Local news: Shoefitr

Right here in the Burgh, Shoefitr has been quietly developing what could be one of the best programs out there for the modern runner.  I first heard about the company through a profile in the PBT last May.

This month has seen a lot of rising buzz around the company, so I thought the half dozen or so Pittsburgh runners who read this should know what a few of your fellow Pittsburgh runners are up to.  Take this Time Magazine post from a few weeks ago as just one testament to Shoefitr's success. 

It's a great product, and the company certainly deserves to succeed.  I've used Shoefitr to purchase a few pairs now through RunningWarehouse, and was happy with the results in all cases.  Having an oddly shaped foot, I've found Shofitr's colored 3D models to be particularly helpful in determining whether a shoe will not only fit me, but fit comfortably in all places.

As a runner and a Pittsburgher, it's nice to see some local boys doing well.  2011 should be an exciting year for Shoefitr.  Here's hoping for the best.

In Others' Words

Despite an inexplicable sluggishness, I enjoyed a lovely run through seventy-degree Virginia tobacco country last evening, and was delighted to return to the Burgh to see that the sun found its way north of the Mason-Dixon as well.  While no one around here probably needs any added inspiration to run on such a fine day as today, I've been gathering various quotes about running that have struck me over the past year or so, and so, I thought I'd share.

"During 13 years of professional running, I never got it fully right. It's like golf. You'll never be perfect; you try to get a little better at every opportunity. That's the beauty of distance running, I think. It's a never-ending journey of trying to find out how good I can be, what I can improve on, even with my limitations. I'll never know the answer, but I'll keep looking for it."

- Bob Kennedy (the runner, of course)

"I sometimes think that running has given me a glimpse of the greatest freedom a man can ever know, because it results in the simultaneous liberation of both body and mind."
- Sir Roger Bannister

"Remember, the feeling you get from a good run is far better than the feeling you get from sitting around wishing you were running."
- Sarah Condor

Whether the weather be fine
or whether the weather be not,
whether the weather be cold
or whether the weather be hot,
we'll weather the weather whatever the weather,
whether we like it or not.
- Unknown

"If you are going to win any battle you have to do one thing: you have to make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do. The body will always give up. It is always tired morning, noon, and night. But the body is never tired if the mind is not tired. When you were younger the mind could make you dance all night, and the body was never tired... You've always got to make the mind take over and keep going."
- General George S. Patton (1912 Olympian)

"It's very hard to understand in the beginning that the whole idea is not to beat the other runners. Eventually you learn that the competition is against the voice inside you that wants to quit."
- Dr. George Sheehan

“Do the work. Do the analysis. But feel your run. Feel your race. Feel the joy that is running.”
- Kara Goucher

"Running is not, as it so often seems, only about what you did in your last race or about how many miles you ran last week. It is, in a much more important way, about community, about appreciating all the miles run by other runners, too."
- Richard O'Brien

"Good things come slow--especially in distance running."
- Bill Dillinger

"Running well is a matter of having the patience to persevere when we are tired and not expecting instant results."
- Robert de Castella

"The music of a marathon is a powerful strain, one of those tunes of glory. It asks us to forsake pleasures, to discipline the body, to find courage, to renew faith and to become one's own person, utterly and completely."
- Dr. George Sheehan

"There are no standards and no possible victories except the joy you are living while dancing your run. You are not running for some future reward--the real reward is now."
- Fred Rohe, The Zen of Running

“Life is short. Running makes it seem longer.”
- Baron Hansen

Trail Conditions in Brief

Eliza Furnace trail is pretty well melted down to the pavement west of Hot Metal, with some intermittent snowy and icy patches at the gravel edges and an icy stretch between South Side Works and the Birmingham Bridge.  East of Hot Metal it's a bit more touch-and-go, with a fair amount of ice that manages to blend into larger areas of pavement and snow.

Lower Panther Hollow is dangerously icy, but passable at the edges where you can still dig in a bit on the snow.  I wouldn't advise venturing in without spikes.

Upper Panther Hollow is worse, with the snowy edges thinning completely in sections.  Don't risk it.

Bridle Trail is just pure, slick, skateable ice.  There may be some patches of dirt, hay and snow here and there, but they offer only false hope.  Just avoid it.

I haven't been to Frick or Riverview in recent days, so I can't speak to those.

Today's rain and dropping temps in the days to come do not bode well...

Riverview Park - Second Impression: Confusing

Upon a second, slightly longer visit to this park I have to admit, it's confusing as all get out (whatever that expression means). 

I did 10.5 snowy miles through Riverview the other evening--about 7 of them in spikes after slipping through my first few, and about 4 of them guided by headlamp as the dark set in.  While the woods are definitely nice, the short length of the various trails makes it tough to get a good rhythm going.  I found myself constantly running into forks, roads and the occasional dead-end, as you can see here:

I'm actually not sure that there's any section of uninterrupted trail here that lasts more than a mile.  It's clear from the official map that the named sections are all short, but they link together a bit more cleanly on paper than they do in practice.  As a point of comparison, I find Frick to be similar but much more navigable on-the-fly. 

Maybe Riverview Park just requires a bit more exploration and a higher level of comfort with its twists and turns to get a good longer run in.  For now I think I'll reserve this one for the shorter days. 

On the plus side, this time around I did see way more deer than I ever thought lived within the City limits, and spied a large hawk and a huge owl close-up.  So I got that goin' for me.

Riverview Park - First Impression: Positive

Photo: Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy



Never having spent much time in the North Side aside from ball games and an occasional social gathering or similar event, I ventured into Riverview Park late yesterday afternoon with little notion of what to expect and my only goal being to squeeze in about 6 miles before sunset.  I parked on Perrysville Avenue and simply stepped into the steep woods.  I'd been told it was hilly, wild, under-maintained, and beautiful.  Sure as the sun fell, all proved true.

Despite the park being larger than Frick, I found myself criss-crossing my tracks and circling around the same areas several times.  When I didn't pass the famous Allegheny Observatory and eventually found my way back to Perrysville over the course of 5.5 miles, I figured I hadn't seen all there was to see.  As a Christmas gift gadget informed me when I got home, I was right:

This is good news, as the northern and western portions of the trails I covered were my favorites, so I can only assume those to the further northwest might be similar.  A trail map of the park can be found here.  Trails I covered included Deer Hollow, Overlook, Old Zoo, and pretty much everything east of Kilbuck Road.

There was no shortage of wildlife, with several blue jays, one groundhog, two does and even one decent-sized buck spotted around mile-marker 1 on the above map.  Unfortunately there was also no shortage of trash, although most of that seemed to be around the cemetery border and down near Kilbuck Road. 

The woods itself is very nice--quite comparable to Frick, but with a heck of a lot less people.  The trails were a pretty even mix of single-track, some lightly maintained double-track, and some fun if hard-to-follow deer paths.

Riverview is a great park overall based on what I saw, and since that wasn't much, I look forward to getting back and exploring the rest of it.  I can see this being a particular pretty park under a few inches of snow, so I'm glad I discovered it as we ease into winter.

Connecting Schenley to the Jail Trail

I gather that this is old news to many runners of the local trails, but for whatever reason it took me quite a long time to figure out that the Eliza Furnace Trail basically passes Panther Hollow Lake right around where it hits Boundary Street.  Not sure why I never noticed this before (from either side of the tracks) but I didn't.  It actually wasn't until I was exploring Google Maps a few weeks ago that I realized the two trails run about 50 feet away from each other down there by the pond.   So to any other directionally-challenged minds like mine, this makes for a great link between Schenley and the South Side.  For reference, the run from the Riverfront Park to the pond is just about 2.5 miles.

Here's a nice 8-mile lollipop starting at the end of 18th Street in the South Side.