Running In Place

So, my initial plan was to drive to the sneaker place some 60 miles west today to get some betterfasterstronger footwear. We’ve got a local, independently owned sneaker place right here - but it’s been kind of hit or miss for me in terms of getting the guidance I need. For example, the very first time I walked into Local Sneaker Place the only thing I knew was that I had high arches - so cute salesgirl put me into some Nike model, said it looked good, and sent me on my way. It turned out not to be the right shoe for me - it forced my foot to roll farther inward than was natural and I was constantly correcting the direction of my feet. And I ended up with a stress fracture in an unusual place on my ankle (which caused it to be several weeks before it was appropriately diagnosed). The next time I went in, I was helped by a muscular young man who really took some time to explore my needs, got me on the treadmill, and found me the shoe that I have been faithful to for 3 years (no, not the same pair for 3 years). Some bit later, when I returned for replacements I was sad to find that my Asics Gel-Nimbus 6’s were long gone and it was time to upgrade. Except that the 7s were WAY different. More rigid, less cushioned - instantly uncomfortable. When I expressed that to this salesperson (who was non-descript enough to not even get a title), he was all like, ‘it’s the same model, and the new version, it’s better.’ I didn’t get ‘em and, thankfully, I was able to stay in the way-back machine and order some 6s online. Unpleasantness averted. Till now.

But, having gotten up late and lazed around, as bachelorettes are wont to do, I didn’t care to dive into the long drive - so I thought I’d give my local boys another chance. As luck would have it, my draw was a shaved-head, tattooed runner dude - how serendipidous is that!! First of all, he totally acknowledged my complaint about the Nimbus progression (they’re now on version 9) - he said so many people have moved away from that model that he wonders why they even carry it. Then he took me through some different brands with attributes similar to my 6s. Interestingly, I found there is such a thing as too much cushion - some of those sneaks felt like walking on platform pillows. But in the end, I found my way back to Asics with the Cumulus 9. It felt just like the old days. So I did the guy a solid back and bought some Merrills too.

In the bad shopping department. I can only tell you that if there’s anything I put off longer than buying new sneaks, it’s buying new bras. Why can’t I have the cute little lacey number? Why can’t I have some delicate straps and 1 or 2 cute little clasps?? For me it’s the Jane Russell, steel underwire, mile wide straps and 4 to 6 clasps “posture bra.” Not. Cute. Can we please get some female engineers in on this??? Everybody else has figured out form/function. Meanwhile I am just trying to find some place between bra-less hippie and fembot. Somebody help a sister out!

If you guessed ’some foolish injury or another’ you would be the winner. And your prize is listening to me bitch. Actually things seem to be resolving pretty well. For two days after the race I had nothing more than achey muscles and I thought I’d dodged the usual hail of bullets, but then I started to develop some pretty significant pain in my left arch. The arch had been a little bothersome on runs of late and I kind of blamed it on the rafting thing, but it increased so much after the race that it finally occured to me that it might be my sneaks. It had been in the back of my mind for awhile that it was time to replace them but I’d been putting it off because my favorite version of the Asics Gel-Nimbus (6) has been long out of production and I have not found the subsequent versions as comfortable when I tried them on. So I basically um….dragged my feet on it. Though the pain was in my arch (primarily the outer aspect) and not really in the heel at all, I wondered about the possibility of plantar fasciitis so I taped it - which reduced the pain by about 80%! I also got some great advice from Karen about stretches to do before even getting out of bed and about not going barefoot while healing PF. Dang! I am barefoot all the time at home - indoors or out! I have felt very out of sorts today as I walk around in my walking around sneakers. But it all helps, I have had nearly no discomfort today! And I am going running sneak shopping tomorrow - which involves driving 60 miles to a store that can hopefully help me find the next best sneaker to my old, sad Gel-Nimbus 6’s. Yeah, I live in the sticks.

In fun news - I am into my first of two weeks as a wild bachelorette. The old man is on a solo motorcycle/camping trip down to the deep south. At this point he’s somewhere in northern Alabama and, happily, has not been bitten by any gigantic spiders or lizards or scorpians or aligators or anacondas or all those other creepies that those who are not so blessed to have killing snow have to put up with. So you can see now why he’s taking this trip solo. In any case, though I haven’t *yet* found anything I’m willing to trade my family for, I am loving the solitude. But I’ve got a couple of very sad dogs on my hands.

Cats - not so concerned

Today I ran my 2nd Boilermaker 15K. I’m really ambivalent about it. On one hand, it’s a great race - a really challenging course with tons of volunteer & crowd support - so you can’t help but love being there and being part of it. Even when you’re hurting. On the other hand, I’ve come away quite dissatisfied with my own performance, but the stinging truth is that I got out what I put in. I woefully (foolishly) underprepared for this race. I just let a lot of things get in the way of the miles and hills that should have been accumulated before toeing the line this morning. But even though I knew full well that I was not up to par, I felt like I could pull out 9.3 miles in any case - and in my fantasy mind, could just kind of *naturally* run the race I ran in 2005 - the one I trained for. As you can probably surmise, I did not run that race in my memory again. In fact, today there were times I wondered if I’d finish. It was sucky hard. I finished about 15 minutes slower this year than in ‘05. Of 12,000 runners, I was probably in the last 200 or so. But you know, it was the hardest I’d ever worked to cross a finish line. I dug deep to keep running, as slow as it was. Really deep. And I’m kinda proud of that, but at the same time, kind of ashamed that I didn’t do the work beforehand to make it something other than just dragging my ass to the end. Ultimately, I’m not lamenting. I’m not beating myself up but I am wistfully contemplating how much more satisfying it could have been if I had done the work. So now - I’ll do the work. It makes no sense not to.

On a happy note, I had a most prestigious houseguest and it was really nice to have someone to hang around with at the start and compare race observations with afterwards. I also now have learned that, when you walk into a post-race party with 12,000 competitors and infinity spectators, it’s not enough to say ‘meet me in the Family Reunion area.’ Ya really gotta have a plan. Actually, it wasn’t that bad - there were tons of beer trucks all over the place so it made walking around and looking for Jon alot easier.

Pre-race, fresh like daisies

Less than 1/10th mile to the finish. The supreme effort it took to raise both hands in the air may have cost me several minutes.

Obligatory post-race beer picture (well, for the lush anyway).

Snakes & Arrows Tour, compliments of shutterbri on Flickr

Saturday I saw Rush live for the second time in this life. The first time being, hmmm, nearly 20 years ago. I went by myself because no one I know is as hip as me - well except the kid, but he’s going to see them on July 4 with his buds so, you know, no room for mom dancing around and doing air-bass.

He also wouldn’t want to know that I’ve newly declared Geddy Lee sexy as hell.

Craggy face, specks, soul patch. I am smitten. After the show I was thinking of doing a backstage betty, but it was way past my bedtime.

What a difference 20 years makes.