Buying new running shoes counts as running, right? Right?
Finished lunch with Natascha, Annika, and Adam at this adorable French restaurant La Bohème in Palo Alto, where I had the best Croque Bohèmien and a pom-tangerine mimosa. *dreamy sigh*
This causes me to give a dreamy sigh.
I was going to hunt around the farmer’s market they have there every Sunday, but we spent too much time gabbing and when we finished brunch the market had ended. Instead, being that I was already on California St, I decided to duck into ZombieRunner a couple doors down and get my gait analyzed.
It’s a run shop. No, it’s a coffee shop. No, it’s both!
Discovered ZombieRunner several years ago while waiting to have a different brunch as they have a great coffee shop inside of it and Nick and Yvo wanted to get coffee while we waited for a table. Gait analysis has been something I’ve been meaning to do ever since Laurie told me about it in 2008. Back then we used to talk more about half marathons, but I just never got around to it. With this new full marathon training, I thought it’d be better not to completely ruin my body by possibly not having the right gear.
Walked in and met Gillian, who was helping other people decide if they wanted shoes but said if I wasn’t really in a hurry she would definitely help me out. I sat around playing video games until she was free, and then after a couple measurements of my feet, she concluded first that my left foot was larger than my right just slightly and I was buying shoes that were half a size too small for me to use for running because of foot swell. Ha. Been doing it all wrong after all.
The left foot is bigger than the, right foot…
She brought out about 6 pairs of shoes and had me run on their in-store treadmill as she would study my gait from the back and the side. As it turns out the Brooks I was currently wearing are actually pretty good for me, except for being too small. The ones similar to the ones I was wearing she noticed I was both pronating and supinating with any of my strides. On landing I’d roll out and on stepping I’d roll in. This meant I needed shoes with more stability. The more stabilization a shoe had the higher the heel was to push you forward, but that also meant the shoes were much heavier than I was used to running with. It just felt pretty clunky.
Try, try again.
Finally she landed on these Sauconys as the shoe for me.
Quickly checked Amazon and saw they were slightly cheaper and while they didn’t do price adjustments, you do get discounts if you’re part of the Palo Alto Run Club which I had been meaning to check out. Besides I wanted to help out a local business and what’s cooler than the name ZombieRunner? Discount and better shoes in hand I happily left ZombieRunner with the hopes that these shoes would transform me. Isn’t that what it’s all about anyway? Hope? Maybe with a dash of aspiration?
OK fine! I didn’t really run all that much today, but instead laughed out loud at the thought of counting all the times I bought any kind of shoes as running. I mean then I’d be an Ultra Marthoner… in shopping.
At least I learn some new things about how to pick running shoes, and bought new shoes that are better suited to help me run long distances with better form.
Days till Marathon: 168
Mileage: .5 cumulative miles
Pace: 11/mi
Met Along The Way: Gillian, Co-Owner of ZombieRunner
Speaking of Zombies, I love this commercial from Brooks showing how running makes you feel so alive that you no longer need brains to snack on.
