Pumped Up Kicks

This post isn't about school shootings, it's about another kind of kicks.  Shoes.  Running shoes, to be exact.  When I was in college and doing ROTC, my parents bought me a pair of running shoes, in hopes that having proper fitting shoes would minimize my risk of injury.  While it was a great hope, it didn't always work out that way.  I still had some problems with arthritic knees and such, but I know it would have been worse if I had bad shoes.

This is back in the ROTC days of 2003.  That's Becca next to me.  She's amazing.

Fast forward 8 or 9 years to 2012.  I decide to start training for running again.  I pull out my trust running shoes and get to work.  At first, everything is going fine.  The running is slowly increasing, and it looks like the shoes are going to work.  And then, about 4.5 weeks into the training plan, I start noticing some knee and ankle twinges popping up after runs.

I look at the bottoms of the good ole' shoes, and they are completely worn.  The rubber is peeling off in places.  Crap.  We're 2.5 weeks away from the pivotal 5k I have been working towards.  I was hoping to wait until afterward to buy new shoes.  I'm not going to make it unless new shoes come into the picture.

So last night, after a yummy dinner at Smashburger, A and I headed over to Runner's Roost to get me some new kicks.  I was pretty dialed in on what I needed.  My knees are bow-legged, and my ankles tend to roll inward a lot, so I knew I needed something with a lot of medial (toward the midline of the body) stability.  After chatting with the sales guy about my needs, he had my try on a few pairs and take them for a test jog outside.  I love going to running stores for shoes, because the sales people know their stuff.  They brought out shoes that were right on target with what I needed, and encouraged me to go run outside in them.  Try doing this sometime at Famous Footwear, or a big sporting goods store.  It probably won't happen.  After a couple of test runs, I settled on these babies:

They're by Brooks.  They have high arches, and lots of medial support.  The one drawback is they have a really firm sole, and I feel a jolt when my heel comes down.  The sales guy encourage me to run in them on a treadmill for a few days and see how I do with it.  He said I could just be used to a softer sole, and that I will probably adjust to the firmness.  The best part is, if I don't adjust to it, I can bring the shoes back and swap them out for something different.  How cool is that?

Welcome to my world, new running shoes.  May we have many blessed days together.