angry

It’s that time again where I have to invest in some new running shoes. I noticed the other day that part of the sole on one of my shoes was completely worn away and I was running on the foam. Obviously it is nice to have new, sweet smelling and comfortable running shoes every once in a while but shopping for them always disturbs me. I’m not a particularly difficult customer as I generally stick to the same make and model that have served me well (Saucony Pro Grid Guide). A quick search on Google indicates that I need to spend upward of £65 which although a not a massive amount of money still seems like quite a lot for something that I only wear for about 4 hours a week. Fortunately, the website I usually use has the model I want, in the size I need for £49.99 so hastily order them before somebody else requiring a size 9 and a half decides they want them. So they are on the way to me… just as well because todays run was a hellish, disheartening experience, more of which later…

Whilst out on todays run, which incidentally was able to be executed at lunch time due to working from home today, I very nearly ran slap bang into someone. Not entirely my fault but it did serve to annoy me for the remaining 5k of my 10k lunchtime bonanza. I was running along the pavement and notice a large 4 wheel drive pull into a parking space near the shops up ahead of me. Out steps a woman, a very large woman, who is managing to lock her car, talk loudly on her mobile and stuff what looks like an entire sandwich into her mouth all at the same time. She then proceeds to weave left and right across the pavement in front of me in a seemingly random manner making it very difficult for me to be able to pass her. She lurches to the right and I seize the moment and nip past her on the left hand side at which point, she tuts and ducks into the bakers. This managed to annoy me on many levels at the same time – I am out running, exercising and trying to keep myself in shape only to be thwarted in this attempt by a clearly very overweight woman not looking where she was going and yet I probably pay the same for my life insurance as she does even though she obviously has a less active lifestyle which could be taken as an indicator of her being less healthy and more at risk of becoming sick. And the tutting!!! Now I don’t want to be too harsh here as she may have had some medical condition that contributed to her being the size that she was although I suspect that no condition exists that causes the sufferer to become impatient, uncoordinated, rude and greedy and resort to driving an entirely unsuitable and uneconomic vehicle to the cake shop. Athough this was the spark for an interesting thought… some insurance companies will charge a lower premium for people who take regular exercise so surely there is a gap in the market for an insurance company to subsidise me in the purchase of running shoes… Hmmm!

Still, after the cake shop incident, I carried on my merry way but it was a struggle. At 7km, my left shin / knee began to feel numb, just as it was doing at the beginning of the year before Lisbon. It seems to be brought on by me upping the mileage too quickly and I am aware that, with exactly one month to go to the Royal Parks Half and very little distance under my belt, upping the mileage is exactly what I am having to do. I finished the 10k in 57:12… not a bad time for me but for the last 500m, the bottom half of my left leg had gone completely numb and it felt like it was about to give way. It wasn’t painful but just felt very, very wobbly. And both feet were tingling with pins and needles. I sat on the kerb, pissed off… really, really pissed off. It isn’t the end of the world but it is annoying and I hope that the numbness in the left leg and tingling in the feet is really just a sympton of running too far on worn out shoes. I’ll find out soon enough when the new shoes arrive. Until then, I have 1 more long run scheduled for Sunday where I shall attempt 10 miles and then the trainers will be put in a box until I can give them a proper send off at Grim in December.

Soundtrack to this post: The Tiger Lillies – Bully Boys