hey let's talk about MY shoes!
There are only five days until my third Half Marathon. My furthest long run so far has been 10.7 miles. My longest run should have been 12 miles, but due to some running gear issues, it was not.
Last weekend I was scheduled to run 12 miles. I dragged my feet on Saturday and didn't go. I planned to set my alarm for 6 o'clock on Sunday morning and go, but I stayed up past ten on Saturday and convinced myself that I should probably just sleep until I woke up on my own and then go. Then I lazed around all morning and ate pancakes until about noon when I finally laced up and hit the pavement.
A couple of miles in I felt some discomfort in the arch of my left foot. I actually thought it was a sliver or something in my sock, or in the inside of my shoe and that at mile three I'd stop and figure out what it was. I sat on the bench, took my shoe off and searched my shoe and my sock for the offending foreign object. There was nothing there. I rubbed the inside of my shoe and wondered if the edge of the insole was starting to lift or separate from the outer part of the shoe. I rubbed it hard and tried to squash it back down. I put my shoe back on. More rubbing. Of course the obvious course of action is to try and ignore it and hope that your foot goes numb so you can run the remaining nine miles in peace.
That is NOT what happened.
I stopped again at the six mile mark and took my shoe off again. By this time more of my foot was starting to burn from the rubbing. I again tried to massage the inside of the shoe back into it's original shape. No luck. I laced back up, pulling the laces extra-tight, hoping that if the shoe had less movement it would rub less.
As if.
I started running and was surprised at how much sorer it was quickly becoming.
I walked. I may have used some extra fun language Mommy can't use at home and has to save for special times when she's alone.
It didn't hurt nearly as bad when I was walking. I walked a mile to rest my sore foot before I started running again. I should also mention that the outside of the outer toes on my right foot were starting to blister. Of course it was likely because I was running all funny to compensate for the sore foot. I imagine I looked like a total athlete, Quasimodo-ing down the path and swearing to myself.
I ran another mile before I admitted that the run was not going to happen in full. Then I walked the last five miles, stubbornly determined that although I wasn't going to run 12 miles that day, I was at least going to say I had traveled them.
Around the time I decided that running was out of the question, I started freaking out about how the heck someone quickly breaks in a new pair of running shoes two weeks before a 13 mile race, when another idea occurred to me.
Take a look at my shoe:
Aside from a small tear on the top, it kind of looks like a more or less normal shoe right?
Now compare it to the other shoe:
No tears. Kind of the same thing right?
In case you didn't catch it, look at them together:
I can't remember the last time I've been so annoyed at myself. They are two different shoes. One shoe is my "new" shoe (and I use the term lightly), the other is an old shoe that has long since been demoted from any kind of running after logging hundreds of miles.
In it's day it was a lovely shoe, which is why when I needed to replace it I bought the newer model of the same shoe, which looks the same enough that I grabbed it in a hurry and put it on. It is now a "sitting at the park" shoe, not a "running shoe." I actually have another pair of running shoes in the closet, that are the same as the ones I've been running in now, and I'm planning on getting them out after this race and demoting the current running shoes to park shoes, and throwing out the old pair. Methinks I may have to buy a funky pair of purple laces for the new shoes to make the new pair more discernible from the old.
If I carried my handy iPhone on my runs I'd have called Steven to bring me my other shoe. But I don't, so I didn't. You know what else I didn't do? Apply sunscreen. Leaving for a two hour run at noon on a sunny day with no sunscreen is awesome.
All in all, it was a long run fail.
Last weekend I was scheduled to run 12 miles. I dragged my feet on Saturday and didn't go. I planned to set my alarm for 6 o'clock on Sunday morning and go, but I stayed up past ten on Saturday and convinced myself that I should probably just sleep until I woke up on my own and then go. Then I lazed around all morning and ate pancakes until about noon when I finally laced up and hit the pavement.
A couple of miles in I felt some discomfort in the arch of my left foot. I actually thought it was a sliver or something in my sock, or in the inside of my shoe and that at mile three I'd stop and figure out what it was. I sat on the bench, took my shoe off and searched my shoe and my sock for the offending foreign object. There was nothing there. I rubbed the inside of my shoe and wondered if the edge of the insole was starting to lift or separate from the outer part of the shoe. I rubbed it hard and tried to squash it back down. I put my shoe back on. More rubbing. Of course the obvious course of action is to try and ignore it and hope that your foot goes numb so you can run the remaining nine miles in peace.
That is NOT what happened.
I stopped again at the six mile mark and took my shoe off again. By this time more of my foot was starting to burn from the rubbing. I again tried to massage the inside of the shoe back into it's original shape. No luck. I laced back up, pulling the laces extra-tight, hoping that if the shoe had less movement it would rub less.
As if.
I started running and was surprised at how much sorer it was quickly becoming.
I walked. I may have used some extra fun language Mommy can't use at home and has to save for special times when she's alone.
It didn't hurt nearly as bad when I was walking. I walked a mile to rest my sore foot before I started running again. I should also mention that the outside of the outer toes on my right foot were starting to blister. Of course it was likely because I was running all funny to compensate for the sore foot. I imagine I looked like a total athlete, Quasimodo-ing down the path and swearing to myself.
I ran another mile before I admitted that the run was not going to happen in full. Then I walked the last five miles, stubbornly determined that although I wasn't going to run 12 miles that day, I was at least going to say I had traveled them.
Around the time I decided that running was out of the question, I started freaking out about how the heck someone quickly breaks in a new pair of running shoes two weeks before a 13 mile race, when another idea occurred to me.
Take a look at my shoe:
Aside from a small tear on the top, it kind of looks like a more or less normal shoe right?
Now compare it to the other shoe:
No tears. Kind of the same thing right?
In case you didn't catch it, look at them together:
I can't remember the last time I've been so annoyed at myself. They are two different shoes. One shoe is my "new" shoe (and I use the term lightly), the other is an old shoe that has long since been demoted from any kind of running after logging hundreds of miles.
In it's day it was a lovely shoe, which is why when I needed to replace it I bought the newer model of the same shoe, which looks the same enough that I grabbed it in a hurry and put it on. It is now a "sitting at the park" shoe, not a "running shoe." I actually have another pair of running shoes in the closet, that are the same as the ones I've been running in now, and I'm planning on getting them out after this race and demoting the current running shoes to park shoes, and throwing out the old pair. Methinks I may have to buy a funky pair of purple laces for the new shoes to make the new pair more discernible from the old.
If I carried my handy iPhone on my runs I'd have called Steven to bring me my other shoe. But I don't, so I didn't. You know what else I didn't do? Apply sunscreen. Leaving for a two hour run at noon on a sunny day with no sunscreen is awesome.
All in all, it was a long run fail.
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