so far, so good

Started week 3 this morning with another run in the new trainers. 4 miles slow is not the biggest test, but they passed it, if not exactly with flying colours.

As any woman with new shoes would agree, I can't help being distracted by the new footwear every now and again, and have to keep glancing down at them. Admittedly, it's not to bask in the glamour of my new purchase but more to ponder the optical illusion that I am running on the outside of my feet. This is clearly a deliberate move by the shoe fitter to get me to run straight but it's a weird sensation. Particularly at 7.15 am when you are half asleep.


For those of you not intimate with my feet (you lucky, lucky people), I overpronate. For the uninitiated, this means my foot tilts inwards when I land on the ground, with the inside of my heel landing at an angle. This results in blisters, and wear and tear on the inside of the shoe, not to mention the outside of my knee. There are lots of trainers out there made for those who overpronate (they're called stability shoes for you newbies), which involve stabilising the foot and making you run a bit straighter, essentially.
The catch is, most people who overpronate have really flat feet, which makes their heel strike the floor at this angle. So most of these shoes are built to fit a foot without an arch.
Me being me, I like to be difficult. I overpronate but have high arches. Freakishly high arches, I was told when I bought my previous pair of trainers. Which was nice.

So I've never really found the perfect pair of trainers to date. My shiny clean new shoes however are supposed to support my arch while making my heel strike straight. I think it must be working but of course, for me looking down, it feels like my feet are going the wrong way.

I've realise there's an easy solution to this - don't look down. But then you wouldn't have got to hear that story, would you?

The other incident on this morning's run was a mild scare from a black cat. It wasn't the cat's fault, it was sat quite happily on its own garden wall, minding its own cat business, plotting the next instalment in its plan to vomit somewhere inappropriate in its owner's home. But as I said earlier, I was half asleep. And running very close to said wall.
Before I knew, I had brushed against the black cat. I screamed (like I said, half asleep) at the feel of something furry. The cat didn't even blink, just looked up at me as if to say 'silly cow'.

I was fairly awake after that...

tomorrow is another go at interval training, my bete noire. I'm looking forward to tackling the next attempt in a more positive fashion, with the help of my new bouncy trainers. Check back to see if there's a happy, shoe-related ending

LON