catherine's running efforts

Since Eric and I had the day off we went to Bountiful this morning so that Elliott could have her first swim and I could have a lesson from my swimmer brother. It was fun. Elliott was super cute in the water. 

I also got new shoes today - after listening to Eric rave about his New Balance Minimuses, I decided to try them out. So far I like them a lot, but I think I got them a half size too big. We'll see, I guess. Also I did my run about 30 seconds faster than normal, as planned, and it went well even though my tummy was pretty full of yummy dinner. In a couple of weeks I'll try to kick things up another 30 seconds and then stick at that pace maybe forever or so. 

Eric makes amazing chocolate chip cookies. They're so good because he makes them with love, and tonight they were even better because he used dark chocolate chips. They're kind of what I had for dinner before my run. I ended up regretting this during my run, but now I'm over it and back on the cookie-eating wagon. 

I can't emphasize enough how much I hate it when someone gets on the treadmill right next to mine when there are a million open treadmills. I always move now. I know this makes me sound unfriendly, but I need my space.

Remember the new shoes that are too big? I emailed Running Warehouse and they're going to take them back even though I ran in them. They're awesome. Way better than that other place where Burt gets everything for free. I think I'm just going to go back to Launches for reals this time. Even though that probably means I'll have more injuries.*

*I don't really mean this.  

For about a week it's been harder to get myself to the gym. I think I might just be getting tired. Also it's harder as the semester gets busier - there are always a lot of other things I could be doing. But, you know - goals and stuff.

Today Eric and I were talking about shoes and he mentioned a blog post Jun had written about Altras and he said, "It's too bad the FRB doesn't have a search function where you could search blogs and not just the forums. And then you could have searched for something like incontinence and seen which runners had dealt with that." (It turns out the FRB does have a search box (right on the front page!), but we hadn't noticed this before.) I said, "Yeah, but you can do it through Google." So I searched for Altra (site:fastrunningblog.com in Google) and found like 100,000 entries because of the shoe manager. Then I searched for incontinence and only found a few entries, but my blog wasn't one of them because I think I always called it the "pee problem." So I decided that when I FRBed tonight I'd put something in about incontinence so that if anyone were ever searching for blogs that mentioned incontinence they'd find this post where I talked about incontinence.

I also wanted to mention incontinence again because it seems like something that's actually pretty common (at least stress incontinence after childbirth and/or as women get older) but that people don't talk openly about. It also seems like sometimes people think that it's just something that happens and is something people have to deal with. Maybe I'm naive and stuff because I've only had one kid and I'm only in my 30s, but I think that people should see incontinence as something that isn't embarrassing, isn't someone's fault (kegels aren't always enough), and that can and should be fixed (and not with diapers). There's enough that women and post-birthers have to put up with. Incontinence shouldn't be one of those things.

And on the shoes - the NB Minimuses are out (I want more cush), so I'm still debating between Altras and Launches. I really like how the Altras feel, but I had really good times with two pairs of Launches (and I'm more forefoot than midfoot so the heel on the Launches doesn't get in my way). Also, I kind of don't want to get Altras in the same way that Eric doesn't want to buy Apple products, and the different names for the road shoes kind of bug me (to me instinct=urge and drive and intuition=sensitive and hanging back, and when I'm running I think of myself as a predator out to pick off the slower, weaker prey (Eric says I like to have a carrot)). But I think there needs to be a girl AltraManiac and if there were auditions I'd want to audition and it would be weird if I were wearing Launches.

It *looks* like I've done 10, 9, and 8.5 mile runs for the past few Saturdays, but really I've broken them up because I'm afraid of doing a "long" run. But Eric said that I needed to start doing the miles all together, so I plotted a little loop that included the gym (water and potty) and set out for my 10. But then the wind slapped my butt and I came home. And even though I was less afraid of doing 9.5 than 10, I still procrastinated the rest of my run for pretty much as long as I could, making it to the Orem gym just in time to get it all in before midnight. 

One of the things I did during my day of dallying was finally get those Altras. Yes, I love Launches, but they're not perfect; I love the cush, but they don't fit exactly right and they don't feel as fast as my Kinvaras. And I love the Kivaras because they feel fast and flexy, but they seem to wear down/out pretty quickly. And they're a little too narrow. So it made sense to at least try Altras. And even though runningwarehouse.com is amazing I got them at 26.2 so that I could have the option of exchanging them within 10 days (fear of commitment, yo). 

The first thing I noticed after I put them on was that I had fewer injuries. The second thing was that my feet were super cold outside - that mesh upper is for reals. Once I started running on the treadmill I felt like the shoe stayed out of my way; where I usually scuff or skid on my normal shoes there was nothing. That was nice. The shoes also felt pretty good - not as cushy as the Launches but still cushy, and almost as flexy/fast as the Kinvaras (and much roomier). I started with the thinner insole because I figured that I had already gone through the crazy calf pain of getting forefooty and so would be fine. My calves didn't hurt, but I noticed some stretching in my arches and a little twinge to the left of my left achilles. I probably should have switched to the "support" insole as soon as I felt the twinge, but I didn't switch until my 3-miles-left bathroom break. I iced it when I got home. I think it's just sore.

While I was running I watched that Justin Bieber movie on my phone. Cute kid, cute story. I hope that there's a Justin Bieber for Elliott when she gets a little older. The ending was pretty inspiring. I did two quarters at 6:00 in the last mile because Justin said "never say never." Also because I switched the treadmill to the -3 decline. During the first quarter I had some uncomfortable friction on the balls of my feet, but Eric says this might be because my feet haven't found their home in the insoles yet. Later I read some comments on Netflix and felt dumb for being inspired by a kid whose hard knock life included becoming a millionaire in his teens and stuff, but whatever.  

When I got home Eric showed me that there are purple Altras and I wanted to cry because purple is my favorite color. Oh well. 

(Also - if you're on facebook and don't mind a facebook app, want to vote for our picture?)