Holy crap. Having the right shoes can definitely make a huge difference. I normally just use my trail running shoes for various excercise related activities. However, since I’m running in a relay, and by “a” relay I mean “the” relay, out in SFO (feel free to donate, it’s tax deductible!), I figured I should go a little bit more professional, especially since I normally have a hard time running long distances on pavement.
Well, I bought the shoes on Monday, a pair of Saucony ProGrid Triumph 5’s, and this morning was the first time I was able to try them out. Now, I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve been running a lot with hills on the treadmill and this was the first time this year outside or the new shoes, but I was able to go 2x further”>>2x further this morning than I ever had been able to outside. Plus, I was hauling or at least it felt a whole lot faster than I normally go. The best part was, the parts of me that normally hurt when running on the pavement for long distances, didn’t. In fact, nothing really hurt. I just kept crossing more and more streets since I wasn’t hurting like I normally do.
Next loop will be up to Addison to make it 7.5 miles. Hopefully I’ll do that tomorrow or Friday now that I’ve broken in the shoes. Plus, now that I know that 5 miles is not that big a deal, I’m going to start running to the gym and back. What’s really wierd is that I’m actually excited about this. I thought I wasn’t going to be in that great of shape for this relay, but now I’m not too concerned. I just want to be able to hit 10 miles or more prior to shipping out, since I’m not doing any hilly stuff.