Month: January 2012

Resolution Run 4: Time for Some New Shoes

My admiring hordes (hello, Margaret!) have been wondering whether I made it out for my fourth “resolution” run of January, and the answer is a resounding “yes”.

I didn’t enjoy the first kilometre of Friday’s run, despite it being a nice day. I hadn’t slept that well, and I wasn’t really in the mood for running. Nevertheless, I plugged away down the towpath, turned into Leigh Woods at the far end, climbed the steep hill without too much ado, albeit very slowly, and kept going until I was nearly back at the Suspension Bridge.

I stopped at 7km, making it my longest run of the year so far. Doesn’t seem bad for a day where I wasn’t really feeling it.

It’s been raining a bit recently, which tends to flood sections of the towpath. When I got back home, my shoes looked like this:

Towpath Mud

…and that made me consider buying a new pair.

Sadly, these Mizuno Wave Inspire 7s have been, well, a bit rubbish. I had trouble buying a pair at all, then I had to send the first pair back because they gave me a blister, and I’ve never felt that great in the replacements. Which was a shame, after the Wave Inspire 5s and 6s were so good for me.

Then I did a bit of searching on the internet, and found that pretty much everyone who bought the Wave Inspire 7s seems to have disliked them, or at least those who’ve blogged and commented about the things. So it wasn’t just me.

The good news is that everyone who then took a punt on the new Wave Inspire 8s seems to think they’re a return to the good form of the earlier Wave Inspires. So, I will probably take my chances with Mizuno once again, though my faith is a bit shaken.

Hopefully a pair of new shoes will put a bit of bounce back in my step, even if it’s only psychologically-speaking…

Anyway. Enough rambling for now. I should be running later on this week, so I’ll see you then!

Resolution Run 2: A Bit Earlier in the Week!

I’ve been feeling better this week. It’s pleasant, when you wake up in the morning and think, “Wow! I don’t feel like utter crap!”

This week I decided in advance that I’d go out on Thursday, just because I wanted to pick a day and stick to it. And not wait until the last minute, like I did last week. So this morning, I put on my jogging clothes first thing, as a hint to myself, though I’m working from home and had a Skype meeting at 9am, so I couldn’t go out straight away.

But, with the morning’s work behind me, I finally grabbed my water bottle, got out the door and did a simple, slow 5K. Don’t pay too much attention to the awful time, not only does that include a lot of elevation but also ten minutes of warm up/cool down walking. So I’m not too unhappy.

And it got me out of the house, and into Clifton Village for some shopping and some lunch. Broke up the otherwise-insular home working nicely, anyway.

Next run? Maybe at the weekend. We’ll see.

Resolution Run 1: Just In Time

After my “very achievable” resolution to get running once a week in January, I only just squeaked the first run into the first week. Yesterday — on the 7th January! — I finally got around to running.

In my defence, I was still feeling ill for the first part of the week, plus the weather’s not exactly been conducive. But given that I woke up with a headache yesterday morning and felt rubbish all day, and then had to force myself out for a run because it was the end of the week, maybe I should have braved the wind and gone out earlier.

So — lesson for next week: don’t wait until the weather’s nice and you’re feeling great. It might not happen…