Monday, August 20, 2018

The Great Shoe Reckoning of 2018

It's been kind of a normal-ish few weeks around here - not much travel, not too many crazy social obligations or weekend plans, which has meant plenty of time to 1) get the miles in & 2) make some progress on settling into the house.

Don was traveling for work this week, so while he was gone I took all the junk off our new built-ins & tried to make them reasonably attractive:

I also got my craft on & made some centerpieces for the kitchen:

Finally, I sat my ass down & attacked my running shoe closet, which has been a disaster zone pretty much since we moved into this house 3.5 years ago. You may recall that one of my "no shopping" pledges this year was not buying any new running shoes & this is a big part of why.


Before.

I started by going through all those bags & piles & getting rid of the ones that I just do not wear anymore at all & haven't really in years. Some of them are in okay enough shape that they might be donateable; otherwise, you can recycle shoes at just about every sporting goods or outdoorsy store in SF.

Then I got this simple little bamboo shelf from Bed, Bath, & Beyond, which said on the package that it held nine pairs of shoes but I think we can all agree that whoever came up with that number wasn't trying nearly hard enough.


After.

The first question people always ask when they see all these shoes is "Do you really wear them all?" and the answer (now that I've gotten rid of the ones I don't, which was only a few pairs) is "Yes, but some more than others." There are of course all the "special" pairs (racing flats, trail shoes, Ice Bugs, water proof(ish), etc.) & then most of the others sort of get rotated through depending on the distance/workout--a smattering of Kinvaras & Launches from different years for easy runs, some Fastwitches & NB1400s for tempo runs or half marathons, & a few other random pairs that I like fine enough but not enough to stock up on (Mizuno Ekiden, Altra One, Newton Distance, an old pair of Brooks Pure Flows).

But if the question is, "Does any sane person really NEED that many pairs of running shoes?", well, the answer is obviously "no" and that is part of my whole "no shopping in 2018" deal. I'm doing my best to use what I have & to rotate through fewer pairs at a time in order to "use up" some of them & eventually cut down on the amount of space this whole situation is taking up in my life.

(Because...there is still the stack of boxes to the right of brand-new, never-opened shoes, and it's really taller than is even remotely reasonable.)

Baby steps. :-/

~*~*~ Fall '18 Speedfest: Week 1 of 18 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 43 miles
    * 27.25 easy
    * 1.75 speed
    * 14 long

Monday 8/13: a.m. strength work / p.m. karate.

Tuesday 8/14: 3.6 warm up, 2 x (3 x 300m / 100m jog) / 300m jog, 3.65 cool down = 9 total.

    First speed workout in four months and it didn't kill me! I doubt I could have run these much faster than I did, BUT I was able to run them all at pace or a couple seconds faster. I can still move my legs kinda-sorta fast & we're calling that a win.

Gittin' 'er done at Kezar. It was a bit cold & windy but I didn't mind.

Wednesday 8/15: a.m. strength work / p.m. 4 easy

Thursday 8/16: 6 easy. Planned 8-10 but got started late & then had to grab Don from the airport.

Friday 8/17: 10 easy

Saturday 8/18: Rest. We had a friend in town from Australia & had a fun time showing him around the Mission & cooking an unnecessarily elaborate meal in the new kitchen (because, right now, literally any excuse to do that).


New kitchen!


Our friend made us sticky toffee pudding, a classic Australian dessert. From what I remember the ingredients are cream, butter, brown sugar, flour, cream, dates, more cream, butter, sugar, more cream, sugar, and cream. (That's cream on the top, there.) Did not suck.

Sunday 8/19: 14 easy

    Post-Big Sur distance PDR! I hate to jinx myself but I was a bit shocked at how good I felt on this run, start to finish. My heart rate was low & my pace was solid & the legs felt awesome. 14 miles flew by & I was out to Ocean Beach & back almost before I knew it. More of this plzthnx.


    I hope I never lose the ability to appreciate this lovely path that runs along Ocean Beach & marks more or less the halfway point of my 14 milers to the beach & back.

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2 comments:

  1. Re the Ocean Beach path - that section is also a turnaround for me (usually on a 7-miler) and it is even easier to appreciate now that the section between the windmills has been re-landscaped.

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