DF: RMU, Day 2 (AA)

Yeah, blah blah, I ran/walked (trotted?) 11 miles today in a ludicrously-long amount of time:

Note that it's actually about 10 minutes less than that, due to the fact that I spent about 10 minutes faffing around in a convenience store in there. (I had a coupon for a free coffee, and muffins were only $0.79, so I got a red velvet cake muffin. It was fantastic, thanks.)

Anyway, let's talk about shoes, and to start: I do not give a flying flunderton what kind of shoes you wear. You may have noticed that RWB and I both tend toward minimalist-ish shoes, her extremely so, me less, but that's for our own reasons which may not be yours. But what I'm about to say is important to everyone, or at least should be.

Throw out your damn shoes when they're dead.

Why? Because otherwise you might find yourself breaking in a new pair of shoes, of a new style/type, in the middle of a 78-miles-in-12-days deathmarch.

Unfortunately, I only noticed that my shoes were dead--for me that means starting to cause knee pain (the kind that almost immediately goes away)--um, like, Thursday, but I ignored it. So I'd be breaking in new shoes anyway around this time, but, uh, I would have been able to break in the shoes a mile at a time, if I'd worn them yesterday, rather than having to do 3.67 mi and then 7.33 miles all together.

So, yeah, the entire rear side of my body from my waist down to my heels hurts, thanks to going from Saucony ProGrid Kinvara 2s (4mm drop; moderate squish) to Merrell Bare Access Arc 1s (0mm drop; light squish). My left knee is also a tad tweaky: i.e., when my form starts to disintegrate at the end, if I'm not careful, it'll complain at me, but nothing is actually wrong and I just need to break up my runs a little bit for the next couple days. I'm blaming that on running about 2 days too long in the shoes with the dead midsoles, since I changed absolutely nothing else and this did happen last time, too.

But please, if you wear shoes with midsoles, don't wear them to the point that they screw up your form and make you hurt yourself. I missed going there just barely, and I'm glad I didn't.

23 miles down, 55 to go. Tomorrow: Greyhounds!