Robin, Doug, Audrey or Zanne or the several others who are suffering from early season injuries, but I’ve been running.
I didn’t make it out Tuesday night but got runs in on both Wednesday and this morning, nothing fantastic in either distance or pace but they were all pain free and once the cobwebs were blown away things were bedding in quite nicely. All three runs were on the treadmill so it’s not really a fair representation of what’s going to happen once I get outside let alone on the trails but it’s nice to get the legs turning over. I am of course I am over listening but things seem to be pretty good. My glutes and TFLs are a little tight but some stretching and rolling should work that out. Here are the highlights, interesting to note that my running cadence is pretty close to my cycling one, coincidence...maybe?
Tomorrow I am on the bike and then Saturday I have the Great Race half marathon and the family run with my eldest, I think it's a quarter mile so I should beat him (j/k). It's his first fun run, he was sick for the last one and he's super excited, he has his running outfit and shoes and everything is "all special". I actually thought it was the next day and had I not got a reminder email it would have been a very lonely Sunday morning! I picked up my race packet today and got a nice bag thing and the usual shirt although this was a technical one, but wait a minute, black c'mon this is southern California, black shirt, are you kidding me, have you never heard of reflection! Anyway I was able to replace last years shirt (in white!) which got a lovely tear in it from a thorn bush sometime during the last 12 months.
Distance wise it’ll be a bit of a jump from two weeks of nothing to a bit of running this week, oh well, in for a penny as they say.
Here it is the post you’ve all been waiting for! Go on admit it you’re amongst friends. Every runner knows, or should know (I still see people running in all sorts and in fact consider Lorraine Gersitz who ran the Orange Curtain 50K and won wearing Crocs! So it just goes to show that I know absolutely nothing about what I am talking about) the importance of having good shoes but we often ignore the base layer; the sock. For the past couple of years I have been rotating a half dozen or so pairs of Reebok socks, 1800 miles later with nearly 500 miles on dusty trails they are all pretty much dead. I have also thrown into the mix a pair of Injinji socks, which come in a practical brown color, although I did run the LA Marathon in a nice white pair which I picked up at the expo along with a pair of Injinji gloves, which you’ll have to wait until next winter for a write up on unless we get a cold snap! The great thing about Injinji’s is the individual toe fit the downside is that they are pretty thin, actually they are very thin with no on the sole cushioning, now I am not a huge guy (6’1” 170ish) but I’m not a 120lb Kenyan either and a little cushioning is always welcome! So the quest was on for a pair of socks that could meet the following demands:
~Some cushioning; cushioning is good on those long long runs ~Good fit; to minimize hot spots and blisters, these are bad ~Wicking; who wants toasty toes or worse hot sweaty feet! ~Snugness; support to your foot actually minimizes fatigue, you knew that right? ~Sensible color; white socks and trail running are not a good mix, no siree not even Oxyclean works on Cali dust
An article in Runners World gave me a good head start on where to look, so I had a rummage around the internet and based on what I liked the sound of paid a trip to a few local stores to “feel the quality”, to be honest there were some that I discounted straight away based on the field trip, this left me with two that I couldn’t go hands on with; Darn Toughs Back Roads and Bridgedale X-Hale Speed Demon I couldn’t get the Bridgedales in my size and color choice, I was disappointed as I really wanted a pair of socks called "Speed Demon", I ordered two pairs of the equally inventively named Darn Tough Back Road (Cushion) from Amazon.com. In addition to having a pretty cool name "Darn Tough" they obviously have a large marketing department as they boast the following unique selling features:
~A high density cushioning on foot bottom (I have to confess to not knowing that my feet had bottoms; soles yes but bottoms, well who knew!) but the high density thing sounds like it came straight off the space shuttle ~An invisible seam on the toes, have a look you can see it, it's just there and ~They are made from merino wool so they are soft, which is good because my feet are really quite delicate!
So they are technical, have a sense of humor and are gentle; my kind of footwear.
Now when you look at a sock it’s smaller than your foot and I have a little test for socks, call me anal retentive, it’s ok I am, but if you put a pair on and take them off and put them on again they should feel as snug as the first time, the Darn Toughs do, for reference the Injinjis do as well but they're just not as snug. I trail tested the Darn Toughs on my last run long run, a 20 miler, some three weeks ago and they preformed flawlessly, no hot spots, in fact my feet were darn cool, snug, supported and cushioned, smiley, happy feet you might say.
I have to admit they are not the cheapest, $30.00 for two pairs plus S&H, socks out there and I don’t know how long they will last or how quickly I will get bored of “air” drying them or forget to pick them out of the wet pile of clothes before they get thrown in the dryer (being wool they will be prone to shrinkage; never a good thing!), but they have my won my sole, at least for now. Now talking of shrinkage…
It seems that everywhere you turn in the blogosphere there are pictures of blossom, well not one to miss the band wagon and now that we have had the first day of spring, here are a couple of snaps from our back yard. The first is on the bank behind us, it's open land that leads up to a State Park, not possessing green fingers in fact I have to admit they are downright brown, I have no idea what the plant is but it is over every hillside at the moment giving everything a gold hue.
The second photo is off one of the many varmints to be found in our yard, he's actually standing on a regular sized brick so he's not quite as man eating as he seems, along with the gecko populous we have million or so rabbits, there are days when it's like living on the film set of Watership Down, and squirrels, but it's not too bad between the owls, coyotes and rattlesnakes, all of which have been in the yard at one time or another, the animal population is self regulating...such is the nature of things.
On a running note, I hopped on the treadmill for a 20 minutes session this morning, I was certainly not setting the world alight but it's a start, my knees took a mile of so to remember running but seemed ok after that, I hope to repeat it again tonight for another 3 miles or so.
Robin, Doug, Audrey or Zanne or the several others who are suffering from early season injuries, but I’ve been running.
Tomorrow I am on the bike and then Saturday I have the Great Race half marathon and the family run with my eldest, I think it's a quarter mile so I should beat him (j/k). It's his first fun run, he was sick for the last one and he's super excited, he has his running outfit and shoes and everything is "all special". I actually thought it was the next day and had I not got a reminder email it would have been a very lonely Sunday morning! I picked up my race packet today and got a nice bag thing and the usual shirt although this was a technical one, but wait a minute, black c'mon this is southern California, black shirt, are you kidding me, have you never heard of reflection! Anyway I was able to replace last years shirt (in white!) which got a lovely tear in it from a thorn bush sometime during the last 12 months.
