New Shoes!

So FINALLY, after what seems like a year of saying I was going to, I got new running shoes! The shoes I've been running in, I've had for 3 years. In the beginning I ran on them a bit, every once in awhile, but never on a consistent basis. Before I ran my half marathon in October I planned on getting new ones, but that never happened. Finally this past weekend, I decided enough was enough. I have a lot of races planned for this year including 4 half marathons (if you would have told me this a year ago I would have thought you were crazy!), so I knew I needed to suck it up and finally head to the running store.

My last pair of shoes were just ones I picked based on "cuteness." They had pink, they were Nike, and that meant I could use my iPhone app with them to track my runs. I put no thought into what kind of shoe would be good for me based on my stride or how I run. Heck, at the time, I hadn't even run my first 5k yet (man that seems like forever ago!). While they were okay, I never loved them, and last year when I started training for the half in October, I kept getting blisters on the ball of my foot (which was not helped by getting good socks). So I knew that I wanted to try something different and stray away from the Nike brand.

Here are my old shoes, I don't even remember the model of these anymore.






The bottoms didn't look as bad as I thought they would, but there's still some wearing down, and the tearing of the fabric under my ankle bones on each side, so they needed to go.

On Saturday headed to my local running store to get fitted, not sure what to expect because I'd never done it. I put on some comfy pants (would I need to run?) and my running shoes. When I got there, they basically just watched how I stood, seeing if I pronate or not, watched me walk, and then took measurements of my feet both with and without weight-bearing. I pronate (which i kind of already knew) and have flexible arches so I would need some shoes that would provide stability. They brought me out a few pairs to try, and I found a pair that I loved! They felt great, and bonus, they just so happened to be on sale!








I ended up with a pair of Brooks Adrenaline GTS 12's. They are last years model, but they felt great so that was completely fine with me! Also they are blue and silver, so when I dress as Cinderella in the Princess Half Marathon next month, they will match my costume! I was very anxious to try them out, so I put them on for my errands for the rest of the day to try them out. I had a long run of 8 miles (more on that in my next post!) that I REALLY wanted to try them out, but knew I needed to do a few shorter runs first. So far I've only worn them to do my errands, but I'm looking forward to giving them a try tomorrow on my run!

I was going to also post about my long run this past week, but decided this was enough for today:-) I'll save the rest for another day this week!

Until next time, happy running!

Jennifer