2010-01-26 - I need new shoes

I like good shoes. Actually, I should say my feet like good shoes. When I purchase shoes, I attempt to get ones that will last a good long while. I last purchased athletic shoes about 6 years ago while we lived in New Jersey. This is not just because of the quality of shoes but also due to the absence of athletic activity on my part.

The shoes I used for my Couch-to-5K (C25K) Week 1 Day 1 (W1D1) experience are New Balance 755’s (which have been discontinued). They are described as “walking” shoes, which, unfortunately, also describe the speed at which I negotiated the 5K route on which I have chosen to train.

I discovered New Balance shoes while I was doing a lot of running as an active duty Marine stationed on the east coast. Marines do a lot of running and what they may lack in quality, they over compensate in quantity.

So, back to the situation at hand, I need new shoes. I know I will purchase a set (or two) of New Balance shoes but I do not yet know which model. I will report on the research used in a latter post.

As for the actual running portion of this, I have mapped out a 5K route beginning and ending at my driveway. I will be doing a lot of training on this route including all of the C25K segments. I am using the podcast from Robert Ullrey’s Podcasts for Running (vist this at http://www.ullreys.com/robert/Podcasts/index.html). I expected to exhaust the podcast before I completed the 5K route but decided to go ahead and use the route anyway. The podcast completed its 30 minute worth of information with me about 3K into the route. As Pooh says, “Oh bother”. At least I had a good walk back to my driveway.

My 5K time today was 51:45.