New Shoes, A New Jump Rope, and DAY ONE!

As I was heading over to the transition area to get my bike and head home on Saturday, I ran into Carlos just as he finished. I congratulated him on a great Olympic performance (1st AG/9th OA) before we turned the discussion on me and my performance. Since this isn’t really earth shattering, I’ll try to keep it brief. He indicated that he wanted me to start running every day for 20-30 minutes. No pace, just 20-30 min. We talked a bit more and I voiced my concerns about my running ability and just “getting out there” for 20-30 min per day. He agreed and said that I should start jumping rope (300x) every day and lace ‘em up 3x per week. “We’ll talk next week”, he said, but “Your IM training starts now!” So there you have it folks, IM training came about a month earlier than expected. With this in mind, I desperately needed new running shoes as well as a jump rope!

First order of business was to knock back that 30 min run before work. I laced up my old Adidas Supernova Glide 3s and headed out. End result? Try 2.98 miles.

If you go back to my November 2011 entry, I had this to say about a new pair of Nike’s that I just bought:

“Their first true test was a 9 mile “fun run” on Monday. They felt great. Maybe it was the placebo effect, but they felt sooooo much lighter too. On Sunday, November 6th, I finished what was my absolute finest running performance EVER….an 18 miler with a 9:08 pace. The best part was that the run was mostly on trails too! I also accomplished a goal of mine, to cover 13.1 miles in under 2 hours. I was able to do it in 1:56.”

I actually bought these shoes on 10/28/2011 and after this performance, I really thought that I’d hit the jackpot. I was LOVIN’ the new kicks! That was until almost exactly a month later when I experienced that terrible knee issue on 11/22/2011. PT couldn’t figure out the pain. Knee specialist couldn’t peg it. X-rays were negative. You know, it was definitely the shoes. I always had a suspicion that they might be too big, but the “expert” sized me up and said they fit fine. It wasn’t until today that I learned a little bit more. I went back to the same store in search of my next running shoe (Hey, I know what you are saying. Why would I go back after what happened? I chalked it up to a bad experience and me not being more vocal and/or informed). After I tugged on the salesman’s ear with the entire history of my search for shoes, we got back on the treadmill and did another analysis. I was curious to know why, in the past, one store recommended a stability shoe and another recommended a neutral shoe. After the video analysis, he indicated that my left foot looked great, but my right foot needed some stability. The end result? I was a “tweenier” where either shoe could potentially work. The problem was, if I chose a stability shoe (like my last Nike’s) that gave too much stability to my left foot, I could see potential problems (i.e. knee issues). He recommended going back to neutral. After trying on a pair of different Nikes, a pair of Asics, and a pair of Mizunos, I was absolutely sold on the Mizuno Wave Creation 13s. These were the #1 recommendation of the salesman too, but I definitely gave each a fair shot regardless of what he said. At any rate, here they are:

After purchasing my new wheels, I went across the street to pick up my new jump rope. I had no idea that there were so many to choose from. They have plastic ones, rubber ones, weighted one, ones with computers in the handle to count calories and skips, and leather ones. When I told James that I was to start jumping rope every day, he told me that their house has gone through several of them and indicated that the best one for the money was the leather one. Sounded good to me. It was a bit pricier than I anticipated, but what the heck.

So, there you have it. Another long winded blog entry about nothing in particular (shoes and jump rope). The most important thing, however, is that this is day one!