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An admitted shoe geek waxes philosophical about running, triathlon, and life in general.
Comments welcome!


Friday, June 1, 2012

What was I thinking? :^)

I've been known a time or two to do some rather stupid things. I've always said that common sense is more and more not so common. And sometimes I even prove it myself. 

Occasionally, in spite of my best effort as self-sabotage, my blunderings work out just fine, like the time I took my new Altra Instincts for an initial run of 10 miles. Sometimes I have to push through it with dogged, and often ill-advised, determination. 

 Last night, I went for a swim with my wife. No big deal, you say... Well, have I mentioned that I don't swim all that often? Yeah, as a triathlete, I'm more of a two-sport person. I swim enough to make it through the race distance without drowning or being too embarassed with my placing coming out of the water, and no more. I've done a 5K open water swim event, with training going beyond that distance in a local lake. But the last time I got into a pool to swim laps was in preparation for my last triathlon. Which was the Saturday before last Labor Day. 

For those of you pulling out your calendars, I'll save you the math -- that's almost 9 months. Can you say "de-training"? 

Within the first 5 minutes I knew I wasn't going to be evoking any images of Michael Phelps. In fact, if any one were to compare me to an Olympian, it would have to be Eddie the Eagle. Anyway, I pushed through it, doing 100's and 150's for a little over an hour, along with some kickboard drills (I've forgotten just how literally gut-wrenching the dolphin kick is with a kickboard). Surprisingly, I'm not all that sore today. DOMS says that I'll really feel it tomorrow. I can't wait. 

And today, I had to find a whole new way to prove that I'm not as smart as I look. Okay, really, I'm just fortunate that I'm not as DUMB as I look... 

 I'd gotten a new pair of test shoes from Skechers just yesterday. They're testing an all-weather fabric for their shoes. Not a bad thing at all. But when I was getting ready to run at lunchtime, I realized I hadn't brought extra socks. Conventional wisdom would say to use the socks I have for the run and go without for the afternoon sitting at my desk. Yeah, that would have been the smart thing... But I figured, hey, these shoes are built on a platform that I already like, the insides are pretty smooth, and feel good against my skin, how bad could it be? 

So I went without socks. For the first time in many months. Are you seeing a theme here? 

Those of you keeping score probably know where this is headed. 

The weather today is warm and humid, with a light rain to top it all off. It's like being in a greenhouse with the overhead misters going constantly. In order to give this new all-weather fabric a thorough test, I wasn't shy about running through ankle- to mid-shin-tall grass, and through some standing water. The good news is that NOTHING got through the shoe uppers. The bad news is that I started to feel a couple friction spots about 3 miles in. 

Before any one jumps on the shoes as being bad -- I don't blame the shoes AT ALL for the couple small blisters I now have. It's been months since I've run sockless. My feet just aren't adapted to it. It was my own stupidity that caused it. Other than that, the shoes felt great, and I'll definitely be putting more miles on them. 

 But that's just another example of lessons learned. What was I thinking? 

I'm sure it'll be a long time before I leave my common sense at the door again. 

Tomorrow's a new day, though, so who knows what it will bring.

1 comment:

derscott said...

Sounds *very* familiar for some reason. Very familiar...