Saturday, November 26, 2011

Back-to-back Running Days & Some Worn Out Shoes!

I trust everyone's Thanksgiving was plentiful, joyful, and close to what could only be described as an annual food coma. So much food, so little time. Well not really... this is a four day weekend for me so you'd better believe I'm hanging in there for seconds and thirds. I know, I'm horrible...

But hey! I had two runs on back-to-back days starting with Thanksgiving (I usually try not to do more than two days in a row in a single week) and I'll tell you - that Thanksgiving day run was really.. .. ...blah. I'm going to put that one in the top three worst-feeling runs of this year, and I'm not even including the Mammoth Lakes running sessions in any of those because let's face it, it's high altitude running! I think my body and mind was fixated on experiencing a turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, ham, asparagus, green beans, salad, pumpkin pie overload. And yes, I had two servings of each. Yikes. ("Oh... so that's why he ran again on Friday.")

On the following day, however, it was a complete turnaround - it was a fantastic run complete with great weather. I did notice something about my prior run: same warm-up/stretch routine, however, I grabbed my older Asics Kayano-17 with almost 300 miles on them. (I had not run in them for nearly two months - gee, I wonder why?) Just a quarter mile into my run I could feel that something was off... "hey, why are both of my legs and knees starting to hurt?" Well heck, a better question is, why didn't I just turn around and grab any of my newer pair of shoes?! Laziness combined with a lapse in good judgement. I finished up a 10k run and instead of feeling great, I felt miserable. I reflected on a fellow blogger TheRunningFatGuy and a recent post of his about running shoes - why did I choose to put mileage on shoes that I knew were likely beyond their useful life? All righty then...  lesson learned. No, for real this time... honest.

My second follow-up at a quality 10k the next day was a winner! My trusty Asics Gel 3020 have a little over 250 miles on them and the difference was easy to feel. (I have a couple pair of those and the newer Gel 3030, and even though the 3030 is about an ounce lighter, I like the 3020 a bit better - don't know what the deal is with that.) I'm reminded of RFG's post and I can't help but think I, too, am experiencing a lesser mileage life out of the Asics Kayanos. Hmmm...  time to re-examine my footwear perhaps.

You know, a year ago today, when I really started pouring on the mileage, I never would have imagined I'd be talking like this about running - let alone writing about how I'm wearing out running shoes! What a turnaround, but that's a good thing.

Anyone getting some high mileage out of their choice of athletic shoes?

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