I trust that you are sitting down, I have shocking news to tell you. Monday (Dec 11th) was the first time that I ran ALL month. No LIE! With the traveling from the cruise, and staying at work during my lunchtime, I had no runs all week. Plus since I opted out of running over the weekend, my total mileage up to Monday was a big fat goose egg.

So Monday’s run was on familiar turf. It was my Market Square Fab 4 miler. My only worry was that I would run this as a tempo pace and not something a little easier. Well, it turns out that my hopes and fears of all the years, oh wait, turns out that my fears were not manifested. I did run an easy pace. BUT…

Even after 4 miles at a 8:30ish pace I was hurting the next day. My knee hurt, my ankle hurt, my hamstrings were sore. I was feeling just plain yucky. One culprit was my shoes. I had “retired” a pair of shoes on the cruise. Damn, I should have given them a burial at sea, but there are probably international laws about tossing remains overboard.

The shoes that I ran in were an older pair of Asics GT2080 that I loved (bought 2pr), but where past their usefulness. The shoes had just under 200 miles. I am very hard on shoes. If I can get a pair of shoes to last to 200 miles, I am doing great. Earlier this year, I did a comparison of shoe heels at different stages in their lifecycle. By 125 miles or so, the rubber sole (on the outside corner of the heel) is worn to the foam cushioning.

So, the GT2080 are sitting in the office waiting for their time to be recycled.

So when I ran Tuesday, I had another pair of shoes that had about 130 miles on it and still with some life in them. These were my second pair of Vitruvian Running’s Symmetry shoe. For $30, I can’t pass up the deal for a pair of good trainers. The newer models, $60, are a little more light weight but the Symmetry classic works for me. Infact, I finish the Knoxville Marathon this year, in my 3rd pair of Symmetrys. More on the Vitruvian shoes in a future post.

Tuesday’s run was a 3.5 mile easy run from the Aquatic Center to just past Calhoun’s on the River and back. Again, a 8:30ish pace for the whole time. I could tell that my lack of running had not hurt my endurance but it had already slowed my pace down. Fortunately for me, I can easily rebuild that pace again as I plan to attack my 10 mile PR time at the Calhoun’s 10 miler on January 27th.

Wednesday’s going to be a rest day, but I’ll get back to the roads, Thurs, Fri and Saturday.