Okay, sometimes I am an idiot, but really I attempt to do some things to improve my running. Like even when I find a running shoe that works great for me, I still go looking on the other side to see if the next “great” shoe is just a little better.
It often gets me in trouble.
This week my right foot has been giving me issues in all the road shoes I have been running in since my injury while walking or running. Except for the pair of old running shoes that I had “retired” to being lawn shoes. Well I mowed the lawn and the frontage along the road in those old lawn shoes again this week and guess what…they didn’t bother my right foot.
Mmmm Houston what is going on?
Getting back to today’s run. This morning I drove into Waterville to do a little longer run planning to wear my current primary road shoe. I brought along my lawn shoes to put on after the run, that old gotta change out of the hot, sweaty mess I become after a hot July run. However, just driving the 20 minutes to the Planet Fitness parking lot my right foot was not comfortable.
I got out of the truck frigged around with my socks, but each time the foot didn’t feel right. At that point I wasn’t going to run 7.0 or so miles knowing that my right foot was already feeling discomfort from the shoes.
Yep, just a bit frustrated!!!
I was getting back in the truck and was going to bag the workout and go home to sulk. When I remembered that I had my old lawn shoes with me. They looked like crap, from mowing the lawn several times in them, but hey they couldn’t feel any worse than the other shoes did.
I put on my old New Balance Beacon v1 with over 300 miles on them.
Yeah, the Beacons.
It was almost as though when I put them on my foot relaxed and began to loosen up. The first mile was a bit tough, they do have a different gait than my Salomon’s, but after that I figured things out. Once I did the foot was happy and didn’t complain the rest of the run!!!
My pacing without really pushing the effort level was sub-9:00’s even with the temps at Fred’s Coffee saying it was 83*F in the sun, while when I was able to find shade, it was much nicer with a good breeze.
I did have to pit stop at the Colby Fieldhouse and while in there got a drink of water, which helped a lot on how the body was feeling.
The only thing that I didn’t like was at about 4.0 miles there was this sound like someone was coming up from behind me. I had just finished coming up the hill from Colby heading towards McDonalds, so I figured that it was one of the Colby students getting ready to fly by. I may have picked up the speed a little to hold them off.
It was really strange though because whoever it was was holding steady right behind me or so I thought. So at that point I looked back and no one was there???? WTFO is going on here???
I stopped for a second to look around and no one was there. A bit creepy to say the least!!!
I started running again and after about 10 steps the sound like someone was behind me again. I stopped and looked back and no one was there. Really creepy.
I began again and kept running and the sound was back. At that point I figured it was something in the waist pouch I was wearing bouncing around and stopped worrying about it. It kept up all the way to the Lincoln Street Hill, where I stopped because it was bugging the hell out of me and took the belt off to see in the world was bouncing around like that.
The running belt was in my hand and I took a step and the sound happened when stepped off again. It was the outsole of the shoes making a suction cup kind of sound when I would take a step.
Weird as hell!!!
The Beacons did this the rest of the way to the finish, it was annoying, but with how great my feet were feeling, I am not going to complain about something as minor as an annoying sound being made during my run. However, the old body by the time I got back down on First Rangeway was getting tired and even though I know that it has more of hill than you think, I slowed down pretty good on it.
Yeah, the heat and first time back to this distance kind of got me towards the end.
However, my right foot by the end of the run was very happy and not complaining about being uncomfortable or hurting from having to run through discomfort to finish a run. I have a sneaking suspicion that the Beacons will stay unretired for a while.
All I know is that it felt damned good to be able to run without discomfort or pain in that right foot for the first time in over a month. I didn’t bother to change shoes, the hot, sweaty mess on my feet was more comfortable than putting back on the other shoes.
Good run and yeah, sometimes you gotta go backwards to move forward.
I have a feeling that a pair of Beacon 2s will show up next week as a birthday present from Bennie, now to figure out if the old Beacons will last until August 6th. I think they have another 100 or so miles left in them. If not…well we will see. 😉
