Some Thoughts About My Stuff (Not A Serious Post)

...because I'm sure you've had enough of those lately to last you two lifetimes.

No; this is one of those posts that grows out of the random thoughts that bump & swirl around in my head while I'm out running (which I did today! Again!) & spin into something semi-coherent while I'm killing time in a hotel room in Santa Rosa.

At least there's a Big Bang Theory marathon on.

It's been a few months since I've posted a bird's eye view of my shoes, so I figured I was due. Wouldn't want you to forget this is a running blog or anything.

1) My Newtons have managed to get noisier. Don't get me wrong; I love these shoes. I always have loved these shoes. But there is something wrong with them. Frankly, they have never been particularly quiet. In most of my others, I'm like a ninja; people never hear me coming until I leap past them out of nowhere and they shriek and jump out of the way (this has happened). Not the Newtons; these bad boys go *smack*smack*smack* all the way home.

I blame it on the External Actuator Lugs^TM (which, for the record, I still think are freakish and bizarre and am not convinced actually do anything other than make the 4mm heel drop happen). They're just hard to run quietly in. That didn't really bother me, but lately something in them somewhere has gone kind of squeaky, as if there's a little whoopee cushion in each sole.

Which, there might be, kind of. If you recall...

"When your midfoot/forefoot LANDS on the ground, the technology's four external actuator lugs are pressed into hollow chambers inside the shoe's midsole via an elastic membrane (ACTION). This movement absorbs shock. As you LEVER inside the shoe, the lugs release their stored energy and propel you forward through a burst of energetic return (REACTION) from the Action/Reaction Technology^TM."

(Can we just agree for a moment that running shoes have gotten OUT. OF. CONTROL?)

So yeah. I kind of wonder if my hollow-Action-Reaction^TM-membrane-chambers hooziewhatsits have developed a leak & that's why I get the little whistley-farting sound every time I toe off. I try not to run in these shoes around other people. It gets awkward.

2) My Roga shorts don't fit as well when I'm rocking more bootie than usual. Again, don't get me wrong; I love these shorts. They are they only ones I trust not to rip the skin off my thighs after 26 miles. But I tend to vacillate now & then between svelter & curvier versions of myself, and right now I have a little more bootie going on (while my mileage this month has been unremarkable, my cheese consumption has been AWE-INSPIRING) and the Rogas are just not made to accommodate a curvy rear end. They bunch up at the top and pull around the seams. (One of legs actually keeps popping inside out.) Thankfully, this is a temporary situation; while the vacillation is normal, I will be glad once I've gotten a few more solid weeks of marathon-worthy mileage in & my favorite shorts are no longer trying to contort themselves off of my body.

3) Sea salt scrubs & running don't really mix. I love scrubs. I am the queen of exfoliation. Recently I picked up a delicious lemony-smelling one from my local hippy-dippy grocery made with sea salt. The first lesson I learned? Don't use the salt scrub after a run. I'm pretty much always missing skin somewhere, and it turns out the phrase "to rub salt in one's wound" is only partly figurative. I'll be going back to the sugar scrubs after this, I think. Ow.

In seven hours or so I'm getting up to drive to Napa, where the plan is to jog ~7 easy miles & then run the half at a pace somewhere between long run pace & marathon pace (& maybe a few miles towards the end at marathon pace, if I'm feeling good). This will be the first time I'm going into a race intending to run much slower than race pace from the beginning, so it'll be interesting to see how hard or easy it is to keep my race day adrenaline under control. Especially since I'd been pretty excited about actually racing this one (sigh). Ultimately I know I'll be happier that I used this week for mileage & a solid long run instead, though.

Goodnight, all!