After hitting Costco early in the morning last Saturday, we stopped off at Runner’s Corner and I tried on shoe after shoe after shoe (and ran around the outside of the store on a little path) until I was sick of it and just picked one. It was a lot like taking an eye test.
“A or B?”
“I can’t tell a difference.”
“B or C?”
“Still can’t tell a difference.”
etc.
In the end, I went home with a new pair of shoes, size 12 1/2 (way bigger than I normally wear), and a bunch of new socks. They say cotton socks (I normally wear cotton socks) cause blisters. I haven’t ever blistered, but they are runners and they know what they are talking about.
Today I went out and ran for the first time in my new shoes and new socks. It wasn’t too bad, but it wasn’t any better than I was doing in my old shoes. I still broke down and walked up one hill… and walking in my new shoes was fairly sloppy and unpleasant.
https://runkeeper.com/user/jtalbot/activity/75047377
After I got home I jumped on the treadmill to go a bit more, but I couldn’t run. Every time my foot hit the mat, the treadmill would grind to a halt, causing all sorts of bad things to happen to me. Not cool. Maybe the new shoes were just too advanced for my poor treadmill? I don’t know. So I tried to walk on the treadmill… much worse. The shoes were not only sloppy, but it was hard to really walk. I couldn’t walk at my normal 4.0 mph pace, I had to crank the thing down all the way to 3.0 or 2.5 before I could even walk. I wasn’t happy.
I wondered if something bad had happened to the treadmill, so I put on my old shoes for a second and jumped on. The treadmill was fine with my old shoes, but it certainly didn’t get along with my new shoes. That’s not so bad, I thought. I’ll just have a pair of shoes for running outside and one for the treadmill. But then I realized that was stupid.
As I took my shoes and new special runner’s socks off, I noticed something I haven’t seen on my feet for years. Blisters. The runner’s socks are “guaranteed not to cause blisters”, so it must be the shoes. They must be way too big. You see, when I was trying them on at the store, I was wearing my usual cotton socks, which are much thicker than these new runner socks.
So the new shoes are going back. Charmaine is going to trade them for a size 12. I think that may still be too big for me. My old running shoes are size 11. I still can’t believe I let them send me home with size 12 1/2. What was I thinking? I really, really hate shopping and trying crap on, but maybe I should go back to that store and try to get something closer to what I already had. I don’t know what to do. I’m frustrated.