"New" Shoes

Alright. It's been too long since I've posted, but I'm back. I think.

Anyway, here's a little recap of the last three weeks:

• Forced myself to take a week off of running after the marathon, although I had never been more motivated to run.
• Got a good day of running in before I was hit by a good chest cold. Guess the marathon compromised my immune system a little.
• Spent April Vacation working on my teaching portfolio and a science portfolio. And recovering from the cold.
• Turned in said portfolios last Wednesday. Life has been great ever since.
• Visited Tom at the State House while it was in session. Sadly, it was my first and only time to do so. 
• Remembered that I had a pair of sneakers in my closet to wear, instead of suffering through my 1 month old, giant, deep blister on my heel any longer (see below).
• Read TWO books for PLEASURE on Friday and Saturday (Tomatoland and the Hunger Games)!
• Got back into the running groove last week and started to focus on training for the half marathon on May 27th.

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Remember last month when I decided that I would never buy Asics again? Well, I totally forgot that I had another brand of shoes in my closet that had hardly been worn. It's silly to think that I forgot about them and kept running with the blister pain for so long.

Let me introduce the Scott sneakers that I got from a friend last year:

I finally remembered about these "new" shoes last week and could not wait to get back into them. I put them away in the fall because it started to get too cold. The awesome thing about these shoes are the air vents (mesh lining) on the sides! Perfect for this new warmer weather. Not so perfect for Vermont winters.

I now love how these shoes look and feel on my feet, but that wasn't always the case. They caused me to loose feeling in my pinky toes because of the design. I've worn orthotics since 2005, which means there is less room in the shoe for my feet. This has been OK in my Asics (minus the heel part), but not with these sneaks. Turns out that I needed to take out the original foot insert/cushion of the shoes in order to have a proper fit. I sacrifice padding in the front of the foot, but I'm hoping that that will be OK.

Running in them feels great. I actually feel like my form is slightly improved (which is a joke because I have the worst form), and that I am able to run slightly faster. Now that I have figured out how to run pain-free in the shoes, the only complaint I have about them is the insanely long shoelaces!