New shoes, new 'tude

Yesterday I ran 13 miles.. Slowly... On my run I thought about all sorts of things, one being my awesome friend Annie (yes, the occasional blogger on this site) who has been injured for a few months and is making her recovery.  Her dad's a big runner and has been asking her to look into her shoes (Nike) for a while.  She finally heeded his advice and headed over to our local running shop where she discovered she overpronates and runs as though she's only got a very thin strip of road to run on (think catwalk strut?) after running in front of a camera.

This was really interesting to me and I know I could make improvements in my running.  My first (and only) run with a trainer they told me I can't look down (but how will I navigate the uneven sidewalks in Amsterdam?!) and I swing my arms too much, which burns valuable energy.  I was given exercises - keep your chin up and run with limp arms pretending you are cradling eggs in your hands (which are straight by your sides).  The first was ok, the second? Awwwwwwwwwwkward.  I do practice these because, hey, who am I to doubt a professional running trainer? And at my last marathon, my friends said my form did look better.

I needed to head to the running store because one of my batbelt bottles (it's important to refuel on any run over 1 hour) cracked.  I decided to bring my two pairs of New Balance shoes with me to the store so the pros could inspect my wear patterns and film my gait.  They did it quite quickly notice that I also overpronate. With my current shoes, it's a bit surprising I haven't yet gotten injured, but my theory is that I am awesome about stretching and I don't push myself too hard (hence running slowly) which both help injury prevention.  I walked out of there with these babies: Brooks Adrenaline GTS 13 which won Runner's World Runners Choice in 2012.  When I ran in these, my feet hit the ground evenly - it made an impressive difference.  Also, he told me I'm hitting the ground wrong and need to try to hit on the outside of my foot.  I asked for a way to do this he said "try to point your big toe to the sky, that will keep your heel out."  A new challenge.  I'll work on it.

When I asked the guy if there were any better looking shoes I could choose from he said, "yeah, it seems that the designers at Brooks are blind" ugh.  Well, they're good shoes.  Ugly shoes, but good shoes.  Oh well.

New kicks!

In other news, I ran 13 miles last night.  It felt good.  Tomorrow I will see about doing another long-ish run in my new shoes.  Till tomorrow?  Have a super Saturday night!

Liz