April 18, 2005 - Ed Checks the TrED

It's been a long time since Edhat wrote anything about shoes. But, today's story is a little different. We are not focusing so much on style, as on function (functionality actually, but why use that word, when the other suffices.) You see, today's story is about running shoes. Shoes that people run in during running races. The appeal of these shoes is that they make your feet feel good, and that they make you run fast.

So, which running shoes are the most popular with Santa Barbara runners? Is it three cheers for the three stripes? Or is it a push toward the swoosh? On Saturday, the dedicated staff of edhat.com was at the finish line of the Santa Barbara Running 10 miler. People who saw us there might have thought we were shy and avoiding eye contact. The truth is that our dedicated eyes were focused on the shoes, in order to determine the brand.

In case you didn't know, the Santa Barbara Running 10 miler used to be called the Chardonnay 10 miler. Jose of Santa Barbara Action Pro presented the 10-mile race this year. In previous years, John Clinton of Nite Moves fame was the man-in-charge. John, by the way, is still running Nite Moves. The first race is May 4th.

Santa Barbara Running, as you are aware, is not a type of wine. Instead, it is the name of a running store on lower Anacapa Street. BTW, good luck to Joe Devrees, owner of SB Running. He is running in the Boston Marathon today.

Meanwhile, back at the finish line, there was an exciting photo finish between Steve Rider and Todd Booth (Steve won). The slim margin that separated the two couldn't be attributed to the shoes, however. Both of the top finishers had a knack for Nike. The first woman finisher arrived about six minutes after the men finished. It was Annie Toth (whose last name, coincidentally, is Todd Booth scrunched together). Annie wore Adidas. The second place woman, Chrystee Bradley, wore Nikes like the men.

But, as it turned out, neither Nike nor Adidas was the really big shoe in Santa Barbara Running. That distinction goes to Asics. Of the top 50 finishers in the 10-mile race, 14 of them wore the modified tic-tac-toe appliqué on their heel-to-toe covers. Here is the complete list of top-50 shoe finishers:

Asics           14
Nike            12
Adidas	         6
Saucony	         6
New Balance      4
Mizuna	         3
Brooks	         2
Barefoot         1
Fila	         1
Loco	         1

And, if you were wondering, Barefoot (at least in this context) is not a brand of shoes. Christopher Tracy (48) of Santa Barbara, who finished 3rd in his age group and 31st overall, ran with no protection between his little piggies and the pavement. Talk about the agony of de-feet!

Last year, when Ed ran the Chardonnay, he lost a couple of minutes on his time because he had to wait for the train to pass. This year, there was another snafu. Ed was out of town and his communication lines with the dedicated staff were crossed. It turns out only the top 50 runners were counted, not the entire 494 as planned. Since we only know what we counted, we can only reward the prize for that one question. There were 39 contestants with the correct answer. We put all the names into an Edhat hat and randomly chose Baughbg as the winner of an Edhat t-shirt.

Want to get instant fame and cool prizes? ... enter today’s contest

We want to hear from you ... tell us what you think of this tidbit

See the complete race results for the SB Running 10 Miler and all other Santa Barbara races.