I'm Runnin' Runnin'

On March 4th I decided to join some fellow Nesties and register for the Nike Women's Half Marathon in San Francisco later this year. I don't know what I was thinking exactly. You see, I'm not a runner. If you see me running, then you'd better look behind me to see who's chasing. And let me be real...at some point of being chased I'll probably just turn around and take my chances fighting. I never before had thought about running for fun. Or for any reason, really.

The difference with this is that I will be running along with some really great women. Many of them are rookie runners like me. It will be an experience that I've never had before and cause me to push myself beyond my perceived limits. It is for a good cause too--the Leukemia and Lymphoma Foundation. It will definitely help with my weight loss goals and give me something to do that's new and different. Hey, let's not forget that the finishing medal is a Tiffany necklace. ;) Just keepin' it real. :)


This past Sunday I was finally able to take some time to go and get properly fitted for running shoes. Hubbs, Lil' Man , and I piled into the car and headed to Road Runner Sports. I was excited and nervous. Also a bit curious. I wondered what kind of foot I had (i.e. low arch, normal arch, pronation, etc.) and what type of runner I was. I also wondered if it was all a complete crock of shit put together to get you to buy more running stuff. I was going to find out soon enough.

I walked in with my clan and got hooked up with one of the salesman pretty quickly. He explained the process of how they map your feet, have you run on the treadmill, watch your foot patterns frame by frame, and then have you try on shoes. During the whole process I was asked questions about past injuries, what type of running I'm going to do, and a whole slew of other things. Here I am doing all the afore mentioned activities. I've got to be honest, it skeeved me out a little bit to do all this with no socks on. *shudder*

Those are my feet on the larger screens. I have almost no arch and put a lot of pressure on my heel. I "toe off" pretty normally from my big and second toe. Does any of this actually interest you?

I look pretty serious running on the treadmill, don't I? I wish I had known I'd be doing all that. I wouldn't have worn jeans.

Apparently my feet belong to two different people. The left one does something different than the right one and looked like two separate people running when we played back the video. The salesman basically told me that I had the weirdest feet he'd ever seen. Ha ha ha! Awesome. Leave it to me to try and run a half marathon with weird ass feet.

I picked out the pair of shoes that worked best for me after trying on the 4 different shoes available in "motion control". Yeah, the selection was limited and apparently I have an almost wide foot, but not quite. That narrows my choices even more. Whatever. I wound up with the Asics Gel Evolution 3. I actually like the look of them even though that wasn't the ultimate goal.

I also picked up a pair of running pants, a moisture wick top, and running socks. It's not much, but it's a start. I'll slowly build up my repertoire of running cloths as I start to go on longer runs.

So, my verdict on the whole thing? I had a little bit of sticker shock at the prices for running gear, but I think the experience was good overall. They were very thourough in their process and I learned something about running--so it's not a complete crock of shit. ;) They did tell me that I ran better in the more expensive shoes...yeah, I'll bet. I'm hoping it'll all pay off in the long run.

Now that I've got the proper shoes I have no excuses. I need to start training. I've got to get back in the gym and get on a program or I'm going to be pretty damned embarrassed come October. I'm probably going to be embarrassed anyway, but no sense in making it worse by not being ready. Suit up!