity to review their product. I asked for a stability shoes and so I got this Mizuno Wave Inspire 4. What makes Mizuno running shoes different from other running shoes is its “wave plate technology” .

That gray plastic looking insert in the midsole is what Mizuno calls their "wave plate technology"

The thermoplastic plate (see above) inserted into the midsole allows compression stiffness to be controlled. In theory, controlling this “stiffness” can be achieved by adding variation in its material properties, thickness, amplitude, and wave length of the WAVE plate insert. Cushioning and Stability feature of any Mizuno shoes can be achieved by playing around this bending stiffness. Hence if you check any Mizuno shoes (this feature is also available in its baseball, volleyball, golf, and other kinds of sport shoes), you will notice that each of their running shoes category (stability, neutral, cushion) has different wave plate design and composition.

Now as for this particular pair I’m going to review, Mizuno Wave Inspire 4, it offers better stability than my Adidas Response Stability (I use this pair for races 21km and above) however I felt like the cushioning needs to be improved. When I checked the foam (insole) under the foot, it looks too thin, hence its not as soft as compared to my other running shoes. Another thing I noticed is that it has a unique heel fit.  I’ve heard from several runners that it can take awhile to get used to the Mizuno heel.  Thus, I was expecting the heel to feel odd and I did notice a difference but at no time has it ever bothered me. In fact it feels comfortable when you get used to it. From my experience, I can’t use this for road races as I felt its too heavy for me, my speed might suffer. However,  I would recommend this trainer for runners with medium to low arches to use this one for their longrun especially if training for 21km or 42km.

It looks like the lace can easily be removed during run so make sure they are properly tied.

Insole

Mizuno Insole