Day 8: Time for New Shoes

How often should you change your running shoe?  I really didn’t know I had to look it up but conventional wisdom seems to suggest that they should be changed every 300 to 400 miles. In addition I had a clerk in a running store tell me never ever use your running shoes for walking.  I had clearly broken all the rules by continuing to run in the current shoes I wore.  For starters, they were a year old and the tread was starting to go on the bottom and, yes, I used them as walking shoes to run errands in.  Clearly a militant runner would look down on me like a friend of mine who was a hard core mountain biker did right after I bought a Huffy bicycle.

Years ago when I first started running the 1/10^th of a mile I ran in whatever sneakers I had in my closet (black and white high tops) not knowing the difference a good pair of running shoes could make. After almost a year I went to a shoe store and plunked down good money for a good pair of shoes taking the clerks recommendation.  I walked out with a  pair of Asics and have been a fan every since. 

I won’t argue with you over which running shoe is better because bottom line is I just don’t care.  If you are comfortable in Nike then by all means or you may be a Reebok or even New Balance fan.  I am fine with that.  Personally I like Asics and Brooks my two favorites and for the record I like my Huffy bicycle just fine as well, it was a sweet red 10 speed and I put some serious miles on it.

Now that I have rambled on about running shoes it time to unveil our new running shoes. 

Kelly’s are on the left mine are on the right.  I did some quick math too.  At a rate of 2.5 mile a day and changing them at 350 mile I will need new shoes in 140 days.  The first road test of my new shoes will be tomorrow and I am looking forward to it. 

I also figured that I needed to do more than just run so starting today I added 5 pushups and 5 sit-ups.  Now before you start laughing remember two things. One: I am a fat out of shape 35 year old man; Two:  my story from yesterday about Humble Beginnings.  My goal is to start with 5 everyday and weekly add 5 more until I get back up to what I used to do when I was young… 150.

Everyday I add a little more.  Yesterday run keeper said I averaged 14:01 a mile and today I got that to 13:05 a mile and yes it hurt.  I ran farther in 35 minutes today as well.  Here is the daily recap.

Daily Recap:

Matt – 35 Min. Jog
            5- Pushups and Sit-ups

Kelly – 1 hour 16 min Walk.