HM training

Ok, I had managed to complete the River Run in under the goal time and now had 6 weeks further to prepare for the half. My training program was now at week 11 of 14 with a 2 week taper beyond that. Overall I was following the program steadily but had not quite been managing the distances planned in terms of my long weekly run or overall weekly k's. This was largely due to injury or illness, but also a bit of laziness on my part too. Getting out of bed on some of those very cold mornings during winter (<2*C) was not always easy, but I managed it the majority of the time.
At this point I had been getting some soreness in my heels, particularily on the left one and had actually got what appeared to a internal 'pressure blister' on the side of my left heel at one point.

My heel's were getting progressively worse and my Kayano's were also starting to look a bit tired so I realised that I needed to address both problems if I was going to get through the HM successfully. I had expected to get longer out of the shoes (perhaps 800-1000k) so was taken a bit by surprise when informed by the staff at Jogger's World that they had expired already, and if they were a horse they would shoot them! Given they were the ones that told me 800-100k initially, I was a little disappointed. I got 715k out of them but probably should have retired them about the 600k mark, possibly avoiding my heel problems which had now been confirmed as planterfasciatis by a physio. I guess the significant extra weight I was carrying just battered the shoe's cushioning into submission a bit earlier than I had expected, even though I had lost a fair bit of fat on the way. I also discovered that Kayano's are not really suited to heavy runners anyway, which is not the advice I had been given at the outset of this running caper. Having said that, up until this heel/sole issue, I was very happy with them and had not had a single issue with so much as a blister until that point.
I then began shopping for new shoes, seeking advice on CoolRunning, from the physio, and in Jogger's World, our only specialist shoe shop. All advice pointed me away from Kayano's and in the direction of Brooks, either the Beast for max support or Adrenaline for good support and cushioning. After much consultation and consideration, I bought the Beast and wore them all that day to try to wear them in a little before a long run that weekend.
Having no time to run them in with plenty of short-medium runs was clearly a daft rookie mistake, but was caused by the somewhat unexpected early retirement of the Kayano's ( which i should have anticipated better). So instead of having a month or so to gradually wear them in , I was now 3 and a bit weeks out from the HM and forced with having to 'run in' a new pair of shoes quickly for the half. As stated earlier, I had never had a single blister in the previous 700k's or so of running, so whilst I new the situation wasn't ideal, wasn't overly concerned.
I should have been. 4k's into my 20.5k long run with the Beast's, I could tell it was going to be an uncomfortable day. I completed the run as scheduled, but it was fairly unpleasant and ended up with large blisters across the arch of each foot right where the midsole support was as well as on the toes. I had deliberately wore socks I had run in before to ensure I knew they were ok. Needless to say I was pissed off with both the shoes ( having never had a drama with the Asics) and myself. I backed up the next day with 9.5k but it didn't feel great on the feet, although the legs were good.