As I mentioned last week, I’m training to run a 5K race with my friend Paul. Paul was very gracious when offering to run this race with me, to keep pace with me and make sure I get through it. My tendency toward laziness aside, I really do believe that one shouldn’t commit to doing something - especially when that something is for charity, for God’s sake - and half-ass it. So last week I changed up my gym routine. I’m now running a 5K on the treadmill 3 days a week.
It was immediately addicting. So I started going at it hard, and now I’ve decided I’d like to be into a 9-minute mile before this race. Then, last Wednesday, I got to the gym and realized I’d forgotten to throw a pair of socks into my bag. "No big deal," I thought, "I’ve run without socks loads of times."
Only, for whatever reason, this time my shoes weren’t having it, and I got about a mile into the run before I realized what a bad idea that had been. Except - and here’s the problem - I’m very, very stubborn sometimes, and I kept going. It felt like nails in my feet, and I got to 2.8 miles before I completely crapped out, and even then, limping slowly back to the locker room, I was berating myself for not finishing up. "Just a third of a mile left, loser," I kept saying.
So I spent all weekend with bandages and Neosporin on my feet, and they’re healing up nicely. I got back on the treadmill today, and while it wasn’t completely comfortable, I can’t tell that my blisters got appreciably worse; I wore two pairs of socks on my left foot over a bandaid. Tomorrow’s strength training day, so for cardio I’m going to swim, which I used to do in college and loved.
Anyway, as I was wondering what the hell had gone wrong with my shoes, which had once been so great without socks, I read several running forums and found out that you’re supposed to switch up running shoes after a year. I’d heard this before and called it bullshit; the pair of shoes I had before my current pair had lasted me for 5 years, but I’d run my feet raw in them more times than I could count. Still, since I started training I’ve been itching to try my hand a marathon or half-marathon (probably this one), and so I decided to suck it up and get some new shoes. See them up there? Ain’t they great? This experience aside, I really do highly recommend Nike’s Air Zoom Moire running shoe. The ones I have have done great for me the past year.
I’m also tracking my runs with my little iPod nano and the Nike Sport Kit, to which I treated myself when I paid off a huge student loan last year. I’m creating a new category and posting my results from every run, more for myself and purposes of keeping this info organized, but hey; feel free to encourage me. Or even better - join in!
Here’s today’s run. It was pretty good considering how much my left foot still hurt at times, and how slow and out of shape I still am:
Distance: 5.06 km
Time: 32:17
Pace: 6.22 min/km
Calories: 433
