The Running Thread

[pink_]

Hi all.
I'm back to somewhere in the neighborhood of 40-50 mpw, and another 10-15 walking with the looney tune puppy (tired puppies are good puppies!). But because I tend to be injury prone, I only get between 250-300 miles out of a pair of shoes, and I can usually tell when a pair has expired. I feel it in the knees, hips, etc. It helps to have more than one pair of shoes active at a time with different mileage on them so that you can tell when the older pair is done in comparison.

[spork]

Hi all.
I'm back to somewhere in the neighborhood of 40-50 mpw, and another 10-15 walking with the looney tune puppy (tired puppies are good puppies!). But because I tend to be injury prone, I only get between 250-300 miles out of a pair of shoes, and I can usually tell when a pair has expired. I feel it in the knees, hips, etc. It helps to have more than one pair of shoes active at a time with different mileage on them so that you can tell when the older pair is done in comparison.

I should have been doing this. It's hard to notice the slow decrease in shock absorption and support until you put on a new pair of shoes. When I was running 30 miles per week -- 5-6 years ago -- I thought "I'm in my 40s and running the equivalent of a half marathon every Sunday, so of course my feet hurt." But the pain was probably from bone fractures.

[ergative]

Huh--I've noticed my feet and ankles hurting more now than when I started a few months ago, and have been running less because of it. I don't do anywhere near 40-50 mpw (a good week is 12-15), but maybe it's time to buy a new pair.

[pink_]

Huh--I've noticed my feet and ankles hurting more now than when I started a few months ago, and have been running less because of it. I don't do anywhere near 40-50 mpw (a good week is 12-15), but maybe it's time to buy a new pair.

I usually run 6 days a week, and I try to never wear the same pair of shoes two days in a row. There have been studies that show that letting a shoe "rest" for a day between runs prolongs their life span and makes for a more comfortable ride (but don't ask this English major to explain the science!). But yes, if you are experiencing soreness or just feel more "beat up" after your run than is normal, there's a good chance that you need to swap out your shoes. It's also a good idea to get a lacrosse ball and roll your feet on it (one at a time, lol) to massage the plantar fascia and all the tendons and ligaments.

If you're a data nerd, apps like Strava allow you to track the mileage on your shoes and will email you when you've hit a certain total mileage on a pair. That has made my life WAY easier--not the email so much but being able to look at how many miles I have on a shoe.

[pgher]

Guess a new pair of shoes is on my shopping list now.

In other news, a couple days ago, I was running a route I take often and tripped in the exact same place I tripped about 5 months ago. (I went back later, and there's just a little difference between two sections of sidewalk.) My glasses broke my fall, leading to stitches and swelling. Strangely, even though I don't have body aches, I'm just exhausted. I suppose healing takes a lot of energy. Now my wife isn't too keen on me running on the roads any more, at least not that road.

[ergative]

Guess a new pair of shoes is on my shopping list now.

In other news, a couple days ago, I was running a route I take often and tripped in the exact same place I tripped about 5 months ago. (I went back later, and there's just a little difference between two sections of sidewalk.) My glasses broke my fall, leading to stitches and swelling. Strangely, even though I don't have body aches, I'm just exhausted. I suppose healing takes a lot of energy. Now my wife isn't too keen on me running on the roads any more, at least not that road.

Oh no! Take it easy. At least with exhaustion instead of aches you don't feel like you want to get out but hurt too much. With exhaustion you're happy to stay in and let yourself heal.

There's a stretch on one of my routes where the curb is exactly the same color as the street beyond, and every time I step off it I think to myself that it would be really easy to trip badly there---especially since I don't wear my glasses when I run. I can see well enough to avoid traffic, and I can't bear having sweaty things on on my face.

[ergative]

Update: I have ordered a new pair of shoes, and also some running tights to prepare for the winter. The shoes are the same make & model as my last/current pair, which I like, (Asics GT-2000), but I'm struck by the version number at the end. The Asics website was selling GT-2000 8, and advertising the GT-2000 9 coming soon. My last pair had no such version number, and I definitely bought them less than 8 years ago. How often to show-manufacturers update their shoe lines?

[spork]

Annually; it's part of the companies' marketing strategy. And unfortunately there are sometimes tweaks for the worse with each new model number. I've had shoes that have fit well through several years/numbers, then suddenly the toe box shrinks and I have to switch to a different shoe.

[ergative]

Annually; it's part of the companies' marketing strategy. And unfortunately there are sometimes tweaks for the worse with each new model number. I've had shoes that have fit well through several years/numbers, then suddenly the toe box shrinks and I have to switch to a different shoe.

Oof, yes, some people in the reviews were actually complaining about exactly that. But I imagine that even with the combined adjustments over eight years of modification* this model is closer to something I'll like than any other arbitrary model I choose from the website.  And if it's in fact so modified that it's as different from the original as any other arbitrary model, then I need to choose something arbitrarily, so I'm no worse going with this one than any of the others.

I'm glad this thread exists. I've been forcibly preventing myself from babbling on about these decisions to Absolutive, who is a very good sport, but even I can hear how boring the conversation is.

*Maybe the GT-2000 I bought in a shoestore was leftover from several years in a backroom?

[wuggish]

My glasses broke my fall, leading to stitches and swelling. Strangely, even though I don't have body aches, I'm just exhausted. I suppose healing takes a lot of energy.

Fatigue is a concussion symptom. If you hit your face hard enough to break your glasses, be gentle with yourself, watch for other symptoms, and don't do activities that exacerbate them. Here's a concussion screen. Here's a full assessment; this is for medical professionals only, but there's a good list of symptoms on page 3 and return to activity guidelines on the last page.

I had a similar fall this summer and had a headache, "foggy" feeling, and some other symptoms for two weeks. During my time in the ED, it was just the headache, which I guess the docs expected in the acute phase, so nobody diagnosed concussion.

[pgher]

My glasses broke my fall, leading to stitches and swelling. Strangely, even though I don't have body aches, I'm just exhausted. I suppose healing takes a lot of energy.

Fatigue is a concussion symptom. If you hit your face hard enough to break your glasses, be gentle with yourself, watch for other symptoms, and don't do activities that exacerbate them. Here's a concussion screen. Here's a full assessment; this is for medical professionals only, but there's a good list of symptoms on page 3 and return to activity guidelines on the last page.

I had a similar fall this summer and had a headache, "foggy" feeling, and some other symptoms for two weeks. During my time in the ED, it was just the headache, which I guess the docs expected in the acute phase, so nobody diagnosed concussion.

Thanks! I had the stitches out today; I recognize some of their questions on that concussion screen. My guess is that I had a real mild one, enough that I had mild symptoms for a couple days, but I'm basically back to normal now.

[wuggish]

Thanks! I had the stitches out today; I recognize some of their questions on that concussion screen. My guess is that I had a real mild one, enough that I had mild symptoms for a couple days, but I'm basically back to normal now.

I'm glad to hear that!

[pink_]

Annually; it's part of the companies' marketing strategy. And unfortunately there are sometimes tweaks for the worse with each new model number. I've had shoes that have fit well through several years/numbers, then suddenly the toe box shrinks and I have to switch to a different shoe.

Oof, yes, some people in the reviews were actually complaining about exactly that. But I imagine that even with the combined adjustments over eight years of modification* this model is closer to something I'll like than any other arbitrary model I choose from the website.  And if it's in fact so modified that it's as different from the original as any other arbitrary model, then I need to choose something arbitrarily, so I'm no worse going with this one than any of the others.

I'm glad this thread exists. I've been forcibly preventing myself from babbling on about these decisions to Absolutive, who is a very good sport, but even I can hear how boring the conversation is.

*Maybe the GT-2000 I bought in a shoestore was leftover from several years in a backroom?

It's possible that you found an ancient pair from a backroom somewhere. But I wouldn't worry too much about it until you give them a whirl. And if they don't work, you don't have to choose blindly. There are a couple good online stores what can advise you about what might be a good replacement with a few questions and answers in a chat function.

Also, I'm glad that the concussion, if that's what it was, seems to have worked itself out. TBI are very scary. I had a colleague who took a bad fall a few years back and it took her the better part of a year to get back to normal.

As for me, I am psyched that it was cool enough this morning that I could were a (lightweight) long-sleeved shirt with my shorts!

[pgher]

Also, I'm glad that the concussion, if that's what it was, seems to have worked itself out. TBI are very scary. I had a colleague who took a bad fall a few years back and it took her the better part of a year to get back to normal.

I'm back running again. I took almost a week off, but then went back to it, just not the same route. Yesterday, I did a virtual 5K "race." Thing is, with nobody around me pushing me, I wasn't much faster than a normal workout pace. I'm having a hard time getting any faster, simply because I don't push myself and lapse into a comfortable = slow pace.

[Sun_Worshiper]

I'm more-or-less back in running shape, after consistently running twice a week for a month.  The morning weather here is very nice (still quite hot in the afternoons) and it feels great to be back in the swing of things.