Sunday, December 27, 2009

Prize idiot - Long run edition

I was so excited to get out for my run today. Yesterday we had tons of freezing rain, so no running for me. I was dying to try out my new Garmin.

I'd prepped my old shoes the other day for winter running - I'd added the customary 9 screws in each shoe. I'm a big fan of screw shoes: they're cheap ($1 for a box of screws at the dollar store) and easy to do. And if they break, the screws are cheap to replace. I picked up 3/4 inch screws since I figured that might be a better length than the 1/2 inch ones I used last winter. My fellow blogger described the wonders of the screw shoe in a recent post.

Today's run was promising: cloudy and just below freezing for the first time in weeks. Thank God for warmer weather. I wore my screw shoes and the walk to my start of my run reaffirmed the fact I needed them. The sidewalks were still really icy and somewhat treacherous.

Then I reached the path. It was clear! A few puddles here and there, but just wet. What??? By 2 km into the run, I knew the screw shoes were a bad idea. I hadn't hit any long icy or snowy stretches. Ugh. Soon I'd realized the 3/4 inch screws were a bad idea, too. I could feel them poking through my Superfeet insoles. Soon the pointy ends were hitting the ball of my foot. The uphill or downhill stretches were even more painful, but the worst pain was reserved for when I landed on large rocks or pieces of salt. OUCH!

By 8 km I had visions of bloodied socks running through my head. I stopped at this point to see if I could remove them by hand, but they'd migrated right into the shoe and the screw head was flush with the sole. I was out of ideas and decided to run home and deal with the pain. Too bad I don't run with a screwdriver in my pocket... though that could make for some interesting comments from passing runners.

And to make the run even more of a calamity, I'd stopped my Garmin at about 3 km to switch it from imperial to metric. I forgot to start it again and only realized this after I'd been running for 15 minutes more. Thankfully I'd also brought my Nike+ and it captured the time missing from the Garmin.

Today's run just wasn't meant to be. But, the good news is that: a) it's funny; and b) there were no bloodied socks, just a couple of blisters. Oh the wonders of trial and error. I was so happy to get home!

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