damn shoes....

I should know better than to experiment with different shoes - Let me rephrase that: I should know better than to run 4 fast miles with shoes that I've never even walked 300 ft in before.

I joined the Potomac River running group for their Tuesday evening run - Brooks was there displaying and offering trial runs in some of their shoes. And I naturally, against my better judgement, went for it. The shoes themselves, a Ghost 6 model, were great; good stability, well cushioned, nice feel.  Overall, just wearing them felt good.  But given my history with my feet and lower calves, I should not have run 4 hilly miles in them.  It was also a pretty fast run too.

Before we even got to mile 1, I was beginning to feel a twinge in my right achilles area.  I thought that was kind of weird since the heel on these shoes was higher than my Newtons.  I figured that I was actually giving my achilles a bit of break by wearing a higher heel shoe! But this morning (the next day), my achilles is not happy. Very tight and somewhat sore. No running for me today.

The run itself was pretty good though.  From mile 1 through mile 3 it became hilly with what seemed like a monster hill at the very end of the climb. The total elevation was not much, all of 280 feet, more or less, but it was the pace that did me in.

Since it was "only" at 4 mile run I figured I would go ahead and run reasonably hard and try for a 8:15-8:30 average pace, so I wound up in the forward 1/3 of the group of maybe 20 runners.  Two of the guys were just lightning fast - I lost sight of them after the first turn.  Then there was a group of two guys and three girls that I figured were clocking along at around an 8min/mile pace - I figured that if I could keep them within sight I'd know where to go.

As soon as we hit the first of the hills that group slowed down enough for me to get within 20 ft or so of them. The route was along some neighborhood streets at first so it was easy to run along the side of the road against traffic, but then some of roads were substantially more busy and there wasn't always a sidewalk or much of a shoulder.  At that point I was happy to be running as tail-end-charlie, allowing these guys to spook drivers on their own.

At about mile 2 1/4 we had a bit of a downhill which enabled me to refresh myself some and it was just when I was starting to feel good that I saw the final hill.  It's not that it's that steep (more or less a 5% hill), or that long (about 1/3 of a mile), but that by the time I got to it, I was tired!  At this point I am running with the 3  women - one of the other guys had literally sprinted ahead and totally conquered that hill - the other guy had fallen back.  And we are all struggling - and I feel that I am really struggling, but there was no way that my stupid male pride was going to let me slow to a walk, which of course would have been the smart thing to do... Nevertheless, we gratefully made it to the top and were rewarded with a short downhill slope, only to be followed by another (short) uphill before we got into the final downhill leg of the run.  I should also mention that we ran into the two speedsters that shot out at the start walking backwards back down that hill so that they could enjoy it yet again (thank you very much, may I have another....).  Jeesh - I wish I could do that. More power to them...

My overall pace was 8:17min/mile which I think is awesome, especially considering the hills that I had to contend with.

On the other hand my right achilles is not happy and I can't, shouldn't, run today.  Just hoping that I'll be better for tomorrow.  My goal is no injuries this year.  And once again I'm learning a lesson: don't experiment with shoes!!!

137 days to the MCM!