bookofjoe goes for a run in his new Spira shoes

Not a day went by after my July 30 post about this new shoe technology employing embedded springs than the company's founder, president and CEO, one Andrew B. Krafsur, sent me an email thanking me for featuring his shoe.

He asked me if I wanted to try a pair: you know me, I'm like Mikey in that classic cereal commercial: "He'll eat anything."

So I gave Andrew the go–ahead and lo and behold two days later via Express Delivery came my shoes.

Very exciting.

They look like regular shoes, a huge plus in my view: the dorky Nike Shox are just plug–ugly.

And don't get me started on my Z–Coils: there's $165 down the toilet.

Not only are they so bizarre looking as to mark the wearer as someone to keep an eye on, they're a dreadful running shoe.

My knee started hurting after 20 minutes each of the two times I wore them, and I never have knee pain.

On top of which the shoes are unstable: you can easily sprain or break an ankle by landing wrong.

I tossed those babies in the junk pile. But I digress.

Andrew sent me the Spira Del Sol: it's a "Performance–Cushion Trainer."

Spira makes a broad line of running shoes offering stability, cushion, and performance in various mixes.

They "tune" their shoes by varying the number of springs they insert in the innards.

The tri–spring configuration consists of what you see in the exploded schematics in this post: one spring in the back and two up front.

Their single–spring models put one spring in the heel.

The Del Sol is that type.

Well, I took them out for 50 minutes, a bit longer than usual, and I'm here to report the following:

1) They're nice looking.

2) They're quite comfortable.

3) The shoe is every bit as stable as a conventional running shoe.

4) The ride doesn't feel any different than my other running shoes, by ASICS and Nike.

5) After the run my legs felt excellent, not nearly as tired as usual. Now, this could be the placebo effect, what with wearing this hot new technology, but I don't think so; the next day I did 40 minutes and once again the feeling upon finishing was of not having been hammered, my usual end–of–run status.

I give Spira a big thumbs–up.

If they'd not been any good you simply wouldn't have heard about them here.

I figure that way people will be more apt to let me try stuff, knowing that if I can't say something good, I won't say anything.

You think that's poor practice?

I don't; goodness knows, there are plenty of places that are critical as all heck.

I say, let's have one place online where, for the most part, the sun shines and it never rains.

Call me joeyanna.