The title and theme for today’s post can be attributed to the odd wanderings my brain takes when I’m on a run. My head becomes completely clear, clear enough that there isn’t a filter to tell me if things are making sense or not. With that in mind, I came to the thought that the common advice for a bride on her wedding day was a good outline for the things I wanted to talk about in my next post. “Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.”
I don’t know who’s getting married and I sure as heck am not the bride, but here goes for the post –
Something old – I was looking at my old binder containing my old fashioned “pencil & paper” running log from when I was training for the 2006 Des Moines Marathon. On September 2nd of that year, I ran 3 miles with a total time of 21:09, a 7:03 pace per mile. I looked at that and thought, “Sweet. That’s awesome. If I WAS that fast at one point, I have a good shot of running a 5K under 20:00.” While I saw optimism in looking back at my old “fastness”, I told my wife about my old times and she was bluntly realistic. “Honey, that’s just depressing. You’re five, almost six years older. Of course you were faster then.” Damn. Very true. I still keep focusing on the positive fact though that if I was faster then, I can be faster again.
Something new – Speaking of times, today I set my 2012 personal best for a 2 mile run. I’ve been getting closer and closer to breaking the 16 minute mark and finally did so today with a new record time of 15:54. The 2 mile route I took today was hilly at the start too, so that made me feel even better. I feel like I can still progress by leaps and bounds, but looking back to just two months ago I already have. In December, I was at the 17 minute mark for 2 mile runs. It would be great to continue to increase my pace by a minute over two miles every month from here on, but I doubt that will happen.
Something borrowed – Alright, I really have nothing here. Well except maybe that I went for my run on borrowed time today. My wife (a chemistry graduate student) had to go downtown to the lab to do some work and I had to take her, as the normally sparse Sunday afternoon parking situation would be made even worse with a Big Ten basketball game going on. Saying I was on borrowed time is a stretch though too to be honest as I had plenty of time to take my run, stretch, and shower before we had to go.
Something blue – Yesterday I finally ponied-up the cash for a new pair of running shoes. I had still been running in my Asics Gel Kayano shoes that I wore when I did the Madison Marathon in 2009! Not that I’ve done much running consistently since then, but I just shake my head in amazement that I had been running in shoes that not only were three years old, but that were approaching 1000 miles of use.
My new shoes that I picked up yesterday at Fleet Feet Madison are Mizuno Wave Nirvanas. They have stability and over-pronation control like the Asics but do so with much less weight. The Asics were much more cushioned, but almost too much so and with too much of cost in weight. Maybe I like that cushion when I was going long distances for marathon training, but for shorter speedier distance that I’m doing now, I wanted to feel the road more beneath my feet.
I’ve typically been using SOLE inserts in the past, but was convinced to try Superfeet insoles instead. Again, just like my new Mizunos compared to my Asics, the Superfeet insoles were much less bulky than the SOLEs. I’m using the green Superfeet which have a deeper heel cup and more supportive arch. I don’t have a high arch necessarily, but I find the insoles that have moderate support for the arch and metatarsals are best for me. I recently purchased some Teva hiking/walking shoes and my feet had been hurting from even light use because of not having enough support.
Oh! The blue part! The Mizuno Wave Nirvanas are blue!
Well there you have it, the old adage complete. Hopefully that gives this bri… er… runner some good luck. The shoes at least seemed to do the trick today!
