I had been feeling pain in my right ankle for a few weeks, which I finally realized was because I had broken down the soles of my shoes. I’ve been running on these shoes since August! I started using Training Peaks to track my shoe mileage in January, and according to the site I’d put 200 miles on the shoes. Its likely I’d run 500 miles on those sneakers; certainly a couple triathlons and half marathons. It was time for new shoes. I went back to New Balance and there’s a new model of the shoes I wear, now in hideous electric blue or bumblebee yellow. I now have a pair of ugly blue New Balance which correct my supination.
I am three weeks away from Oceanside 70.3, and I am knee-deep in heavy training. The slow tapering begins this coming week, but I’ve been going hard since last weekend and the Desert Tri training race. Today had a 1:45 descending interval run on the books. In the last few times I’ve done them I’ve gotten faster as the intervals get shorter, even though fatigue sets in slowly. I’ve been known to touch 7 minute miles doing this, which in the past I’ve blamed the Garmin for lying to me. I’ve come to acknowledge, slowly, that I am getting faster on foot. When Coach Brian offered to run with me after I went shoe shopping I happily took him up on the offer because 1) he’s a great, inspiring coach, 2) he gets me to run faster than I think I can, 3) company on a run is so much better than running alone, and 4) I really like his friendship. It turned out to be a breakthrough run for me.
