not the shoes, please god, not the shoes!

If you have been watching this blog like a hawk, and I know you have, you will no doubt recall I recently bought a brace of shoes from the US of A, via the interweb. And they were things of beauty. Pristine, spotless, so white they almost glowed in the dark.

They put my other shoes to shame, they tending more to gray, autumnal tones and mud-splattered motifs.

That was all good until last weekend, when I went on a long run. It was just an ordinary run, over a route I’ve done many a time. The thing is, I forgot about the bit along Liverpool Road in Kilsyth, which is lovely and bucolic in the summer but turns into roughly 2 kilometres of bog with even the slightest hint of rain.

I did my best, hopping hither and thither, from rock to tuft of grass to gravel and back again. If you happened to have been standing out the front of the golf course, you probably would have thought you saw a human kangaroo, so well did I jump over the puddles. But it was no use. Before long, my toes were wet, the back of my legs were covered in mud, and my beautiful new shoes had had their virginity decisively plucked.

Oh well. Such is life. You start out with high ideals, spotless ethics and beautiful features and before long you end up covered in mud and worse, sodden and making unpleasant squelching sounds.

Running
13 wet km on Saturday. 31.6km on Sunday and I just had a lovely 13km tonight. I’m pretty pleased with the way things are going with training right now. I’m managing 100km weeks with ease. Not just managing, thriving. I can run over 30km at 4.5m/km pace and then get up the next morning and run without pain or stiffness.

Good signs.

running shoes are a ripoff

It’s true, running shoes are a ripoff. There are plenty of people who question the need for the things; they argue the human foot is well adapted to run without special aids for “pronation” and the like.

But, even if you accept the claims coming from the shoe manufacturers, they are way too expensive, especially in Australia.

Take the shoes I wear, Brooks Adrenaline. If you go down to your local Rebel Sport, they’re going to sting you $220 AUD for a pair of the latest model (and you can’t buy previous models).

However, you can find them online from America for $100 USD. That’s only $112 in Australian money. So, the same shoes cost pretty much exactly double in Australia.

Before you say anything, the cost of shipping isn’t that much. I ordered 2 pairs from an American company and they charged my $272 all up, including shipping. The same 2 pairs from Australia would cost me $440!

I don’t know how they can justify that.

Running
It’s been a while since I last posted, so let’s see if I can remember. Ah yes, on Wednesday I was sick, so no running. On Thursday I went out for a little gently recovery run but got distracted and ended up running for 12km. This morning I intentionally went out for 18.4km, starting from the city and heading down to St Kilda via Beaconsfield Parade and back via Albert Park. Here it is on mapmyrun.com.

168km for the month so far.

trouble with shoes

Another thing that irritates me these days: shoes. Specifically, women (mostly young women) who don’t wear them even on cold days.

For example, these last few days have been quite cold, especially in the morning. There’s a young women, who looks about 18, who rides on my train and she’s been rugged up in a coat and scarf and jeans but, get this: thongs!****

Thongs, I tell you!

So am I right to assume that every part of her feels the cold except for her feet, which somehow exist in their own separate climatic zone where it’s always 40 degrees? It’s insanity, I tell you.

Regrettably, this practice has extended to the male half of the population, although only the younger ones.

*****(If there are any UK people reading this, I mean “flip-flops”. I have no way of knowing if she was wearing a thong)

Running shoes
My running shoes, the pair I keep at work, are starting to concern me. They’re scruffy, and have been ever since I went running on a wet, puddly day months and months ago. What’s worse, they’re unhealthy. They are the Monty Burns of the shoes world. The black grippy bits are worn away at the toe and almost disappeared on one heal. I’m running on the white cushiony bits.

I think it’s time to put them out to pasture. I will as soon as the new pair arrives from the US. God bless the exchange rate, I ordered new Adrenaline GTS10 for $70 less than they cost in the shops here, and that includes delivery.

Running
9 easy km this lunchtime.

nice shoes, shame about the legs

I had a strange experience, just after I penned yesterday’s missive. I was waiting for the lift when I noticed a woman – a stranger – staring fixidly at my feet. Most people with functioning noses pretty quickly figure out my feet are best avoided, but this lady seemed quite captivated. I should add, I was wearing shoes – my Brooks Racers. As you can see, they’re fairly spectacular, especially in a grey corporate setting:

When we got into the lift, she actually went as far as to compliment my shoes. “Nice shoes” she said. “Thanks,” I said “they’re running shoes”. (Well, they are!).

And that was more or less that, aside from about 26 floors worth of awkward silence.

That’s a first – me being complimented on my footwear.

Physio
I went to the physio this morning, to have my knee checked out. The physio turned out to be a young woman (although, when I think about it, she was probably a woman all along) and nice and seemingly competent. She asked me a bunch of questions, looked at my shoes, and then twisted and turned my legs in ways that varied from “excruciating” to “get the f**k off me you sadistic woman”.

Then she told me my knee had several “structural issues” and that I could run the marathon in October if I wanted too, but in a disapproving tone of voice. “I can’t stop you running the marathon, but you need to have a think about your priorities” or words to that affect. I get the feeling she sees a wooden right leg in the near future for me.

That may be so, but it’s a price worth paying, surely.

A massage followed, but not one of those relaxing, essential oil massages, a claws of steel-type one.

Immediately afterwards, I jumped off the massage table, then pretended my right leg collapsed underneath me. I thought it was funny, in a Dad-joke kinda way, but I did see a definite note of panic in her eyes for just a second.

Now the knee hurts like buggery. I’m supposed to run as normal, but stretch 4 times a day for the next week. If that, combined with today’s claws of steel doesn’t do the trick, then there may be an xray and/or MRI to come.

chucking out dead shoes

There’s a definite life cycle when it comes to running shoes, at least for me.

It goes something like this:

1. Shoe comes out in the US – becomes object of lust, possibly unattainable
2. Shoe comes out in Australia – I begin to haunt Rebel Sports
3. I come into money, or the old shoes fall apart – they are mine!
4. Too nice to take out of the box
5. First few runs – avoid taking them anywhere there might be water, mud, dust or muggers: in short, anywhere
6. Preferred option – run in them whenever I can
7. Dependable – the default shoe
8. A little tired, but still good
9. Very comfortable, but seen better days
10. First foot pain on long run – ignore it
11. More foot pain – can’t ignore
12. Move to cupboard – use for short runs
13. Move to other cupboard – for messing around the house

I can get that far pretty well, but there’s one last step I can’t take, namely:

• Put it in the bin

The affect of all that is I end up with cupboards full of old running shoes, lending a peculiar “fragrance” to the house.

There have been complaints.

So, last weekend I bit the bullet and chucked a few out. I now own:

1. 2 pairs of actively used Brooks Adrenalines – 1 for home and one for work
2. 1 pair of Brooks Racers
3. 1 pair of Brooks Adrenalines for messing around the house

And that’s it! I had to be cruel and lose, by my calculations, something around 5,000km worth of shoes.

Running
A 14.1km run this lunch-time in the cold. It felt good, like I was running well and fast. Not particularly quick though. 1 hour 5 minutes.

racer

The early-stages of marathon training are pretty good so far. I ran 80km this week, including 29km this morning. The run was fine, at a steady easy pace and I upped the pace over the last 3km. 29km in 2 hours 15.

That’s fine. No pressure. I kinda followed my nose a bit, and ended up running down Mountain Highway for long periods of time, instead of the usual trek up and down the Dandenong Creek Trail. I’d like to be doing these sorts of runs a bit fast in a month or two, when my fitness picks up a bit.

Shoes
This afternoon I happened to be in Smith street, in Collingwood, AKA cheap running shoes-town. Nike was a heaving mass of humanity – not much fun with little kids in tow. Brooks was far more civilised. Also, they had a pair of Racers going cheap in my size.

They’re not the most recent model, but I’m quite happy to be behind the fashions in these things. With any luck I can do a fast 10km or two. I’m thinking about running a marathon in them, but not quite convinced. Here’s a picture of them.

As Steve would say, that’s all.

shorts

Occasionally I have a good run of results, running-wise, perhaps a PB here or there or just a good couple of training sessions. It doesn’t take much before I’m going about calling myself a marathon runner, puffing my chest up with pride, looking down on mere “joggers” and generally making an arse of myself.

If there’s one thing guaranteed to puncture this illusion like a thumb-tack applied to a balloon, it’s a trip to the friendly local sportsware supplier. Particularly when it involves shorts.

Whoever it is who designs these things obviously doesn’t take into account persons of my particular dimensions.

I don’t ask much. I don’t demand “flattering” or “fashionable”, I just want to be able to run in reasonable comfort without causing members of the public to avert their eyes in horror and small children to run crying to their mothers.

It’s very distressing.

This is why I run in the same pair of shorts for literally years on end. My current favourites have been with me since 2005 and have done, at a reasonable calculation, somewhere over 5000km. They were once black and only had the regulation number of holes. Now they’re a sort of turgid brown, like the back end of a particularly filthy truck on the Western Ring Road and they have ratty holes in awful places.

S, I’ve been looking for some to replace the incumbents. For a while I thought a pair of Brooks shorts would do the job, but they fell at the first hurdle: splitting embarrassingly up the side.

Yesterday, I found it. The perfect pair! (you guessed it, the same type as my current pair). And only $23 on special. So I’m happy.

Running
After a few days off, doing an impression of Jabba the Hut and morbidly contemplating the state of my shorts, I hit the road today, looking to make up for lost time.

Having waited for the rain to stop, I set out, only to discover the rain hadn’t stopped at all. It had just taken a breather, prior to dumping a deluge on my head.

I did shelter for a minute beneath a Croydon shopfront, but by that time the damage had been done. Reasoning that I couldn’t get any wetter, I pushed on my way. 22km, including two loops of the Croydon Golf Course. It’s quite a nice place to run, I can’t believe I’ve not been there before.

When I finally made it home I looked like a drowned, muddy rat and felt like it too. On the plus side, my shoes will come in handy later in the summer if we need some water to fill the dams.

the pointy end

Three sleeps to go until the big race; yes I’m getting down to the pointy end now. I’m feeling strangely calm, almost serene, about the whole thing. Yes, I know it’s a long run, but hey, that’s for Sunday morning. It’ll sort itself out then.

I’ve done all the training I can possibly do, far more than ever before and at a higher quality. According to my online training log, I’ve done 5k more than I need to.

Morale boosting
As you might expect, there’s very little running scheduled for this week. What there is seems to be of the “run to stop myself going completely spare” type; a 4k run the day before the race is hardly going to do me much good.

Last night was supposed to be 9k easy. It worked out slightly longer, and probably slightly faster than ideal – 10k in 45 minutes, including hills. Not to worry, the morale-boosting was worth it. A very easy, fluent run. Not at all stressed or hard work. Nice long comfortable strides and a manageable heart-rate.

On the spur of the moment, I tacked on a steep-ish hill at the end of the run, always a sign I’m feeling in good form.

Shoes
I’ve made a decision on the whole shoes dilemma I alluded to recently. The new GTS7s have got the nod: the old faithful GTS6s have been relegated to the interchange bench. This is based on a couple of positive runs in the 7s over the past few days, and the weather forecast, which is supposed to be fine.

Pacing
As mentioned a little while ago, I do have a target time in mind for the race, but as they say in James Ellroy books, I’m keeping it on the down-low. What I have done is print out a race-pace-band from Runner’s World UK.

The target time is right in the middle of where I feel I should be. In an ideal world I might go faster; if I go a little slower I won’t be too unhappy. I’m not going to get too worked up about it though – it’s mainly just to make sure I don’t start out too fast.