failed experiment

No, not another post complaining about Connex, although that might be topical, this is yet another post about running, and shoes.

You see, on Sunday I did the Run for the Kids wearing Brooks Racers. For those of you not familiar with them, they’re light-weight running shoes to be used for road racing. They super-light and fast, but not very supportive.

The plan was to run with them at RFTK and once or twice over half-marathon distance as a precursor to a full marathon at Gold Coast in July.

I think I can almost definitely kill that idea. I felt fine running in them, and did okay, but I’ve felt pretty ordinary afterwards. I’ve had a sore hip, sore thighs, sore soles of my feet and even a sore lower back (although that might have been caused by the bean-bag at home).

I think I’ll have to stick with my boring old Adrenalines.

Running
14.4km yesterday. It was supposed to be an easy recovery run, but I misjudged the distance a bit.

people are rude

How’s this for rude?

I was at the pool this morning, taking my 18 month old for a dip, and as we sauntered down the stairs, a man passed us and said to my boy:

“Be careful, he’s going to drown you like a kitten”

What a charming thing to say! Bastard, I’ll drown him like a kitten, or I should say “old flabby whale”.

Now, if only I’d thought of something as witty as that at the time!

Running
None yet today, but I’m going for a long-ish one later this afternoon.

New shoes
I ended up buying a cheap pair of Adrenalines this afternoon. I’m not that excited, but at least they were cheap, and I know what I’m getting.

And they’re red.

why is my shoe endangered?

I panicked a bit yesterday afternoon, when I saw this on the interweb:

Buy Men’s Brooks Adrenaline GTS 7 at Road Runner Sports

Note the fine print:

Why is my shoe Endangered?
The shoe manufacturer has discontinued your shoe, so there is a limited supply left. Stock up now at this great low price before they’re gone forever.

Eh, what? Endangered? Gone forever? Noooooooooo!@!!!!!

Not to worry though, it turns out the good people at Brooks are bringing out a whole new model, the GTS8 which looks like exactly the same shoe, but with marginally flashier colours and at a higher price. Natch.

I’m a bit of a fan of Adrenalines. They’ve seen me through two marathons and associated training with no problems and, in bogun parlance, they’re cumfy as.

I don’t know why Brooks insist on bringing out black versions of their shoes. I feel embarrassed on the shoe’s behalf, I really do.

Perhaps it’s an American thing.

The description makes it worse: “Many a runner relies on this trusted road warrior. ” God no. Many a runner cringes reading this s**t.

I have to say, I’m getting a bit bored with them, and inclined to be tempted by some new pair of shoes, with prettier colours and a better website. Hmmmm…..

Running
A fartlek session this morning at Princess Park. It was faster than last time I tried this particular session, but the track is in no danger of being burned up.

danni minogue

I had intended to launch today’s salvo by saying making humorous remarks at Danni Minogue’s expense was like shooting fish in a barrel.

On reflection, I’m not so sure about that. Shooting fish, I would imagine, would be quite difficult. They flap about a bit, you know, in preparation for kicking the bucket. (There are those who say Danni’s dancing is a bit like a fish flapping about in its death throes, but that’s just plain mean.)

So, making fun of Danni M is far easier than the shooting fish caper, and there’s no need to feel guilty about it either. After all, she’s about 80% plastic these days, and plastic has no feelings. She also appears to be wholly without pride, inhibitions or talent.

And she delivers such wonderful material:

DANNII Minogue is keen to “concentrate on the music” after embarrassing images of her canoodling with a female stripper in a London nightclub surfaced last week.
Source: theage.com.au

Surely she doesn’t mean HER music? Has she ever listened to it? No-one could be that crazy.

New shoes
I bought new shoes on Friday. They’re yet another pair of Brooks Adrenalines. This time, they’re in a rather fetching shade of red, rather than the staid blue I had already. They currently have about 4ks on them, after a brief test on Friday night.

Right now, they’re sitting at the end of my bed, white, virginal and pure. No nasty comments, thanks.

Running
A 30k run yesterday morning with Clarkey for company. We started nice and early and took it pretty easy for the most part. Well, reasonably easy – it was marginally faster than 5 minute ks, but we were able to talk fairly comfortably the whole way. It actually turned out to be slightly under 32k and I did the last 3k at a faster pace.

The course is mapped out on mapmyrun.

new shoes

Don’t get excited. I don’t actually have new shoes, but I am in the market for some.

It occurred to me yesterday that my old shoes have about 1300k on them. That’s probably about 500k too much. What’s 500k between friends you ask? Not much, I agree, but they’re Brooks Adrenalines which don’t have the best cushioning to start with. They’re now a little bit like running on little concrete slabs.

So, I took a bit of a walk around the city’s fine running emporia to see what the go is. I tried on a few pairs, and scoped things out.

Amusing comment overheard from a Rebel Sport salesman (“salesboy” really, he looked way young). “Oh, don’t worry, Brooks make the cushioning to outlast the shoes themselves”. Given my experience with my blue adrenalines GTS6, I admit to stifling a stealthy giggle.

No actual running today, rather a well-needed rest. As always, I feel slightly anxious not running. My problem – I need to learn to be less obsessive.

new wheels

The new wheels arrived last night, wrapped in about 25 square metres of plastic of various sorts and three rolls of packing tape. Still, I’m grateful for those extra few seconds of delicious anticipation while I tried to tear it open with my hands, my fingernails, teeth, a pair of scissors and a small thermo-nuclear device.

The shoes emerged, eventually, looking splendidly yellow. If you pass me on one of my runs, my advice is to not look directly at the shoes. They’re the kind of shoes that would make Eat ’em blink. If you don’t know who he is you’re missing out; just assume they’re real bright.

Anyway, they’re adrenaline by name, and adrenaline by nature. I wore them on my morning run and they felt so good I think I covered the first 1.5k in about 23 seconds. They were so fast I felt I had to have words…

“Right you, shoes” I sternly said. “A little less of the speedy gonzalez spirit, is what we require from you. Model yourself on the tortoise; be less hare-ish.”

My thinking being – my feet might have been feeling A-OKAY at that point, but there was no guarantee the rest of me would be thankful 15k down the track.

The message did get through and, suitably chastened, the new shoes and I covered a leisurely 17k in about 75 minutes, which is a little over 4.5 minutes per k. Not bad for a relatively hilly training run.

Random observations:

1. Dorset Road Bayswater is uncannily like the surface of the moon at 5:30 am, especially the bit just south of Cantebury road. It’s not that pleasant.
2. The Dandenong Creek Trail in Bayswater is also a little like the surface of the moon, except with occasional trees, birds and hordes of bunny-rabbits AKA disease-infested-vermin. It’s a bit better than Dorset Road, but not all that much.
3. There seems to be a glut of golf driving ranges in the area. Why driving ranges and not courses? My theory is the city fathers of Bayswater like hitting little balls, but don’t like trees. They like their big, open, barren spaces and they’re big fans of rocks, weeds and things windswept. See point 1.

vale charlton

A quick post today, as I have to rush off to three days of what I anticipate to be oh-so-exciting training….

Running – last week was much improved. Solid efforts in the early morning have left me feeling more purposeful, and the LSD run on saturday morning hit the spot. Overall there was 64km last week, and they were generally of a reasonable standard and mix of styles (hills, speed, long-slow).

I was up again slightly before the dawn for a 12k run including the Mullum-mullum creek trail. So everything’s qoing well, running-wise.

Shoes: Some runners (who will remain nameless) seem to almost fetishise running shoes. I’m not one of those, but I do admit to some excitment over my new shoes. I’ve managed to get some new Brooks Adrenalines cheap, via a great uncle-in law thrice removed, or something, who turns out to be a physiotherapist and can get special deals. Who-hoo. They should come in 2 weeks or so.

I always used to be an Asics person, having run in 2010s and 2110s for years, but I’ve enjoyed my current adrenalines, and I think I’ll stick with them for a while.

Charlton – as you may or may not know, I’ve supported Charlton Athletic for years now (small, unfashionable “soccer” club in the English Premier League). They’ve had some pretty good moments, some pretty dire moments, but they’ve generally had at least enough success to keep in them in the league.

This year it’s all gone to hell. We have a new manager, Ian Dowie. To be precise, we HAD a new manager, who only lasted 12 games, before being unceremoniously dumped. He may have even been escorted from the building carrying his stuff in a cardboard box, I don’t know.

We’ve lost a lot this year. I mean A LOT. I haven’t mentioned it, because frankly, it’s been too upsetting. Last weekend we finally didn’t lose. We didn’t win either, but we didn’t lose. It’s a sign of the times that this has been greeted with some celebration around the traps, and we even made the Sports Tonight summary yesterday.

How depressing. Lucky my running’s picking up.