I survived...

Yes there are. The choice of shoe depends mostly on the shape of your foot and pronation (how it strikes the ground). There are normally three classes of running shoe - motion control, stability and neutral ( although a new class of minimalist shoe, in the class of Vibram four fingers has recently emerged). See some useful information here

I never rant on facebook but today I absolutely have to. The day started perfectly for Anthony Mundia a standard eight pupil at Joytown Primary School for kids with Physical disabilities, we had registered him to participate in the prestigious Standard Chartered Nairobi Marathon.. Anthony had been training for more than two months and was excited to see how good he was. He arrived early, started the race and to his surprise he was leading after 300 meters or so, he held his lead all through and finished first in the 21km wheelchair category by a huge margin. He was even handed the number one tag, as we celebrated on the phone with my colleague who had accompanied him, someone from a leading association for people with disabilities came and took his tag by force. When my colleague went to inquire why they took his tag he was told that Anthony won the race but would not get any recognition because he did not use a wheelchair from that association. My colleague tried to follow it up but to no avail. The association claims that there was a briefing meeting yesterday where all wheelchair users were explained to that they were to use the association's wheelchair. No one told us that there would be such a meeting and we have gone through the booklets and all the other material issued on registration and there is no mention of wheelchair participants using any special wheelchair or going for any meeting yesterday. I would think that if the requirement for registration was to use products from that association then the information should have been communicated on registration and that the wheelchair should have been made available (possibly even for free on registration). Anthony lined up at the start of the race, race officials inspected his registration and gave him his participation number, no one told him that his chair was the "wrong one". However that is besides the point. the whole situation stinks, Anthony used a standard sports wheelchair, nothing fancy about it, it is just lighter and more comfortable. Just like your average sports shoe. The wheelchairs from that association are not sports wheelchairs, they are heavy and not meant for racing. Choosing to use a sports wheelchair for a wheelchair race is as simple as me and you choosing to use a sports shoe instead of office shoe for a race. How would you or i entered the race a won and then a office shoe manufacturer came to you asking you to forfeit your position because you did not use their office shoe, and yet they had not told you before to use their shoe for the race. What message are we sending Anthony, are we telling him that his hard work doesn't matter, are we telling him that in Kenya rules do not matter and someone can change rules at thel last minute to meet their own selfish needs? And someone from that association has the audacity to say to Anthony's face that he was doing it "just for fun" I am so angry. The whole event is to support young people like Anthony who have to face more challenges in life than we do how can you raise money for someone with preventable blindness by crushing the hopes of a young man with paraplegia who is not asking for handouts but for his efforts to be recognized. Anthony's race number is 2424 Citizen TV Kenya please look through your footage of the event and confirm that Anthony won, he rode in right after the gentleman who won the 21K race, I watched on Citizen as he was given a tag by one of the stewards. Standard Chartered Marathon Please tell where the fairness is here. Who will be Anthony's voice, Who will fight for him someone give me a number for someone who can help. This is really unfair. You should see the look on Anthony’s face, where there should have been pride for being the best in Kenya, there is now only disgust, anger and disappointment.

C&P