Every six months or so I find myself replacing a pair of my running shoes. Generally I have two pairs which are strictly "running only", the newer of which usually does the longer runs. A third pair (ex-running-stock) is my walking / general use pair. This covers everything from from "work shoes" to hiking. And when those die it's time to buy a new pair and shuffle the rest down the scale.
This is where I found myself recently. My now-old walking shoes are really beyond the stage of being at all supportive or comfortable for any length of time and one of my running shoe pairs was feeling a little less than happy about still being on the road.
Deciding to go shopping for new shoes with a clear mind (rather than skewing my opinion towards those shoes I have run in for several years now) I wandered into an Athlete's Foot store not far from home. I spent at least an hour in the store going through the funky foot-print stuff and trying on a decent collection of shoes, and eventually the salesperson and I settled on the first pair I'd tried on that morning - the Brooks Trance.
Let me just say that I really want to like this shoe, and on some level I do. Having been wearing some of the heavier shoes on the market over the last few years, the Trance are sooo much lighter. I was a still a little apprehensive about the shoe when I purchased it, although this is quite often the case with me and new shoes. They don't feel the same as the pairs which are already (too) well worn in, and it's always difficult to tell if the shoes "feel" right when you can only run about 10m inside the store.
The salesperson told me to try them out, and come back if they weren't quite right (which given a lot of places and the somewhat don't care attitude of the sales folk was a nice gesture). Given that it's been showery weather up hear for most of the last week I didn't want to push my luck with the shoes running with them in the rain, but I took them for a slow jog on Wednesday afternoon around the usual Kangaroo Point - South Bank loop. About 3km in my right knee felt a little twingy (which it hasn't done for about 5-6 months) and on Thursday I wasn't walking too comfortably. A spur of the moment physio appointment on Thursday afternoon (thanks here to my physio who stayed an extra half an hour to fit me it - it was much appreciated) seemed to indicate that the existing condition had flared up.
I took the new, funky, I-want-to-like-these shoes back.
The sales person was quite happy for me to exchange the shoes for a pair of the same model I already own (and thanks here to the staff at the Garden City Athletes Foot - I wouldn't usually expect to bring back shoes even if I had only run in them a little, so I do appreciate the service). So now I own 3 of the Brooks Addiction in varying states of wear, but as long as I can run without pain or injury it's not such a big deal.
In other training updates, I broke my existing 38.09 PB for the city loop (in the old shoes) on Tuesday - it now stands at 37.38.
9 days to go until the 10k at the Brisbane Marathon. I'm still hopeful I can beat my existing 10k time of 51.57. Sub 50min would be a plus :)
